A month in the Taiwanese countryside (thoughts)

It's been a while since I've posted, and I'm still figuring out where I should begin again. I've been out of the blogging loop too long to make rash excuses for prolonged delays, but I have been writing...just not posting.

My first entries back to the grind will be reflections of rehash, so bear with me. That's how catch-up works sometimes...in reheated goodness.

First, let's start with an entry I forgot to post about a month ago: (I post this as I begin to comtemplate my trip back to the countryside, after a 3 day hiatus in Taipei, my "hometown")

Saturday-Sunday November 5-6th, 2005

“This place is fucking far away.”

I kept repeating this phrase as we drove (me, my mom and my uncle) on the narrow, winding roads of Ali-shan. The fog was so thick in some areas that the blinding fog lights from the trucks and cars from the opposite direction became guiding lights and kindred spirits. Chiayi is foreign to me as I write this entry. As I wait for Monday, and “orientation”, a profound and throbbing sense of awkward grief mixed with wonder has overcome me. Aside from a very helpful and enthusiastic kindergarten teacher (Ms. Huang), I’ve yet to meet anybody who has really officially welcomed me for the task that awaits me. It’s Sunday for Christ’s sake, that’s probably why. People have lives and they want to spend it away from this cliff-side rock garden…I guess I can understand that.

But, back to the subject of the winding roads that led me here. Each curve, each fork in the road we passed and each bridge we crossed during that dark, starry night (and yes, at times frighteningly foggy), I for the first time felt homesick in Taiwan. What I missed at home was punctuated by mileage; when would I next spend time with my family, my newly made friends from bootcamp? For once, Taipei was fatally attractive—somewhere I could be homesick for. I have Fengshan Elementary School to thank for that.

Nevertheless, the task I’ve dreamt of for the longest of times is finally before me…looming in front of me that sometimes I feel I’ve lost the gusto and “do-or-die” attitude that I needed to get to this stage in the first place. Overcoming uncertainty and adapting (and hopefully deconstructing) to the foreignness of “a continually dreamt of homeland” is of utmost importance. I might be perceived as a fish out of the water, but I must continue flapping, gasping and surviving…a combination of liveliness that will counter any preconceptions that I am not with a sense of purpose.