AN INVITATION TO TAIWAN ON, OR …
(Innocents Abroad, Part 15)
… AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS 1980
(It’s been some weeks, but if you were following my vintage misadventures sailing around the world aboard the SS Universe with the Semester At Sea program, we’re back onboard with another installment. If you’re new to my substack, you can easily catch up by checking out past issues of Monday Morning Literary Bric-a-Brac anytime.)
THERE WAS a special excitement to having reached the shores of Taiwan, since our crew was chiefly made up of Taiwanese nationals. Their cheer and excitement were contagious, their smiling faces an invitation to share in their personal joys and national pride.
When my cabin roomie, Lucy, and I finally got off the ship and were on our way by bus to our first outing, lush subtropical mountain views greeted us, but so did the hallmarks of poverty in the form of dirty, unkempt houses and streets.
The one thing that definitely wasn’t unkempt, however, were the magnificent dragon-ornamented temples we passed.
The show we were headed to had started at 3:00, but it was nearly 5:00 when we arrived; there had been snags and delays in the various processes of docking and disembarking.
Furthermore, our departure for the show had been held up by the fanfare of our ship’s arrival in its home port, since throngs of friends and family had come to welcome the crew.
Disappointed that we only caught the last twenty minutes of the show, we nevertheless got a delicious taste of culture and talent: acrobatics, Kung-fu, magic, a gorgeous scarf dance, opera, tumblers, and traditional dancing.
We also got our own ovation as we tried to slip in quietly, mid-performance, learning later that the emcee had paused the show to announce our arrival and to state who we were.
After the show it was onto a Mongolian Bar-B-Que at the Taipei Mongolian Hotel. The feast was served in a thatched-roof restaurant out back.
We went through a queue, filling our plates with all manner of vegetables, meats, and sauces, then passed the plate to a cook at the end of the line who made quick work of sautéing everything on an open grill. In my journal I recorded:
“You shoulda seen ‘em go! 1 minute flat & he sweeps it right off the grill w/ his stick & catches the whole thing in your bowl in mid air! We got an accompanying bowl of rice & some scrumptious almost short-bread rolls …”
After dining and before the nightclub show that was up next on the agenda, Luce and I did some window-shopping in a subterranean mall beneath the hotel.
Most of the shops were closed, but we didn’t come away empty-handed (there was a good reason I had bought an extra trunk back in Hawaii!). I bought a set of miniature Chinese lanterns for my mom for her Christmas tree that I was sure she’d get a kick out of.
The nightclub, as described in my journal, was “fantastic,” but to read the description now I can only cringe—partly because it’s so ‘80’s, but mostly because I’m re-imagining the horrific lighting effects.
Why?
Well, in my approaching dotage I’ve developed severe photophobia (secondary to Sjögren’s Syndrome—kind of a cousin disorder to Lupus).
Here’s the description from my journal, with the usual spelling mistakes and all:
“A giant stage & mirror ball, pulsing colored lights in the ceiling that went to the music, 2-storied mirrored pillars w/ crystal chandaliers to boot. Red cushioned furniture & blue cushioned walls. Sparkles, spangles, glitter, and pure show. It was great.”
Despite the gaudy decor, we were treated to another great variety show. Once again there were singers, dancers, acrobats, magic, and Kung-fu, which I thoroughly enjoyed from my front-row balcony seating along with Lucy and another shipmate, Robert Porter.
A Long Day Gets Longer
By 9:30 we were headed back to the ship. On the way I engaged our tour guide in conversation. He insisted he could sense people’s blood type. Mine, he said with assurance, was type A (it’s not).
Recounting the chat in my journal later, I quipped: “I think his [blood type] is BS—for bullshit.”
Once back onboard, Lucy sensibly napped while I wrote in my journal till our scheduled midnight desk duty. Back in those days it was nothing to pull all-nighters—even after a day filled with eye-popping entertainment and stellar cuisine.
While on overnight desk duty (we were scholarship students traveling around the world on a work-study scheme), Luce and I decided to “screw” our established plan for the following day: a geology excursion to the shore. Anti-espionage laws prohibited photography on that outing, which didn’t appeal to us.
Instead we decided to go “shop-shop-shopping!”
Loads of Shopping & Lots of Non-Stopping
It’s evident from my journal our days in Taiwan were non-stop; the next entry isn’t until three days later, on the final day of our stay. The initial entry for that day is logged at 6:30 AM, just as I’m finishing my final graveyard desk duty shift.
