The First Week - DF to Taipei

I am arrived.

I narrate, before I forget, although I'm sure I've forgotten all the really interesting things.

Saturday 1st Sept


檢視較大的地圖

All night I pack, but mostly I burn mp3 cds (my third generation ipod broke down and is unfixable this day and age) and print out maps, directions, schedules and potentially useful information on hotels and train stations. Finding information on Hualien in english is tough and i find the same information about the same three hostels over and over again. I've emailed a couple of the hostels asking if they have vacancies for monday evening, when I land in Taipei. They haven't answered so I'm thinking I'll stay in a hostel in Taipei and go to Hualien the next morning. I email a third hostel.

I print out some key emails I've received from George who lives in Taipei. He's a friend of a friend of a friend's dad. That's four degrees. There's fifth degree acquaintances in Hualien which I should meet in the future. The world really is quite networked. George is going to pick me up at the Taiwan International Airport in Taoyuan.


Sunday 2nd Sept, early morning.





I am lined up outside the United Airlines desk at the Mexico City International Airport with Vic. I look for asian faces. Soon there's one behind me. I wonder... not really my type though, she's about 10 years too old for my broad and flexible requirements... she's maybe in her late forties...

I have two carry-on bags and two bags for documentation. Of the latter the wheeled one is about three kilos too heavy, the other one about eight too light. We move some stuff over to the lighter bag, it's not me who's gonna carry it now anyway and when we arrive I can move them back.

We have starbucks coffee in the food court. Friends and family arrive at this unbearable hour, don't they have anything better to do? oh well, it makes me happy.

I line up at the idiotically long security check line outside the boarding gates. Two kids scream incessantly and try running away. Do they enjoy the attention? Are they victims of abuse? Are they being kidnapped? Does anybody care? (Yes mr. security guard, speeding up their entrance through the crew-only line is completely fine by the rest of us, thank you)

Finally the line crawls forward and I'm lost already; which of the long corridors should I take? I choose randomly. I choose correctly.

I'm in the airplane sitting by the aisle. A fidgety teenager sits at the window. Luckily no one sits between us and I can ignore the world.

Morning






I wake up in San Francisco. We all line up at immigration.


"Why do you want to study chinese?" the inspector asks.
"mmhh... they say it's the language of the future" I say faux naively -shall I tell him the truth that I have no clue what I'm doing?
"Who's they?" he asks.
"...everyone... (duh)" I say.
"Everyone?"
"Yeah, you know, business magazines and all them."
"Are they learning chinese?" he asks.
"Gee... I don't know... I guess you have a point there" I say, not adding "officer dickwad."

And so he sends me to secondary revision. Great.

"Good luck" he says and I just want to blast that smirk off his face with my bare knuckles.

I wait in secondary revision.
And I wait.

Then I talk to this guy whos asks really open questions and I explain my life story. He doesn't interrogate me any further and lets me through. Nice guy really.

I have about three hours to kill. I buy the New York Times, the last one I'll see in a long time I bet. I buy this book "The World Without Us" and, from the asian bartender at the mexican bar, I buy a Sam Adams I do my best to drink in no fewer than two hours . I fantasize about running into somebody famous. I fantasize further about running into one of those cult figures noone else I know has ever heard of. No such thing happens.



In the paper I read a review of the book I just bought. "I'm so smart" I think, "choosing such a great book based on the cover". But in truth it's Jon Stewart who chose it -Alan Weisman, the author and a gloomy looking man, was just on his show. He says if mankind was to suddenly disengage from this existence our cities and the worlds we've built around us would soon be reclaimed by nature, the new york subway would soon crumble. Lexington avenue would soon be a river again. Cockroaches would perish soon after they finished off all the trash we leave behind for them. So scratch that cockroaches-survive-it-all urban myth.


It's time for the flight to Taipei. I get on the plane. It's big. I'm in the aisle of one of the middle seats. Across the aisle this cute girl smiles at me. Then her mom smiles at me. I focus on my mp3 discman and my reading material.

