Fly me to the moon
Taiwan, Day No. 80. The serene eight days of rollercoaster sleep and late night Criterion Channel movies and staggeringly precise meal service at Rainbow Town Hotel have passed into sweat-soaked days of 8 AM Jiu Cai buns bought from the lady down the road and excessively airbrushed ID photos and sitting around the dining table with Kyle from Ohio and tuning into well-intentioned but mostly useless orientation seminars, which have passed into the rah-rah days of late August, hopping on southbound trains to Yuli and northbound trains to Yilan, plunging myself into afternoon strolls and crunchy daylily tea times on Chike Mountain and surfing lessons from the buff lad who learned English from watching Saving Private Ryan, and stuffing my face with morning buffet breakfasts in my single 5-star room, looking over the vast Tamsui River sticking its tongue into the Taiwan Strait. August may very well have had no days of rain. If it did rain, I have no memory of it. But then came September, and now October, and the days have become more gray, rain pouring down in abundance. My room sits on the top floor of a three-story townhouse. When the droplets hit the roof, it feels like I’m camping out in a tent. A very fun feeling, even it keeps me up late at night.
There was the first week of school, when they handed out picture books and earthquake pillows to the first graders. When the principal bought shaved ice for all of the teachers at the first staff meeting (95 percent of which I couldn’t understand). When Teacher Alex introduced me to Sodagreen.
There was the weekend of the mid-Autumn festival, when I took a stroll along the jungly paths of Meilun Mountain. Even on a sleepy Friday morning, the old people were out and about, playing ping-pong and blasting music on stereos, the soldiers chatting and keeping watch at the top. When Teacher Alex took me to a spot on the river to celebrate the holiday with his family. In my prescription goggles, I could see little fishes as I swam by the dam!
There was the weekend of the earthquakes. The first one hit late on Saturday night. I was about to fall asleep when I heard the chandelier shaking. It was the first earthquake I have ever experienced. The second and bigger one hit Sunday afternoon. I was on the train back from a hike in Yilan, and didn’t even feel it. On Monday morning, there was an earthquake drill at school. All the kids had to gather in the main field outside. As a teacher, I had to put on my yellow hard hat. Minutes after the first drill had ended, a small aftershock hit, and much to the kids’ annoyance, they had to gather outside again.
There was the week of the scooter test. When Teacher Alex’s wife Grace took me out of school on a Tuesday morning to practice at the DMV. When, early on Wednesday, I piled into the taxi with my housemate Nick to return where I’d just been the previous day. A bright indie pop track was playing on the radio. The beat was rather springy, but the simple bass riff and the singer’s dreamy voice relaxed my anxious mind. Shazam told me the name of the song: “Fly Me to the Moon” by Pei-Yu Hung.
At the DMV, we had to sit through an hour of graphic scooter crash footage and light-hearted public safety jingles (Man, Kan, Ting!). When thanks to Grace’s help, I passed the driving test. But even more thanks must be given to the examiner, who, first, didn’t notice that I completed the initial straight-line balance test in six seconds rather than seven, and second, allowed me to continue the test after I had taken myself entirely off the course due to a language misunderstanding.
There was the scooter key incident. When, on Sunday night, after going to English fellowship for the first time, my scooter key broke in the ignition. It was just beginning to rain. Luckily, the problem occurred just as the pastor was leaving, so I was able to get a ride home, and left my scooter in the church parking lot. Still, my scooter was halfway across town, without the shelter of a garage, and to make matters worse, there was an extreme rainstorm that night. With each drop that clanged upon my window, I squirmed in bed, imagining my poor scooter. If I’ve had a worse night of sleep, I really can’t remember. The rainstorm continued the next morning. At 7 A.M., as my scooter-less self, with an extra change of clothes stuffed into my backpack, was about to walk out the door and bike to school. At that very instant, I received a text from Teacher Alex. It was an offer to drive me to school, and needless to say, I immediately accepted. And that afternoon, the pastor texted me, saying that his assistant Achilles had called someone to get the key removed, and that all I had to do was to make a new copy of the key using the part that had been broken in the scooter. He would come to pick me up at my house after school. This entire episode had been resolved almost as suddenly as it had appeared, without myself having to so much as make a call or get anywhere on my own. After such a remarkable 24 hours, Bible study that night (at the pastor’s house) made me feel so full.
