Starting Over in China

a travel guide to the adventurous life

 Part II

by shaun roundy

Main Index | Multi-Genre | Persuasive

Starting Over

The sun shone brightly into the narrow streets. Cars zoomed past a large open doorway. Seven of us sat around small tables on wobbly stools with Jeff, an old high school friend, and his Chinese wife, Judy. Heather had been the last one up, the last one in the shower, and would be the last one down after she finished styling her long, auburn hair.

"What's this called?"

"Dou jiang. It's soy bean milk."

"Dow jang?"

"Pretty close."

Ten a.m. and we had found breakfast at the little shop downstairs and around the corner. Jeff had picked us up at the airport last night and driven to Chungli in the dark. The darkness had hidden the overcast sky, the skyline, and the drab colored tiles on the buildings, but we had all seen the heaps of garbage stacked on two corners waiting to be picked up and the dozens of students riding bicycles or walking along crowded streets with no sidewalks. This would be home for the next six months. Everything was new, I could start my life over.

"What's this called?"

"Man tou. Steamed bread."

"Man tou?"

"Yeah."

"It's weird."

"You'll get used to it."

I had needed a chance to start over for quite a while. Starting over means nobody knows who you are. You can be whoever you want.

"Hey, Michelle, aren't you gonna finish your man tou?"

"Uhh, I'm not feeling too hungry. Guess I'll wait for lunch."

Whoever I want--but it's more than that. It's more like whoever I am. See, back home, where everyone knows me, I feel the pressure of their expectations. What I remember of being a shy, ugly kid is all too close there, and even though everyone else has probably long forgotten those days, I still feel it when they look at me. Starting over lets me leave those days behind.

"What's that green egg thing?!"

"They call it a thousand year egg, and you don't want to know how they make it."

"Would you eat it in a box? Would you eat it with a fox?"

"Very funny, Sam I Am."

By the time I get home again in the fall, I'll have left those days far enough behind that they'll never catch up to me again, and then I, too, can forget the past.

"How can you stand that milk stuff, Shaun?"

"I'm hungry--just plug your nose, it's not so bad."

First Interviews

Jeff led us downtown and pointed out three English cram schools within two blocks of each other.

"That's the Chinese character for English," he said, pointing to a sign. Those of us with notebooks and pens copied it down as best we could.

Jordan's Language School was next to Wendy's hamburgers, and had a bright yellow sign. "It's brand new, you might want to check there," Jeff advised.

Fe was polite and professional. She asked us to demonstrate our teaching skills through lessons found in the school's beginning level text book. I had brought my photo album along, complete with pictures of New York and DC, so I chose the lesson on city life, writing the new vocabulary on the board and showing pictures, then asking questions.

Fe said she would let us know when classes were ready to begin.

Never Land

It was Mike who first noticed.

"Why are you stopping?" he asked Von and I. The three of us had bought small motorcycles and scooters for about $500 each and were off on our first spin around the town. The light was red at a quiet intersection somewhere on the far edge of town. Another scooter had slowed down beside us, then zoomed through the light.

"I don't think you have to stop at red lights here," Mike added.

Von and I looked at each other and smiled. He twisted his left wrist to shift his Vespa into first gear, then twisted the throttle with his right and took off. Mike's small scooter had no gears. He let off the brake and followed Von through the intersection. I pulled in the clutch on my 125 cc San Yang--the Taiwan equivalent to Honda--shifted into fourth, and the motor killed. I had driven motorcycles since I was twelve, but the gears were arranged backwards here.

"Oh, yeah," I whispered as I kick started the bike and caught up to the others.

"I don't think there's a speed limit here, either!" Von said, smiling and opening the throttle as far as it would go.

Soon Von and I had left Mike far behind. Warm, humid air whipped through our hair. Bright green hills and flat fields of rice flew by on either side.

"Neverland," I said to myself. "That's what this is. Never Never Land. No rules, no supervision, and we never ever have to grow up!"

Being The Glue

"Beth looks a little stressed," Mike said between mouthfuls.

"She and Michelle are the only girls without jobs yet," Von answered without looking up from the table.

We had gotten ourselves lost driving around town, exploring the twisting roads and alleyways until nothing looked familiar. Or rather, everything looked too familiar, everything looked the same.

Now we sat at a small outside restaurant and ate swei jiaos with chop sticks. A few of the Chinese around us watched and looked impressed with our deft use of their utinsels. The cook smiled and said "Very guud!" as I successfully lifted another dumpling to my mouth.

"I found another school this morning over by Transworld," I said after swallowing. "De Ming. The owner’s name is James, and speaks pretty good English. Says he might have a spot opening in a week or so."

Mike and Von looked up and continued chewing.

"Maybe we could get Beth working there."

"I still think we should take a vacation to the beach down south and get everybody relaxed again." Mike had wanted to go south since we first landed.

"Let’s go next week," said Von, "before we all have too much work to get out of, but Beth’s gonna enjoy it a lot more if she knows she has a job to come home to, right?"

Mike and I nodded and finished our swei jiaos. The matter had been settled. We had developed a sort of silent agreement that we’d take care of everyone else before ourselves. We hadn’t found work yet ourselves, but felt confident that the jobs would come. We had introduced ourselves at most of the local schools, and most promised class openings soon.

We thought we did this to keep everyone happy, to help these people we were quickly growing close to. And we were. But there was more. If we had looked inside ourselves, we would also have seen that we each needed the closeness and cohesiveness of our group. We needed each others’ support as well, needed to know that we could count on each other for support. Having a close-knit group made everything bearable, so we would do whatever it took to hold this group together.

Good Days, Bad Days

"Hey, are you following me again?"

I looked up and found Shannon wandering through the bookstore a block from our apartment. I had come to buy some of the stationery we had come to love--the stuff with English that never quite made sense. The stuff with phrases like "Pythmic Blue. In a summer sunshine sweat to the at most and then look a pleasant breeze will let you forget the heat." Or "Manhattan Island, today the capital of the world, was purchased from the local Indians in 1626 for 21 dollars worth of dry goods and assorted trinkets." All were accompanied by beautiful pictures that seldom corresponded to the inscription. Everyone sent as much of it home as they could, sometimes writing letters just to show off the latest find.

"What are you talking about? I’ve never seen you before in my life!" I answered, then added,"Check out this one."

Shannon looked at my latest stationery find and smiled. "You busy?"

"Nope," I answered. "I was just on my way home. You?"

"No. I finished class an hour ago. Come get a donut with me."

What I liked best about Shannon was her confidence. It wasn’t just the way that nothing seemed to worry her. It wasn’t just the way she was more independent than the other girls, needing fewer favors and less moral support. It wasn’t just the way she always spoke her mind. It was what was on her mind that she spoke. It was her non-judgmental attitude that let me speak completely unguardedly, her open and accepting nature that made me feel like we had been friends for years or decades, not just a few days.

"How’s the job search?" Shannon asked as we left the store.

"Okay. I think I’ll get something soon at the Time over by Far Eastern. Maybe at Jordan’s, too."

"I think Fe liked you there."

"She seemed like a neat lady."

"What I like about you, Shaun, is how you always see the good in other people."

Shannon had the unique ability to give to everyone without losing anything for herself in the process. She could also take what was given without apology, making it as comfortable to give as to receive her gifts. On my good days, she would look at me and her eyes would twinkle with the same love of adventure and fun as mine. On bad days, one look let me know she understood and cared.

At home, I had been used to having many close friends always nearby. The kind of friends who made you feel better just to be near. Here on the island, I had only just begun to really know my new friends, but Shannon almost filled the old gap single-handedly.

We reached the pastry shop and wandered around the trays, looking for our favorites.

"Ever notice how no one holds hands or shows any emotion here?" Shannon asked.

"I guess you're right," I answered, still looking around the store, not really thinking about her question.

"Doesn't it make you feel...almost...withdrawal?"

Something in her voice caught my attention, and I looked up from the donuts and creme-covered pastries to read her face. For the first time, her eyes didn't meet mine in her usual steady, confident gaze. I had never thought much about the lack of affection here, but that didn't matter now. I put one arm around Shannon's shoulder and pulled her toward me. She looked up gratefully.

