A Pleasant Surprise…

Subtitled: And an Unpleasant One

I had the family reunion on my father’s side yesterday.  My father, mother, brother, niece, and I took the bullet train to Taichung.  It was pretty neat.  My father’s second-oldest brother’s third and fourth sons picked us up (with their respective wives).  The third brother had stayed in our house in MN before, so I remembered him.  I didn’t remember meeting the fourth brother.  We went directly to the restaurant, and I was wary because I remembered the first time I met my father’s family.  Needless to say, it did not go well (the first time).  However, as I rode with the third brother, I realized that he and I had more than a few things in common.  Then, when we went to the restaurant, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.  There were roughly fifty of us when it was all said and done, and there was only one moment of shame for me.  It was when my father’s second sister came up to me and looked at me sternly.  She made a sour face and then asked (in Taiwanese) if I could speak Taiwanese.  My mother said no, and she made an even more sour face and looked at me like I was dirt on her feet.  She said (in Taiwanese) that I should know how to speak Taiwanese (apparently, she didn’t know that I could understand some of it), and she clucked her tongue at me.  Now, mind you, this was the same woman who, along with her older sister, told me I should speak Chinese the last time I saw them.  At that time, I was in Taiwan to learn how to speak Chinese.  A month later, when I met the two sisters again and began talking to them in Chinese, they switched to Taiwanese and said I should know how to speak Taiwanese.

This time, as with last time, I wanted to say to her, “Why don’t you know how to speak English?”  When she said something about it not being useful to her, I would answer, “That’s why I don’t learn Taiwanese.”  You know what else pissed me off?  She didn’t say the same thing to my brother.  She treated him nicely.  It’s just me that bore the brunt of her wrath (most likely because I’m female).

Other than that, though, the reunion went fairly well.  That was the pleasant surprise.  The cousins of my generation and the ones of the next generation were really pretty damn cool.  The two brothers with whom we spent most of the time were great and very hospitable.  The third brother had been in the States to study, and the fourth had study in Australia for two years, so both were Westernized to a certain extent.

After lunch, we had karaoke (of course.  We’re Asian).  They wanted us to sing, but all the English songs were thirty years old, and I didn’t recognize most of them.  I mean, Oh, Credit Card! WTF?  O Christmas Tree?  Anyway, brother number four had WiFi, so my bro, my niece, and I excused ourselves after an hour or so of karaoke and went upstairs to hop online.  Apparently, there is some law that if you are in the house, you must have the TV on at all times, so one of the brothers turned on the TV.  What did he want to watch?  Wonder Woman.   I had never seen the original movie, and I was cracking up at the cheesiness and double entendres.  Now, you guys know that I can be somewhat bawdy from time to time, so I was coming up with zinger after zinger in my head.  Such as when the Princess says, “I feel things I’ve never felt before” upon seeing the fallen man.  I couldn’t help but say, “Oh, I bet you do.”  The third brother, who was watching, laughed, and soon, we were exchanging mildly risque comments about the movie.  It was a relief that I could let a little bit of me out to play, even if it was only for a short while.

After, we went to the biggest night market in Taichung.  I don’t know if it was the biggest, but it was certainly the most crowded.  I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t enjoy it very much–except for the food of course.  I tried rice cake soaked in pig’s blood.  Interesting.  Not something I would eat again, though.

Then, today.  Got up at seven, went to breakfast.  After, we were going up a mountain.  first, we stopped at a tea house/restaurant owned by the stepmother of the wife of the little brother of the wife of the third brother.  Yeah, follow that procession if you dare.  The wife had lived in Chicago for a time, so her English was very good.  She was one of the tiny, cute, wearing two-inch heels to climb kind of woman.  In other words, the kind of woman who makes me feel inferior without even trying.   Goddamn it!  How come I was born without the girl gene?

So, after we had some tea, we started climbing up the mountain.  There was a skywalk (as shown in the second picture) 1400 M up the mountain.  We started hiking.  Our entourage consisted of my parents, my brother, my niece, the two brothers (sons of my dad’s second oldest brother, remember), and their wives.  As we started climbing, my heart began beating rapidly.  I got dizzy, and I couldn’t feel my calves.  This was the unpleasant surprise:  Apparently, I am adversely affected by mountain air.  I tried to stick it out for a few more hundred meters, but at one point, I felt as if I were going to faint.  I stopped and told whomever was closest to me that I couldn’t make it.  I was so deeply ashamed, but I felt as if my heart was about to burst out of my chest.  I told them (they’d all gathered around me at this point)  that I couldn’t breathe because of the mountain air.  My father immediately scoffed and said that we were not that high up.  He said he was worse off than I was, and I started getting angry.  I said that it didn’t matter how high we were.  I couldn’t breathe.  The third brother said he would take me back down, but my dad said he wasn’t feeling well so he’d go down with me.

