我只是看太多综艺节目了。
Yes, I have watched too much of those silly programs, I have actually felt extremely deprived in the past five months I’ve been in the Honks.
(And yes, it has been five months. And today, I am thanking my lucky stars, if any.)
So I snuck a trip up north to Taipei three days ago.
I couldn’t go home, for some silly reason. And I really didn’t want to stay back in the office and forego a break. Most of all, I needed to get away.
So I bought a ticket – the cheapest ticket I could possibly buy to get out of the Honks, methinks – just four days before I left.
And what a trip. A long-awaited, much-anticipated one that I ended up making alone.
Guess what?
我爱台北。
Taipei, to me, is part America, part Tokyo, part Bangkok, and most of all, very Taiwanese.
Where else would I hear the very soothing “kan nin nia” almost everywhere I went? My teeth almost fell out laughing when I heard the announcement made over the PA system in the trains – in Hokkien.
To me, Hokkien has never been considered an official language – unless you’re a beng.
I don’t know. Must have been the environment I grew up in.
The short buildings in the city, the vastness of the blue sky, the parking lots. The vibrance of the youth, the Metro stations, the trains, the signboards, the orderliness and subdued politeness of the people, and of course, those quirky stores in the pseudo-Harajuku backstreet lanes of Zhongxiao Dunhua Nan Lu selling a multitude of – what else? – Japanese imports. The modern buildings built in between ancient, broken-down shophouses, the foodcarts that suddenly pop up just along any other street in the city, the scarce tables and chairs for “eat-in” customers, the tiny bowls of noodles.
But there’s just something different about Taipei. Maybe it has got to do with how everything that seems to come from some other part of the world fuses together seamlessly and turns out quirky in its own sweet way. Maybe it has got to do with the fact that food is indeed everywhere, every nook every corner literally – even though ninety percent of them sell exactly the same kinds of foods.
But I tend to think, it has got to do with the people.
The friendly folks who speak to me like they come right out of the silly entertainment programs, making it so easy for me to talk the way I do – “cock”, that is. Most conversations are fun and light-hearted. I get my daily fix of human interaction, and I get my fair share of tips and advice too.
Like, how would I know that to get to the Shilin Night Market, you get off at the Jiantan metro station and not the Shilin station?
I have tried my darned best. To eat as much as I could.
No, let me put it another way. I ate as often as I could, not necessarily much. Like the day I decided to restaurant-hop during lunch, since I figured I would not have enough time to savor everything everyone says I should. I just had to leave every restaurant I sat my butt down in with half my bowl still full.
The food has not been disappointing, but it hasn’t wowed me either. I have my reservations about the beef noodles – I can’t decide which Asian country makes the best beef noodles thus far.
Oh, one thing though. The smelly tofu here, strangely, smells sweeter than er… smelly. Like it really is in the Honks.
There are so many restaurants and foodcarts everywhere, more often than not, I get very frustrated. You know how bad at making decisions I am.
How the fark am I going to choose between stall A and B and C and D and E and F, and very often, G as well – when they are all clustered together selling Orh A Jian?
It’s alright.
I’ll be back.
It’s six in the morning. I have not slept a wink. And in another hour and a half, I will be waiting by the roadside for the airport bus.
I just hope it’s not too chilly out there.
I hate to leave, but I am also glad to leave too. My bleeding has worsened, but with much pleasure.
我爱台北。
*****
“一个人来台北玩不会无聊吗？”
“不会啊！”
一个人独自旅行不会无聊。
一个人独自生活就可能会。
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