A LETTER

It's been a little while since I've seen you, but it feels like it's been forever because I know the distance is greater than it was before. Perhaps because even when I pretend otherwise, I know deep down I can't just come knocking on your door when I want to see your face.

I never dared to open my mouth and tell you how wonderful a person you are. How, in my eyes, you could hold the moon and the stars if you wanted. How I admired your way of living as if you were hiding angel wings behind you everywhere you went. I never told you how I feel because sometimes a feeling means so much more than a mere word can describe. Sometimes saying something out loud or even writing it down on paper strips the greatness out until all you have is a collection of words, poetic at best.

Right now my memory of you is so clear. From playing "makeup" with you in your bathroom and watching you rat your hair to death, to the walk to town and back in Avenal, and then the most recent giggling about memories and discussing whatever came up. My memories range from watching you as a child to truly enjoying a deeper relationship with you as an adult.

It's funny how something so simple as a smell or a song can become a treasure. Thank God for the smell of banana oatmeal and the taste of those goldfish crackers - the kind you made dance in the air while you taught me how to sing that song about the fishes and the dam.

I find myself wondering lately what you're up to. Are you busy being a guardian angel to some little boy or girl? Are you held up in meetings about when to let it rain, when to shine? Or do you have a moment to peek down on me once in a while? Can you see me here in this very moment writing about you? Do you ever smile when I accomplish something great? Hold my hand when I'm overcome with sadness? Do you have a moment here and there to paint my sunset or blow me a kiss? If I concentrated long enough, would I be able to feel you here around me? Can I believe you're still here with us, breathing... watching... moving...?

I wonder if you've yet been enlightened to all this world's mysteries. If you now know all the answers - about life and religion - about which one is real, or if it even matters. I wonder if you've met my children. Have you held them in your arms?

I'll choose to believe it's all true. That you can see us all, that you hug me back when my soul reaches out, that you can read these very words as I write them and feel the strength behind each one - the strength that would be there if they weren't just words.

You were something. You're still something. An inspiration. One that makes a difference in every single day.

cher·ish (chrsh) - To harbor in the mind deeply and resolutely.

Top Ten Reasons I Will Miss Taiwan

Before arriving in Taiwan, my skewed, naive perception of Asia had me terrified at the thought of visiting this country... especially on business... especially by myself. But it turns out I was especially misinformed. Or perhaps more accurately, especially misunderstanding what is simply another way to live life.

I leave for the U.S. in two days and although my family, friends, and normal way of life are greatly missed, I'm experiencing a bit of nostalgia for this place. I've fallen in love with something here. Whether it's Taiwan itself I've fallen for, or just the experience of experiencing a different way of life, there's no telling. I don't care which it is. All I know is I'm changed because of seeing what I've seen here and I will forever crave eye-openers like this in the future.

I still haven't bought a camera, so while packing my bags for home, I've been racking my brain for some permanent storage space for the things I've seen, heard, tasted, and smelled (although the stinky tofu is the first thing to go if I must forget something). So to preserve my memory, here are the top ten reasons I will miss Taipei (in no particular order):

1. I will miss the mannerisms of the Taiwanese people: the way they smile and nod their head at you to say hello. The way women carry themselves with such dignity, every one of them old & young, rich & poor. The way they use their chopsticks like it's a form of art, while I fumble around with and drop my food frequently. If you watch it closely, it's beautiful.

2. I'll miss "Ice" dessert, which is made by filling a bowl half-way with shredded ice and then adding 4 or 5 sweet things such as red bean, green tea, sweet tofu, jelly, fruit, and other things that look funny, have no english name, but taste good. Then you mix it all up and eat it like soup. The flavor is light and sweet.

3. I'll miss the night market. Streets lined with vendors: food vendors, clothing vendors, electronics, shoes, bags, jewelry, statues, pets vendors. All prices negotiable.

4. I will miss how superstitious everyone is. How the jewelry they wear isn't chosen by what will go best as an accessory to their outfit, but by how it will influence their destiny. A pink crystal will improve your love life. Black will protect you from evil and those wishing to wrong you. Purple will draw you toward caring, happy people. If you accept ownership of a crystal, that crystal will possess your energy and will do harm to the destiny of anyone else who touches it. If someone does touch your crystal, you must wash their energy off of it in order to balance your destiny again.

5. I will miss the fact that every once in a while, right behind a skyscraper in the bustling city, you can find a quiet, ancient looking market place where farmers park their carts to sell berries and vegetables for next to nothing. And right next to the farmer, you'll find a high-fashion shoe shop with a pull-down gate for a door and flatboard planks set on top of packed dirt for a floor. Rows and rows of clothing, jewelry, and food vendors. It's as if in ten footsteps you can travel back in time from the hi-tech city to a hidden treasure of yore.

