Letters from Taipei 3

I kept a short diary in Taipei from December 25th, 2013, to January 6th 2014. I had no purpose for writing, other than to chronicle my observations, thoughts, and feelings from each day. Taipei in a city of nostalgia from an untraceable source, inextricably tied to its mood, which changes every moment, as the weather. 

January 1^st, 2014

First entry of the new year.

We found a street cart selling stinky tofu in Gongguan. We ate from backless chairs made of plastic. Our seats were turned towards the counter, as hundreds of mopeds sped down the road to our backs, only inches away from use. We ate from a plastic plate with wrapped in a plastic bag. The mopeds roared to our backs. Any closer and they might hit us.

That’s how close we are to the racing, speeding, pumping pulse of this city.

It’s not a far of cry I the distance.

It’s not faint murmur in your sleep.

It’s an engine racing at your back.

Back up the concrete steps to the fourth floor apartment, when you look out of the wire balcony, you can see into every neighbors house. Some are cooking, others sitting on the floor watching TV, children running across the carpet. Behind every red-painted door, behind every rod-iron balcony, the full range of human emotions is being lived. We forget that when we stare at static buildings. Their unchanging, unfeeling structures makes the living breathing life within. We forget that behind ever window a full life is being lived. When I sit on the balcony I can feel romances and tragedies on every floor. Without knowing them, I can feel them. Seeing into my neighbors windows, seeing their mundane routines and their crass decorations, make me more aware of the explosion life behind the stone walls.

Whole books could be written about the life on this one street in the this one city in the world. This simple view from the balcony of a middle-class apartment in Taipei humble a writer like me. What can I possibly produce that could even come close to the rendering of human life in a forgotten pocket of Taipei…

So close to humanity, you can see it right through its windows. 

Letters from Taipei 2

I kept a short diary in Taipei from December 25th, 2013, to January 6th 2014. I had no purpose for writing, other than to chronicle my observations, thoughts, and feelings from each day. Taipei in a city of nostalgia from an untraceable source, inextricably tied to its mood, which changes every moment, as the weather. 

December 26^th, 2013 Taipei Xindian Starbucks 9:30 pm

Down a rain soaked ally, lined with motorcycles tipped against red doors, building and the wire windows lean into the street, five stories high in every direction. At the end of the street, the buildings surround you on all three sides. The sky is only visible if you look straight up. Even then, it’s coated in a thick mist. Like a forgotten mirror in the attic. Reflecting light from the city streets. You can see yourself in this mist, if you look long enough.

We woke up early and sauntered down the rainy streets to get breakfast. When we found it, we ate on a rickety wooden bench, sitting on plastic buckets that had been turned over and used as chairs. The rain was still steadily playing drums on tin roofs when we returned, and we slept two hours in the afternoon rain showers, the sound drumming us to sleep.

At dusk the city is painted over in grey, making the hour of the day indistinguishable. Defying time.

Winter here is just a kiss of cold air, just a light cold breath on your neck.

And when the sun sets there no theater of light dancing across the stage. It’s a slow performance. Without anyone noticing the sky, always an expanse of monochrome,  changes from a muted shade of pale blue, to the stillness of a pale grey, to a smoky charcoal color, then dimming low enough for the city lights to overpower it. The pinks and oranges and yellows come only with the neon of night. 

Letters from Taipei

I kept a short diary in Taipei from December 25th, 2013, to January 6th 2014. I had no purpose for writing, other than to chronicle my observations, thoughts, and feelings from each day. Taipei in a city of nostalgia from an untraceable source, inextricably tied to its mood, which changes every moment.

December 25^th, 2013 Taipei midnight

Flew into Taipei on a rainy winter night. It was film noir weather. The rain crackled and sizzled. Here in this city, the rain doesn’t fall straight down from the sky, striking the ground like tiny arrows. It explodes in the air, flies around from all directions, lingers statically like mist. When you walk outside you are instantly wet, though you might not realize how that came to be. It’s the kind of rain that forms clouds around pockets of light, like tiny glowing bulbs in the night sky.

We arrived in Xindian just after 9:00 pm. The streets were alive with people eating seafood from rickety benches,  a clear plastic sheet enclosing the restaurant from the elements. Skyscrapers, illuminated, shot up in the horizon, marble geometric structures breaking the backdrop of the night sky.  And beside them, in that ever so sweet Taipei image of juxtapositions, were shanty condos with rotting iron bars on the windows.

We live up on the fourth floor of one of these charming structures. The iron bars made a pattern fashionable in the 1970s, but dated in the 2010s. I climbed the steps with excitement, a heart exploding with joy. How could I not love it here.

Taipei is dirty, gritty, raw. It’s the grainy details in an old film. It’s that foggy memory that conjures up excitement with no real image.

Even with the glass paned doors closed, I can hear the sharp sound of the rain striking the tin roofs. Like the jingling of keys. Loud enough to make you feel un-alone.  It doesn’t have a pattern, the rain, so that each time it hits the roof it has a different chord. A new melody is composed.