Oh, hell, no.  I said no, and I started moving again.  My mom said that if I felt too bad, my dad would go down with me.  I snapped, “I don’t want to go with him.”  My mom was taken aback by that.

We kept going, and I was feeling worse and worse.  My calves were numb, and I started disconnecting from my body.  I kept putting one foot in front of the other, but I started seeing double.  The area was spinning, and I was going to faint.  I stopped and said I couldn’t do it.  I felt so damned ashamed, but there was no way I was going to make it to the top.   I was hot, flushed, my heart was pounding, and I was in tears.  I couldn’t believe that my body had betrayed me like that.  I felt so weak and broken and grotesque.  My eleven-year-old niece was trying to motivate me by saying, “Just think about the skywalk and how it’ll be worth it in the end.”  How sad is that?

So, my mom said she would go back with me.  The third brother offered to take me, but my mom said (in Taiwanese), “She wants her mom.”  Um, no.  That’s not what I said.  I said that I did not want to go with him (meaning my father).  So, my mom and I were preparing to go back down (with me being embarrassed beyond belief), when my dad decided he would go, too.  That was the last fucking thing I wanted, but I didn’t know how to say, “Go!  Go with them!”  So, I was in tears and pain and almost fainting as the three of us start descending.  On top of all that shit, I had to keep moving so my father wasn’t directly behind me.  I had to do that last night, too.  He tries to be in the back to make sure none of us got lost, but since I prefer to walk slightly apart from a group, that means that normally I am at the end of the group.

Through this all, I was thinking, “I hate you; I hate you; I hate you” about my father.  In addition, the flashbacks returned.  They were fast and furious, and the only way I could even begin to counter them was to think about more pleasant sexual experiences.  Still, it’s not what I want to be doing when I was just concentrating on getting down the fucking mountain without passing out.

We reached the bottom, and then my parents decide we needed to go somewhere to wait for my cousins and the rest.  I ask which way is the shorter of the two ways and neither parent answered me.   I repeated myself two more times, and my father simply said, “We’re walking this way” and chose the route that looked longer to me.  I lost it.  I raised my voice.  My mom said I didn’t need to shout.  Why couldn’t I calm down?  Oh, I don’t know.  Maybe because no one ever fucking listens to me when I talk normally?  Might that be it?  And, I wasn’t yelling at her, anyway, but at him.  However, she always defends him–always.  A bit later, she started sucking up to him, and all I could think was, “I hate you; I hate you; I hate you!” about him and, “Fuck you; fuck you; fuck you!”  about her.

At that moment, I decided my life was worthless and meaningless.  Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know why.  I just did.  I thought there was no point to my life.  That actually calmed me down a bit.  It’s partly because all my cousins on that side of the family are married, and all but one couple have children.  Most of them have good jobs, and, in general, I am the odd woman out–as usual.  My family either dismisses me, ignores what I’m saying, or just views me as strange.   I am of no use to them.

Oh, the dog is for John Cole of Balloon Juice.  He adopted a rescue dog, and we’ve been trying to decide what she is since he brought her home.  I’ve seen a few Shiba Inus in Taiwan, and they strongly remind me of Lily (Cole’s dog).  Speaking of animals, yesterday I saw a GSD.  That is my favorite breed of dog, so I thought he was my familiar for the day.  Later on at the night market, though, I saw two stuffed black kittehs, and I knew they were my familiars for the night.  Then, today, I saw TWO all-black dogs at different times.  They were my animal familiars for the day.

Back to the day.  The rest of it was fine, but those two hours with my father were horrible.  When I am around him, I feel as if I’m trying so hard to avoid being next to him or having him behind me.  In addition, I have to work so hard not to allow him to negate me with one laugh or one dismissive comment.  I feel as if he can destroy/devour me without even trying.  This afternoon, I hated him with such an intensity, I expected to be struck by lightning.

I wanted to be back in MN alone with my boys so badly, I teared up again.  Day Five is over.  Halfway there.  My body is broken, and so is my spirit.  I feel like such a shithead for not being more appreciative and active on this trip.   I mean, how often do I get to come to Taiwan?  I may never come back here again.  I should be doing more.  My brother wanted to go out again tonight after dropping off our bags (and he climbed all the way up this afternoon, all 1400 M), and I said no.  We started the day at seven in the morning, and we got back to the hotel at eight at night.  My brother is such a good traveler, and he is cut of the Hong cloth to boot.  Jam a million and one things in a day.  So not me.

Sigh.  Anyway, halfway there.

P.S.  Day Four pics.

P.P.S.  Day Five pics, Part A.

P.P.P.S.  Day Five pics, Part B.

P.P.P.P.S.  I have convinced my bro to put the pics on Flickr, but I don’t know when he will have the chance.