Honestly, I can’t recall when I slept. Between bustling about Taiwan by day and pulling midnight desk duty shift all those in-port days, I don’t know how I managed. At least I could console myself, knowing I wouldn’t have to put in another set of desk duty hours until (I think) we reached Sri-Lanka.
Ah, the energy of youth.
That 6:30 AM journal entry begins by recounting the wonderful trip to the Taipei Opera School the day before. En route there, I rode in the usual way: in the back of the bus.
My companions were Ian, who was Professor Wilcox’s twelve-year-old son, and “Myan.” I wrote: “I love to sit in the back of the bus cause it’s always elevated & you can see everyone & don’t feel closed in on. Myan is Danish. She says it is spelled Marian, but pronounced “Myan” (with a long i sound).”
I’ve never lost my preference for sitting in the backs of busses, theaters, auditoriums, restaurants. I like to have my back to a wall, I guess: no one looking over my shoulder; able to keep an eye on everyone else.
It probably sounds paranoid, and maybe it is, but I’ve met others who feel the same.
Anyway, when we got to the school, the students were outside exercising, and I took some pics, extremely impressed with what I saw. Kids attend the school from age ten to eighteen.
I enthusiastically jotted in my journal: “The skill and ability is astounding and just lovely & captivating & spellbinding!”
Soon after arriving we were led to “a room with a big O-shaped table [where] cookies, candy, and tea were served along with a dose of your average ‘welcome strangers to our humble abode’ speech by the pres. (via translation).”
A slideshow followed, and the staff were, in turn, soon impressed by Professor Wilcox’s more-than-average knowledge of the subject. After all, he was my Theatres of Asia teacher.
Where The Horror of History and Art Collide
I had studied ballet and had danced en pointe, so one of the most fascinating things for me was seeing the students being taught to play the “young woman” role.
The girls trained in “hoof-like toe shoes” in which they stay en pointe for hours at a time. The contraptions they wore on their feet were meant to portray the deformed feet of women who’d been subjected to the (horrid) historical practice of foot binding.
“You should see them go!” I recorded in my journal. “Jumping, Russian kicks, walking, dancing, spinning!”
Once back in Keelung, the port where the ship was docked, I lit out on my own for the first time in over a month, enjoying the solitude, but maybe not so much the odor of the market environs.
I described the area as “puke city,” which I’m sure was intended as a parody on one of the early large indoor malls I grew up near, a behemoth shopping center called Park City.
Smell notwithstanding, I catalogued my happy purchases for friends and family back home: a “happy Buddha” for my friend, Dani; a Chinese jacket for my sister, Fame; decorative wall scrolls for other siblings; a diary notebook for my friend, Julie; a beautiful tea set for my sister, Earth.
I was short on funds, though, by the time I wanted to buy the jacket for Fame, and asked the merchant where I might be able to cash a traveler’s check. Like others before him in my Asian travels who didn’t have strong skills in English, he walked me where I wanted to go, once my desired destination became clear.
I’d almost come to expect this hospitable generosity of spirit from locals when I was suddenly met with my first nasty native: the woman behind the exchange counter.
Her attitude dripped with overt condescension and intolerance, and once I’d signed all the papers in all the spots she sharply indicated, she literally threw my money at me, leaving me stunned and speechless.
Afterward I followed the merchant back to his shop and paid for the jacket, only to have him refuse to hand over the package!
He was trying to communicate something more, but all I wanted was for him to hand me my merchandise. He finally got a third person in on the miscommunication, but all they could translate was, “Two. TWO!”
And off the man headed, apparently thinking I now understood. He was still carrying my package, so I had little choice but to follow.
Before too long I realized the “Two” had been for Pier Two, which was where the ship was berthed. Aha! He was guiding me back to the ship.
Problem was, I wasn’t done shopping. What’s more, I knew perfectly well how to get back to the Universe. Still, try as I might, I couldn’t make him understand.
Eventually, whatever he thought I was trying to communicate led him to abruptly veer in a whole new direction—my purchase still in his grip.
It was getting ridiculous.
I continued to tail him, repeatedly and emphatically pointing back and forth between my merchandise in his grip and myself, till at last he seemed to understand. Blessedly, he handed me my purchase, but beckoned me to follow him.
For a time I did—he was clearly headed back to his shop, now—then I managed to duck unseen into a china shop.
Was that the end of it? Oh, no.
After a short while, I saw him return.
