First Glimpse of Taiwan

                I’d like to say that there weren’t tears, but there were.  Goodbyes to friends and family were easy.  “Bye, see you next month!” wasn’t too difficult, despite the fact that I don’t plan to be home for long.  But standing outside the airport, my bags within arms’ reach, looking at my wonderful boyfriend, Owen, who I wouldn’t see for six months, I can’t tell you I didn’t cry a little.

                Later, sitting in SFO I’d realize that that would be my last kiss for a long time.  It suddenly seemed hurried, and I wished that I had taken just a few more seconds.  But by that point they were putting the important people on our plane and, after two more groups, I would join them.  I called him, though, having only sat on a plane and in an airport, I had nothing new to say. 

                Next came the monotony of an airplane.  Airplanes make me realize how spoiled I am.  My personal TV worked for only the length of two movies and then, when I came back to it hours later, it refused to function properly.  I was irritated.  Not because I was hungry and tired and antsy.  No.  The injustice of having to only entertain myself with a journal, a blank notepad, a laptop, a cell phone, my Taiwan Lonely Planet guide, my China phrasebook, and two reading books?! How ever would I manage?!  Truth was, I was too tired and grumpy to do any of my options.  I was just looking for an excuse to be grumpier.  So I put it all away and amused myself counting down the minutes.

                We hit some strong turbulence at about ten or so hours in.  I could feel the wide-eyed look my neighbor’s face mirrored on my own.  But while his expression must have been one of the normal sort of fear one may feel in such a situation, mine was more annoyance at the thought of how awful it would be to die ten hours into a twelve and a half hour flight.  If you are going to die on a flight, make it right at the beginning instead of having to sit uncomfortably for hours upon hours only to meet your demise.  I realized the absurdity of these thoughts and decided to keep them to myself.  Until I posted them publicly on the internet of course.

                Finally, we were closing in on Taiwan.  I opened my window back up and looked over the vast ocean.  Of the two runways in TPE, one of them was closed for construction, so we were forced to circle a few time.  I watched ships coming in and out, and, when I decided to snap a photo of one it turned out to be a forest green ship with “EVERGREEN” written across it.  It felt like a personal welcome to this girl from the Evergreen State.

My first glimpse of Taiwan

                I was ready for Cancun-style immigration.  But immigrations went smoothly and quickly.  The non-residents line was incredibly long but moved at a decent pace, while the residents line was non-existent, I didn’t see more than two people standing together waiting for an immigration officer to be free. In the non-residents line I stood with Japanese and Chinese and Americans mostly.  I’m certain there were more, as I saw different colored passports that I hadn’t seen before.  Who has a light purpley passport?! I want that one!  My blue one felt so cold next to those.

                But I looked out for a blue passport in line.  On my paperwork I wasn’t sure if I should check “visa-exempt” or “landing” for my type of visa.  I had been told both and panicked when I realized that I didn’t know for sure.  Certainly a blue passport would know!  But everyone of non-Asian decent had their passports put away in a pocket or something.  I know Asians can also be American, but entering Taiwan I figured more often than not I would strike out.

                Plan B. Find the loudest ones in line.  It’s okay for me to say that. I’m American.  Sure enough, as the line turned a corner, I came directly beside a couple yelling to one another as though the plane had deafened them.  “Excuse me,” I said, interrupting their conversation that likely was not going to slow, “Are you guys US citizens?”

                They looked at me confused.  “Um…yeah,” the woman finally said.

                “Great,” I flashed them a smile hoping that they would stop making that half-disgusted face at me.  No such luck.  “We’re visa exempt, aren’t we?”

                This time the man spoke, but not before a noisy scoff, “Yeah.”

                “Thanks,” I turned away from them and checked the correct box on the tiny sheet of paper and kept my eyes away from the couple each time we passed each other zigzagging through the line.

                The last roadblock between me and my immigration officer was a man standing at the front of the line, the gatekeeper of immigrations.  He was like a bouncer, there only to keep the various lines from getting too long.  But he took this job very seriously.  He stopped people when he decided that the lines were full enough and then looked busy pacing this way and that before returning to remind us to continue not moving.  Along with yelling at young girls not to take selfies, this was all he did.

