Soon after
the road trip to KwaZulu-Natal, I stumbled
upon an advertisement in the Job Mail, a publication I'd been devouring since returning
from Europe. This offered a teaching
position in Taiwan. Since I had qualified as a teacher (though
of music, to be sure), it caught my attention.
I jokingly showed it to Louis one day,
expecting to laugh the matter off and be done with it. Without blinking, he said, "I'll go with you." I didn't believe him at first, and
pressed him to be serious. He assured me
that he was, and encouraged me to make contact with the advertiser. The process went more smoothly than I could have imagined, and all too
soon, I was promised a job and had to get my
papers sorted. As departure approached,
Louis back-pedalled slightly, saying that I should go ahead, and he would meet
me after a couple of months. I had no reason not to believe
him. On January 26th, 2001, I worked my last shift at Tokara and
on February 2nd it was tata to Stephanie's Place. This was truly a relief - allow me to
explain.
By the time I started waiting tables at
Stephanie's, I had been
running food and drinks for about ten years.
I'd started in the third year of music
school. I'd never stopped. Waiting tables had paid for my entertainment
throughout the remaining years of uni, and after graduating, the service
industry became my bread and butter. I'd enjoyed it for a long time, and it
certainly got me about. Because of all
the experience, I was good at it. At
Stephanie's Place, my fellow waitrons were much younger and less
experienced. So the managers kept
turning to me to save the day. My area
of the dining room was constantly expanded.
Around this time, I was finding that the job had a shelf life and it had begun
spoiling. I was waking in the middle of the
night remembering that Joe Soap had asked for sunny side up, or that John
Silver never got his water. In the light of day, I was less and less able to swallow
abuse from nasty rich folk. On one night
in particular, while a guest angrily reprimanded me for not bringing his wine
to the table, I responded,
"And how's your steak, sir?" It was time........
I had time
to say my farewells to my loved ones, and on February 10th, 2001 I flew to Taipei via Kuala
Lumpur. The layover in KL was around
nine hours, and I departed the airport to look around.
Returning to catch my flight, a girl bounded up to me, chest thrust forward, and introduced herself as Leanne. She and some others I'd not yet met were on this flight because they had used the same agent I had to secure their jobs. This agent was called Dragon Recruiters, and the owner was South African. When I averted my eyes from her extended chest, she told the others that I was gay. This lady would become one of my dearest friends until her untimely death in 2009. On February 13th, I started my new career as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language.
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Returning to catch my flight, a girl bounded up to me, chest thrust forward, and introduced herself as Leanne. She and some others I'd not yet met were on this flight because they had used the same agent I had to secure their jobs. This agent was called Dragon Recruiters, and the owner was South African. When I averted my eyes from her extended chest, she told the others that I was gay. This lady would become one of my dearest friends until her untimely death in 2009. On February 13th, I started my new career as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language.
At first,
things went well. I received training for a week and
then started teaching. After hours, and
indeed in the mornings, I went out wandering.
My working times were from around 14:00 to 21:00 weekdays and 08:00 to
12:00 each Saturday. I didn’t like that I had to work on Saturdays – what kind
of school is this? I’d learn that I was not working in a school as we
understand the institution in the West.
Most foreigners here were employed in cram schools, or bushibans. These offered lessons after students finished
their day at regular school. There were
cram schools for English, math, science, music, art and even Chinese. They offered extra tuition to ensure students
got the very best money could buy. It was not long before the cracks
started to show. The kids were
overworked, the systems rigged in favour of passing scores, the entire matter
about making money. Who was I to complain? This rather twisted reality provided a job
that paid more monthly than I’d ever earned.
Outside of
work, I was slow to make friends. The differences between Taiwan and the West
began to add up, and I started to count the days until my return. I got gradually more miserable for the
first two months. Louis and I were still hanging on, and we called
each other on and off. It was particularly expensive to call
South Africa (whereas there were cheap phone cards for Europe, North America
and the Antipodes), and my conversations with people back home were
infrequent. This was of course long
before Skype, Facebook, Whatsapp and the like.
Communication was still via public call box until I got a landline, whose monthly bill I dreaded. (At least the internet cafes were cheap, and
they were everywhere.) In addition, Louis eventually pulled
out of joining me altogether.
A term of my
contract was that I would be housed. The apartment I was given was very basic indeed. It was no more than a large single room divided in three (a lounge and two bedrooms) by thin prefabricated walls. When seated in my living room, I could clearly see the neighbour child studying at her desk in her bedroom. I could hear every word her family said (of which I understood nought). The bathroom had no window and the kitchen had a sink only. No air conditioner was provided (though I arrived in February and it had not yet grown hot). Paint was peeling off the walls.
Among the provisions in the apartment was a radio conveniently already set to ICRT (International Community Radio Taipei). This offered a modicum of normalcy in an otherwise upside-down world.
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Among the provisions in the apartment was a radio conveniently already set to ICRT (International Community Radio Taipei). This offered a modicum of normalcy in an otherwise upside-down world.