6. I'll miss the taste of fruits and vegetables packing huge amounts of fabulous flavor because they haven't been imported or injected with pesticides. It would be very easy to be a vegetarian here.

7. I will miss the garbage man who stops at each block once per day, blaring his off-key version of "Fur Elise" and watching as everyone on the block comes running down the stairs to the corner to dump their trash in the cartoon-painted truck. The garbage man is accompanied by a smaller, chicken crate looking truck for recyclables.

8. I will miss the MRT. Perhaps because it's the first time I've traveled by subway. Or maybe because this particular subway is so incredibly efficient and clean. It fascinates me that someone had to plan a system that could move such a large population around the city with very little waiting in line and next to no litter in sight.

9. MTV Taiwan will be missed dearly! Incredibly cheesy music videos are taken so seriously by the Taiwanese people. Sappy sap sap. MTV plus all the other "little" things like orchids for garnishment on your dinner plate, scooters lining the streets, crystal cell phone tassels..

10. But I think most of all I will miss the wide-eyed, child-in-a-candy-store part of me that has been brought out during my stay here. The thrill of every one of my senses experiencing entirely new sensations, the complete fascination with watching the life of (and living, to the best of my foreign ability) a different culture has permanently changed me. This feeling I will miss the most and will look for continuously throughout my life, even though the place I call "home" will always house my family, the Oprah Winfrey show, and fish that have been decapitated before landing on my dinner plate.

The Everyday Taiwanese Superstar....

It could be you!

As frequent as a convenient store in the states, you will see PartyWorld, Cashbox, or KTV in Taiwan. What's this, you ask? Why, it's where you can go to become the latest Taiwanese Superstar, of course! At least for one evening.

KTV is a way to karaoke with your friends in a private room. You pay by the hour (from what I gather) and sit on a huge leather couch surrounding a table full of food and drinks. In front of you, there's a huge TV playing music videos for you to sing along to in the mic. The microphones add some sort of reverb quality to the sound, so really, everyone sounds like a superstar...even those who don't have a natural singing talent.

KTV is a way of Taiwanese life. All the KTVs in town are booked every night and on weekends, sometimes you need to call weeks in advance to get a room. These people are nuts about KTV... and have no fear whatsoever when it comes to singing their guts out in front of their friends - without alcohol! They fight over the microphone! I was very shy at first (yes me) but they would have nothing of it. I couldn't leave the room without belting a tune or two. After your song is finished they all cheer and say "you sing like angel" to each other and it's on to the next superstar.

The receptionist at the office here (Grace) and I have become great friends over the past two weeks. It all started in the bathroom when she giggled at me being confused at the toilets and then told me I had "cute cheeks like apple". I guess when you have to have someone teach you how to pee, there needn't be any other ice breaker. I hope one day she'll come to the U.S. so I can make her try something freaky, like say... oatmeal.

*Just to clarify, she was referring to the cheeks by my eyes.

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Waste Not, Want Not

The Chinese fully embrace this maxim when it comes to cooking animals. This I now know as well as the sun is hot. Tonight's menu included:

Alligator jaw
Pig intestine
Pig ear
Chicken heart
Slugs
And last but not least, chicken colon - which was described to me in broken english (after I swallowed, of course) as "chicken ass", to which I replied with a loud laugh that surprised my host into thinking I was making fun of her english. After I explained the humor in hearing such a word escape her demureness, every hour for the rest of the evening she would turn to the group and say "chicken ass!!" and the whole group of girls would giggle for no less than five minutes.

Tomorrow I'll stick with my chinese kiwi juice, thanks.

Extended Taiwan Trip Means Possible Coolpix

Alright, that's it. I love it so much here I just can't tear myself away so I've decided to stay an extra week! Okay, not entirely true, but I am staying. The client I'm working for is in some trouble and great as I am, two weeks just hasn't panned out as I had hoped. This extension didn't come without mucho grande begging from the company's execs. In fact, they've thrown in an upgraded hotel room and a full day at the spa this Sunday. I've never been taken better care of while visiting a client. While I'd much rather be home, this is a not-so-awful second option.

I'm not ONLY playing. I generally work about 10 hours per day in the office, including Saturday. Sunday is my day off. That's where I get to soak in most of the culture. Although I do learn quite a bit watching the city below from the office window.

Extra traveling days means extra daily per diem...per diem that I'm not using much of because my client keeps insisting on paying for meals. So to put it to good use, I'm deciding between the Nikon Coolpix 4600 and the Coolpix S1 (please, if you have any advice as to which, comment here). Maybe I'll have my beetlenut-chewing personal chauffer (recently promoted from taxi driver), Joe, take me to the Nikon store tonight. If so, you'll all be in for a visual treat tomorrow!

