I anticipated what I’d see once I got off the airplane excitedly – it was my first time overseas in adult life and it was such an exciting feeling. On the airplane, I sat next to a guy named, Jian-Jian Wei, who was an engineer from Taiwan in a company called Tatung. Later in my stay in Taiwan, I would find out that Tatung was one of Taiwan’s most famous brands; Jian-Jian worked in their LCD screen division. We talked here and there throughout the flight and I learned a lot about him. One notable thing I still remember is that I told him I was Hakka, and he told me that his girlfriend was Hakka, too. I find that whenever I tell people that I’m Hakka, it comes to light that; they’re Hakka, one of their parents are Hakka, or they are dating a Hakka. I love telling people I’m Hakka – the Hakka are everywhere!
Looking back, I remember the seats to be as about as cramped as any other economy-class seat out there, but it was my first time since going to India in 1996 that I took an airplane and so I didn’t mind it too much. Airplanes have always fascinated me, but passenger airplanes especially. The way they’re able to ferry hundreds of people into the air at such great speeds is a fascinating thing. Airliners look so sleek, so white and when you see them from the window of an airport waiting lounge – you can’t help but marvel at how huge they are. Humans sure have come a long way since the days of crossing oceans in steam ships.
The airplane I took was a China Airlines Boeing 747, which as I remember, rattled and shook as much as a bus in Taipei (I later found out how much Taipei buses rattled and shook). There are two things I most remember about that flight; the first thing is the Taiwanese music that I heard for the first time on the airplane, and the second thing is how fake the service of the airline attendants were. Whenever I hear Taiwanese music now, it brings back such a warm feeling and makes me remember the time I was on the airplane looking forward to my stay in Taiwan. When the plane was only about six hours away from Taipei, I had taken the headphones out of their sanitary plastic wrap and flipped through the radio stations. I didn’t bother watching TV, because it was quite entertaining looking at the monitor seeing the little airplane chart our progress across the Pacific. When I heard Taiwanese music for the first time, a wonderful melody and a wonderful-sounding language floated into my ears. I wondered why I had never heard Taiwanese music before.
Right now, I can’t even remember disembarking from the airplane; all I can remember is stepping out into the hot air of Taipei with my aunt and uncle. It was almost midnight when I breathed Taiwanese air for the first time. I still remember how hot it was – hot like the time my family and I were waiting to pass customs in the airport in Calcutta. That was daytime, however, and here the sky was dark. The air was as humid and as misty as I’ve ever seen. It seemed as if the air was the same air as that from a sauna; the comforting warmth against my skin and the lights whose glare was dull in the humidity. I could almost see the mist rising up from the street and enveloping everything around it. Palm trees and yellow taxis bathing in a natural sauna.
At the moment, I felt how I felt on hot summer nights as a teenager in Markham with my friends when we would stay up through the wee hours of the morning. It was like the time I was with Kevin, Stew and Carmen and we were walking to Carmen’s house at around two in the morning. It was like so many times that Chad or Ben and I went out for a drive in the middle of the night. Except this time, I was somewhere else; in another time and another place.
As I was soaking up the feeling of being in a whole new world and just living the moment, a taxi rolled up and the luggage and us got in. The taxi was yellow, just as every other taxi on the island was. A sort of faded yellow whose color seemed to represent the labor and effort of a poor man trying to support his family. If he told you his story, it seemed, you would surely shed tears. I exchanged a few words in Mandarin with him, my aunt’s friend’s husband, but we lacked of any more conversation probably due to my beginner status as a Mandarin speaker. The background sound of the car’s tires rolling along the highway and the engine humming were a familiar sound and feeling; as if a fixture in my life that could be had at any time and any where.
It was the incredible view outside the window, however, which I noticed most. As the taxi made its way down the highway, I peered through the window and noticed small mountains near the road. Mountains! I’ve never seen a mountain up close and this was incredible. Several mountains we passed could clearly be discerned, despite the thickness of night filling the air. They were giants that loomed beside the highway and seemed almost to float in the darkness. One image I particularly remember was of a mountain so close to the highway that I opened the window to get a better look. Only with my head tilted way down could I see the starry sky appear from behind it, and its fuzzy appearance was caused by trees lining it from top to bottom.
On some stretches of highway, though, there was not a mountain nearby. What could be seen were vast stretches of flat land. Probably the domain of a toiling farmer who had to get up everyday before dawn to tend to his fields. Work which was rewarding in its own right, but work which was forced upon him. In the distance behind most of those fields, however, were mountains even larger than those near the highway. Mountains enveloped the landscape in every direction and reminded me how small a person really is.
As I admired the scenerey, the car got off the highway and started down local streets. The view of these local streets was even more fascinating than what appeared outside the window not moments before. The buildings and smattering of things by the side of the road were so reminiscent of India that it was deja vu. The streets of the two different places looked so similar that I felt as if I really was in India again, though I knew better. From the backseat of the car, I couldn’t much make out what the exact features of the buildings we passed were, but I remember overwhelming visual stimulus. There were gaudy yellow signs with red words encircled in light bulbs that stuck out all over the place. Signs and words were on the street, on the buildings and everywhere else one could think to put a sign. The buildings looked dilapidated and overused – a city that seemed to have grown organically; a city that had been put together by a multitude of individuals and only piece by piece. I would only later notice the thick layer of scooters which remain piled-up on streets and on sidewalks day after day.
It wasn’t very long before the taxi stopped and I was standing in front of my aunt’s apartment complex. The taxi hadn’t stopped in a parking lot or a driveway – there was no driveway – but it had stopped on the road in front of the building’s main entrance. At the time, I didn’t notice any cars or scooters whizzing by, but I’m sure they did that day as they do everyday. On that road and on every other road in Taipei, a ceaseless line of cars and scooters constantly thunders past. But on that day, it was funny, because as I was getting my luggage out of the trunk, I stood there on the road without anxiety. It was as if the taxi I rode was the only vehicle in the world and it was there just for me. Throughout the whole one-hour ride back to my aunt’s home, I didn’t notice any vehicles and I didn’t notice any at that moment. The street we stood on had become part of my experience and was no longer asphalt for the purpose of conveying traffic.
I won’t soon forget the feelings of that day; the expectation and excitement I had, wrapped up in the warm and humid feeling of emotional freedom.
Please post a comment and let me know what you thought about my story! It was a story with no plot and no point; it was just for me to practice my writing and one that only expresses feelings. You know you want to comment!
