TEN - From South Africa to Australia

Ron decided he wanted to have a house party, and Ben grudgingly obliged. We bought booze and snack food and set to cleaning the place. I swept the rooftop patio and bought a few small potted plants and strung patio lanterns between the clothesline wires. The night of the party was warm and sticky. But unlike back home, there were no mosquitoes.

I piled my hair up on top of my head and secured it with a hair clip that looked like a pair of chopsticks. I pulled on a cotton tank top that had a bra built in and thin satin straps. I had lost another ten pounds and didn’t need to wear much in the way of foundation garments, which was a good thing because it was too darned hot. My skirt wrapped around me once, buttoned on the hip and hung straight and long to the floor. It was made of a very thin, diaphanous fabric. Cool. Breezy. Ben was in the kitchen fussing over some complicated appetizer and Ron was organizing the music so I offered to go and meet our guests at the subway station. I swished along through the dark alleys, past the hotel, through the night market and over the footbridge. The lights of the city reflected on the water. A musky odour hung in the air. Fish, weeds, garbage, heat.

This is the night I met Murray. The first thing I noticed about him – the first thing anyone notices about Murray – is his flashing eyes. Then his tilted smile, his hands, and the way he walks. I enjoyed his South African accent. We spent most of the night talking. He seemed genuinely interested in me and my life back home. He wanted to know more about my girls. He told me he was trying to get into acting. There were quite a few opportunities for Westerners to do TV commercials, series and even movies in Asia. We decided I would go along with him on some of the auditions, because they might need an older white chick. His words.

The next morning I came downstairs to find Ben sweeping the floor and picking up empty beer bottles. I picked up a mop to help him. My inquiry as to Ron’s whereabouts was answered when he suddenly appeared, coming out of the main floor bathroom. The one with the tub that we had used as a beer cooler the night before.

I peeked past him into the bathroom and, sure enough, he had taken his shower right over the beer. The tub was still half-full of bottles, now covered in suds and hair. My stomach flipped over.

“Diana,” Ron said, looking serious as he towel-dried his hair. “If you want to try my homemade yogurt, you should just say so. Because it’s not very nice to just eat it without asking me first.” (When you read this, you must hear “YOG-urt” because that is how he pronounced it.)

I tried not to make too much of a face as I promised I had not touched his homemade yogurt, which he kept on top of the fridge where the heat activated the bacteria. In fact, I told him, I didn’t have the slightest interest in trying his yogurt. I realized that now, in my mid-30s, I was learning the politics of dormitory living.

That same weekend I met Murray in Hsimenting and we went poster shopping together. He wanted the big movie posters for his rooftop apartment. Basically he lived in one tiny room, but showered and ate outside on the roof, under an awning. I couldn’t imagine living like that. In one way I would feel totally exposed, showering behind a half-wall to the open air. And on the other hand I would be claustrophobic in that tiny room with no windows. But Murray was in Asia to save money, and the rent was cheap. A lot of Westerners lived like that in Taiwan.

I didn’t spend a lot of time with Murray, but I loved him. He wasn’t, however, a love interest, or the reason why I stayed in Taiwan two years past its expiry date and my original plan. The Aussie would be the reason behind that.

I met him when Murray took me to Carnegies one night. The Aussie was the quiet one; his British friend was trying and failing to pick me up. He was laughing silently in the background, watching his friend make a fool of himself. We talked for a few hours as I waited for Murray to reappear from wherever he had vanished to. The more he drank, the pushier he got. He wasn’t making a good impression but I was having a difficult time extricating myself from the conversation, with my escort missing from the picture. Finally my South African friend showed up and I said my goodbyes, leaving The Aussie with my phone number. I changed one of the digits, however, because I didn’t have a good feeling about the whole thing.

The taxi ride home with Murray was a long, quiet one. He was protective of me, and he didn’t like The Aussie. Over the next 2.5 years, my relationship with the man from Melbourne would end more than one of my friendships.

I walked in the front door of my house just in time to see the feral cat disappearing back out the kitchen window. We decided to call him “YOG-urt.”

 ---------------------------------------

 Special to the Advance

There Really Is No Place Like Home

August 2003

It has been said that ‘a man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it’. Well, the same goes for women. There really is no place like home.

During my six months in Taiwan, I have met people from England, Australia, Germany, South Africa, Canada and the United States as well as many from Southeast Asia.