I get a choice of some chinese newspaper and the Wall Street Journal. I fear I'd expose my stupidity by asking for the chinese one so I ask for the WSJ and through the space between the seats in front of me I ogle the layout, pictures and bizareness of the chinese paper of the guy sitting in front. On my right are about four empty seats and then some western dude with a goatee. He has the same book I have on Taiwan. It's a different edition, with a different cover, but it's the same book. We don't speak.

Almost everyone's chinese and through the speaker system they say way more in chinese than in english. The plane lifts off and I think I've crossed some point of no return. I wonder what would happen if I started freaking out asking to go back home. Then I remind myself I'm actually doing this out of my own free will... then I revisit deterministic arguments against free will...

For lunch, and dinner, we have noodles and they're good. I warm up my chopstick skills. I listen to Boxer from The National, Our Love To Admire from Interpol (I just heard the ridiculous story that they're called Interpol because Paul Banks had the nickname 'Interpol' as a kid) and Crazy Itch Radio from Basement Jaxx.

Monday 3rd, 5pm




The flight is good. We arrive and I'm not even tired as all the naysayers say I would be.

We get off the plane and I reach the immigration area. Immigration is fast, easy and stress-free. It's exactly the same process, fill out a card and line up to see the inspector. The inspector here asks no questions. Then again, he doesn't say welcome either or anything remotely similar so he might not really speak english and he'd rather not tire his vocal chords and try his patience trying to communicate with me.



Evening






George is right outside the arrivals area and I don't have to carry my luggage far to the parking lot.

His car is nice. It has a screen above the audio system that I suppose is standard around here. The highway(s) we take on the way from Taoyuan to Taipei are nice. Nothing special about them except they're not fucked up and we're not used to such professional work in Mexico. As we approach the city I start seeing way more scooters and bicycles. Quality pavement is crucial with this sort of traffic.

George takes me to a Korean restaurant. The food is delicious. Spicy meat and vegetables that I have no idea how to order later. In our table is a charcoal grill where they bbq our meat. It's really good.


Soon I am intoxicated and it's not mainly all the chinese I hear, or the nonstop spiciness of the bbq, or the strangeness of Taipei or some new age awareness that's taking of hold of me or rather the bbq which is really, really spicy, it-s mainly that I've gulped down the pain with generous amounts of the local lager favorite: "Taiwan Beer". That's what it's called. "Taiwan Beer". It's not a very creative name I suppose and the look of it is heineken-bizarro, but the taste is as good as any other and they give you a small glass you have to constantly refill if you don't want to sip it like some fine tequila.



We call a hostel and they have no vacancy. George has insisted all the while that I stay in this hotel he knows where his friend (i.e. my third degree acquaintance en route to George) stays when he's in Taipei. What can I do? I give in.

I need taiwanese currency and we stop by an ATM. It has an option for English and it further motivates me to learn chinese as quickly as possible. You'd think a bank would take translation work a little more seriously than the t-shirt makers.

I withdraw a few thousand NT$ (which stands for New Taiwanese Dollars) and realize that easier than converting the NT$ amounts to US dollars is converting straight to mexican pesos (the ones we stopped calling 'new' -and writing N$- over a decade ago) by dividing by three. So NT$9,000 corresponds to $3,000 pesos. Converting to US dollars was a burocratic algorithm anyway, multiplying by three, or dividing by three, and dividing by ten or a hundred.... or multiplying by 32 which is the same as 2 to the power of 5 so just doubling the amount five times. It was fun math, but not very efficient and just as (im)precise as dividing by three to get the peso amount.

NT$33 is approximately equal to $11 pesos which approximately equals $1 US dollar.


So we go to the hotel where an Indian father and son are trying to check in with the wiry attendant. I don't say much as George does most of the talking and the two Indians seemed intrigued by me. Eventually I take my passport out and stamp it on the desk where they can see it so that they have a conversation starter and they can stop staring like I'm from some other planet.

We get some beverages across the street and say our farewells, next time I call him up I'll speak some chinese we say. I click through the cable channels, there's at least four crappy looking talk shows of the same sort that dominate mornings on public television in Mexico or the US, so unable to decide on the unappealing asian or american porn I end up moving on to CNN or some other newschannel in english with which I promptly fall asleep.