Postcards from Taipei

Arrival

The clock says 22.20 in somebody’s time zone. I sit at a desk in a pleasingly angular room, looking down on Roosevelt Way from the eighth floor. Flotillas of silent single lights cruise up and down the long straight boulevard. The tinted glass preserves me from the energy of night Taipei. I glance warily at an unpacked bag. The air conditioner hums.

Breakfast

Scrambled eggs. Chinese dumplings. Scratchy bacon. Passion fruit halves. Chipolatas. Rose Tea. Miniature croissants. Watermelon slices. Omelette on demand. Sticky milky rice. Crispy toast. Salted pickles. Grapefruit juice. Jasmine tea.

Green Man

Eighty seconds to go, 80... the green man glows next to the numerals... 79 seconds to go, 79… the crowd sets off… 67 seconds to go, 67… the animated green man is walking, fast, just like the rest of us… 43 seconds to go, 43… the green man starts to jog… 16 seconds to go, 16… the green man bursts into frenetic animation… 7 seconds to go, 7… run run run run run (just like my mother told me not to)… 2 seconds to go, 2… last chance to reach the sanctuary of the other side… 1 second to go, 1…zzzzzrrrrrrrrrooooonnng, zzzzrrrrreeeeeeeennnnng, zzzzrrraaaaarrrrrrrrr…

The Ice-cream Van is Coming

It sounds like the ice-cream van is coming. It’s another sticky Taipei evening after all, so who wouldn’t take its bait. But it’s not ice-cream that’s trading, in fact there is nothing here to sell. It’s a call to the sidewalk with the daily bags of rubbish. It rings, you deliver to the street. I can’t see this working well at home.

Chiang Kai-shek’s Memorial Hall

One evening we strolled to Chiang Kai-shek’s Memorial Hall. It took about half an hour. We got there by counting the street crossings and trying to match them to a pocket-worn map of rather poor resolution, as we strolled along the main road past shop fronts, dark alleyways, small vendors. Pedestrian traffic was light and Taipei felt an extraordinarily safe place for a stranger to be. The massive hall appeared suddenly, wondrously lit behind an imposing defensive wall. A guard beckoned us into the grounds, where a sculpted garden fringed the gargantuan building. Inside the walls a surprising serenity seemed to exclude the city. We slowly climbed the steps to reach the entrance of the grand memorial. The largest pair of doors I have ever seen reduced me to a manikin. A soothing breeze rippled around the base of the monument. Far beneath us was a massive plaza, where groups of Taipei’s residents were engaged in evening exercises between rows of ornamental bushes. The lights of Taipei appeared in retreat, far beyond the glowing National Theatre, beneath whose traditionally painted wooden beams groups of teenagers danced to Mariah Carey on their ghetto blasters and bounced basketballs off the walls. Standing apart from them, an elderly woman stretched her tai-chi exercises to a tape of classical music. Although the grounds had space for music, it had much more for a reverent shuffling silence. Whispers, padded footfalls, rippled laughter in the shadows, whipping flag halyards. We strolled back from Chiang Kai-shek’s Memorial Hall. When they heard that we had walked the whole way, the locals thought that we were mad.

The Night Market

Shilin night market is an intensity of human colour, taste and consumerism:

• A youth wears a black hooded cap with a long tassle, a vivid yellow Brazil soccer top and knee-length camouflage shorts. Only the shorts fail to hide him in the night market.
• Honey Balsam Apple is a knobbly white fruit like a cucumber. It’s freshly squeezed juice is first refreshing and thirst-quenching, but leaves an acrid aftertaste.
• Three girls in barely-there black skirts are screaming with hilarity in an arcade as they play a rapid-fire game that appears to consist of throwing as many basketballs as possible into a series of low hoops.
• A fat boy in rapper gear chucks a baseball haplessly at a grid of metal sheep. He fails to hit a single one and so misses out on the prize of a giant fluffy elephant.
• Pet Shop Alley is high-density living for dozens of tiny puppies. Alternatively you can purchase bearded dragons or albino hedgehogs. Rhinoceros Beetles anyone? Apparently they are all the rage this year…
• T-shirts t-shirts t-shirts. What about one with ``Gu Gu Guango“ written on it?
• The market has a pervasive smell. It isn’t particularly pleasant, but neither is it off-putting. I try to place this scent of commonality that unites the small food vendors. I think it might be fish sauce…
• For sale. Bags, shiny plastic trainers, bras, trinkets, soft toys, sticky sweets. Twinkly, sparkly tops displayed on an ordered row of plastic dummies, each sporting a technicolour afro wig.

Wow Frogs’ Eggs

One vat of sweet greyish-green liquid, slopping with ice shavings, ripe guavas bobbing on the surface. Add several ladlefuls of a viscous brown sludge (looks identical to sewage) from a large metal bin. Stir well and decant into a styrofoam drink carton, sealed, topped by a straw. Bravely suck on the straw. There is a second of sweetness and then a lump of pea-sized jelly pops up through the straw and squirms into the mouth. It is a startling sensation and quite unexpected. The Taiwanese roar with approval at the expressions of bewilderment. Wow – frogs’ eggs? Well that’s what it claimed on the side of the vendor’s van, and just for the moment it can’t be ruled out.

Mopeds

The bees of Taipei are buzzing and swarming,

formations break up with new clusters forming.

They sit at the lights in tightly bound packs,

they speed through the rain beneath flapping macks.

Girls perch on the backs in short skirts and sandles,

clinging for life to their rider’s love-handles.

A man with a visor and mask for the smog,

scooters close to the kerb where he’s “walking” his dog.

We imagine a scene that fills us with glee,

where a piper calls tune and the bikes start to flee.

They are sucked from the streets and form a big jam,

with the piper as guide heading for Yangmingshan.

He leaves the streets clean as the mopeds leave town,

following him into the mountains and down.

The city is left all at peace with the world,

but I fear that somehow it has just lost its soul.

The Little Buddhist Shop

You won’t find the Little Buddhist Shop unless you know where you are going. In fact we only find it after Wei-Yun has made several calls on her mobile and we have paced inadvertently past the entrance several times. We duck into a small alleyway and immediately turn right through a door that leads to a lift. The aged elevator feels confined as we slowly rise three floors. Down a corridor, and there is the Little Buddhist Shop. We pause to remove our shoes and are greeted with a gift book and a cup of tea. It seems almost rude not to buy anything, but as I squeeze down the narrow aisles I cannot see anything that I really want to buy amongst the shelves of incense, carved crystals, pottery, carvings, beads and books on enlightenment. Gentle music plays and the tea slips down warmly. The hostess seems enchanted by the visit, but will she feel so blessed if we don’t buy anything? We look at some jewellery but it seems surprisingly heavy and mundane when taken from the context of the display cabinet. In the end Wei-Yun buys a CD. Sweet Melody of Joyful Aspiration, H.H. the 17^th Gyalwang Karmapa. It’s playing now and reminds me of the Little Buddhist Shop.

Departure

The clock says 23.05, Taipei time. I am back at the window of the angular room, looking eight floors down on Roosevelt Way. I watch the lights chasing up and down the long straight boulevard. Through the glass I can hear the drone of the scooters, the sizzling of the street stalls. I can smell the stinky tofu and the fish oil. I could take you to a great place down there for a Sichuan meal. I could show you the markets, the bookstore, the metro station and even the Little Buddhist Shop. I even know the way to Chiang Kai-shek’s Memorial Hall. It’s not that much to know of a city, but I’ve only been here for five days.