                In Korea I found myself very annoyed when they assumed I spoke no Korean and would either awkwardly gesture to me or speak in slow, careful English as though I wouldn’t understand that either.  In Taiwan, knowing no more than 5 or 6 words, three of which I would use on this adventure, I was happy when he just gestured with his hand for me to move forward with a grunt.

                “Xiexie,” I thanked him in Chinese, though I am certain it wasn’t right.

                The immigration officer smiled at me and spoke to me in English.  “What are you doing in Taiwan?”

                “Sightseeing,” I said, repeating what I had checked on the sheet.

                “How long will you stay?”

                I felt a hesitation before the truth came out, “About a month.”

                She raised her eyes to me, “You have friends here?”

                “Yes,” I said with a nod and a smile.

                She readied the stamp over my passport, but flipped back to the picture page, holding it up next to my face.  “Here this picture looks a little more…” she made a motion around her face that mimicked as though she could have been stroking an invisible beard.

                My passport picture looked more what?  Did I look heavier?  Younger? Bitchier?  All of those could have been quite true as I was ten pounds heavier and two years younger when I was getting my passport to go into Korea.  And I looked quite a bit meaner after the man at Walgreens told me not to smile.

                Maybe she couldn’t find the words to describe it, or she realized it was indeed me.  Either way, she flipped the page once more and stamped it with my Taiwanese passport stamp.

                I retrieved my bags and strolled through out into the lobby of the airport to be met with men in suits holding signs lined up one after another.  I scanned for my name, getting nervous as I continued on without seeing it.  Finally, with a look of recognition, I saw the sign.  The man in the suit who was holding my name rushed around the remaining sign holders to meet me, grabbing my bags and greeting me in English.  “Hello, welcome.”

                I didn’t have time to respond much as he hurried towards the street and then left my bags with me once more.  “Okay.  Five minutes.  You wait here.  Because it is very hot.”

                “Oh…okay…” I nodded and he hurried out onto the street.

                I stood exactly where he left me for a long time, much longer than five minutes, when a security guard came to see if he could help me.  I told him my driver…er…my friend was getting a taxi.  In actuality I had no idea what he was doing.

                “Okay,” he motioned for the door.

                I watched him leave but was not about to move from the spot where I had been told he would return for me.  Eventually, after a stampede raced around me, I moved towards the doors in order to be out of the way.  But that seemed worse as suddenly that was the place to be.  I moved backwards to stand near chairs, but within line of sight to the door.  As I had only gotten a good look at the back of his head and his suit that looked like every other suit milling about, I looked down at my phone hoping he would recognize me.

                When he returned he ushered me to a car and opened the door for me. “Please,” he said, motioning me in. When another man came yelling loudly in Chinese and motioning wildly, the man in the suit followed his lead.  I stopped to see what the fuss was about and if it had to do with me.

                “Please,” he said again, giving me a nudge into the car.

                Though I was the one who pulled the door shut behind me, I felt a little ill at ease.

                The man who had run up yelling climbed into the driver and sped off onto the highway.

                This is how I’m taken, I thought to myself, remembering the Liam Neeson movie.  If I am not sold into slavery then I’m going to get my Master’s and work for a real school.

                Owen had said that the spitting would get to me first.  But it didn’t.  My driver continually clicked on and off his brights as he hurried down the freeway.  On. Off.  On. Off.  Click. Click. Click.  Incessantly.   That is the first thing that got to me.  This drew attention to his blatant disregard for traffic laws and the lines on the road.  This was the second.  The third was his refusal to follow where the GPS told him to go.  But I assumed that he must know the way.

                He rolled down his window and asked the man next to him something, pointing ahead of us and then to the right.  He was obviously asking for directions.  The other driver, a man on a scooter, his girlfriend wrapped tightly around his waist, motioned as well and then sped off.  My driver made a wet noise from the depths of his lungs and spit.

                He pulled over and went to talk to someone else, spitting out the window before walking towards them, spitting again.  He pulled over and spit and then got out to ask a parked taxi something.  He spit on his way back.

                Spitting got to me fourth.  It got to me before the realization that we were completely lost.