"Hey, baby," I said, looking as macho as possible, "why don’t you let me buy you a donut?"

Shannon laughed and wrapped her own arm around my waist. I already knew that I needed Shannon’s friendship. It felt good to know the feeling was mutual.

The Rock

We called Taiwan the Rock after the abbreviation of its official name--The Republic of China: ROC. On Island, we’d also say. "We’ve been on island for two weeks." The jargon added prestige to living there. Made us feel less like tourists, more like residents, regulars. Made us feel more like we belonged. Helped us through those first weeks of adjustment.

Petri Dish

At first I simply met with interest the differences in culture we encountered in Taiwan. No one seemed in as big a hury as we had all been back home. I appreciated the time and effort that people often made to help us find addresses when we got lost in the confusing, winding, narrow streets. I bought a Chinese text book and no one lost their patience when I practiced new phrases on them.

Other times, I watched as businessmen tried to buy my allegiance with gifts. I didn’t want anyone to pay six dollars for a small glass of orange juice for me, but had a hard time refusing with my limited communication skills.

I listened as loud voices made every phone conversation sound angry, even when each one ended with twenty or thirty ‘good’s and an equal number of ‘thankyou’s.

Soon the differences began to seep in. Like the pleasant sound of a guitar across the park. Like warm sunshine on your back at the lake. Like a cool snowflake on the tongue. The pace of our lives, though busy enough with classes to teach and jobs to find, felt slower, more relaxed, less stressed, and less hurried. We took ourselves less seriously. We drove in the beehive-like swarms of traffic and didn’t get upset or concerned if someone cut us off here and there. We lived every today and thought little of tomorrow.

But even as we began to assimilate our new culture, we held onto the favorite parts of what we had left behind. We explored the roads both inside and outside the city. We drove fast into the country at night when traffic thinned, the wind in our hair, the adrenaline in our veins. We spoke often of life and what we wanted to get from it someday.

Just like in the sugar-filled dishes at the doctor’s office, we began to create our own unique culture from the pieces and options taken from our two worlds. We began to experiment and discover what attitudes thrived in our carefree environment.

I had always thought of culture as something too deep to examine, too ingrained to alter, too prescribed to individualize. Now as I began to move between cultures, I began to see differences as choices, diversity as options. As I began to change and find the balance I wanted, I began to see culture for what it really is: a set of choices created from infinite possibilities.

Head Over Heels

Not everyone had fallen in love with our tropical island from the beginning. Beth was having a hard time. She was the youngest of us all and was a bit shy, less confident than the rest. It hadn't occurred to me that not everyone might be cut out for teaching English to room-fulls of kids who you can't really even talk to. It hadn't occurred to me that not everyone would automatically think of living and working on an exotic island as an adventure.

Everyone except Shannon and me, as far as I could tell, had felt at least twinges of homesickness, touches of culture shock. Everyone else had looked around themselves in the darkness that first night on the island as we slept on bed frames, the floor, and even desks and wondered what they had gotten themselves into. Shannon already knew, and I couldn't wait to find out. I had people with me to explore and discover, and that was all I needed.

Beth, on the other hand, seemed a bit slower coming out of the lows of the up-and-down cycle of ridges and valleys, troughs and crests, elations and discouragements of the typical culture shock pattern. We were beginning to worry.

The girls had bought bikes instead of motorcycles and scooters. Traffic was far too hectic and didn't seem a good place for them to learn to drive. One afternoon, as I returned from teaching and stopped my motorcycle downstairs, I saw Beth's bike laying on the ground. The rims were twisted, the handlebars bent. I unlocked the door and ran upstairs. Before I opened the fifth-floor door, I could hear her laughter.

"It's not funny!" she protested, still laughing, sitting on the floor with her back to the wall. Her arms and legs were covered with small scrapes and large bruises. Mike obviously disagreed.

"Tell him," he said between laughs.

"I saw your bike," I said, wincing a bit in sympathy. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Beth said. "I was riding down this alley and a car hit me from behind. All I remember is spinning through the air and then laying on my back, staring up at the sky."

"They didn't even stop?!" I asked, on the edge of anger at just how crazy the streets of the island were.

"Oh, they stopped," Beth answered quickly. "I was laying on their hood."

I stared at Beth and felt the beginning of a smile creep across my face.

"They gave me a thousand kuai for my bike. And I think I dented their hood."

Mike was laughing again and added, "It was a black BMW."

I was smiling and began to laugh, too. Beth laughed with us as we imagined the scene again. "Maybe it is a little funny," she admitted.

"If you're gonna crash," I told her, "Ya might as well do it with style."

Things seemed somehow different after that. It was like Beth had been initiated into the island. Like the worst had come and gone, leaving her in one piece, a veteran. She had her own story to tell, her own adventure, and somehow that had made her fit in with the rest of us, it had made her belong. Knowing she could survive brought her to her first real high since landing on the island, and any later dips were shorter and less painful.

Tropical Paradise

Mike, Von, and Suzanne had gone to rent the minivan. Within the hour, we would leave town for a two-day, three-night weekend trip around the island. The feel of vacation was already pumping gently through our veins, and Shannon and I had slipped out for donuts and conversation. Now we sat in the shade at Chong Yuan University. The high white walls deflected the sounds from the street, and we enjoyed the peaceful quiet usually found only late late at night in the city.

"So," Shannon began, her rich brown eyes twinkling slightly as she watched me, "what do you think of Taiwan so far?"

"Well," I answered, swallowing a mouthful of creme-filled donut, "I didn't really have many expectations, but it's not exactly the tropical paradise Mike's book showed."

Shannon nodded her head in agreement. "The cities are pretty crowded and dirty, but the rest of the island is incredible. You'll see."

I leaned back on the grass and listened to Shannon tell about the beaches and mountains, about rivers and jungles, tides and typhoons. I watched the patterns of sun and shadow play across her face. I thought of two full days of vacation, of talking with Shannon and my other roommates, of exploration and adventure, experience and discovery, and the possibility occurred to me that perhaps this island was something of a tropical paradise afterall.

Kending

"Last one in’s a thousand year egg!" Michelle said as we climbed out of the van in Kending at the island’s most famous beach. The beach was full of people strolling along, mostly wearing long pants but barefoot, past bright parasols and jet skis.

"What are those dome-shaped things over there?" Beth asked.

"Oh," answered Shannon, "they’re nuclear reactors."

Michelle’s enthusiasm ebbed slightly. "Maybe we should drive around and see the tip of the island first."

The Sky Falls

"Ready to push?"

The trip had stopped short in a wide canyon starting up the southern cross-island highway. Rain and wind of an approaching typhoon had brought rock slides tumbling down the steep mountainside to where they had buried the road. We stopped the van before the first pile of rocks and walked another hundred feet up the road to find a farmer trying to drive his motorcycle across the rubble.

"Yi, er, san," Mike counted to three in Chinese and the farmer gunned the engine. A little push and they were over.

I lifted my camera, focused, and pressed the trigger just as Mike turned and ran. I discovered why as I lowered the lens and another shower of rock smashed into the pile less than ten feet in front of me. Without looking up, I turned and ran the other way.

"I thought you were dead," Von told me later.

Ho-tel

After a late dinner, we checked a few hotel in Hualien and found something in our price range. We carried our bags upstairs, ready to collapse, smiling and exchanging a few words with the hotel staff. Even the floor felt soft enough for some of us after the long day.

Somewhere between our limited Chinese vocabulary and the body language of our hosts, we realized that the hotel usually made up for its low room costs by supplying room service. And I don’t mean breakfast in bed.

Sometime during the night an earthquake rocked the coast, but we never stirred.

Toroko Gorge

Toroko Gorge was meant to be the highlight of the trip. We had planned to drive through it across the middle of the island to return home. We drove the twisting road high above a winding, narrow, rushing river, swollen with typhoon run off. The road and narrow tunnels had been cut through cliff sides during the Japanese occupancy.

Fifteen miles up the canyon, last night’s earthquake had created a rock slide that obliterated the road. Somewhere ahead, we heard, a truck had been crushed beneath the falling rubble. We had already experienced enough of the unstable mountainside to know better than to attempt to cross through the slide, even if it had been possible.