Through the plate glass store front I spied him frantically looking this way and that. I couldn’t quite decide it this was just somebody taking intercultural courtesy to the steroidal level, or if something more nefarious was at play.
At last, to my dismay, he spied me inside the china shop and tried to re-collect me as if I were some disobedient stray. But I was having none of it. I persisted and resisted till he finally understood, waved so-long, and left.
It was in that china shop that I found the seven-piece, covered-cup tea set I purchased for my sister, Earth.
To this day I can picture that tea set still: the maroon color of it decorated in gold leaf overlay with white circles meaning happiness and long life, the wicker handle of the teapot, the common style of the cups without handles.
I jotted the price in my journal: “18 smackers.”
Why? Probably because in today’s dollars that’s equivalent to $71.99, a fortune back then to a nearly destitute college kid.
On the upside, I knew my meals and passage back to America were already paid for.
Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch
As I mentioned earlier, it was nearing dawn of our final day in Taiwan; I was jotting all these experiences in my journal while completing my overnight duty desk shift when suddenly another dawn came into play: my other roomie, Dawn Tetrault.
Dawn was supposed to have been sharing that duty desk shift with me, but had gone off instead on an overnight excursion to Toroko Gorge.
Me? I’d fallen asleep at the duty desk, face-down on my open journal.
It was some dude screaming angrily at the top of his lungs that jarred me awake.
He pounded up to the desk as if driven by hellfire, demanding explosively to know where Dawn was. What? Did he think I’d stashed her out of sight somewhere just to defy him? I had no idea who he was nor what he wanted.
I tried to explain she’d gone off on an in-port trip, but he wouldn’t let up. He’d definitely blown a gasket.
For awhile I tried to be reasonable, to calm the savage beast in my midst, but he continued to scream at me, his red face apoplectic and the veins in his neck bulging. I tried to maintain my equilibrium, but like anyone yelled at long enough, I succumbed to the heat of the moment.
I stood up and screamed back as loud as I could, “SHE’S GONE TO TOROKO GORGE!” There were probably a few expletives tossed in for good measure.
That took him down a notch, but he continued to huff and puff a while longer before stomping off like the big ape he was (no insult to apes intended). I never did find out his name or what he actually wanted—why he was so angry.
Thinking back on it now, I feel fairly certain it was a very good thing Dawn wasn’t there.
In future years, I would become a cop, be screamed at many times by angry people. By then, though, I had learned to never scream back.
A Final Day in Dismal Taipei
Dawn eventually returned from the Gorge, and when she did, she took one look at the jacket I’d bought for Fame and wanted me to show her where I got it.
So off I went, back to the market—this time with Dawn in tow.
When we got there she promptly turned up her nose at the shop’s merchandise. I later wrote in my journal it was just “…as I should have suspected.” I also wrote:
“On our way [to the shop] we passed the ultimate groticity of the market place. The stench of rotted & freshly slaughtered flesh turned our guts. The inch thick mud ran red with newly-spilt blood. I nearly puked.”
Later that morning, at 10:40 AM, my journal picks up again, telling more about that final day in Taiwan. Apparently it was a doozy, one in which I was toting my journal along, recording my misadventures in real-time.
“SHIT!” the next entry begins (I’m writing from the Palace Museum where the amazing display of miniatures had blown me away). “I came up to the top—” I initially go on, but the entry drops there.
It soon picks up again with, “Shit! I can’t escape!” and, “Now I’m outside in the air. Some Japanese guy sat down & occupied my moments while I slowly consumed a disease.”
Apparently, intending to treat myself to some ice cream at the museum snack bar, I’d pointed to a picture on display, but instead of being handed the ice cream I expected, I was presented with “a frigin’ bottle of hot milk!”
“Like an ass,” I go on to recount, “I drank the damned thing anyway, convincing myself it’s good, & [then] I notice a yellow scum making its way across the surface of the shit. It grows, & I watch, realizing this [same] living entity is now fermenting in my very entrails!”
And then: “GOD DAMN! I just opened my boxed lunch and the godassinine apple’s got a white fungus growin’ outa the gooshing bruises!”
I must’ve sensed the day’s dietary curse hadn’t fully played out, because I went on to add, “Watch this! I’ll open my egg and it won’t be hard boiled. Just watch…
“I FUCKIN’ KNEW IT!”
The Gift of Time
I readily confess I hadn’t remembered these details about my time in Taiwan until I re-read these journal entries just now, but the ghastly moments are quickly returning in all their dismal nuance.
