Second Home

Every time I come back to Taiwan, I'm struck all over again by how drastically different my two lifestyles are.

My flight was fairly uneventful. I sat in front of a row of old, crotchety grandpas. I have no idea what they were doing, but they had to crawl out of their seats (one, two, three) every hour or so to empty their prostate-strangled bladders, I presume. I felt at once sorry for and annoyed by them. Sorry, because it was difficult for them to stand easily in the cramped airplane aisles... annoyed, because they inevitably leaned their elbows VERY HEAVILY into my sleeping cranium or pulled my hair while grasping the seat back in their endeavors to arise. And when I finally fell into a fitful sleep, the old man behind my seat began wailing and kicking at my seat. I turned around to figure out what the hell was going on, and he chattered angrily at me in some dialect I didn't understand. I want to say it was Cantonese, but it didn't sound enough like it. "I don't like it!" or something like that... I'd keep trying to lean my seat down a little bit and he would kick and punch it every time. I finally had to get a flight attendant to resolve the issue. Man, that's the first time I've ever tattled on someone with such a great age difference from me.

When I was a teenager, I tried to walk away from every plane flight with at least one new "friend," usually the hapless neighbor who didn't really know how else to respond to the advances of an overly chirpy homeschooled teenager thrilled to fiiiiinally speak English again. I've very fortunately outgrown that tendency (to the praise and joy of travelers everywhere), but the couple to my left were the ones who seemed eager to strike up a conversation this time. I indulged them, and discovered the following: He was a young-looking middle-aged guy who had biked across Vietnam, Thailand and Laos seven years ago "for the fun of it." He had been retired for 18 years. Married to his wife for two. She was a German national, resident in the States for the past 10 years. Two children - one son for him, one daughter for her who just turned 20 yesterday. They were on their way back to Thailand for about five weeks. He asked me what I thought about China and Taiwan from a political standpoint. He also asked me what would be fun to do for their return trip layover in Taipei for 6 hours. I told him to take a taxi and go check out the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial, walk around for a bit, and grab some food on the way back. I don't know - what would you have suggested? I was sleepy, and I honestly have never seen much of Taiwan from a touristy standpoint.

As I walked out of the plane, it suddenly struck me that my usual source of entertainment and distraction, my three brothers, were all gone, grown up, and not around for the first time in my conscious life. It's true that I've been living on my own for four years now, but this is different. I'm coming home, and they're not around. It's almost too depressing and trippy to imagine, and I think I will never do this again. ;p I can live in Taiwan, but not in a home devoid of brothers! Even in Austin, I surround myself with similar brother groups.

One major difference between arriving home in Austin and arriving home in Taiwan: Nobody ever seems to be in the actual airport to pick me up in the States, whether I'm coming or going from home or to a new place. We just sort of do a drive-by pick-up. It works well, especially for our level of intimacy, and I prefer not going through the hassle of parking garages and all that good stuff. Furthermore, I'm always that much more pleasantly surprised whenever a family member is waiting for me outside the divider that separates customs/baggage claim and the waiting area. And even if nobody's there, I always walk out the sliding doors with a smile. Just in case.

I usually see my parents before they see me. You'd think they'd be better at it, but they're not. My brothers, on the other hand, will usually have me scouted out on the video monitors 50 yards before I exit the door. Unfortunately, they're all Stateside at the moment and I'm the only child at home. Today, Dad is the designated parent on duty. My hands are full with my baggage cart, so I flash him a glimpse of the pearly whites he spent thousands to straighten in torturous braces. But like I said, my parents can be staring straight at the door and still not recognize me, so it takes him about 30 more feet of approaching Kat to start waving. By this point, I'm about 30 feet away from his face and there are no people in between us, so the logical greeting might have been verbal instead of physical. But hey, he's my dad.

So, Dad. Every time I see him, he seems smaller for some weird reason. I guess all the guys I see in Austin are taller and bigger than he is. When I don't see him for a while, I sort of revert back to my mental picture of him as a child. I don't remember the gray hairs and the wrinkles as much. I remember being a lot shorter. I remember impatiently flicking away the extra fingers on his hand when he reaches out for mine at street intersections, because I always only hold his index finger. Therefore, I inevitably experience a momentary surprise over how ordinarily sized he is. How big I've gotten next to him.

Every time he sees me, he breaks out in a grin. It's the "Don't tell me not to smile, because I can't not smile" face that Dad has. We kids give him all manner of grief over it. "I'm going to count to 10, Dad, and I can make you smile before time's up." It usually works before we get to "3." To compensate for grinning like an idiot in the airport, he points toward the side of the waiting area to meet up with me there. I hug him, he hugs me. I can tell he's thinking, "Aiiyah, when did you get so big?"

He takes the cart from me without a word, and we start walking toward the parking garage. Along the way, he dials Mom on his cell phone to tell her "Daughter's here!" and hands the phone to me. We laugh a little over his silliness - "I'll be home in 45 minutes and I'll talk to you then" - and I laughingly exclaim over why he feels the need, after me having been gone for six months, to have me start a heart-to-heart conversation with my mom by phone while I'm on my way back to her. "But you're girls, and girls like to talk!" That's Dad for you.