                I recognized things from Korea such as Uniqlo and CoCo’s Curry, and it brought a smile to my face.  But it only solidified that we had passed that same Uniqlo with a Starbucks attached several times.  I have no idea how long it should have taken, but it took an hour and a half to find a hotel in the same city as the airport.

                “Okay,” he announced parking the car.  He didn’t spit this time so I realized something must be different.

                “Here?” I asked, looking out the window at a restaurant and a bike shop.  I didn’t see a hotel.

                He laughed and nodded and I got out of the car, not entirely convinced he understood me.  He pulled out my bags and started around a corner to a small room with a lobby.  He spit just before we entered.

                Two Chinese women stood behind the counter looking a bit like the comedy and tragedy masks and greeted us with “Ni hao”s that matched their facial expressions.  I offered my “Ni hao” as well, but they didn’t seem to pay it any mind.

                All three seemed to speak at once at, what felt like, quite length.  It gave me the feeling that they didn’t know what to do with me.

                “Passport,” my driver said offhandedly to me before launching back into Chinese with Comedy and Tragedy.

                Tragedy stared at my passport for a long time, as though unsure whether or not to take it as my driver and Comedy continued speaking, their volumes rising.  She eventually, tentatively, took it from my and made a quick photocopy before handing it back to me and turning away once more.

                Comedy was nodding emphatically and picking up the phone to dial a number that my driver was showing her from his notepad.  She spoke briefly to the person on the other line and then smiled at me.  “Okay,” she said, holding the receiver out to me.

                “Okay…” I responded, unsure.  “Hello…?” I said into the phone.

                It was the coordinator at the camp I would be helping with.

                “Ohthankgoodnesss…” escaped from my lips, one word spoken in a single breath.

                “Yes.  Yes,” he said.  “It is good to hear your voice.  So this is your hotel.  You will live here until the 11^th.”

                “The 11^th?!”  I couldn’t have heard him correctly.  “What about orientation?!”  Orientation is where I planned to latch on to someone to explore Taiwan with while we waited.  I had been told my orientation would be the 30^th of June and the 1^st of July.

                “Orientation is the 11^th.  We will fetch you then.”

                I didn’t know what to say.  “O…okay…”  There was a long pause.  “Will I be living with someone else…?”

                “Yes.  Her name is Joanna.  She will arrive tomorrow afternoon.  No, evening.  Almost same flight as you.”

                “Okay…”

                “If there is anything else you need I think the women at the front desk speak some English.”

                Bullshit they did.  I needed to gain something from this conversation.  “The WiFi.  The password is in Chinese.”

                “Ask them to translate it for you.”

                “Here, you do it,” I passed the phone to Comedy who nodded and spoke a bit more before placing a mesh pouch with the WiFi password written in numbers along with which WiFi to connect to.  I picked up my phone and snapped a picture.  To this both women laughed but I turned away, ignoring them and waiting for the phone to be passed back to me.

                “Xiexie,” Comedy said before hanging up the phone.

                My heart dropped into the depths of my stomach.  Tragedy handed me a room key and pointed to an elevator.

                “Xiexie…” I said, resolving to make the best of this.

A man standing at the elevator greeted me in English and took a look at my room key.  “Floor eleven.”

“Eleven…?” I asked, looking at my room key that said R681-2.

“Yes, yes.  Eleven.”

I entered the elevator and pushed the 11.

It was quiet except for the sound of some women cleaning a room.  None of the numbers looked like they could possibly correspond with my room key.  I took a few steps in either direction before retreating back to the elevator and pushing the 6, to go with the 681 on my room key.

                But floor 6 was even emptier.  And the man had said 11.

                I returned and walked towards one of the cleaning ladies.  I had forgotten "excuse me" in Chinese.  Had I ever learned it?  “Um…” I said instead.  She turned to look and me and took the couple of paces to close the gap between us.

               “Nali?”  I asked.  I was fairly certain that was ‘where’.  I knew that if I got the tone wrong it would mean ‘over there’, but I handed her my key hoping she would understand.

                “Nali?” she asked, taking the key from me and looking it over.  She shook her head and pointed downward.