Instead, we turned back down the canyon and returned to Hualien. Most of us got tickets on a train leaving for home in an hour or two, while Von and I volunteered to drive back south to the south cross-island highway all night in order to get home for work early in the morning.

After being cooped up for so long, it felt good to have space in the van, but a bit lonely at the same time. Heavy rain fell all night long, making the highway glisten while the steady rhythm of the windsheild wipers filled in the silence. We were both relieved when we finally reached our highway exit to Chungli and home.

Home At Last

It felt good to be home. In our absence, everything had changed. Our hard beds with thin mattresses suddenly became comfortable, almost luxurious. The streets of our neighborhood had grown suddenly familiar. Living in the crowded city, once we knew that high, rugged mountains waited nearby, felt more tolerable.

Home is relative, that’s what I learned.

Nothing had really changed, afterall. Anyone who hadn’t left the city wouldn’t have noticed a thing. But now Chungli had become the familiar, while the beaches and mountain highways were the frontier, the edge of our familiarity, of our comfort zone. We now saw the big picture. We now knew where we lived, whereas before we had only known the inside borders of our cage.

Compared to stuffing eight people in a small van and making our way around an unknown island for three days, Chungli was easy.

It seemed all the more comforting that we shared this home, this security blanket, together.

Home Sweet Home

On the other hand, everything had changed.

They say a persons’s identity consists of two elements: memories and feelings. The experiences and beauty found on our trip had welded the island into our very beings. The mountains, even if they came crashing down with the rain, the rivers, even when they ran swollen and brown with runoff, and the roads, full of tight, blind corners, had worked their magic on us. The beauty of our surroundings had given us the desire to belong here.

What had been the unknown around us was no longer a mystery. Not only Chungli, but all Taiwan had become our home sweet home.

A World Apart

But life at this home away from home wasn't always perfect. Real friendships take time to develop, and despite the bonds growing between us, I sometimes missed my old friends back home. Sometimes I missed Katie, who I had only begun to really know, but who had always been there to talk to, to care, and to hold.

From around the world, our relationship became difficult. To touch, of course, was impossible. To care could only be expressed through letters, and even then, our words seemed almost strained. The words and feelings I wanted to express required more than paper and ink. They needed looks and touch, inflection and reaction. Because of this lack, my letters grew scarce.

Especially on nights when I would come home from work earlier than the others, I would sometimes climb the ladder to the roof and stand there beneath the sky, remembering what that sky looked like from the canyons back home. When I had flown away, the snow in the canyons had just begun to melt. The roads were passable by motorcycle, but not yet by car. The days had begun to grow warm, but nights were still cold.

Katie told me in letters about the warming air, the green grass that had appeared, and the sweet lilac blossoms that she cut and set in a vase in her apartment. She even sent me pressed blossoms in her letters. It all would have been perfect if I could have laid on the grass in the sun, smelled the lilacs' fragrance, and held Katie's hand while she told me, but without each other near, as hard as we tried to reach out, we never touched.

Between Fire and Ice

From the rooftop where I leaned against the wall, I watched as wind carried clouds overhead and reflected the fluorescent lights of a lonely city. Even at night, the heat of early summer smoldered and made me dream of snow flurries and cold nights where a small flame in the fireplace would be welcome again.

I sat and watched the clouds pass by, trying to erase my mind. Inside, a tension. Restlessness. Unknown needs. I had tried to listen inside and find them, identify them, satisfy them, but to no avail; all stood beyond my own short reach. So there I sat, a pen in hand, waiting to record the inspiration that did not come.

"Hey. What are you doing?"

It was Shannon. She walked over to the edge of the building and stood next to me, almost brushing my arm, then looked up at the electrically-lit clouds. I wanted to tell her, or at least ask her if she knew the feelings going through me. Impossible. Instead, I looked down at her brown eyes and smiled noncommittally with one corner of my mouth. Shannon continued to watch the dark sky, and her eyebrows rose slightly as she began to speak.

"Clouds are different here. I miss the ones that come in Spring and cling to the mountains and rain on the snow and melt it all away."

Now she looked into my eyes and my teeth showed for an instant through the upturning corner of my mouth as I tried again to smile.

"Come with me to the tea house." She took my arm and pulled me gently away from the building's edge, toward the door and the ladder leading down into our apartment.

Deep, quiet music permeated the modern tea house only a block away from our pad. Dim lights and heavy wooden furniture thickened the mood, and at her request, I began to tell Shannon a story. This story followed a small plane lost in the dark, cold land of winter-time Yukon. Two survivors made their way across miles of white, barren, snow-drifted land, void of anything to offer hope, yet they continued on. I filled the tale with words and images pulled from recent memory, touches of not-understood emotions, of the sense of being hopelessly lost, of determination to continue, to live, of the darkness of going it alone.

The story continued and just as hope ran low, a sparkle on the horizon, the promise of a ship at the edge of the ice, sent hope to one of them, which then caught on with the other. I filled the story with the sense of the importance of sharing, of going it together, of how you could never lose that way, feelings of even more recent memory, of tonight.

When I finished, Shannon dabbed the corner of her eye with a napkin and breathed deeply. "You have to write that down and publish it!"

"Nah, it's dumb. Too dramatic."

"It is not! Write it down as soon as we get home."

I told her it was futile, but complied just the same. I was right. The power of the story had come in the vivid images and emotions I had described, and the words had gone. I would have to find new ones.

But something else had disappeared as well. The anxiousness. The restlessness. The unmet needs had gone, and whatever similarity I had discovered between a green, lush, boiling-hot tropical island and a freezing, barren, white wasteland had been carried out in the same tide.

Above our roof, clouds drifted quickly by, warmed momentarily by the bright lights of an active, living city.

Stupid Old Man

My first job came when another teacher was on a visa trip to Thailand. I met Wendy at Georgia English School and we arranged for me to teach there next Tuesday. By the time the old teacher returned, Steve and Jock--two students--had arranged for me to continue teaching their class.

When Aquarius Computer Manufacturers contacted Georgia to arrange for a teacher to come weekly, Jock took me there for the interview. We drove twenty minutes to the beach and turned right into a new industrial zone. When we asked, an old man told us the company was back half a mile.

"Stupid old man!" Jock swore under his breath at the man's inability to admit that he didn't know the way to Aquarius as we continued on.

Preface

You can never tell a true story just the way it happened.

When you move away from home, abandoning the familiar to discover new places, new adventures, new thoughts, new fragments and clues to either who you are or who you were or who you are becoming, when the passing days soak through your skin, when you fill your lungs with the breeze on your face, with the still air above your bed as you lie sleeping, and the pollution of rush hour, then you can't just go home and pick up a pencil and write down exactly what happened in one long, smooth, steady order, just the way it happened, according to the calendar and your wristwatch. Not if you want to be accurate. Not if you want to be honest. Things just don’t happen that way.

Even if you don't leave home, the same breezes will breathe against your cheeks and fill your lungs, the same ticks of your watch and squares of the calendar will flitter by and disappear, leading you to new thoughts, new insights, and you, too, will be new.

This change happens slowly or quickly, either against your will or without your awareness. Either way, it makes no difference, because it will happen just the same. Time will pass, the world will never be the same. You can fight it or help it or ignore it or fear it, but the only sure thing is change.

And when you finally notice that you are not the same person you once were, then you can't tell exactly when or why or how you changed. The precise moment can not be found, because there was no "when". It just happens. Every single day. Every minute. Over and over again. Until you die.

And that is why I've written my story in the style you find before you. It's the closest thing to reality that I’ve found.

By giving up precise control over dates and events and interpretations, by recognizing that each experience teaches many lessons, and often contradictory ones, I hope to have freed you, as readers and travelers of space and time and identity, to find or recognize your own lessons, your own experiences, your own truths.

When you put this book back down on the grass or the kitchen counter or the carpeted floor, or the desk where you're reading it right now, you might take a moment to look inside at yourself. Because you will find that you have changed and you are not the same person who began to read this book only minutes or hours or days or weeks ago.

As you smiled or cried or laughed or sighed, as you went ot work, to sleep, or to the grocery store, and as you flipped through these pages, new thoughts--your thoughts and mine--entered your mind and became a part of you as surely as the breeze or the air conditioning or the still air of your office brushed across your face and mouth and throat and now surge through your veins and burns inside trillions of cells throughout your body.