Also in these
early months, I did a lot
of walking. I wanted to get to know this alien new
world that surrounded me. This was not
like that gorgeous Thai countryside I'd seen two years earlier. This was a concrete jungle, cramped sidewalks
and endless, dense traffic. Here, people
did not talk in sing-song cadences; instead, their speech was gruff and
clipped. The rules that governed
transportation were quite different, and it was good that I walked so much, as it allowed the
slithering nature of vehicles to sink in.
It was not unlike the activity in a
colony of ants, apparently haphazard and fatal, yet somehow it worked. In my second month, my boss lent me a
bicycle, and I was now
free to explore further afield.
In the
throes of this funk, I did nevertheless get out and do things. My supervisor at Joy Children’s English School,
who’d met me upon my arrival in Taichung, invited me to join her friends hiking
in Taiwan's spectacular mountains. That
was a full Sunday outing, and I enjoyed it, though I was able to communicate only with
Jennifer. In early March I arranged to meet another lady
recruited by Dragon, Stella. She and two of her colleagues invited me to join
them for dinner at Little Italy.
In mid-March, I met Leanne at the Taichung train
station (she'd landed a job in the tiny village of Xiushui in the county of
Changhua) and we wandered about, ending up at Napoli, which at the time was THE
hangout for foreigners. A week later I met her there again. This time, a local lady introduced herself to
us. Melinda owned a school in the
central Taiwanese county of Nantou. She
offered to take me to Sun Moon Lake.
This was my first trip out of Taichung since the hike with
Jennifer. I eagerly accepted and asked if
Stella could join.
On April 1st, Melinda
picked us up, drove us into the hills, and showed us Sun Moon Lake and the
Aboriginal Culture Village.
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The following
weekend was a long weekend (Thu - Sun) to celebrate Tomb Sweeping Day. Every year during this weekend, Spring
Scream, an outdoor music festival, is held in Kenting, a beach resort town in
southern Taiwan. Stella and Andre (also
from my flight via KL) were going with friends of theirs, and I decided to join them. We took a train to Kaohsiung and then a bus
to Kenting. On Friday, we hired
motorized bicycles to explore the area, and also went ten-pin bowling. That night, we enjoyed drinks at a pub and
then joined the beach party. It was fun, and here I saw the Asia I'd fallen in love with long ago.
Many of the Taiwanese attendees left the area on Saturday, thinning the crowds. We left on Sunday, and went first to the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium before making our way back via Kaohsiung to Taichung.
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Many of the Taiwanese attendees left the area on Saturday, thinning the crowds. We left on Sunday, and went first to the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium before making our way back via Kaohsiung to Taichung.
At some point
in these fledgling months, I took ill and had to stay in bed for a week. In those seven days, the whole matter
sank in, took hold and began to make sense.
When I recovered,
I was acclimated, and forgot all about
the calendar or marking any days until departure. Just before mid-April, I emailed the people I’d met in Kuala Lumpur, requesting
calls on the 18th as I didn’t wish to celebrate my 30th
birthday with no one at all. Leanne
responded saying “Oh my word, I’m turning 30 on the same day!” Thus I met my twin.
Barely a week
after my birthday, a second foreigner began working at Joy, and his contract also
included accommodation. Mario was given
the second room in my apartment.
He was
born and had attended primary school in Chile, after which he'd gone to live
with his father in Canada, where he'd attended high school. It was uncomfortable at first to share
with a stranger, but within months, we had become friends. (Mario left Taiwan after perhaps two
years. I visited him on my first trip to
Melbourne in 2007, and we are still in contact to this day. He now lives in New York City.)
As my circle
of friends expanded, my social calendar got fuller. Additional places of fun became known, like
the Pig Pen for dancing, and the Sound Garden across the road, a rustic
watering hole where one could relax between energetic bouts of dancing.
Later in April, Jennifer (my supervisor)
again invited me on a trip, and I joined her and her family in Chiayi;
we then went into the mountains near Alishan.
In early May, the owner of the cram school took the staff for a weekend away at Westlake Resortopia. In hindsight, it was a nice thing to do, but at the time I couldn't help but feel forced to comply with professional obligation on a Sunday, the only day of the week that I was free.
(Among my Taiwanese colleagues, Grace and Kasania would become my friends. We frequently went out for tea or a meal, and I also have photos taken while hiking with them and their friends. Kasania has remained a good friend to this day, and she and I would travel together to Thailand twice and to Green Island and New Zealand once each.)
At some point I thought it was necessary to inform him of my sexuality, probably because he was trying to set me up with some woman. He responded well, and I would talk about Louis with him. He also met other of my friends, and we would go out as a group from time to time.
Shortly after West Lake Resortopia, Mario and I decided we needed a nicer apartment, and we moved into a place we both liked. By now we both had scooters and could get around more easily.
Leanne and I had become good friends by this time, and we saw each other frequently on weekends, mostly in Taichung, but also in her village. She had made a group of friends in Xuishui and Changhua City, and our groups amalgamated. She started seeing a Canadian called Jason, who was also always around for the fun.
One of the recruits brought over by Mario's agent was a girl called Erin. She stayed with us for a short while before finding a room in an apartment not far away. We grew close, and Erin has remained a dear friend to this day, although she has not lived in Taiwan for more than a decade. I met up with her in Barcelona in 2017.