                “Down…?” I asked.  I don’t know why I did.  It wasn’t helpful.

                She held her hand up to me in the hang loose symbol.  I knew that that meant a number in a way Americans didn’t count.  I nodded as though I understood and headed back to the elevator.  I stood in the stopped elevator, making the hang loose sign myself and trying to figure out which number that could be.  I looked at my key again and decided that it must be 6.  I returned to the sixth floor and walked down the halls until I found a room with my number on it.

                I imagined the key not turning and some angry old man in a bathrobe answering the door and wondering why I was trying to get into his room and yelling at me that my room was elsewhere, maybe holding up the hang loose sign to indicate where.

                But this didn’t happen.  The door unlocked with a loud click and I entered into my hotel room.  The first thing I did was connect to the wifi and make certain my phone would charge.  I didn’t bring any adapters, had meant to look up if I needed them, but the drama with my job to come in September distracted me from getting it down.

                My phone mercifully connected to the internet a content sort of vibration to indicate that it had begun charging.

                I found the remote to the AC and kept pushing buttons until it turned on, though no matter how low I turned the temperature it didn’t get below 27 C, and stayed at 28 more often than not.

                I took a cold shower and lathered up with the free soap the hotel provided, too tired to rummage through for my own.  I wrapped my hair in a towel, but didn’t put on new clothes.  This would be the only night in Taiwan that I would be alone, so I was going to be as cool as possible.

                I swallowed down water from the sink, knowing that in my transit mode, where I drank little, ate little, and didn’t go to the bathroom from about noon in SFO until I arrived in my hotel room fifteen hours later, I was going to dehydrate myself.  I got all the way to my bed before I realized that I probably wasn’t supposed to do that and I hoped I wouldn’t wake up regretting it.

                My window didn’t overlook anything spectacular.  But as I lay in bed I looked at the drab side of what was either more hotels or an apartment building, I watched as the neon signs opposite from it illuminated the wall in shifting colors.

                I woke up throughout the night to turn the AC back on and to shower twice.  I am sure it is something I did wrong with the AC, but the remote is in Chinese, so on at all is all I can ask for.

                I read and fretted over going outside.  I hadn’t withdrawn any money as I didn’t have the time in the airport and had no idea where an ATM might be.  I worry now that it may not be in English.

                But the camp had promised me a food and pocket money allowance.  When I asked the coordinator about this he assured me a pack would arrive in the morning for me.  I used this as a reason to wait in my room a while.  I would write a blog post (this blog post), straighten up the room for my roomie’s arrival, and brush up on enough phrases to not starve throughout the day.  Then, when the pack came, I would venture out into the great unknown.

                I boiled some water and had a cup of instant coffee and filled my water bottle back up once the water was cool enough, boiling another pot and sipping on hot water until the water was cooler, putting that into my water bottle, and returning for a hot cup once more. I set a trash can beneath the constantly dripping spot in the ceiling, but later realized there was a hole in the trash can.  It is still sitting there though.  I don’t know what else to do with it.

                I was content with the plan set out before me and accepting the less than ideal conditions I had started to live in until a knock came to the door.

                I small Chinese woman held out a plastic bag and said “na” though I don’t know in what tone and I have no idea what it meant.

                I took the bag and gave her a confused “xiexie”.  Sitting back down at the small desk where I had been writing I opened it up to reveal a burger and what turned out to be a milk tea.

                This was the pack.  My food allowance, I realized, was to be fast food meals brought to my room three times a day.  Not only that, but it was a chicken burger and I had been a mostly vegetarian, cheating in Korea by eating things I dubbed “meat adjacent” or broth if need be.

                “Well,” I said, looking down at my breakfast.  “I had considered eating chicken again…”

                But, looking at that burger, and thinking of the other “packs” that would be brought to my room, I felt like a zoo animal.  And if I wasn’t here waiting for it?

                “Before noon,” the coordinator had said.  Something would be delivered to me before noon.   I decided to wait until noon, writing down all the important directions to find my way back and studying the needed phrases in the meantime.  Then come pack of pocket money and food allowance, or another meal of fast food, I would set out to explore Taiwan.