And next month or year or in ten years you might pick up this book again, and once again, you will be a different person than you are today, right now, at this moment.

The only goal is to find that you are pleased with the person you have become.

Death on the Highway I

One day I was driving to work at Aquarius. The ride carried me through dozens of rice fields, their green shoots glowing bright in the diffused light below high clouds. With only light traffic, I could relax. From where I would turn off the two-lane highway, I always caught a glimpse of the Guanyin lighthouse, and the ocean was just beyond that.

I drove along the shoulder of the road--motorcycles and scooters had replaced bicycles in Taiwan less than ten years ago and now followed the same rules. An empty car-carrier truck started to pass me as we approached a cement light pole in my "lane" on the shoulder. I dropped down a gear and opened up the throttle all the way to zoom out ahead of the truck again, rather than slowing to let the truck pass, to allow me to swerve momentarily into the road, around the pole.

It was then I remembered I was not sitting on my top-speed 125mph, 750cc-Honda V45 Magna back home, but my top-speed 45mph 125cc Sanyang.

Passing the truck before the light pole would be impossible, so I instantly jumped on the brakes. I was going fast, and the pole approached me at the same speed. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that I had stopped passing the truck and it again began to slide past me. Meanwhile, the pole came closer and closer. I was not at all sure if I could stop in time to avoid a collision.

I had locked up my back tire, and it came skidding up next to me out to the right. The truck was passing by quickly now, beginning to blur in my peripheral vision. The cement post slid closer still.

Less than two seconds before impact, the tail end of the truck and trailer slid past me. I instantly released the rear brake peddle, the rear tire swung back into the road, and I missed the pole by less than two feet.

I continued on down the road, my heart rate normal--it had hardly changed throughout the whole ordeal. Two or three hundred feet further down the highway, I began to worry. Not because I nearly crashed. Not because I might have died. Not because I thought it might happen again.

I was worried because the whole incident didn't scare me a bit. I had only reacted, and didn't seem to really care one way or the other. I worried that I had absorbed some of the fatalistic attitudes inherent in the culture, and if I had, what that might mean for me.

Blue Skies

Three weeks after arriving in Taiwan, I had grown accustomed to the white sky that continually covered the island. Rain was frequent enough, but bright, hot, overcast days were the norm.

Three weeks after arriving in Taiwan, I had grown accustomed to the apartment on First Three Rivers Street--four rooms, thin plastic-coated mattresses that didn't soak up the humidity, two bathrooms with showers but no tubs or shower curtains, and the small washer without automatic cycles. We zipped our socks into small mesh bags to keep them from getting stretched out in the wash, and hung everything to dry on the clothes lines above my room and below a glass roof that kept the rain out. Once when we had visitors, we had slept below the clothes lines and watched a spectacular lightning storm through the glass.

Three weeks after arriving in Taiwan, I climbed the ladder to the clothes lines and was startled to see deep blue skies and white, puffy clouds. Even after the lightning storm, it hadn't occurred to me that the glass was clear--the constant high, white clouds had made me think of it as white Plexiglas. I called down to the others, and they followed me up the ladder to the roof to stare at the clouds.

Clouds II

The Island is only

three hundred miles

from north to south,

tip to tip,

and a third or a fourth

as wide.

The clouds don't even slow down

as they pass.

From the roof, I find

fluffy dragons and

horses and

flowers and

dolphins that

blow and twist beyond recognition

even as I watch.

I heard the Typhoon

will arrive tomorrow,

that rain will fill the streets,

and that flowers and

trees and

train tracks will

be blown and twisted beyond recognition,

and that I should not watch.

Death on the Highway II

This from my journal, April 27:

"The first sunny day for a while and it feels great--reminds me of Lake Powell: warm, comfortable, worry free, and exciting.

"Last night on my way home from work at Aquarius, I passed where there had been an accident. There were cops and ambulances, a somewhat smashed scooter on the side of the road, two huge pools of blood, with the blood running off the road, and someone still laying in one of them. I'm sure he was dead, because of the way he was just laying there and since no one was doing anything about it. That was very weird.

"It still bothers me, even though I didn't think it would this much. But I'm ok--I just recommitted to wear my helmet all the time. That's the worst I've ever seen, and it never hit me quite so much that that could have been me. I'll also be more careful in driving!"

Beetle Nut I

Dark red splotches everywhere,

I'm seeing spots

along the road

as I weave through traffic

and wonder

who opened their veins and

left the puddles of blood here?

So many accidents

with neat little reminders

that no one cleans up

The University of Life

A month had passed in Chungli. Von and I went to a stationery store one night and bought several sheets of blue card stock and white, waxy paper. At home, in my room, we cut it up to make diplomas.

As we finished them, we heard our roommates’ voices in the stairwell.

"Shhh! Quick--turn off the light!"

When the others had settled in to their rooms, we snuck up the ladder to the roof and climbed down to the street through another building. From there, we rang our bell and walked back upstairs.

"They'll never know we were here or had time to make these," we told each other.

While everyone else slept, Von and I slipped into the other rooms, leaving the certificates on desks and chairs. In the morning, no one knew who had done it.

"Whoever did this, you spelled my name wrong!"

It was true. It said Micheal instead of Michael. My mistake.

"Ha! You did it, Mike! You did that on purpose to try to throw us off!"

Von and I lied when questioned. To this day, we are the only ones sure of who made them.

The University of Life

On the nomination of the Faculty and as authorized by law,

The University of Life has awarded

Micheal Jensen

this Area Studies Certificate in World Culture upon completion of his first month of residence at the University of Life Extension in Chungli, Taiwan, with all the honors, rights, privileges and responsibilities pertaining thereto.

Given at Chungli in the Republic of China the twenty-eighth day of

April in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred ninety and the University's

six thousand nine-hundred and ninety-fourth year.

P

Chairperson of the University Chairperson of the Board of Trustees

of Life Board of Regents

Commissioner of Highest Education President, University of life

Portfolio

Next to teaching, modeling seemed the biggest business for Americans in Taiwan. I had accompanied a few of my roommates to universities, temples, and monasteries to take black and white photos for their modeling portfolios. The black and white shots were developed on color film in any shade we chose. We usually chose yellow, which came out looking like a heavy dose of old-fashioned sepia tone. These portfolios would be taken to modeling agencies, and my roommates would hope and wait for a call.

When in Rome

Heather stood in front of me in a mini skirt and waited for my answer. Her long hair was pulled back and her make-up brought out the soft curves of her face, while accentuating her lips and big, green eyes. I looked her over, pursed my lips, and thought about it.

"Okay, if you want to."

We had seen everything on the streets of Taiwan. Most people drove their motorcycles wearing only thongs on their feet. I had seen as many as eight people--an entire family from the country--riding on one scooter. And women riding side saddle on the back of scooters was a common sight, though dangerous and illegal back home in America.

I straddled my motorcycle and kick-started the engine. Heather climbed on behind me side saddle and wrapped one arm around my waist. She had a modeling job lined up this afternoon in Taipei and I had agreed to give her a lift to the train station. Her miniskirt didn’t allow her to straddle the motorcycle seat.

I let out the clutch and we pulled away from our apartment, then around the corner. With every turn, traffic grew thicker. Soon we had reached the narrow tunnel designed for the constant flow of motorcycle and scooter traffic to ride under the railroad tracks.

Each of the two lanes running in opposite directions was no more than three feet wide. I passed a scooter or two, then merged when traffic appeared from the other end of the tunnel. Every time a scooter would pass, I could feel Heather's arm tighten around my waist as she pulled her knees as close to the bike as possible.

"Be careful--that almost took off my knee cap!"

This was not the first side-saddle ride I had given in Taiwan. I didn't like to do it, which Heather knew. I didn't like the fact that it made it harder to balance the bike, to react quickly to traffic. Neither of us liked the fact it brought her knees too close to other traffic and parked cars. This was also not the first time I had heard warnings and complaints.

"Listen," I told Heather over my shoulder, "you know what you're in for when you ask for a ride. Either ride or don't, but don't complain, okay?"