The Ice Cream Man!!!!!

So I'm sitting in the office this afternoon, nursing my second kiwi juice of the day (brought to me courtesy of the receptionist here, who waits on me hand and foot ... what can I say? They love me here) - (I did the math and I must be having nearly 15-20 kiwis per day, and no diarrhea. I'm a phenom!!!!!) Where was I? Oh yes, nursing the kiwi juice. And what to my wondering ears did hear?

THE ICE CREAM MAN!!!!

"No way!", I exclaim as I run to the window.. they have the ice cream man here too??? I wonder what Taiwanese ice cream tastes like? (Certainly they are way off on hamburgers, as we learned from the day trip to Danshui)

The ice cream man drives a yellow truck the size of... a garbage truck? No... but there's cartoons on the side and it's blaring a batteries-running-out-music-box version of 'Fur Elise'. But alas, the truck parks on the corner of the block and all the worker bees come running out of the buildings with sacks and sacks of trash. They have to dump their own, apparantely, while the trash man sits in the driver seat chewing his beetle nut (I'll explain beetle nut later).

And thus it is, the lazy garbage man plays happy tunes to let the neighborhood know it's time to dump the trash. Who thinks of these things?

*beetlenut - think chewing tobacco, only bright red and packed full of caffeine. Over time, your gums and teeth turn red. My new friend, Joe, the taxi driver (who I took a picture of and will post soon) chews it as he drives. I know all this because I asked him why his mouth was bleeding.

My Day Trip to Danshui & the Night Market!

Well I'm in Taipei, Taiwan on busness and committed the cardinal sin of international traveling: no camera! Perhaps I will buy one while I'm here, but until then, you're left with your own imagination.

Let me see if I can help you picture the streets of Taiwan. Close your eyes and think of a lot of scooters. Got it? Well, whatever you're imagining, it's not enough. Multiply the number of scooters in your head by 10. Nope, still not enough. Get the point? They line the streets. Parked on the sidewalks nearly touching each other. Looking outside my window right now, I could easily count over 1,000 scooters if I took the time. Everyone drives them: business men, grandmas, waitresses, girls in short skirts and heels, everyone!

Yesterday I took a day trip to Danshui, an area by the beach. At Danshui there are so many people you can't walk without touching people. There are food vendors lining the road along the beach. You can get everything from chinese food to chinese food. My friends ordered "ah-gay" for me. They said it was similar to an american hamburger. Well, here is an american description of "ah-gay": Think of a ravioli the size of your fist. Instead of pasta to form the ravioli, it's fried tofu. It's filled with rice noodles and fish, and is FLOATING in a bowl of pink broth with a spicy-sweet flavor.

A popular drink here is made by taking the seeds from inside flowers and soaking them in water so the flavor of the flower affects the liquid. Sometimes they also add a kiwi or grape flavor, but I ordered "original" so I could taste the flower unaffected. The seeds come through the straw and are about the size of a small pea. If you were to soak a normal mouthful through the straw, there would probably be about 25 seeds in your mouth. They are very slimy...so slimy, you can't chew them because they escape your teeth. Despite the freaky texture, it was a nice, sweet treat.

While in Danshui, we took a boat to an area of the island they call the "Fisherman's Harbor". We walked around and stopped for tea. I ordered kiwi juice instead because it's my favorite thing here so far. Kiwi tastes fabulous over here, and a freshly squeezed kiwi served with a cherry and an orchid on top has become a twice-per-day luxury for me. I would move here for that alone.

After Danshui we took the MRT (subway system - extremely clean and effecient) back to the city to go to the night market. OH boy...where do I begin!?

The night market is 3-4 blocks of tiny, tiny shops that sell everthing from clothing, shoes, purses, jewelry, statues, and lots and lots of food! There are even more people here than in Danshui, if you can picture it. There is loud american music coming from every shop and people yelling, negotiating prices all around you. In the middle of the streets, illegal vendors lay clothing and jewelry down in the streets, until they hear the police coming...then they pack up as fast as possible and run! The night market is a good place to buy fake LV, Gucci, etc. And some of them are very convincing! I didn't buy any because by the time I got to that section, I was so exhausted. I left with 2 embroidered cell phone cases and a full belly.

When I got to my hotel room and was able to smell the fresh air, my clothes suddenly smelled like "stinky tofu" to me so I had to seal them in a bag to keep them from affecting my other clothes. Taiwanese people LOVE stinky tofu! If there is a stinky tofu vendor within 100 feet of you, you will know. It smells like a human armpit that hasn't been washed in years, plus an outhouse, only stronger. My friends, Grace and Daniel, swear that despite the smell, the taste is wonderful. I didn't take their word for it. I refuse to taste it.