Travels...Formosa (in)cogneto?

They left for Japan just yesterday and already it seems like they've left for a long time...

Last Thursday, two of my college friends from Whitman (who are currently teaching English in a rural Japanese town as part of the JET program) paid me a visit here in Taiwan. This was the second such occurance (the last visit by friends came three years ago) and I must say it went pretty well despite many, many potential complications in scheduling, bad weather and other potentially negative factors.

We started off in Taipei and immediately, it seemed like the transportation system here had decided that they needed to make an immediate impression on my friends: The bus to MRT links worked seamlessly, with hardly any waits in between and all the taxis we boarded were full of drivers who spoke great English! ;-) As my friends were enjoying the sites (the National Palace Museum, the Confucian temple, Martyr's Shrine, etc.), I was playing dual role as "resident tour-guide" and "un-official diplomat". It was nice to be able to answer a lot of their questions with a great degree of confidence, and although it wasn't my primary goal, giving my friends a generally good impression of the country also gave me a small sense of accomplishment.

I also did something I've always dreamed of: getting some local friends together with my friends from overseas for a meal. My apprehension that the language barrier would prove debilitatingly awkward was quickly cast off as we could hear conversation and laughter, and not just the clinging together of certain eating utensils. Another observation: I've been in a lot of situations where the host of a dinner must reconcile two differing groups of friends (either based on different languages, social groups, etc.) at a social gathering. I must say I'm envious when I observe the host establishing an equilibrium---while at the same time being able to interact intimately with each side separately, but also at the same time (paradoxical, I know)---and not just serving as a passive "interpreter". I'm not sure if I succeeded in this regard this time, but, as a person who has had to move around so many time in life and in the process leaving many good friends behind, the opportunity to put the experiences and memories of two locations and time periods together was undeniably unforgettable.

But the arrival of my friends to Taiwan also confirmed several other things that had remained somewhat in stasis during my stint in the alternative service:

I cannot deny how much I miss the United States and some of the great people I met while I lived there for 3/4 of my life. Although it's not like I have no opportunities to speak English here in Taiwan, I must say I had a great time just being able to pour out my thoughts and expressions without hesitation while my friends in the U.S. were here.

Despite my best wishes to blend in here, I know that the task will in the future require creative redefining of the definitions of success in that regard. I watched with awe and certain envy as one of my army buddies seamlessly guided us through the Shih-lin Night Market---through the organized chaos to the great food and wonderfully spontaneous moments (including winning a lottery for strange stuffed animals, wandering into the pet scorpion market, and getting almost any endless supply of basketballs for a shootout with just a few NT$). The ease in which my friend could find these things while entertaining a foreign delegation, is a rare skill that I've come to conclude is probably not acquired just through the frequency and duration of being in one location. It also requires an innate sense of belonging to a place, that increasingly, I feel, I lack for this place in which I was born and raised to believe I am a citizen of (beyond the paltry legal definitions).

(head hurts now)

More later...