The main difference is that now they make me laugh—especially considering the fact that I survived and will likely never have to consume such horrors again.
Nevertheless, I continue to pepper my journal with vehement outrage:
“And I spent all my $ on that disease I drank in undesired company. I spent all my other American $ on the 5 letters I wrote last night. Fuck the frigin’, blasted, assinine world! DO YOU HEAR ME?! I want to go back to the frigin’ ship. I’m not gonna take that bus to the Lung Shan Temple & Grand Hotel. No shit. I’m gonna sit-it out [here] till 3 & just go back.”
“Maybe I’ll get a little peace.” I mused. “Now where the shit was I? Ah yes, puking in the market place. Speaking of puking, here I sit stuffing my face with a dry dead ham sandwich and just feeding that fungus inside me. I am so pissed that that lady gave me poison milk instead of the goddamned ice cream I payed for.
“FUNGUS! GODDAMN!”
I was one unhappy stranger in a strange, new land that day, and it didn’t end there. My love affair with Taiwan had expired, and the native kindness that seemed to be everywhere in the opening days of my visit evaporated.
As I sat there, jotting in my journal, “I just sit & write & long to find a friendly face,” passersby laughed and spat at me.
The meanness led me to recount more of it, how that morning at the post office I’d endured being totally ignored.
Then I console myself, weaving a fantasy scenario of sweet revenge: the ignorant postal clerk arriving in America, wanting to see the Washington Monument, but I, encountering her, sending her to Santa Fe instead.
Obviously, I was not very polished at revenge fantasies.
Disgusted, nauseous, and maligned by strangers, I fell asleep, my dismal attitude fueled by four sleepless nights in a row. When I awoke two hours later (passersby had probably been spitting on me as I slept), I rose, deciding to go sleep on the bus that was scheduled to take us back to the ship.
The bus, of course, wasn’t there.
Unsurprised, I veered toward a nearby set of old steps to sit down, when I spied blue-tailed lizards darting about. For the next twenty minutes I played with them, pleased that one paused, posing willingly when I attempted to capture the moment on film.
Later, I write in my journal, “A nice nap and a jaunt with a few lizards sure does wonders for the disposition.”
___________________________
You can read more about how that last day in Taiwan unfolded by continuing to follow my travel retrospective in future installments of Monday Morning Literary Bric-a-Brac.
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But before I go, how about a little update on my writing life?
If you’ve yet to buy a copy of my debut novel, Shay The Brave (fantasy adventure), you can purchase one here, here, or even here. You can also ask your favorite local bookstore to order you a copy. If you do, be sure to ask them to stock a few copies as well, to help others discover it!
Also, the companion book to Shay The Brave (The Share With Shay Journal) may yet be out this year, I’m told by my publisher, Wild Ink Publishing, LLC.
Bookmark my website (www.rileykilmore.com) to stay tuned to updates.
In other updates, the sequel to Shay The Brave—Alexy, Strong And Silent—is completed! The manuscript is in the hands of my editor and publisher, and with luck it may be out within a year.
You’re always free to message the publisher on their website asking it be released ASAP! Can’t hurt, right? (the contact form to my publisher is at bottom of my author page).
And if that isn’t enough to keep the Shay-verse turning, guess what else?! The AUDIOBOOK version of Shay The Brave is about to drop!! WOOT!
I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to share with you this marvelous rendition of Shay, narrated by the amazing Emma Heap! Be sure to watch for it on Audible.com!
Terrific!
Okay, so next week I’ll return to the practice of adding a few book recs at the end of my weekly substack posts, so be sure to read all the way through each issue so as not to miss out on some stellar reads to add to your TBR pile!
And if you like to meet authors in person, here are two upcoming local author library appearances (book signings) I’ll be making: Sept. 21st meet me at the Martin Library in York, PA, from 10-1, and on Nov. 2nd come say hi at the Lititz, PA library from 10-12.
Can’t get out to meet me in person? You can listen in!
Two recent audio interviews with “yours truly” are about to drop! Keep an eye on the Literary Blend podcast with author Demi Michelle Schwartz, and the Voices From Appalachia radio show out of Shepherd University (thank you Julia Becraft-Shehan and Dr. Sylvia Shurbutt)!
Both interviews were so much fun to do!
And finally, shout out to Lititz Chooses Love, who kindly added copies of Shay The Brave to their loaner library resource room!
Love to all! See you next week!