Memories of Taipei

Last Thursday, my friend Kindrah was in London for 12 hours on her way to Botswana from Canada.

I met Kindrah and her husband Stewart when we were teaching English in Taiwan about five years ago. My flatmate Cara accosted Kindrah on the MRT (Taipei’s underground) and they became friends. Kindrah and I started chatting at the Laundromat in ShirDa and before we knew it we would all be spending most of the next 7 months together, along with Stewart, Sean, Anthony and a wider circle of friends.

As we walked around the sites of London (she had ONLY crossed 5 times zones and ONLY had another 11 hours on a plane – so I felt a five mile walk was in order) we reminisced. As the day wore on, we realised how bizarre our stories sounded and it made me want to document some of the experiences that I never wrote about at the time…

Sean, Cara and I lived in a little apartment, which we named the hovel. It was both wonderful and slightly revolting at the same time - down a little muddy alley, at the top of some concrete stairs. Every evening old ladies would do tai chi to special tai chi music outside our minute balcony which resembled a cage. We could squeeze up to four of us on the balcony for a sundowner and a smoke. We were very good friends with the smelly cat who lived in the alley. I can’t remember what we named her - she had one eye and half a tail.

About a month into living there, the bathroom light died – it had started sparking when the shower was turned on, so we decided that candles were the way forward. Cara pointed out how candle light was very complementary and enhancing to one’s showering silhouette. We bought paint for the walls and by mistake (the shop keeper didn’t speak English), we bought glossy acrylic and ended up with shiny peach walls.

The hovel was not exactly the Ritz but we were in the coolest part of town – ShirDa – the student area.

Kindrah and Stewart also lived in ShirDa – in a MUCH posher place. The funny thing about their apartment was that it was above a dentist surgery and in order to get to the apartment, you had to walk through the surgery and wander past the dentist treating his patient. The dentist was a lovely man – you could never see his mouth as he was wearing a mask, but could tell by his eyes that he was smiling broadly as he waved at us filing past. The patient wouldn’t be smiling.

We were there over Christmas and decided to organise a Christmas party. We ended up having it at Curria – the Indian restaurant in ShirDa. We knew the owner and he did a deal for us. A certain amount per head, a wide range of curries and he threw in a bottle of tequila (his idea). So it was Christmas at Curria - rather different from my usual Christmas celebrations - Canadians, Americans, Taiwanese, South Africans and a Malawian eating curry in Taipei.

New Years Day was spent (slightly jaded) at our friend Brantley’s house for a special Southern tradition (Brantley came from Savannah, Georgia) – black eyed beans and collared greens, which represents money for the year ahead.

The stories go on. Hitchhiking through Taroko Gorge (made of marble) – we never had to put our thumbs out for more than a few minutes before being picked up by a kind driver. Celebrating Chinese New Year (the year of the Ram). Visiting the museum (can’t remember its name) with the world’s largest collection of Chinese art and artefacts rumoured to be the reason why China didn’t bomb Taipei. The pride and glory of the museum was – a jade cabbage? Asparagus? spring onion? Can’t quite remember but it was tiny and (in my opinion) not nearly as impressive as most of the other stuff. Art…..

We had an amazing stationary shop round the corner and it became my obsession. I had the most gorgeous kids in my class, and they would roll out their sleeping bags after lunch for a nap. It was unbelievable how fast they learned English. I went to see Sean’s four year olds doing a production of “The Snowman” for their Christmas play.

There was a Seven Eleven almost on every corner – and I lived off their tea eggs. The night markets were unreal. We played badminton on top of a hill that emerged out of Taipei. The rubbish collection truck played a special tune to let you know that it was going past. I once tried a step class at my gym – I never realised how difficult it would be to follow it in Mandarin!

I remember being on the back of my friend Rocky’s scooter, flying through Taipei to the immigration department – I had managed to overstay my visa and had to do a visa run to Hong Kong, which turned into a bit of a group trip. When we got back Cara had managed to get proper wall paint and had painted our hovel and put pictures up. It looked beautiful.

Kindrah and I couldn’t help but feel that we were so much more sensible now - our lives getting less and less random and chaotic. Becoming more planned and organised. More to think about. Not so much rushing into situations without much consideration. It was wonderful to get all the memories back, but a little sad to think a situation like that would probably not happen in the near future. But that’s OK. I guess we always have a mid life crisis to look forward to.

PS. With the recent bout of long-winded waffling posts, you may be suspicious. Yes I have a big assignment due in next week. But I feel that this last post is very relevant to my essay about place, livelihood, networks, scale, globalisation, glocalisation and one-eyed cats ;)