11. Returns to Taiwan

The plane trip back home was a breeze. I didn't feel a thing, i ate well, slept well, and had a good time to myself. Unlike my flight to taiwan, which had me feeling many things: ate horribly, slept terribly by closing my eyelids all the way through, had a miserable 12 hours, almost vomited on the flight attendant, had to continually spit into the vomit bag to prevent my extremely empty stomach from being able to throw up anything, basically gagging and spasming all the way through. I fixed that with a pill and now i love flying.

After several weeks of life back australia, i have finally discovered the key ingredient as to why i miss taiwan. Well what is it? The possibilities were relatives, taiwanese culture, shopping, creative goods and tour friends. I miss all of these very much but the actual key ingredient was not in the possibility list. The key ingredient was freedom - the freedom of no obligation, the freedom of independence, and the freedom to hold a camera wherever i go. Actually it is weirder for me to look like a tourist in taiwan than in australia, because afterall i am taiwanese. But i didn't realise that point, so it doesn't matter. Now i'm back in taiwan, and i'm very happy to tell you my story.

I came across a 'love auction' that was held outside a warehouse/shopping centre which has everything you'd ever dream of buying on the one level. This 'love auction' would receive donations such as anything to anything from organizations or private donors and they would 'love auction' it outside major intersections, which was not a good idea after i spotted a bunch of stationary motorcyclists staring at the auctioneer not knowing that the red light had turned green. This time, it was an 'everything must go' situation. They had televisions, blenders, saxophones and a lot of other things that weren't in the picture.

When the auctioneer announced that the next item was a fur ball dog, the reaction of the crowd was nothing. No reaction and no bids. But wasn't this an everything-must-go situation? Yes, so the auctioneer had no choice but to pull the taiwanese seller's favourite man-cringer:
"100 dollars, is your girlfriend worth less than 100 dollars?"
That, of course is making a lot of assumptions, but it was very effective. Actually, 100 dollars for a soft toy is quite a bargain. It was only because the auction team didn't want to take anything back to home base that they would offer cheap cheap prices. Now, this fact attracts people. But only people with lots of money. The people with no money however, were dragged alongside the people with lots of money, and power. And because it was super cheap, the people with lots of money didn't plan to leave without many bargains. I especially enjoy the expression of the girl in the middle.

Just like ageing, there are obvious signs of boredom. It starts off with a dreamy sigh, progresses into a patience breaking weariness, evolves into agitated rolly eyes, and finally becomes a smelly face. And it doesn't help that there are chairs there either.

On public transport, i sometimes like to exaggerate the effect of the bumpiness of the ride. I see the heads of the people moving left to right, so i try to copy that, except by overdoing the reactions of the bumpiness. So I'd put on an extremely normal, perhaps drainy and annoyed face, overdo the reactions, and then observe the reactions of the other passengers. It's fascinating, because they'd think that you're actually annoyed by the movement and that you're trying to avoid the shaky ride - which is perfectly normal. The plane which took me home was extremely squishy, the aisles were particular small and the seats particular unspacious. On top of that, i was sitting next to an old asian man, and you'd categorize old asian men as non-contact because they're too traditional to know how to touch. I couldn't really feel relaxed in the position that i was in - and that is, narrow shoulders, slim legs and constricted arms. I couldn't relax even though i'd taken the pill. Luckily, some turbulence came to cause some bumpiness to my ride. As soon as it hit, i started to shake violently to touch the man's left leg on a few occasions. He looked at me oddly the first time, but after that he thought that i was a normal person because every other passenger on that plane was wobbling. Then i felt tired, I spaced myself out - my arms and my shoulders and slept. After a while i woke up i found we were all over each other. And after i had tried to pull away our touching arms, the old asian man glanced at me for the second time for the entire trip. I'm sure that the extra space was also what he wanted, and he was just waiting for me to take the first step. And if your dad is asian and sort of old, he is probably too traditional to know how to start a hug. Won't you start one off for him?