There was the weekend of Taroko. When, late on a Thursday night, I saw that the weather would be sunny that weekend. Knowing nothing about Taroko beforehand, I looked up the best trails in the park. One of them, the Zhuilu Trail, was supposed to be quite spectacular, but required a reservations. Many blogs warned me that reservations often filled up several weeks in advance, but shockingly, as I checked that night, I saw that there were still some open spots for Saturday. My reservation was approved the following night, and on Saturday morning, after waking up at 5:30 A.M. and going to 7-11 to print out my pass, I started out for Taroko. I entered the park around 7:30. The roads were all pretty much empty, which surprised me, given that the park is one of the biggest tourist attractions in all of Taiwan. I arrived at the trailhead around 8:00, and proceeded at my usual, rather brisk hiking pace.
After an initial suspension bridge over the Liyu River, the trail kept going upwards and upwards, with many many steps. I began then to realize that bringing only one bottle of water was a terrible mistake. I had finished it, and wasn’t even a quarter of the way there. Eventually, the initial upwards, forest-filled trail gave way to an extremely narrow gravel path cut along the edge of a cliff. One wrong step would mean plunging down two thousand feet into the black waters of the Liyu. I passed a young couple on this final section, and moments later, I heard a bright voice yell “Tong Xue!”. I turned around and saw the man calling for me to come back. He offered to take a picture for me on the trail. I did the same for him and his wife. The trail terminated in a breezy clearing, the site of an army outpost during the time of the Japanese occupation. I sat on a rock, listening to the sounds of the forest, when the couple arrived. The man called to me again, we chatted briefly. Then, out of nowhere, he offered me a grape energy drink. His wife offered me a jelly snack, a specialty of Yuli. We enjoyed these treats together. As I headed back down the way I had came, I felt so grateful that I could hardly speak. I also saw the Tunnel of Nine Turns, Bulowan Terrace, Changchun Shrine, and the Shakadang River that weekend.
There have been random encounters with my housemates, which always make me feel a little bit lighter and less alone. There have been less-random encounters with them and the other foreign English teachers in Hualien, such as birthday dinners, whale watching, going to night markets, bookstores, movies, and cat cafes, and the time where we went bowling (and I won, despite literally not having bowled since I was six years old).
There have been small gifts from Teacher Alex. A bag of puffed rice snack (Bao Mi Xiang). Mooncakes and pomelos for the Mid-Autumn festival. Persimmons to enjoy over the weekend.
There have been sweet Taiwan bananas from Head Teacher Su Qiong. And spontaneous visits during the school day from her and the little bird she has been raising. And encouraging messages and classroom photos from her and Director Cai Ling.
I haven't been to Taitung. I haven't been to Yangmingshan. I haven't been to Alishan. I haven't been to Hehuanshan. I haven't been to Jiufen. I haven't been to Taichung, Pingtung, Tainan, or Kaoshuing. I haven't spent an afternoon at the library at National Dong Hwa University. I haven't trekked through Emerald Valley. I haven't laid my eyes upon Liyu Lake, much less walked around it. I haven't crossed the Keelung train station bridge, the one featured in Milennium Mambo. I haven't driven on the highway that goes through the middle of Taiwan. I haven't climbed Yushan. I haven't toured the rice fields at Chishang. I haven't browsed the galleries of the National Palace Museum for a third, fourth, and fifth time. I haven't gone to Taipei to visit Aunt Ming and her husband. I haven't eaten dinner at the Japanese omelet place down the road.
I really do love all of my kids. Even though they aren’t always the most focused, even though the lessons seldom go as well as planned, even though they crack jokes about me every day, I feel so blessed to be able to see them. I’m not the teacher nor person that I should be, but for them, I will continue to try and get better. Every moment with them is so precious.
And I often struggle to comprehend the circumstances that have brought me here, to be in the lives of these random elementary school students in a remote Taiwanese city that I hadn’t even heard of five months ago. On my scooter ride to school, staring straight into the lush green mountains of eastern Taiwan, I sometimes get the thought that I’m not living in the real world, but in a very generous simulation. Things aren’t perfect here, but there’s really no place that I’d rather be right now than in Hualien, Taiwan.
Three days ago, on Saturday morning, I went my school’s pool to watch a few of my fourth graders and foreign teacher friends compete in a citywide swim meet. Afterwards, I stopped over at my neighborhood Family Mart to buy some breath mints. As I walked out the door, I heard a familiar song playing throughout the shop: “Fly Me To the Moon”, by Pei-Yu Hung. For some strange reason, this reminded me to collect some of my thoughts on Taiwan in writing, the ones that you have just finished reading.