Sexy

Von and I had driven the ten kilometers to Tao Yuan to see a movie with some American friends we had met at church in Taipei. Before going to their place, though, we stopped to get a Colonel Burger from Kentucky--what the Chinese call KFC. We found a parking place about a block away. The area near the train station was always crowded.

"No way!" Von had stopped on the sidewalk and stared into a store display window. "Shaun, come check this out!"

I stepped back and looked down into the window. There, in a yellowish sepia tone-looking photograph, lay Heather. The photograph was upside down with Heather laying on the floor and her long hair sweeping around her. Her eyes were half-closed and seductive.

"Hard to believe that's our roommate, isn't it?" I asked.

"She never looks at me that way," Von answered.

MTV

"Nah, I've already seen that one."

The ritual is not much different than renting a video back home, but once we find one we haven't seen or are willing to watch again, we won't take it home. The nicer MTV's provide big screen projection TV's, surround sound, and comfortable couches where you half sit, half lie down. Plus a drink.

MTV's used to have a pretty bad reputation. That was because you could sometimes rent a girl along with your movie and drink.

Even now, fires sometimes sweep through the catacombs of tiny theaters, stealing lives and bringing more threats of closure to those that don't conform to fire codes.

Close Shave

If you want a haircut, don't go to the shops with striped barber poles. Here's Brad's story of his second day in Taiwan:

"So I go in and they give me a towel and say 'put this on.' I'm like Cool! I'm gonna get the entire massage thing! So I'm sitting there in this towel and a girl steps into the room and starts to slip out of her robe. I'm like, Wait a minute! I'm outta here! I've never gotten dressed so quickly!"

This in Chinese:

Us: We want go Chungli Train Station.

Taxi Driver: Chungli Train Station?

Us: Yes, Chungli Train Station.

Taxi Driver: This is the Chungli Train Station.

Us: Yes, Chungli Train Station.

Taxi Driver: You're at the Chungli Train Station.

Us: Yes, Chungli Train Station.

Taxi Driver: This is it! Here! Chungli Train Station!

Us: Yes, Chungli Train Station.

Taxi Driver: You're here! Look!

Us: Here? Chungli Train Station?

Taxi Driver: Yes, here!

Us: Thank you! You're fast! How much do we owe you?

We climb out of the taxi. The Taxi Drivers never catch the humor.

Ties and Black Rivers

Placing my earphones in my ears, I press play, and my strange world becomes an adventure movie.

The silver screen is huge from the front row--larger than life. I sit still in my theater seat, afraid to move and risk making the seat squeak. Looking slowly from one side of the screen to the other, my breaths come quick and shallow. Hundreds of Chinese stand, sit, or walk slowly along a crowded train platform. Their clothes are, for the most part, modern. Some teens sport sweaters and letterman-style jackets embroidered in something resembling English. One says, "Colonies of Sparkle." Another, "Sweat Memories."

In their faces, I find the clues, and know that something significant is waiting to happen. Standing alone, black hair, dark eyes, a tall boy in a blue school uniform stares back at me, challenging my gaze, but I don't even blink--he can't touch me. I'm perfectly safe in my private theater. Maybe something will happen to him. Maybe he's a main character. It's too early to tell, but I can wait.

U2 plays loudly in my ears: Sunday Bloody Sunday, another clue. The heavy beat sends shots of adrenaline steaming through my veins. The air is warm and sweet. I can almost see the flicker between frames as a train rolls in.

The music stops abruptly as I jerk the headphones from my ears. Without it, the illusion vanishes as well. No flickers between frames, no plot, no impending doom for the fearless teenager. No squeaky theater seat below me, just the hard cement of the Chungli Train Station platform number one. I'm just another person fighting for standing room on a train bound for Taipei.

Once on board, I stand in an open doorway with the wind whipping through my hair, and watch for a moment as city and houses and green rice paddies and black rivers fly by below my feet and beneath the tracks. The tall boy wants my breeze and view and tries to slip past me, but I slide my feet to the edge, the toes of my shoes hanging in air, and grip the handrail more tightly.

With my free hand, I replace the earphones and press play. Drowning Man. With every heavy beat, the illusion crawls back inside my hungry veins. A plot is waiting to come to light with me standing right smack in the middle. My blood runs sweet as I lean further out of the open doorway and wait, as city and houses and green rice paddies and black rivers fly by below my feet and the railroad ties blurring out of sight.

Finger Spelling

Chinese characters must be written following a specified stroke order. Top to bottom, left to right. Without this order, reading individual handwriting would become all but impossible.

Each character represents one syllable. If confusion about a word arises during conversation, the Chinese will often hold up the palm of one hand and trace the character with a finger. Following the stroke order, the invisible character is easily understood.

When Von’s Vespa flooded continually, we drove it to a small shop and tried to explain that we thought the carburetor float had stuck open. We pointed to parts of the engine and made with our hands what we hoped would be the universal sign for a stuck carburetor float.

Apparently unsure of what we were trying to communicate, the mechanic fell back on habit and scratched a Chinese character in the grimy floor with a screwdriver. Von and I looked at each other and smiled helplessly.

Suddenly Von seemed to have an idea. He held up his hand, palm toward himself, and pretended to scratch out the lines of a character. Turning his palm toward the mechanic, he raised his eyebrows questioningly. Now it was the mechanic’s turn to look helpless.

"Let’s just run the thing and let him see for himself," I offered.

Lingua Franca

I still don’t exactly know what it takes to make a friend. But when I think back on the hundreds of people who crossed our path in Taiwan, I find a few clues.

Friends must communicate. They must have a lingua franca. On the most basic level, this meant that anyone who would become our close friend had to speak English well. There was no way around it. We hardly spoke Chinese, though a few of us were learning.

On a deeper level, this lingua franca means having some sort of shared experience, a kind of mutual understanding of the world that allows for understanding without too much work. Without too many explanations and disagreements. This level of communication can be more rare than you might guess.

Many people tried to become our friends, but the meaning in our conversations rarely rose above the syntactic level. They sometimes grew frustrated when we didn’t grow close, but what could be done? This language barrier can exist between any two people, but is more common between cultures.

Friends and Acquaintances

You need a starting place for friendships. Somewhere to go and meet regularly enough to finish getting acquainted and start becoming friends. Luckily our place was a hub at First Three Rivers Street. Everyone had to spend enough time with us and participate on a few crazy ventures. We were, afterall, on vacation, or at least on an adventure.

Two friends in particular spoke Chinese and lived with Chinese families and were a little crazier than the rest of us, and therefore made their way into our group quickly and easily. Ron and Peter.

Shr Men Dam

Days were unbearably hot, but the warm nights were perfect. One evening, six of us took three motorcycles into the mountains to Shr Men Dam.

Ron and Suzanne had the slowest bike, so Vicki and I and Von and Shannon zoomed out ahead. We were in the country by now--the roads were long and only curved around hills and shallow lakes. Once we were far enough ahead, the four of us turned off the road onto a side street and waited for Ron and Suzanne to pass by.

We hadn't gotten far enough ahead, though, and Ron saw us turn off the highway. He found us after a while, and we all left again, but Vicki and I hung back. After waiting for their lights to disappear down the road, we started our engine and took off after them with our headlight turned off. The half moon lit the road in front of us, warm, moist air felt cool against our bodies, and we could hardly keep from laughing out loud, thinking about what we were about to do.

As we passed Ron and Suzanne, we flipped our lights on and shouted as loud as we could:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!"

Their eyes shot wide open and muscles contracted as they nearly jumped right off the bike. The war had begun. I've never laughed so hard.

We'd be driving up a hill, when Ron, in his fluorescent green tank top, would leap out of the bushes on the side of the road, flailing his arms like a crazed orangutan and screaming at the top of his voice. I felt Vicki jump behind me every time.

Hi, I'm a Pig

When I finally met Peter, I didn’t know why I hadn’t met him earlier. I regretted it.

Peter was six feet tall with blonde hair that carelessly fell almost over one eye. He was Russian born and adopted by an American family in Washington state when only a few weeks old. He spoke Chinese clearly and did everything with a confidence that bordered on arrogance, except that his confidence was born of playfulness, not pride.

