After the press trip was over, I made my way to Yongan Market Station a bit outside of Taipei City, where Dwayne’s family members have a condo that we’re able to use for the rest of the week.
He greets me at the McDonald’s where we’ve agreed to meet, “I saw your face in the second story window!” and leads me around the corner of the subway station to where we’ll be spending the next few nights. We walk up five flights of stairs, each carrying a handle of my increasingly bulbous piece of luggage.
“Here’s the living room, kitchen, bathroom,” Dwayne says, as he gives me a tour of the condo. “These are the rooms that we can stay in, and that room right there is for my cousin, who uses this place occasionally when she’s in school. I don’t think she’ll be here for the next couple of weeks, so we can just use this place as home base.”
Bleary-eyed from 12 days of a non-stop “go-go-go-see-Taiwan-on-a-bike!” itinerary and exhausted from practicing an inordinate amount of patience with our tour guide who behaved like my Taiwanese mother in virtually eavery way, I pass out for the next 12 hours.
In the morning, we wake and discover we’re right down the street from an incredibly colorful market filled fresh vegetables, meat chunks on chopping blocks being cleaved by middle-aged women wearing aprons and rubber boots, fish laying on ice that are tied in ways to look they’re still alive and dancing, dumplings made before our eyes, and even random tables of used clothing. It’s a continuous delight for our past and present senses as we happily meander past foodstuffs we enjoy now and things we loved as little children.
Being the nerd that I am, I am absolutely excited by the sheer learning experiences of watching how noodles are made, how tofu is created, and how yo tiao (the equivalent of unsweetened Chinese donuts) are fried. When we spot one of the vendors eating a scallion pancake, we both begin to drool and are immediately on the hunt for breakfast.
We start by pulling out change for freshly squeezed juice from a little cart just outside the market entrance. Just behind it, we spot a long rectangular table on the sidewalk filled with people slurping bowls of noodles, so we walk closer for inspection. Just a few doors down is a café with trays of Chinese-style breads and we quickly get in line and just start ordering.
“Dwayne, what do you call that?” I ask urgently, before the other customer walks away with his much coveted booty. Dwayne is busy asking the woman behind the counter for dou jian (fresh soy milk), so I keep poking his side to grab his attention.
After a few moments, we hunker down beside bottles of sauces and begin feasting. When we’re through, Dwayne and I continue our walking tour of the neighborhood. Little shops are everywhere as are busy streets, scooters whizzing by, and alluringly nondescript alleys. Every now and again we stop, and inevitably, our hands become a bit fuller with little plastic bags of things we simply could not resist.
“Want to head back?” Dwayne asks. “I’m ready to take a nap!”
“Me too!” I echo.
As we walk the few blocks back to the condo, we pass a large community park, an even grander Taiwan National Library, and countless more restaurants. We turn a corner and Dwayne unlocks the main gate at the bottom of the condo building. Huffing and puffing, we make our way up the multiple flights of stairs, continuing the conversation we were having from the street.
“Well, if we want to go to the south side of the island, then I think we should take the high speed rail to save us time,” he tells me.
Dwayne unlocks the two doors of his relative’s condo. I walk in ahead of him, and we lazily plunk our things down on the table.
“So, I’m thinking that we can leave on Tuesday,” Dwayne continues, as I turn away from him towards the kitchen to put things in the fridge.
When I turn back around, I am faced with a young Asian girl, long black hair drooping past her elbows silently staring at me from the hallway. She says nothing.
I almost start to scream. Visions of the movie, The Grudge, flash before me. My voice is caught in my throat as the two of us look at one another. She has dark, wide eyes and a long pale face that’s virtually invisible against the black shirt she is wearing.
Dwayne is still talking on my left. His back is turned towards us. “We should look up places to stay in Kenting tonight,” pulling sweet pastries out of the plastic bag and placing them on the table.
“Dwayne,” I call out. He’s still talking.
“DWAYNE,” I say louder, cutting him off.
“What?” This time, he turns around. He can tell something’s wrong.
I nod in the direction of our newfound friend. I am waiting. He doesn’t say anything for a second and, for a moment, I fear he doesn’t see her. I prepare to bolt out the front door if this ends up being the case.
It feels like minutes have gone by, so I almost ask aloud, “DO YOU SEE THE GIRL STANDING THERE?”
Instead, he starts to speak, “Oh hi, you must be my aunt’s grandniece.”
“Yes, she says meekly in Mandarin, “that’s me.”
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” Dwayne explains.
“Yeah, I have school next week, so I came in today for the next few days.”
They exchange niceties and chat about his experience in Taiwan thus far. Meanwhile, during this exchange of introductions between the two of them, I am still rooted in the same position as when I found her standing there. I try to calm my rattled heart.
“Do you have an English name?” Dwayne asks her.
“Vivian,” she responds.
“This is my girlfriend,” Dwayne motions to me. “Judy, meet Vivian. Vivian, meet Judy.”
“Hi,” I’m finally able to mutter. “Sorry for the mess!”
She smiles politely and when I move towards our things, she quickly tells us not to worry about cleaning them up.
“Well, I’m going to go to my room and study now,” and then she turns and retreats.
Once she closes the door, I look at Dwayne and start to tell him all the thoughts that had been going through my head the moment I found her just standing there, staring at me, when he hadn’t yet seen her there.
We both start laughing hysterically. “I know I’m into the woo-woo and all, but if she ended up being a ghost, I would’ve been like, ‘No thank you!’ and just bolted. If you didn’t end up seeing her standing there, I would definitely have just started running!” I told him.
“Aw, you would’ve just left me here?” Dwayne asks.
“That’s right!” I tell him, and we fall onto the couch, wiping away tears of laughter.
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