Dispatches from Elsewhere: Navigating labyrinths
Day 2: Taiwan
I woke up at 4am today, having slept through most of the night. The jetlag is not as bad as I thought, but I'm writing this at 4pm in the dark hotel room by myself trying to regulate, so the fatigue is still quite heavy.
My parents left at 7am to explore the street stalls nearby. Most shops open at around 10 or 11, but the breakfast stalls for all the working humans are bustling. Like Hong Kong, this area of Taipei is all covered sidewalks reminiscent of colonnades, with shops of all sizes nestled at street level and plenty of businesses stacked on top of one another. Unlike colonized Turtle Island, where developers fill our grids with condos, relegating businesses (all the coffee shops for latte stage capitalism) the many towering blocks are a vertical collection of everything and anything, with shiny signs and horizontal banners labelling each floor from the outside. Our own hotel is one of at least three others in this building, each taking up one floor without a single sign pointing you anywhere. The only way to know what’s on each floor would be to visit them individually, it seems (aside from the few who paid for advertising out front), and it kind of reminds me of Willy Wonka’s glass elevator that way.
Where the aunties nonchalantly serve up steam-fried buns, there are hotels, salons, stores, and restaurants above them. I don’t expect any one person can know them all. But at 7 in the morning, the streets are quiet. The lighting system for these strips of shops won't turn on for at least another three hours.
It's a labyrinthine experience in so many senses of the word. Today's theme has been finding this both awe-inspiring given the sense of whimsy and adventure and emotionally draining in the many ways one could get lost in this world.
But first, we are still at breakfast. My parents return with a smorgasbord for whatever caught their fancy.
Breaking down the spread, we have:
- fluffy egg crepe
- umami rice noodles in a cup reminiscent of fake shark fin soup
- nostalgic sticky rice just the way I used to get at T&T for less than five bucks (with pork floss, Chinese donut, pickled mustard tubers, and 卤水 egg).
- scallion pancake omelette
- top notch soy milk, clearly made that morning
- milk tea, distinct from the more earthy flavours of our Hong Kong style and tasting closer to a roasted grass-jelly bubble tea
- astoundingly structured steam-fried buns with a fluffy top, crispy bottom, and thin walls that somehow manage to hold the generous fillings and meat juices (this was my favourite discovery of the morning
After breakfast, I take my family to see Cinema Park, having accidentally stumbled across it on Google Maps after trying to find the toilet restaurant we went to in 2019. Sitting at the edge of the famous Ximen Ding district, it looked like a place to see some very cool street art. I remember a little street art scavenger hunt I went on years ago in Belgium, and I loved the idea of doing something like that again.
Of course, "park" has kind of a different meaning compared to Turtle Island sensibilities. It's not the greenery you hope to see, but there is cool street art on all sides, and a big open space for sports or events. There is an elevated metal bridge of sorts, though it doesn't connect anywhere. It's likely more extra standing room and/or spectator seating. When you don't have a lot of space, it's amazing what people can do to make it work for any occasion that might require space. Maybe this is what happens when urban planning and decision-making isn't in the hands of people who have never understood scarcity (obviously, it helps if developers actually live in the neighbourhoods they want to exploit). That said, I felt the lack of third spaces too. It's too hot to be outside for long, but there is practically no seating in public indoor spaces, so I'm not very sure where folks go.
Aside: I did see tons of kids making use of the underground mall adjoining the metro station, where dance teams were practicing in front of public mirrors and in little corners with snacks--reminded me of being in high school and looking for/claiming a lunch nook in the stairwell.
We spend most of the day in Ximen Ding (西門町). It's crowded in some parts, but generally did not feel all that different from the neighbourhood we were staying in. Just more of everything, I suppose. I asked my parents etymology questions about this name. First, is this Ximen (西門) related to the one in China? My parents didn't think so. I thought maybe when the Kuomintang came to colonize, people named/renamed places after their home towns. Mom said that was unlikely.
I also ask about Ding (町), a word that I've never really seen before. The meaning, we infer to mean neighbourhood, but we usually use qu/keoi (區). I asked my parents if we still use this word, and my mom tells me it's quite rare. It's a bit more of an older term. My sister says that she's seen this character in Japan as machi in Kanji. "So this is actually the product of Japanese colonization?" I asked. My family agrees.
