Little Delights in Taiwan
For the past four years, the majority of my writing has either been academic or journalling about some internal state. I want to escape my mind’s void and resituate my writing towards my relationship to the outside world. As such, I am relearning how to describe the stagnancies and movements of place. Please be patient me on this.
A Personal Shift
Yes, this is an internal reflection just after I said I would write more externally. Oops.
Somehow the rigidity that graced Stephanie for many years of her life has dissipated. As if the prior states I believed were inevitable and in-malleable, suddenly had a hidden property requiring the perfect set of circumstances to settle and free myself. Epigenetics baby!
I picture this unknowing change within myself being like a feather. As a feather, I lived in a box. Sometimes the air would toss me about, but otherwise I lie flat knowing myself only as this flat feather. Then, one day, the box opens and a gust of wind slashes through. I look at myself, and I begin to fly. I lift and sink. I rise without ever having to flap any wings. Somehow my shape is enough to defy the gravity I only ever knew to keep me down.
I haven’t done anything. My world hasn’t changed, but somehow I am capable of stretching beyond my constraints.
To be direct with you, all that I mean is that I am consistently out past sunset and heading to sleep past the turn of night. Easy for many, but a lifelong challenge for some (me).
So now, for whatever peculiar reason, I go about life, light as a feather.
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This is my Instagram post for Taiwan when I last lived here three years ago.
At that moment, I was remarkably articulate to my present circumstances, yet unable to bask in hindsight and identify an escape from despair. Here I am, walking through Taiwan, trying to piece together what I went through,and here is evidence that validates my memory. Here is a hopeful Stephanie, crippled by existential worry. A girl who could smile in spite of the hurricane in her mind.
I still don’t understand why there was a storm within external peace. I still don’t understand how this post records a historical Stephanie, destined for so many becomings and so many unravellings.
I am unsettled, today, to say the least. I want things to make sense of things, and they are not making sense. When I look too closely for answers, I become further from understanding…
Surfing, for real.
Today we surf. For real, for real.
The overwhelming adrenaline from last time has diminished. Before, as I turned away from the wave and looked into the tree-covered mountains beyond the shore, I was testing my fate. I had no idea what was coming behind me, what type of push or shove would send me through the sea. Today, myself and the waves began to blur. There was more understanding of how they would flow, when they would bruise, and when we could exist in tandem, even for just a moment. I got slapped in the face and forced under without a breath to sustain me. Yet, the wave owes me nothing. A bundle of momentum created by the wind, topography deeper than the surface eye can see, I must go out of my way to understand the wave. The wave is an entity surpassing any requirement to understand the feeble human body in return. In the rare moments, the wave gives me permission. The wave carries me— perhaps a sympathetic gesture? No, I am too small to be noticed in this way.
I begin to stand. Many times prior, I hobbled and fell under. Each time, I tumbled, there was no other option but to grab the board, turn around, and face the walls that crash towards me. I begin to stand. I lift to my knees. I lunge forward with my left. The wave carries me up and down. My hands shake. No matter which position one settles into, the water will end, and one will either have to jump or fall. The end state is the same, and so progression has little cost. To try and stand is the same as kneeling timidity closed.
silly & simple, but focused
From an observers gaze, all of my moves appear silly and simple. The clear marks of a beginner. The focus required does not translate into my movements. I measure between the seconds. When the wave curls to a foam and my board rocks left and right. When the pulse lightens, strengthens, and fizzles out. I notice them, try to adjust, but have yet to lock in to place. The core must be thoughtfully engaged, otherwise balance is impossible.
My relationship to surfing is certainly underdeveloped, but I know that I will return to the sea and learn to trace the wave’s movements, following them before my own.
Ximen People Watching
Everyday, I walk through Ximen district in Taipei. This area is for fashion, queerness, and tourism. Most of the area I pass is heavier on the tourism and market side of things, while queerness is subtle through a rainbow crosswalk and occasional signs for streets shaped like particular body parts. I rarely linger for long, but the repetition of passing brings about a daily dose of people watching. The girls putting on their wigs for cosplay. The foreigners taking photos in front of every stall and sign. The faces that remain consistent, and the surplus that are ever-changing.
Yesterday I saw someone allowing tourists to hold pythons. The young girl showed no fear as she was tangled by the bodies, a small positive to the often abusive tourism industry.
There is a beggar who sometimes pretends to play a harmonica and sometimes gives up the act with the same song playing when his lips are not, day after day.
Someone dressed as Winnie the Pooh to protest the CCP, accompanied by the Les Miserables soundtrack (do you hear the people sing?).
Then there is after the night rush settles. The workers squatting by the curb washing Tupperware. The garbage bags piling by poles. The mornings, although bright, have no vibrancy. The food stalls have disappeared. Ximen almost becomes a ghost town, where the few people treading across the paths are spirits passing from one stage of life to the next.
Little Delights
The first time in Taiwan, I found my spaces, and stuck to them. This time around, I am dancing around, making the eventful become my casual.
Night markets in Taiwan are an adventure in their own right. A good market, like the one in Songshan, will be have two narrow paths with food stalls in the center and brick and mortar buildings on the outer edges. One will be funneled down these sweaty congested paths, baking in intermediate heatwaves from the griddles and friers. Loudness will be the baseline for quiet. Fortune tellers, claw machines, and addictive pinball games will consume the young and old. The markets become the bait to trap people in to this bubbled existence: gluttony, sloth, and greed.
I come to the night markets whenever I’m in the area. I sliver through for my sesame noodles and slip out. The claw machines do tempt me, though.
I am highkey in love with the Lapras Pokemon and I dream of owning such a delightful plushie. One day. One day.
And lastly, quick shoutout to the baked sweet potatoes that convenience stores sell. 20 NTD for a yummy treat wherever one goes.