Peter, Vicki, and I once scheduled a trip to the southern tip of the island on the spur of the moment, and I went for the train tickets while they finished work. I still wasn’t confident with my language skills, so Peter had written a note in Chinese to make it easier.

I parked my motorcycle near the station, walked inside, and handed the note to the man in the booth marked "South." He smiled, took my money, then slid three tickets across the counter.

"How did it go?" Peter asked over dinner at Vicki’s that night.

"Fine," I answered between bites.

Peter’s mouth hung in a half open smile, his eyes danced.

"What?" I asked.

"Did the guy say anything?"

"No, just smiled a little and gave me the tickets. Why?"

"Do you want to know what that note said?"

I set my chopsticks on my plate. "What?"

Now Peter laughed a little. "It said ‘Hi, I’m a pig. I need three tickets for Gao Hsiong tomorrow morning at seven twenty.’"

Nuclear Sea Dog

From Kao Hsiong we took a bus to Kending. We stepped off the bus to clear, sunny skies. Soon we had checked into the cheapest hotel, rented scooters and boogie boards, and found our own private beach south of town.

We swam in the refreshing water, lay in the golden sand, and wondered why we didn’t come south more often.

As the tide rolled in, clouds covered the sky and winds picked up, white capping the small waves just before they broke. It was still only four o’clock, and we were determined to get the most out of our vacation, and Vicki and I had only began discussing the idea of going back to town for dinner when Peter started thrashing in the water just past the surf, cursing at something hidden below the surface.

Vicki and I ran to the water’s edge, and when Peter joined us there, we saw lines tracing his neck and shoulder where a large jelly fish had stung him. We wondered if it had attacked in defense or if it had hoped to eat Peter for lunch.

"You okay?" I asked.

Peter just winced in pain.

"Ya wanna head back?" I asked.

"Yeah," he answered between clenched teeth.

The lines on Peter’s neck were darkening as I took his boogie board and let him go on ahead. Vicki looked up at me and wrinkled her nose sympathetically. By the time we had walked up the beach to the scooters and the road, a warm rain had begun to fall.

At first, I placed the board across my arms, one edge against the small windshield and the other edge below my chin. While this kept the rain off my body, it washed the sand from the boards into my face. I readjusted the boards by my feet just in time to pass a truck in a depression of the road filled with nearly a foot of water. I had to smile at the laugh the driver must have had as the water completely covered me.

I caught up to Peter at a sausage vendor where he had stopped to get out of the rain. The lines on his back had darkened to a deep electric blue. The cart was parked above cliffs over the ocean. The waves here were giant swells now crashing on the beach below. The tip of the nuclear plant rose just above the northern horizon.

"He says it was a sea dog," Peter told us. He seemed to be feeling a little better.

"Let’s call it a nuclear sea dog," I added.

Pi Gu Fan

Peter and I stood at the counter and waited. The boy facing us stared almost blankly. "Shenma?" What?

Peter and I looked at each other and suppressed smiles. "Pi gu fan," he repeated, imitating the accent of a beginning Chinese speaker. A few snickers came from behind us and other clerks smiled the tiniest bit. "Jeli mei you ma?" Don’t you have that here?

Pai gu fan was a common dish--pork side rice. By changing the first syllable, it became quite another thing. Butt rice.

"Ni keyi shie ma?" Can you write that? the boy asked.

Does a Heart Good

Mike’s dad was a psychologist. His letter to Mike often included quotes and bits of wisdom, including this one from Telhard de Chardin: "We are one, afterall, you and I; together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other."

In other words, we’re mirrors. We act, others react. From their smiles or frowns, their laughter or silence, their interest and attention, their eye contact and posture, from the dilation of their eyes, we perceive who we are tp them, and deduce who we are to ourselves.

But our mirrors are sometimes broken. Always clouded somewhere.

Someone completely different than you can not mirror the pieces they lack. Someone brought up to act always properly, cautiously, formally might not reflect your enthusiasm for spontaneity and impulsiveness. That part of their mirror may have atrophied and dimmed through choice or lack of use.

When presented with raw energy and the opportunity to participate in improvised adventure, that person remains blank. Too many blank stares teach the enthusiastic one to curb his energy, to reflect calm reservation. Judgment. Common sense. He learns to mask his adventures as reasonable outings. He puts his plans in terms that others understand. If lucky, his own mirror is not dimmed or broken.

So when that person meets someone similar to himself, a mirror capable of reflecting the same spontaneity, someone connected directly to the aorta of life, to the very pulse, it’s a great relief. Peter was such a person for me. He understood that you can’t sit still when the night grows humid and cool and the traffic dies down on the highway. He understood the need to go out driving just to make something happen. Just to feel the wind in your hair.

It’s not often that I find anyone willing to follow me off a 120-foot bridge, rappelling with 105 feet of rope, running out of rope fifteen feet above the river and dropping into the powerful current. Most people offer to handle the camera instead.

It’s not often that I find someone who teaches me to try more than I already had, locking up motorcycle tires in traffic, making them screech, just to shake things up. I wanted it. I wanted it all. I wanted to be alive and lose inhibitions and collect all the experience possible in the short days and weeks of summer, the short years of life.

It’s not often that someone comes along and reminds me that I can live the way I always wanted to. Just knowing that such people exist does a heart good.

Pure Water

I don’t know why I was surprised, when I returned to Chungli, that nothing had changed at home. Von and Beth greeted me casually from their rooms as I walked in, sunburned and happy. I dropped my bags on my bed, pulled off my shirt, and picked up my towel, ready for a shower.

"Who keeps drinking all my water?!"

Beth and I stepped into the hall and over to Von’s door. In his hands was an empty water bottle--the kind we all bought at the Circle K or 7-11 down the street because the water in our apartment wasn’t quite safe to drink.

"Not me," I answered. "Probably Mike."

Mike shared Von’s room, and was generous enough himself that he might not think much of drinking someone else’s water.

"At least he could replace it now and then," Von complained. Beth nodded empathetically. "It’s not so much the money as having to carry it up here all the time."

"Does he drink a lot of it?" asked Beth.

"See these little bottles?" Von asked in response. "That’s all he buys. So of course he’s gonna run out pretty quick." Before Beth or I could think of anything else to say, Von continued, a new tone of carefree resolution in his voice.

"Tell ya what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna let him drink as much water as he wants." With that, he stood up and walked past us to our unused drinking fountain and began to refill his bottle. "Serves him right if he gets sick."

Mike never got sick, so he won’t know about the incident until he reads this book.

Go! Go! Go!

By the time July had rolled around, we were all ready for a vacation, and Beth found the perfect thing. That's how we wound up in a rubber raft shooting the rapids in a river race near Hualien on the island's East coast.

There were 267 boats in all. We had plunged into the river at the starting point in the sixth group, and were quickly catching up to the fifth. Von and I took turns standing up to look for the spot in the river where the current ran fastest. Mike had spent most of his time leaning over the front of the raft, digging his paddle deep into the brown rushing water, or shouting "Go, go, go!" at the rest of us whenever we determined that we were on the slower side of the river and needed to cross. Suzanne, Michelle, and Shannon paddled along at their posts and occasionally shared smiles at Mike's enthusiasm.

As we came around a sharp bend in the river, we saw before us the fifth group of boats. We had fought our way to the far side of the river, and the faster current there was closing the gap between us. Another raft from our group had caught on to our strategy, and was following close behind.

Whenever we got close enough to each other, our paddles stopped digging deep into the water, dragging us forward, and splashed the other boat instead. If we managed to get caught in the same eddy, we would grab the other raft and try to push ourselves ahead and out of the slow spot. Mike and I had gone so far as to board their boat and toss a few of our opponents into the river. When we swam back to our own boat, we were laughing too hard to climb in, so everyone else dragged us up over the edge, and we were off.

We had been paddling hard, working to catch up with the fifth group and making the most of our lucky break, when Mike looked up and said,"Uh-oh." We all stopped and followed Mike's gaze. The rapid current was carrying us into a small waterfall that ran between two boulders rising thirty feet above the river's surface. Our small raft would fit easily between the rocks, but another raft-sized rock sloped up out of the current directly in front of the slot. There seemed to be a bit more room to the left of the rock.

