Laughing all the time

Yes, I am laughing all the time. The food I eat, the clothes I wear, the mistranslations in conversation or on store signs, the instructive drawings in elevators depicting people catching fire or happily playing a game trapped inside while they wait for repairs. Of course the captions are in mandarin so these are just the situations as I understand them.

I continue to be fascinated by the food here and I think I finally understand what makes it so unique. As one member of the company put it- the Taiwanese like to take 2 things that seem totally unrelated and put them together just to see what happens. So for example, yogurt and green tea. I think first, umm no thanks, but I sampled some yesterday and was as always very surprised to find it quite scrumptious. Or my breakfast roll the other day of coffee-flavored bread squeezed full with red bean paste and rice milk pudding. How can you not laugh at that? Also there is a whole subcategory of food here which I have created under the heading "dragon food" because it's all named in honor of this favorite creature. Dragon beard is a green vegetable with long curly whisker-like leaves, dragon eyes are eaten dried (and stuffed in bread or as a surprise at the bottom of your tea or all sorts of unexpected places) but when had alone it is suspiciously like eating a dried eyeball...as I imagine it anyway. And then there is the dragon fire fruit which is surprisingly unoffensive but tastes sort of like a pale kiwi despite its daunting exterior of bright pink skin that shoots up in a flame shape. [missing picture]

Then there are the daily conversations like

"Will you bring your mother flowers for mother's day?"

"No, I am not the kind of son who brings flowers but tonight I will appear in her face"

I mean... I couldn't help myself. I had to laugh. Of course I knew surely he meant something much simpler, like "I will visit her" and we got to that eventually but first I had to enact for him what exactly "appearing in her face" sounded like in english. At which he also had a good laugh.

Sometimes I imagine my conversations here like a game of Guesstures or Taboo (thank you dear suitemates of Bdorm for your years of unintentional training) because though intentions and emotions are usually quite clear there is a distinct lack of shared vocabulary between myself and my friends here. So I want to say "relish something" but I can't use the words indulge, savor, or pleasure because those are also unfamiliar. Or I have to explain what "bones" are without using the word "skeleton." It's often a lot harder than you think, but thankfully there are no rules and any method to get the point across is acceptable as long as it works. But as you can imagine there is still lots of room for hilarious misunderstandings. So far we have a great time even with those.

Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon with Ibao who is a Taiwanese aboriginal and one of the coolest people I've ever met. Her age she says is a secret- all I know is she has some gray hair and has done a lot of things already but would have no trouble tackling me to the ground if she ever decided it was necessary. She speaks less english I think than the other members (so we are still learning words together like "feet" and "shirt") but we may talk more together than anyone else. She is always pushing me to really learn the language and find ways to be helpful (when others insist I needn't worry) and I'm really grateful for that. She said to me one day "you are my good friend" and I couldn't have been more honored. Still her friend was shocked to learn we'd spent the whole afternoon hanging out and neither of us really speaks the other's language. Somehow it hadn't even occured to me to be impressed. We get along fantastically.

The last week of walking we had a lot of rain. But the company members are stout believers that the show must go on and so it did, and so did the walking. We covered the drum heads with plastic and ran about the stage in our plastic ponchos covering everything as best we could to keep as dry as possible until show time. I thought surely no one would come and sit outside in the rain for an hour but I was very wrong as you can see by the ocean of yellow still seated before the stage at the end of the show.

After one day of soaked feet in squelchy shoes some of us started creating desperate improvisations to stay dry during the walks. Here I am with 2 of the members with our innovative rain spats made from the sleeves of these rather pitiful ponchos. I think I look like Rosie the Riveter playing Singing in the Rain. Other days we wore huge straw, or probably bamboo hats in the traditional Taiwanese style and I would drape mine with a scarf to shade my face or tie the scarf under my chin to keep the wind from blowing it away. The point is I found myself looking pretty ridiculous most of the time. And I can't help thinking of my parents and how mortified I was as a child to see them contrive such painfully dorky getups (sorry Dad) for just such reasons as too much sun or unexpected wind or rain or whatever. Dad's special way of wearing his hat sideways to protect his neck from the sun or Mom wrapped like an onion in countless layers of coats and shawls because we decided to take a family vacation to the beach...in January. So now I admit I have never felt so unexpectedly like my parents. And I thank them truly for what I've come to understand as a certain sense of flair which I am happy to inherit.

Here I am at a fancy meal where every dish held a mystery (back to my theme-song question directed at each new plate: "what's this?!"). Even the tea at the end which was served in this 3-part cup where the leaves were brewed right into the cup and then lifted out when ready to drink. My hair decoration was originally on my plate.

This was one of our non-temple stays. A beautiful old scattering of houses which I think they are in the midst of converting into a retreat/resort tucked into the lush hillside. There isn't a day goes by I don't sit in wonder at how amazing this experience is, thinking how absurdly lucky I am.

And now I am in Taipei where I will stay until the end of June. All new things to learn here but every time I think my free-fall has begun, somebody shows up to show me the way and I am only alone as much as I need to be. I have no doubt I will accrue many more curious and thrilling experiences before I leave this place- a departure date which already feels much too soon.