Most of Ximen Ding isn't open yet, so we kill some time in Donki. For those uninitiated, Donki is a see it to believe it kind of experience. It's a 24hr all-kinds-of-random-stuff store set up across three storeys with a pre-determined path that you follow. In any Donki you go to, there is one key thing they all have in common: maximum overwhelm. Over and over you'll hear the same sound bites and jingles being played in various sections of the store. Sometimes they're annoying, but sometimes they're hilarious. Here is a clip that will be endlessly looped until you're walking out of the store whispering "ba-ba-ba-banana" to yourself under your breath. Its weird lighting adds an additional level of disorientation, and it's almost like you're sleepwalking through the store in a way where you're not quote sure whether this is pleasant or whether this is a nightmare.
We do a bit more shopping at the mall. My sister gets a pair of glasses from this quick service Japanese brand, and because we spend over a certain amount at the mall, we're able to redeem an amazing free vacuum sealed water bottle.
More importantly, I was dissociating at the glasses shop waiting for my sister when out of the corner of my eye, I spot a magazine rack. At the very top, I see two familiar faces. I stare a bit--it was an Elle magazine, and I wasn't sure they were famous enough in Asia to grace its cover. Then, I'm on my feet.
It's actually them! I couldn't believe it.
If you've spent time with me in the last six months, it's highly likely you're aware of my obsession with Thai GL (Girls Love) dramas. They've made sapphic stories a global phenomenon in a way that I never thought I'd ever see in my lifetime.
Lena and Miu are the best of the best in this era, and perhaps uniquely amazing because their first drama together was such hot garbage. Where they excel is the "off-screen" vlogs and livestreams that they do together, and the aptly titled everyday intimacy they exhibit that make them one of the most popular pairings in the industry. They're so much fun to watch and I end up picking up a copy of the magazine myself to support them when we later head to the bookstore. I was lucky, I think, that it's July 1st--providing a small discount to their June magazine. True to Asian form, the magazine also comes with a full-sized bottle of hair treatment. You too can have the luxurious waves of Miss Lena Lorena Schuett, I suppose.
Fashion magazines are such fascinating things too. More capitalism blabber for another day, though.
I end up feeling a little ill inexplicably. Not sure if physically, but definitely a bit overwhelmed and exhausted. My family is browsing at a pop-up market in the underground mall when I decide to take all of our shopping and head back to the hotel. It's supposed to be nearby, not more than five minutes away, but I get so lost in the metro station.
There are multiple levels and layers, and multiple exits on each level. I somehow end up one the opposite side of the street from my hotel, but with no way to cross, so I'm forced to find my way underground. The metro is labelled as meticulously as they can, but in tracing, retracing, and tapping into my mind palace, I still end up back where I started twice. I want a blueprint of the station exploded in some sort of holographic video game map so badly. I eventually move horizontally rather than vertically from my starting spot, but the underground mall looks like a completely different place when the shops are open and I have absolutely zero memories of where I'd come from.
I run into my dad seated on a bench, and he is surprised to see me. I tell him I'm looking for the exit, frustrated and beyond exhausted at this point. He says that the exit starts with Z, and I simply walk away with my bags. If I were in a better state of mind, I'd tell him that there are at least 8 exits in the Z area.
I get back to the hotel after what must've been 45 minutes of meandering, then incubate in the dark to regulate. I love getting lost sometimes, and the last time my sister and I came to Taiwan in 2019, we wandered everywhere and found the most unexpected things. With so much sameness, however, it feels like a dystopic modern land of the Lotus-Eaters--all fluorescent lights and no windows. Just consumption.
The labyrinthine nature of Asian metropolises feel very emblematic of how the East sits in my heart as a whole. Maybe not in a bad way? Just in a way I haven't fully processed yet.
For now, I should try to sleep.
Hopefully, we can get our hair washed during this trip. It was a big highlight of our last trip because you get a nice little scalp massage too.
Thoughtful Flor, out!