Fewer than three seconds had passed, but we had already spent too much time evaluating the situation. Mike took charge. "Hard to port! Hard to port! Go, go, go!" The raft following close behind us had already spotted the obstacle and was paddling hard to the right, hoping to entirely miss the waterfall and tight squeeze.

"Go, go, go!" The rock was coming at us fast. I leaned forward to catch it with my paddle and shove off. I began to slip forward, but felt Von grab my life-preserver strap and pull me back. Then it was too late to do anything more about it. Our raft hit the rock, spun around to the left, and plunged over the falls backward, sending each of us rolling to the floor or piling on top of one another. The roar of churning water surrounded us, deafening us, nearly drowning out Michelle's shrill screams. Frothing walls of cold brown water reached inside the raft, covering us and taking our breath away. Everyone grabbed at the sides of the raft or at each other, struggling for stability or some sense of security.

Then all went quiet. We raised our heads and looked back at the falls. We made it! Not only were we safe, but in one move, we had passed nearly all the boats from the fifth group! "Ya-hoo! We made it!" Von was ecstatic. "We're still alive!" Shannon was relieved. "You nearly got us all killed!" Michelle had apparently enjoyed the squeeze less than the rest of us, but soon she was laughing, too.

Behind us, the other raft had been unable to escape the powerful current, and now sat perched delicately atop the rock in the middle. The sides of their raft hung over the edges of the rock, leaving no place to stand and shove off. They were still there waving for help as we floated around the next bend.

We ended up taking 17th place in the race. We showed off a little for the cameras as we approached the finish line, waving and doing back flips into the river, but we didn't care much for fame then. The experience belonged only to us, no matter who else saw. The race was cement, bonding us closer than ever before, creating memories and connections that would never be broken.

Progress

American economics teaches the maxim that more is better. It rarely mentions the consequences. I learned something about the consequences the day Von flew back to the States.

Von’s window cleaning business back in Ogden had been going downhill under the direction of his partner. He had decided to fly home and salvage it, and we took a bus to the National Palace Museum in Taipei to spend the last day before his flight.

I stood just inside the glass doors on the second floor and looked up at the sky. A typhoon had been blowing in across the island, and even Von half wished it would close the airport.

In my hand, I held a letter from Katie that had arrived that morning. She had written about a family picnic in the canyon, and I remembered vividly the images she described--the red dogwood swaying at the edge of the river, the green aspen and tall pines, the gray limestone cliffs. I remembered the fiery leaves that burned through autumn, first on the peaks and later in the valleys, finally burning themselves out and falling to the cold ground. I remembered the leaves’ return in spring, the first warm days, the bright wildflowers at the edge of receding snowdrifts. All this had been my home for half my life.

I also thought about September. How would I feel when my own time came to leave this island for home? I had never thought that I would also have to leave home that day. Leaving Utah for Taiwan was different--I knew I’d be back. When I leave Taiwan, I wouldn’t know if I’d ever return. I stared out the museum window and wondered what I would miss most.

The more you get, the more you have, the more you eventually have to let go. For the first time, I began to understand why most people stay put in one place, have only one home, keep their lives simple, and prefer it that way. For the first time, it didn’t sound so wrong. Perhaps for the first time, I didn’t blame them.

At Any Cost

On the other hand, maybe they’re wrong afterall.

The unadventurous life, without love, without passion, is not worth living. Without dreams and hopes, risks and efforts, life is not living, only enduring. The certainty of loss and pain excuses no one for failing to love. Fear relents only when faced directly, and this must be done time and time again. The worthwhile life requires courage.

You don’t need to travel to exercise courage. All you need is a worthy goal and the passion to guide you to success. You need somewhere to go. Somewhere to arrive.

Life never allows stasis, as hard as you may fight to hold to it. Nothing stays the same, ever. You might as well get used to it. It’s better than wasting strength or the limited time of your life fighting losing battles.

One way or the other, life will take everything you have. How much you get back depends on you. You might as well make it glorious. Live heroically at any cost. Point yourself in a good direction, start out, and worry about the rest as it comes.

In life, the opposite of pain is not bliss. It is emptiness. It is nothing.

Theft

I first met Wendy at Georgia English school where she had lined me up for my first teaching job. We quickly became friends. I was attracted to her care-free optimistism and energetic approach to life, her confidence and independence. She spoke Chinese as well as any foreigner I had met, and mixed well with the people.

Her apartment balcony overlooked a small field only a few blocks from my place. We had spent all night there, talking, enduring the heat, not finding any reason to leave until the sky had begun to lighten.

I walked the few blocks home through the empty streets, not yet feeling the lack of sleep. Among the motorcylces and bikes parked in front of the first floor door, I couldn’t see mine. I looked over them again. Not there.

At first I thought it was a joke, I thought my roommates must have moved it as a prank. I thought I would catch them smiling as they told me good morning. But they knew nothing about it.

For two days, they drove me around the neighborhood, looking for the bike; and two days later, I finally accepted the fact that the bike had been stolen.

Fe loaned me her scooter until I found a deal on another motorcycle.

Beetle Nut II

Less than five feet tall,

his bent back further reduces his stature.

nice enough clothes

that have been worn for days

Still, he seems friendly

and smiles as we pass.

I wince involuntarily at the rotting red teeth

and he spits on the ground

Now I know

he's the one

who chews the narcotic green nuts and

paints the blood-red splotches

along the road

with his mouth.

McGuiver

We didn't have a key to my bedroom, so I was glad my climbing rope bag wasn't in the room when someone locked the door. We tied off on the roof and rappelled in through the window. I bet that was the first time any of our neighbors had seen anyone rappel, but they might not have been surprised anyway, because hey! we were Americans. You know, like McGuiver.

McGuiver, Rocky, and Ninja Turtles

Whenever I got a new class of 12 year olds to teach, I always knew to watch out for the kids who chose English names like Rocky or McGuiver. I preferred those with nice names like Cindy, Alice, and Anthony--these kids weren't "tough," didn't punch, kick, and smart off in class. I also grew to hate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Kill the Teacher

Perhaps the biggest mistake of my English teaching career in Taiwan was inventing the game, "sa lao shr." That means "kill the teacher."

"You've got one minute to get out your frustrations, kids."

I could cheat and hide outside until the time was up and the game was over, but the eager ones still got a few good punches in.

Whisper and Scream

My first and only training before being released to teach in my first kindergarten was to hold up the pictures and scream the word and let the kids scream back. Unwilling to waste my vocal chords for even twenty dollars an hour, the children soon learned that my whisper and yell games were more fun, that I did not tolerate being punched and piled on, and that I would only pick them up and fly them around the room if they behaved themselves and answered the questions correctly.

"What color is this?"

Greeblueredorna...!!!

"Red!" I shouted.

Red!!! They shouted back.

"red," I whispered.

red they whispered back.

"What color is this?"

Red!!!

"Good! Are you a bird?"

Yesyesyes!!!

Before I left, kindergartens were my favorite place to work, and the children and assistant teachers alike cried when I had to go.

"What's this?"

"Green!!!"

"No, no. Not 'what color is this?' What's this?"

"Tree!!!"

"Yes! Very good!"

I held up one thumb and smiled. Sixty five percent of teaching four year olds is facial expression and tone of voice.

Wo Ai Ni

I had another game that I'd trick my students into now and then. I'd walk around the room pointing at objects and they would name them.

"Pencil! Hand! Window! Knee!"

Silence. "Wall," I'd tell them.

"Wall!" They'd shout back.

Then they were ready. The next three items were the ones that counted.

"Wall! Eye! Knee!" They would shout.

"Oh, thank you!" I'd say, blushing. "I love you, too."

"Wall eye knee" sounds almost like "Wo ai ni", which is Chinese for "I love you."

"No, no!" they'd scream, but I knew they loved me just the same.

Alice was one of my cutest and brightest pupils

A big part of the kindergarten racket was to throw huge parties for every major holiday. The kids would dress up cute and learn little dances and songs to show the parents how much they were learning.

American English teachers were a major part of the show, too. One night I got to play a cowboy, a rock star, Santa Claus, a robot, and a jingle bell. That's right, a jingle bell.