My dad informs me that he has a new car: Uncle #4, his next oldest brother, presumably procured a new vehicle and passed along the old one, per family custom. It's a black Nissan Cefiro and fancier than anything this household has previously seen. Leather seats. Interior wood paneling. CD player. Hands-free headset system for syncing up his cell phone. Reverse engineering for backing up and parallel-parking. Air massage seats...?! I tease him about everything, because he looks almost intimidated by it all. "I've only had it for two days," he says laughingly, pointing at the seat which automatically slides back when the door is shut. "I don't know how everything works yet, and it's your job to figure it out." Once he points out the sun roof on the drive home, I quickly figure out how to open the window - two different ways. One thing I like about Dad is that he makes my simplest discoveries seem like I'm such a genius. Haha.

While driving home across the mountainous highways, I suddenly miss Michael and HIS black car with the sun roof. ...For one thing, Michael would be driving a helluva lot faster, even on the curvy turns. <3 Misssss youuuu, Michael. =]

The moment we drive into the village outskirts, I perk up and demand that we pick up some breakfast from a street vendor. I'm partial to 小籠包, these teeny steamed buns filled with ground pork and green onions packed in a chilled soup base. Once steamed, the broth "melts" and fills the bun... when eaten whole, the bun gently explodes in one's mouth for a hot, soupy surprise. I start digging around in my bag for money out of habit. Dad hands me a 100NT bill before I've even produced my wallet. I won't lie - this is one of my favorite parts of coming home to Taiwan. ;p I never got free handouts or even an allowance as a child, so random money is still novel to me (although apparently not to my spoiled baby brother, haha).

Speaking of hot, soupy surprises... it's still a determined 81 degrees over here with the usual "fresh out of a hot tub" humidity. My hair, wavy at the best of times, makes me look like a black-haired Doc Brown from Back to the Future. We'll see tomorrow if the best of ionic hair-drying technology - and failing that, a Rusk hair straightener - can change it any.

Mom walks over to welcome me home when I open the apartment door. She looks happy to see me. I notice that she's wearing the pajama pants she stole from me the last time I came home. We're a bunch of magpie clothing thieves around here. She asks me where I plan to stay in Hsinchu - at home on the 8th floor, or on the 9th floor apartment they rented last time Benj and I were home. She seems really surprised (in a good way) when I say, "Home, of course... why would I go elsewhere?" (And really, I'm not sure why they think I would want to go elsewhere when I'm home...)

When I go to Grandma's door to greet her, she almost doesn't recognize me. "Ahh! Nobody told me you were coming back," she said. "It's good to see you. ...Did you eat yet?"

This is the essence of Chinese culture: Food. You show care through food. You show off through food. You give gifts of food. You think and talk and worship and revolve around food. "Jia bah buey?" means "Have you eaten yet?" in Taiwanese and is an alternative greeting to "How are you?" It's rather brilliant, I suppose, because it's true - how you could you possibly be doing well if you haven't eaten yet? It's almost a triumph for older people to hear that one hasn't eaten yet, because then it means that your stomach will be at their tender mercies. They delight in hearing that young people are hungry. They revel in feeding them until they can't eat another bite... and then urge for another helping.

And that's been my life for the rest of the day: Eat, eat, eat. It's quite ironic, because I've eaten far less than I normally do (thanks to a small case of the snifflies which I suspect was caught from Jerm... I miss you too, you germy, sly old man ;p). Mom tells me to chew more. Mira, Grandma's maid, cooks on a regular schedule. Grandma tells me to eat more. I have forgotten what it's like to sit at a normal dining table at normal hours and be forced to eat everything in front of me. It's sort of nice. I sleep in between meals, because 1) I'm a little jet-lagged, 2) I'm a little sick, but 3) I'm pretty bored. Already. 30 minutes into arriving home. Haha. Brothers, I miss you guys. I have no idea what to do with myself when you're not around to tease and talk to.

Over dinner, Grandma and I are the only ones at the table. Mom has gone off to supervise the homeschool kids' graduation trip. Dad isn't home from work yet. Mira is off doing laundry. We sit in silence for about 10 minutes, not really knowing what to say. We're happy to see each other, but have nothing fresh to talk about. I'm actually a little worried about the general state of my colloquial Mandarin, since it takes a while for my brain to switch into Chinese mode again. The television chirps behind us: Hearing English, I turn to look and mentally groan when I see Zac Efron and his overly cheery teenybopper face giving an interview with the High School Musical: 3 billboard flashing behind him. I decide to tell Grandma what I'm doing in Taiwan this time around. At first, she puts down her bowl to give me her full attention, but I tell her to keep eating while I talk, so she does. She smiles and nods, but when she realizes that I will be staying in Taipei for most of the time, she stops. "Oh, so you're only here for one day?" she asks. I suddenly realize that "crestfallen" is the best word to describe her tone. "I'm here until at least Tuesday," I hasten to reassure her. "But you'll be gone most of the time? And you're only back for two months?" There is no reproach in her voice, but I ladle it onto myself in copious amounts anyway. She nods. A few silent moments later, she observes, "It's so difficult to get all of you kids together at the same time now that you're all grown up, huh?" I nod, tallying up the cousins: Thomas is doing his time in the army, Michelle is in the UK for a year of study abroad, the three Taichung cousins are... in Taichung, Tammy and Cindy are in Sacramento, Benj is in Virginia, and the little ones are in Boston. Poor grandma. If I'm bored, she must be bored-er.

...You bet I'll be home once a week or something. We're not incredibly close, but I sort of think I might be her favorite grandchild (you'll never hear her admit it) and she does like seeing us all around after all. I'm definitely the grandchild who's been around the least in the past five years.

It's nice to be home.*

*Probably because I haven't seen any mosquitoes yet. My tolerance for bites is still pretty stellar, however, all things considered.

I'll post about Los Angeles soon. My left sinus feels like a drippy faucet.