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In early May, the owner of the cram school took the staff for a weekend away at Westlake Resortopia. In hindsight, it was a nice thing to do, but at the time I couldn't help but feel forced to comply with professional obligation on a Sunday, the only day of the week that I was free.
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(Among my Taiwanese colleagues, Grace and Kasania would become my friends. We frequently went out for tea or a meal, and I also have photos taken while hiking with them and their friends. Kasania has remained a good friend to this day, and she and I would travel together to Thailand twice and to Green Island and New Zealand once each.)
During these early months, I’d get my cooking gas in cylinder form. It was an older apartment and was not connected to the mains. One of the first sentences I learned to say in Chinese was, “Can you help me deliver gas?” That was all I needed to say, as I guess they could tell from my accent that I was the one foreigner on their customer list. The man who delivered my gas to me was called Kevin, and he struck up a friendship with me. Over the next two years, we would meet every second month or so, and he always insisted on paying the tab. I also accompanied him and his girlfriend, XiaoMei to Taipei and Keelung for a weekend.
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At some point I thought it was necessary to inform him of my sexuality, probably because he was trying to set me up with some woman. He responded well, and I would talk about Louis with him. He also met other of my friends, and we would go out as a group from time to time.
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Shortly after West Lake Resortopia, Mario and I decided we needed a nicer apartment, and we moved into a place we both liked. By now we both had scooters and could get around more easily.
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Leanne and I had become good friends by this time, and we saw each other frequently on weekends, mostly in Taichung, but also in her village. She had made a group of friends in Xuishui and Changhua City, and our groups amalgamated. She started seeing a Canadian called Jason, who was also always around for the fun.
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One of the recruits brought over by Mario's agent was a girl called Erin. She stayed with us for a short while before finding a room in an apartment not far away. We grew close, and Erin has remained a dear friend to this day, although she has not lived in Taiwan for more than a decade. I met up with her in Barcelona in 2017.
Towards the
end of May, I would
again follow Stella and Andre, together with more of their friends, this time
to Penghu Islands. These are also called the Pescadores, and
they lie in the Taiwan Strait. The main
town is called Makung, and the archipelago collectively makes up the county of
Penghu. We flew there on Saturday, May 26th
from the now-defunct Taichung airport.
(Taichung's new international airport was upgraded from a military
installation that already existed further from downtown Taichung. The one from which we departed was surrounded
by dense city, but it has now been completely dismantled.) We spent Sunday snorkelling and riding
scooters around the islands. Some of the
houses, now abandoned, had been built out of coral. This is obviously disastrous environmentally,
but I'd never seen anything like it, and I was intrigued.
We stopped at a temple at which a single tree
had been manipulated across beams and down pillars until a vast canopy covered
the temple square. Again, something
quite unique.
I enjoyed this day thoroughly. On Monday, we returned to Taichung.
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A month later, Leanne, Jason and I joined others to watch the Dragon Boat races in Lukang. Lukang is a coastal village in Changhua County. The Dragon Boat Festival is an annual public holiday on which athletes take to boats and race each other. It is a regatta, essentially. Late June is the height of summer, and the oppressive heat and humidity left me nauseous. One viewing of the races was therefore enough, and I have never again bothered to attend. After Lukang, we stopped at a swimming pool where we cooled down and enjoyed each other's company.
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At some point, though I cannot remember when and my diary did not help, I attended a free performance of Chinese opera near the port of Taichung. I went with people from Leanne's group of friends. This was the first time, and for far too long the last time I would attend a performance: in the first place, I was still of the party mindset that I brought with me from London; in addition, getting information on performances (when I got around to it) was not at all easy, and most information was available only in Chinese. (Years later I learned to read some fundamental vocabulary as to this day, information is mostly provided only in Chinese.)
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My calendar flatlined for the next few months. Then in late September, I flew to Cape Town for two weeks. It was good to see Louis and my family. I surely also hung out with friends, but I didn't record the details in my diary, and I took no photos; the only thing I remember is riding shotgun around the Western Cape in Louis’ van to his various appointments at koi ponds. Arriving back in Taichung on October 6th, my social activity (at least, that which I wrote down) crashed to a halt. I am sure lots of fun was had, but it appears I was over keeping a record. I did list the New Year's party, which was held on the rooftop of a high-rise in downtown Taichung.
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The next entry is from late January of 2002. I had gotten a bee in my bonnet and decided that I was going to host a dinner party, which I had not done again since my days in Cooks Road. This time, I wasn't going to invite a small group; instead, I planned to gather everyone I knew. I shopped, chopped and cooked for three days. I borrowed massive, industrial pots. I spent a fortune and kept running back to the shops for more. I made a few different dishes, something for the vegetarians and lots for the carnivores. The umbrella theme was curry. There was so much food. Almost all invited guests arrived. We were noisy and excited, and the building security came more than once to tell us to quiet down. When everyone left, there was still way too much food, which I froze and then tried to finish over the next few weeks. Much of it was eventually tossed into the garbage.
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Here are some snapshots of Taichung I took on a day out with my camera.
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