Sorry, It’s My Job

Twelve year old students learned more complex and useful phrases. While this helps their test scores in school and increases their chances of making the cut-offs between junior high and high school and into a university, it also made studying more work and sometimes boring. I saw it as my job to keep their interest.

Class had almost ended at Time Language School and I could tell I was about to lose the attention and control of the class.

"What do you like to eat?" I asked. "Jenny?"

"I like to eat ice cream."

"Me too. John, what do you like to eat?"

"I like to eat apple."

"Apples!" shouted a few classmates.

"Do you know what I like to eat?" I asked.

"No, I don’t know," the students answered with the Chinese inflection that sounded overly interested and sarcastic in English.

"Ask me."

"What do you like to eat?" they asked.

"I like to eat pi gu fan."

"Oooh!" Some students moaned. Others looked shocked, as if wondering if they had heard right. A few laughed. Those who hadn’t been paying attention looked around, wondering what they had missed. Jenny raised her hand.

"Yes, Jenny?"

"I don’t like to eat pi gu fan!"

Adult Education

Adult classes were different. Sometimes I met groups at a table at the downtown Wendy’s and we held class over hamburgers and fries. I’d prepare a small lesson and writing assignment and we’d spend the rest of the time talking, practicing. I had two jobs teaching English at computer manufacturing companies. The games used to motivate twelve year olds didn’t work here.

Sometimes at Chuntex, we’d simply go to dinner and the students would speak English most of the time.

All Work and No Play

(not possible)

Once at Aquarius we had American culture night. I took my ropes and we rappelled from the roof. No one would try till I had done it twice, then one student volunteered, and soon almost everyone had gone. I told them Americans love adventure and risk.

more story about teaching older students. meeting at Wendy's, privates, discussion, they were friendly.... factories, parties, going to dinner of fish near the dam....

Doesn't Matter Anyway

I had been teaching English to the cadres of Chuntex Electronic Company for a few months when they opened a new factory in the industrial park. The celebration party included six hundred employees, boxed dinners, a live band, dancing, and many displays of company talents.

I had attended the company's dance nights before, where an instructor taught employees to swing, cha cha, waltz, and more. Now the instructor showed his stuff out on the floor. Other employees sang, played instruments, or told a few jokes. No one seemed the least bit inhibited, and it didn't take much persuasion to get me to agree to join in, too.

I walked up to the small platform where the band played, and we tossed out names of songs until we came upon one that we all knew. Yesterday Once More, by Karen Carpenter.

The key that the band chose to play in made some of the notes a bit high for my unprofessional voice, but I struggled along alright until we reached the middle of the second verse. That's where my memory failed. I didn't know the words.

Instead of singing "when you get to the part, where he's breaking your heart..." they came out like this: "When you get to the part, where you don't know the words, it doesn't matter anyway, just like before...."

I looked out from the stage and scanned the six hundred attentive faces, and found only my English students smiling.

Moving On

Heather was first to move out, and Von flew home soon after. Michelle moved out of town for work. Shan and Suzanne moved across town. Then came my turn.

I had started teaching Spanish to the Hsiang (say sheeahng) family my second month on island, and they had invited me to move into their home. They spoke very little English, I spoke even less Chinese at the time, and I declined the invitation until August.

Until then, I had needed others who I understood, who understood me. Who I needed and who I needed to need me, too.

Moving out felt strange. The apartment had become our home. The bare walls held many memories and feelings, now so much a part of me. The furniture and floor were my only tangible tie to our shared memories of trial and triumph. While nothing but forgetting could ever really take those experiences away, I still felt the light tug of separation.

But home no longer felt quite the same, anyway, with most of us gone. And at least Mike and Beth had stayed, stayed to hold our place, to keep the memories safe and protected.

Besides, I was moving on. I had new adventures to pursue, and that kept my mind occupied enough to ease the transition.

Ron and others had problems. misunderstanding. drinking his stuff, maybe. maybe diff expectations. but I felt welcome, at home. some of the nicest people I've known. Chinese always nice, friendly, not in such a hurry as Americans, but this was even better.

I got along great with Hsiangs. they were great. sometimes dinner there, got my own room. henry cool kid. tian cute 1 year old. play ball lots with the kids, teach them all english once a week. they taught me chinese while we were out playing. flying the kite at the park.

Phone I

how my Chinese improved with the simple book.

phone uncomfy. you learn to talk and watch experssions, etc. don’t get that on phone. challenge.

my Chinese improved a lot there. and confidence. on the phone, someone even asked once if I was the son.

Phone II

about talking to Katie on our birthdays. 13/14.

Hsiang Shao En I

I spent my last month in Taiwan living with the Hsiang family in Lung Kang, about ten minutes from Chungli. The father had been in the military and now worked as a night watchman at a large department store. The mother did some office work nearby. Henry, 14, was one of the most mature and courteous kids I had ever met and was the reason for all of us meeting. Tien was less than one, and was one of the cutest babies I had ever seen. She would hold my hand when I took her on short walks.

As soon as Henry turned fifteen, he would have a difficult time leaving the country until he had completed his two-year military service. I had spent a few months teaching the family Spanish, and Henry would soon move to Uruguay where he would live with an uncle and get citizenship there. After that, he would be free to return to Taiwan without serving in the military.

I even got part of my Chinese name from them--my family name, which seems very appropriate. My first name, which follows the family name in Chinese, was given me by a Chinese friend.

¶V HSIANG: Direction,Toward, Trend, Side with

someone.

£– SHAO: Bring together, Connect or join, Hand down,

Continue.

ƶ EN: Kindness, Favor, Grace, Matrimonial happiness.

Clean up your Plate

Remember how Mom used to say,"Clean up your plate--children are starving in China"?

Well, not only are all the Chinese I saw well-enough fed, but you don't often see plates licked clean. Not at restaurants, not by guests. If you don't finish, it means you've had enough, you've been well taken care of.

Restaurants

Restaurants are big business in Taiwan and China. Important business lunches are held at the expensive ones--where a small glass of juice costs six dollars. These are the only restaurants I remember where everyone doesn't share the large dishes in the center--Chinese style, but gets their own plate.

After your "friendship" has been bought, you can get down to business.

Chicken Balls

When the time came for me to leave Taiwan, my friends and students at Chuntex Electronics threw a dinner at a traditional restaurant. At least twenty dishes went around the table--lobster with shredded cabbage and honey-mustard sauce, beef with peppers, soup, sausages, spicy chicken wings, various sea food platters, cow intestine, and chicken gonads.

"Okay, I'll try one," I said.

"We usually eat two."

Just before leaving Taiwan, I bought the Hsiang's a microwave, then returned to the old apartment to make sure everything had been cleaned up.

Silence

I was the last of eight to leave. Floors had been mopped this morning. White walls, bed frames and empty desks, diffused light from the windows, silence. No trace, not a sign, nothing left to prove that we had spent five months in these four rooms.

We came here the night our plane first landed in Taiwan, March 28, 11:00 p.m., when it should have been two in the afternoon. Five girls and three guys piled into one room, sleeping on bed frames, desks, and the floor. I was elated, and no one else yet spoke openly of their apprehensions and fears. As days became weeks, we stuck closely together. We applied and interviewed for English teaching jobs, bought motorcycles and scooters, explored the city and found the roads to the beach, discovered safe, cheap restaurants, and frequented small tea houses full of shadows and romantic music.

And so we returned home to our apartment on First Three Rivers Street. We finished off the sweltering summer days laying out on the roof and talking about how much we missed Winter in the Rockies. Little by little, day by day, night by night, the cement walled, tile floored apartment became our home without any of us noticing. During five long months, eight American college students became a close-knit family in this home that we never thought to appreciate.

And so the silence hurt. It hurt more than leaving my country and my real family back in March, and there was no one left to share the pain. I must have stood there for fifteen minutes before finally turning and walking through the door. I locked it behind me and dropped the keys in the landlord's mailbox. I'm not very good at endings. Never have been. Never plan to be, but it hurts.

Now, when I think back about how I started up my motorcycle and turned the corner at the end of First Three Rivers Street, I see it all happening from the fifth floor window where we first slept, as if I was watching from the outside. As if someone other than myself was there to watch and understand. As if sharing the experience with anyone at all would ease the searing pain of loss.