Taiwan revisited

Ten years ago I was introduced to a cousin of mine in Taiwan. Her younger sister wouldn't speak to me. She said I didn't speak Chinese well enough. I was in Taiwan on an exchange program of sorts and on the occasional weekend that I was free my cousin would take me to movies or to lunch. The first time we went to a movie she asked me what I wanted to see. She listed off a number of Hollywood blockbusters. I said I wanted to see a Chinese movie. She was shocked. "No one sees Chinese movies," she told me. "Everyone waits for them to show on t.v." But I was in Taiwan and wanted to see a Chinese movie and so she picked one at random. Years later I would realize the film was He's a Woman She's A Man starring Leslie Cheung. When I saw it in Taiwan it reminded me of a number of John Hugues movies.

Yesterday, my parents told me she was living in Cupertino. She had been in New York for a year and was now living with her aunt around the corner. She had found a job and was planning to stay in California for a year before returning to Taiwan. They had visited yesterday when I was napping. My father called her aunt and gave them my phone number. She called me last night.

Today we saw each other for the first time in ten years. We met at a Starbucks, and I was surprised how easily I remembered her. We drank coffee, then wandered a flea market set up in the parking lot of De Anza College. Neither of us had a car and so we just wandered around close by. She then took me to another aunt's house, a woman I later realized I knew. The aunt used to live in Boston and had visited our house in Connecticut a number of times with her three daughters. They had moved to Taiwan when I was in junior high, and then moved to California. I had seen them intermittently in the intervening years, but not often enough to recognize her immediately. Her eldest daughter is now in med school. Her second daughter was home from college, and her youngest was studying for her finals.

We sat around the kitchen table and ate melon seeds and drank tea, chatting now in English, now in Chinese. Later we wrapped dumplings. They were delicious.

My cousin walked me back home; she was afraid I'd get lost. Once back at my my aunt's house we had leftover birthday cake (tiramisu). My cousin MaKu called to wish me a happy birthday. I told her she was a day late. She said she had somehow transposed her birthday calendar incorrectly. We chatted and then she had to prepare for the 11 o'clock newscast. I found my cousin watching a Chinese variety show with my aunt and grandmother. I didn't get most of the jokes, but she was laughing uproariously. And then it was time to go.

I put a leash on my aunt's dog and walked my cousin halfway home. At Stelling Stelling Boulevard I had to say goodbye. The dog refused to cross the street. I had asked my cousin if she was interested in going into San Francisco tomorrow with me but I forgot to remind her. She ran across the street; the dog pulled in the other direction. By the time I turned to watch her go, she was already gone. Posted by eku at June 5, 2004 10:23 AM