It has been a wonderfully enlightening experience, learning about not only the Chinese culture but also the cultural differences between all of the foreigners that I meet from day to day.

Canadians are well received no matter where they go in the world, it seems, and this makes assimilation into a foreign culture much easier. The natives are willing to help and to teach and they actually seem grateful for our presence here in their country. We are treated with respect and consideration, and any cultural differences that may arise are always handled with the utmost tact and diplomacy.

There are, however, plenty of cultural differences; some good and some bad. For example, I like the way families are so close here, and the elderly are held in such high regard. In dealing with strangers, respect is paid until the person proves they don’t deserve it, not the other way around.

Some of the more difficult cultural differences include the jostling and butting in line at the subway, the cashier line and the bank teller. I guess it comes from having so many people in one place; they have learned that if they don’t seize the opportunity and move up, they may never get served.

I appreciate the Taiwanese ability to organize and coordinate large scale events. I spent the Canada Day weekend with a bunch of ex-pats at the Chin-Chin Ranch (no, they don’t raise pandas there, much to my disappointment). I actually felt my eyes well up with tears when I heard Stompin’ Tom Connors’ song ‘Bud the Spud’ coming out of the loudspeakers.  It was all Canadian music all night, and the burgers on the grill were just like Mom makes at home. Of course, the waist deep, bath temperature pool (Taiwanese don’t like to swim) and raw seafood were pure Taiwan, just in case you were momentarily unsure of your whereabouts. The door prizes were massive bottles of Crown Royal and Niagara Ice Wine, Ford Canada tee shirts and wristwatches (I’m the proud owner of one of those).

We ate our Canadian birthday cake with chopsticks.

MTV hosted a weekend rock festival on Fulong Beach recently, and I was impressed with the way the event went off without a hitch. When the music ended at 10pm, the lead singer said into the mic, “Hsieh, hsieh (thank you) – GO AWAY,” repeatedly. My group thought we might like to go for a swim at this lovely beach party, but entering the surf was strictly forbidden and moving up onto the grass and off the beach was strictly enforced at the end of the concert. A group of about 60 police officers formed a line and did a sweep of the beach, moving from the shore inwards, and everyone had to pack up their beach blanket and head for the tent village or the train back into the city.

A group of volunteers followed with sticks and garbage bags, and within an hour the beach was cleared so that you never would have guessed that several thousand people had been partying there on the sand just minutes earlier.

I kept thinking, imagine if they could clear the Corel Centre or Lansdowne Park just as quickly? It was quite an efficient, if slightly militaristic system.

I must confess, however, that my group of Canadians and one token Aussie were unable to go the whole night without indulging in a little wave hopping. It was thirty degrees in the dark, after all. Our tents were unbearable. We were all lying about in our swimsuits, miserable and grouchy.

At midnight, with several uniformed security guards running after us with flashlights, we took off for the water.

We discovered that they quickly stop chasing you if you doff your swimsuits and head into the water naked as the day you were born, under the light of the silvery moon, so to speak.

And just in case there was any doubt which country we bold tourists were from, one of our fellow skinny dippers had a bright red maple leaf tattoo on his behind.

I will be home for the last two weeks in August, and I look forward to hearing from friends and spending quality time with my family, whom I have missed as one might miss their right leg.

I will be heading for Tim Hortons before I even leave the airport at 8am Friday August 15, and stocking up on tins of English toffee cappuccino. My shopping list of things to bring back to Taiwan include: authentic Levis jeans built for Canadian figures, 100% cotton clothing (it’s all polyester here; try that in 45 humid degrees…); shoes that fit bigger than Asian feet; and all the bathroom supplies and vitamins that cost up to 75% more here on La Isla Formosa.

My itinerary of vacation activities includes soaking up the affection of family and friends first of all, who become even more precious as the miles and months separate us. I look forward to lying in the sun on the St. Lawrence on Dad’s boat, camping out with my daughters, seeing the stars in the clear Ottawa Valley night sky and eating my mother’s home cooking.

I want to ride in a pickup truck and sing a country song…loudly. These are the things I miss most of all. And it’s only been six months!

Thinking about how much I miss Canada is making me choke up so I think I will sign out now, and look forward to seeing all of you when I’m in town, the last two weeks of August. Take care of yourselves, and take pride in being a true Canadian. We really do live in the best country in the world, you know.

-30-