February
2003
La Isla
Formosa
The banner at the arrival gate of Chang Kai Shek Memorial
Airport in Taipei declared: “Welcome to Taipei! Drug Trafficking is Punishable
by Death in the People’s Republic of China”. The few Chinese voices I had heard
on the last leg of the flight multiplied into a throng. Bodies were rushing in
every direction, cutting in line, bumping into me. I still felt nauseous from
landing and thought I might throw up - instead, I dropped my passport and
customs papers. Sing-song Mandarin rang out over the sound system, welcoming
new arrivals. I looked around for the queue, and realized there wasn’t one. I
joined the wave of people being herded to the appropriate counters, to have passports
stamped and papers checked; the customs officer took his time looking at mine.
Next the crowd spilled out into the main luggage terminal,
where everyone pushed and shoved until they could see the bags coming down the
chute. The crowd was so thick around the baggage carousel that I decided to
hang back until it thinned. My suitcases must have done several laps by the
time I claimed them.
I pushed my overloaded cart towards the doors of the main
lobby. My stomach grumbled and I thought about what I might be eating for
dinner that night - noodles would be safe to settle the nausea, or rice,
perhaps.
I tripped the automatic switch and the doors flew open to
fluorescent lights and hundreds – no, thousands - of people waving signs and
yelling in their mother tongue. I blinked, momentarily blinded. I felt as
though I were on stage, in the spotlight. One of the busiest traveling weekends
of the year - the end of Chinese New Year - always brought a fresh crop of
foreign English teachers to Taipei. And every taxi driver in the city was there
to meet them.
“Nihao! Nihao! Laoshe! (for they just assumed I was another
teacher).” They waved their school signs in my face as I slowly moved down the
aisle, looking for the one that read, “Kimberly American School”.
Finally, I found the sign - it was being held by a
diminutive man in a dark suit, hat and white gloves. He smiled a wide,
toothless grin. “Nihao ma? How are you, miss? You need washroom? One hour’s
drive. It’s there. (he pointed). I take your bags.”
My already overworked paranoia told me not to give up my
bags (which currently contained everything I needed in life for one year), but
I was too tired to care.
The taxi would take me directly to the school, to meet my
new employers – who had also sponsored my work permit to enter the country. I
needed to make a good impression; thirty-five was the cutoff age for teachers
at this elite institution, and I was afraid I looked more like fifty after the
24-hour journey- I certainly felt it.
I smelled the ladies’ room before I entered it. Thinking one
of the toilets must be backed up, I bypassed my nose and breathed through my
mouth. That’s when I saw another sign: “Please to not put paper in toilet. Use
bin on floor.” Some cheeky bugger had changed the ‘on’ to ‘or’ - a foreigner,
no doubt. Funny, even with all my research, I did
not know you couldn’t flush toilet paper in Taiwan. Maybe Dubai would have been the
better choice...
I combed through my head of tangled, squashed curls,
reapplied deodorant, brushed my teeth and reapplied mascara and lipgloss. I had
showered and changed into light khakis and a cotton shirt after my overnight
stopover in Tokyo so you couldn’t really tell - except for the dark circles
under my eyes - that I had been travelling for more than 24 hours. I headed
toward the exit doors, where the taxis were lining up to collect their clients.
As the doors slid open, a wall of wet heat smashed into my face and sucked the
air out of my lungs. Toothless
taxi-man turned to look at me as I nestled into the dingy, lace-covered back
seat and let out a big sigh of comfort.
“You like Lee-Ann Rimes, yeah? I play for you. Close eyes
now. Sleep.”
And they said there was no country music in Taipei. I
ignored the gnawing ache in my belly, and set my mind to embracing the
adventure that surely lay ahead in this farthest of possible destinations.
Where are
you digging to in that sandbox, honey? Watch out or you’ll end up in China...
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