Day 10

Walking into the Boeing 747 in the San Francisco terminal was my first step into Asia.

Upon entering, strained classical Chinese strings pierce my ears and my heart. This is one step in. The soundtrack is completely perfect—-one of an insurmountable journey that’s laced with lost love, families long since seen, and reluctant journeys back into the orient. This is what strikes me when I start walking down the aisle. A strange but familiar smell wafts into my nose when I sit down. Food. Sweat. Socks. Kids. Lots of all of it. This is the closest to home any  of us are right now, and so I slip off my shoes and wait for take off. 

Day 50

Key in the ignition, I pull the break and press the start button. My maroon scooter’s aged-engine revs up with a familiar gusto and I’m off, up the garage ramp. The day is sunny, so I reach into my backpack’s water bottle pouch and pull out my Ray Ban rip-offs. They’re on. I’m on. It’s going to be a good day. I zip off down the back alley toward the main road, swerving with skill to avoid crashing into vendors, car doors, and stray dogs. If I don’t speed up, I’ll be late for class. 

Twenty minutes later I pull into a open spot between a row of scooters in from of the city courtyard. The the back corner, nestled nice and cozy, is the school I teach at. “What a beautiful parking spot”, I think to myself, “all nice and empty waiting for me.” Breaks on, kickstand down, I reach down to pull out the keys but come up empty. “What?” I think to myself. “What the fuck?” My scooters running, but the keys are gone. They must have fallen out somewhere along the way. This is extremely odd, especially because the scooter is still running. My first thought is how I will turn it off. I have ten minutes until class—-better think fast. I pull out of the spot, that beautiful parking spot that will 100% be taken when I get back. I’m really concerned about that parking spot. 

I drive one block down the road until I see a local scooter shop. These come by the dozens here, one on every street corner. Of course, the owner doesn’t understand what the fuck I’m saying, nor does he understand the piss-poor hand gestures I’m making. So I simply point at the ignition. He face squints and he scratches his head. After asking me a couple of questions in Chinese he understands he’s dealing with a child, so he retreats into the back of the shop. 

His shop, like most restaurants and service shops here, are located curbside, and they are completely open. Basically, you can see into their bathrooms as you drive by. In other words, if societies were bellybuttons, the West would be an in-y and the East would be an out-y. So I wait “outside” and put my hands on my lower back to gesture that I’m relaxed and in no rush. But really, there are twelve kindergarteners that will be chanting for “Teacher Peter!” in five minutes, and seeing as routine is the only thing that will tame children like this, I better hurry. 

In less than 30 seconds the owner emerges from the cluttered yet organized swamp of a shop with an enormous ring of keys. The first thing I think of is Matrix: Reloaded. He walks over to my scooter, parked and still running on the white-line curb, and kneels down to begin testing keys. Luckily for me, the second key of the literally 500 keys works its magic and turns my scooter off. I say “Sheh she” and tell him, despite the language, that I need to go to class that starts at 10 am. He points to HESS, my school down the road, and understands my meaning. My scooter is safe for the next 2 hours.

>___<

Two hours later, it surely is. Not only that, but I’ve called Louis. Louis is an English speaking, scooter shop owning son-of-a-gun who I’m renting this piece of shit from. In half an hour he pulls up to this shop on a spare scooter. Immediately he begins disassembling my scooter and tells me I  can use this spare one for the next two days. I should be grateful, and I am a little grateful. I hop and and leave him with my dead scooter. The day is warm and sunny and I have no more classes. It’s time for a joy ride in the city of back alleyways and ornate temples.

Day 12-13

Day 12

My helmet is turquoise and has big stickers of Doraemon slapped on the side of it. I grip the metal bar behind me and we’re off into the night. It’s a night stuffed with bright signs that span vertically on the side of the road like fluorescent trees. As we speed down the narrow Kaohsiung streets, it seems there are as many lighted trees zipping past me as there are pine trees in Yellowstone’s moonlit highways. It’s an adrenaline rush for my sense. So many words that I don’t understand, so many scooters beside me, decked with young couples and old women and colorful helmets. I lift my helmet screen to get a better view and to let the wind blow against my cheeks. Instantly I’m a child, or a dog; it doesn’t matter.

Without my notice Hsiu drives us out of the bright and bustling city center and into a quieter, sleepier part of town. The buildings are just as dense as before, but no one is outside. It reminds me of suburbia. Maybe it is suburbia. Hsiu seems confused. We’ve stop in front a building, but we stay on our bike and look around for a second.

“Is this it?” I ask her. She doesn’t say anything, revs up the engine again, and drives us one door to the left.

“I don’t know…I haven’t been here in so long.” It’s a delayed response. She’s in her head.

“Oh really? Wait, so, do you see your uncle often?”

“Sometimes, but, I don’t ever come here. It’s been five years.” 

At this point we are off the bike and looking up at the house. It’s just like any other city house, built upwards to make room for as many houses as possible. The door opens, and her uncle is dressed in shorts, plastic slippers, and a blue t-shirt. He says hello and beckons us in. Hsiu slips off her sandals and I kick off my worn leather shoes. Inside, we sit on the couch across from “Rocky.”

