Well, Max and I have been in Taipei over two months now.
Some of the initial discomforts morph into expectations as we become more familiar with the way things work here. And things work pretty well here.
Our list of delicious and cheap restaurants expands every week. I’ve taken to bowing my head slightly in thanks… in greeting… pretty much all the time... I’m learning to read red lights as suggestions rather than commands (Max caught on right away). I’m careful not to chew gum obviously on the subway or cough, even when it’s just to relief a tickle. My ability to dance to anything but a heartbeat (and who’s dancing to techno anyway?) declines every weekend that passes without some hip-hop, reggaeton, or Julie Wagner. I’m becoming a better teacher. I’m beginning to catch familiar words in the sound of Chinese though very little stays between my ears. I now know the cultural significance of the kinky gray hairs spurting out of old men’s facial moles (cutting such a hair is to cut your wealth), and I’ve witnessed the usefulness of extra long pinky nails (be it removing a sticker or separating a rope of snake muscle from blood vessel). I can speak to the particular regulations of gender in Taiwan and I’m beginning to recognize class markers. I’ve tasted stinky tofu (yes, it was unknowingly…) and found congealed pig blood at the bottom of my soup. I take for granted the cleanliness and efficiency of public transportation and restrooms; these days I have no preference – porcelain hole or toilet – either way I’m squatting. I’ve chewed beetle nut, spit its red juice on the sidewalk and felt my legs turn a little noodley. I’ve started considering McDonalds an expensive place to eat and the people who eat there fairly well off. I know you shouldn’t eat bread, cool liquids, and cold fruits (such as oranges) when you have a cold and that the woman punching herself on the subway is relieving bad qi.
I’m still blown away by the view of sloping mountains relieving the skyline of cold and calculated right angles, the amount of green sprinkled around the city, the curly architecture of temples tucked discreetly in alleyways or situated bold and lonely upon guarded grass lawns and the earthy smell of incense trickling out of them, the loose and clean fashions and the fake eyelashes on so many of the beautiful women I pass, the taste of fresh passion fruit tea, a crack of clear blue in the gray shell encasing the city after days of rain, and the fact that I’m living here for a time.
Some specific experiences with bugs, motorized vehicles, thirteen year-olds, and flying fish made this past week memorable for me.
Last week I decided to forego black and white movie night to write. Max went over to Kiah’s leaving me alone in the apartment with the promise I’d made to write for a good three hours. Not even a whole hour into it I saw something big and dark scuttle into the bathroom out of the corner of my eye. I thought it was a mouse (yeah, it was that big) but then I found the cockroach in the bathroom hugging the plunger. Unsure of my next move I googled the hell out of it, completely freaked myself out (“they can lay eggs even after they’re dead,” “if you have one you have many more,” etc.), called Max, and set about making a trap out of a Vaseline coated jar full of beer. Max arrived twenty minutes later with chemicals and didn’t even take off his bike helmet before spraying the thing to death and flushing it away. I threw the beer away and cleaned the bowls Max used to carry the roach corpse to the toilet about five times in case it had laid invisible eggs in them. Now, all of this sounds pretty pathetic, I’m sure, but it felt like roaches and the idea of roaches had invaded the safe space we made. It actually made me angry and defensive. We’ve had two more cockroach citings since then, though none were as big as that first one, and for days I had nightmares about them dropping out of the air-conditioner over my head onto my face or marching like an army out of the garbage can when I lifted the lid. Cockroaches are all over this city – dried up and flat on the sidewalk, very much alive and large on the sidewalk - and I’ve heard a handful of horror stories from other freaked foreigners; it is good to know I’m not alone. Reminding myself over and over again that they are just bugs I’m a big girl with a very powerful and changeable mind, I’m back to dreaming roach-free dreams.
The Hog is Max’s lame nickname for our new moped. He’s actually a pretty classy fellow; plain and simple, a good size for two. We each spent about 220 USD. A full tank of gas costs, in total, about 4 USD… we might even save money driving to school sometimes instead of taking the MRT. We bought it, though, for the chance to see the city and the island. Already I’ve seen parts of Taipei I might have missed otherwise. Riding on the scooter, hugging Max for a solid 10 or 20 or 30 minutes, I feel happy and alive and glad we bit the bullet.
I’ve picked up a class on Saturday mornings, which I’m not thrilled about. I’m glad for a couple extra hours, though, and Max works Saturdays so I’m usually up north writing anyway. Standing in front of a classroom of smelly and bored teenagers on a Saturday morning is terrifying no matter where you are in the world. I’ve fitted my sense of humor to a four-year-old audience (which still relies too heavily on pee-pee and poo-poo to be appropriate for any age) so very little of my burgeoning teaching personality bridges the gap between the weekday babes and the weekend teens even though their speaking levels are about even. The first Saturday was pretty horrible. The second Saturday was exponentially better, but my relationship with Sarah soured. She is the moodiest, flirtiest girl in class. On the bright side I made friends with someone else in class, a chubbier girl who forgets to close her mouth, and I made a group of boys laugh trying to imitate the dance moves from a song by a Korean pop band the “kids go crazy for.” I’m confident that one by one I’ll win them.
These little snafoos, challenges, and additions like a scooter and the company of a pair of Scotsmen for a week,
disrupted the calmness and quietness of the weeks that passed by earlier. I’ve felt a little frazzled and clausterphobic beneath the eggshell sky lately. Stuck in my story, I’ve been writing less than I would like to. All I need is to take a deep breath, try not to indulge in self-pity or general asshole-ness, and tweak some things in this little life of mine.
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