You must know, many people here have English names. How they decide what name to choose is always an interesting conversation, but I haven’t asked this of Rocky yet. Maybe because I almost laughed when he first told me to call him this in his Mazda hatchback with his wife and two sons. It was a eventless ride for me until this name was dropped—“Rocky”—a name that has forever been registered into my brain accompanied by that classic sequence of Sylvester Stalone jogging up the Philadelphia Justice Building’s stairs in grey sweats, all to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger.” A small grin popped up on the right side of my mouth but I quickly had to point it downward and say, “OK! Sure thing, Rocky!” He then turned around, while driving, and told me to call his son Monkey. I smile and turn around to look at Monkey. He’s seven, or five, or whatever, and before I can laugh, Hsiu let’s out a giggle and says “Monkey” in her quirky and cute tone of voice. We all laugh and the drive goes on quiety.

So, as we’re sitting here, Rocky pulls out a plastic back that rolled up like a spring roll, or a joint, depending on where you live, and out comes a slightly aged white Nokia cell phone. He and Hsiu talk in Chinese and I sit quietly, watching him disassemble the phone as Hsiu, with her head bowed, periodically nods and keeps up the conversation. As this is going on Monkey appears in the loft above us. He slides down the railing, and Hsiu whispers in my ear:

“I think that’s why they call him Monkey!”

I chuckle, but it’s only a brief relief from the tension of not understanding what’s being said around and about me. Monkey hits the floor runs across the room. He goes straight for the battery that’s been taken out of the phone, picks it up, and tries to put it in Rocky’s phone. It doesn’t fit, but he keeps trying. Rocky tell’s him to stop and Monkey runs back upstairs. 

“So, Peter,” He’s speaking in English, “This is yours. In Taiwan, cell phone is important. We need to contact each other, and this is important. So, take it. You will need to buy a phone card.”

“Oh, right! Thank you so much Rocky.” He nods slightly but keeps a quizzical look about him, and I wonder if I’m accepting his gift correctly. But I don’t have much time to ponder, because it is late, and from Rocky’s bloodshot eye and the strangely quick verbal exchange with Hsiu I find that he is telling us to go. I take the phone and the plastic bag, we remove our plastic slippers, and scoot back into the city night. 

Day 13

After a long-over-due shave I slip on my best jeans, a modest, forest green shirt, my trusty Timex Expedition, and my red and white Brooks tennis shoes. I’m all geared up like an Ex-Pat, and there’s nothing more comforting than role-playing a stereotype. Hsiu’s at work, and this is my first real day in Taiwan. I want to go out and explore a bit. There’s some change on the coffee table, enough to buy some food. I grab all of it, along with my passport, slip them into my back pocket and head out the door.

The tile stairs are oddly welcoming. My shoes bounce on them comfortably, and I’m instantly energized. I hop gleefully down the stairs and into the apartment courtyard. The courtyard at the bottom of the stars is lit with a dull white light. The sun is hiding today, but it lights up a phony greek statue that stares at me from the middle of the courtyard. If I wasn’t in the heart of Asia, this Michelangelo look-a-like wouldn’t give me a second thought. But it does. It’s poignant, but I don’t know why. I don’t care, it’s just nice to have a remnant from the Western world so close to my apartment.

Instantly forgetting about the statue, I walk on and breach the outside. The alley of our apartment is small, and there is a odd mixture of graffiti and stickers across the tiny street on some gray tiled building. It’s just a building. Every building here is just a building, useful for family or business. It’s all the same, and it makes these streets feel unruly. Vendors everywhere, selling food that doesn’t look like anything, just like the buildings. It’s just food, but there’s so many kinds. It’s unruly. Down a small street and up larger road swamped with tall signs I buy some brown tofu at an enticing vendor. It’s just come out of the steaming water and I say,

“I want that!”

The older vendor doesn’t understand me, but pointing knows no language. She then points upward to make the number one, and I give her a coin with the number ten on it. She gives me the tofu, and I sit to eat it. It comes with a yellow sauce, and it is damn good. I finish it quickly and buy some fish balls for ten NT as well. They’re skewered on a stick and they taste like crab and lobster and whatever. They’re good too. I notice I’m sitting at a small table on the side of the road, and it makes me feel strangely tall. I’ve never felt tall before. I finish my food and walk next door to a vendor with huge yellow signs that wall her in. Everything is Chinese, but I see one picture of a cup of tea. The women is out from her station but sees me and comes over. She begins speaking Chinese, and so I tell her one of the few phrases I know, “Wo bu huwey shuaw,” and she laughs and looks a bit confused. So, I give her a big smile, make a funny shrug with my arms and say “Just give me anything!” Knowing she won’t understand, I hope my goodwill and charm will communicate that I trust whatever she makes me will be okay. She smiles back and begins to make my drink. I give her the money, we smile at each other one more time, and I make my way down the street. 

As I’m walking I notice that my back is straight and my legs are kicking out with a saucy western pride. I feel like I’m on stage, or something, maybe because I’m the only one on the street with feathery blonde hair and bright blue eyes.  I feel like a German in Poland during the war, or a baby Godzilla. I’m a monster in an Eastern paradise, and a woman with a straw rice hat rides past me on a bicycle. I pluck a red straw into my plastic tea cup and take a big gulp. It’s iced, and it’s green.