11 July

The Lunar Year (A.Murray) CHAPTER 11 Summer Vacation

The Soldier's Spirit is keenest In the Morning; By noon it has dulled; By evening He has begun To think of home. -Sun-tsu The Art of War

MY university classes ended in late May. Most students on the Education Abroad Program booked flights out of Taiwan for the very next day. The majority was headed directly to Los Angeles or San Francisco. A few were going home via side trips to South Korea or Japan. Unlike most of our classmates, Amy and I were staying for the summer, hoping to make more money teaching English in Taipei than we could back in California. I had an incentive to stay because we were moving from our minuscule dormitory in downtown Taipei into spacious flat for the summer months. Amy, through her connections with the American Expat community had been invited to house sit for an American couple that rented a modern home in Tianmou, a suburb north of Taipei. The couple, teachers at the Taipei American School, gave Amy the key to a

three-bedroom home on the second floor of a sprawling apartment building. Amy and I were thrilled to move out of a dingy dorm room with a broken-down queen bed we shared and into a 1200 square foot home featuring a kitchen, living room, balcony, and large bedrooms. The first week of June, we packed up our few suitcases of clothes, books, and cassette tapes, and piled into a taxi for the move to the suburbs. Tianmou, located in the hills overlooking Taipei, was the preferred enclave for the expatriate community. In the1960's, when the United States had military bases on Taiwan, mid-level officers lived in Tianmou, while higher ranking officers lived in another town to the north called Yangming Shan. To this day, the U.S. State Department maintains a Mandarin Language school for Foreign Service officials. As the taxi pulled up to the tiled exterior of our summer home, I felt like a rich woman. The house, a flat really, was on the second floor of a white, fortress-looking building. I climbed the stairs, unlocked the door and entered an inviting living room decorated with two clean sofas, an oriental carpet, a television, and a bookshelf. I took a deep breath and sighed with relief. It was like returning to modern American life after sleeping for months in a damp, musty basement and then living with Amy for a couple months in a cramped dormitory with a bathroom so small it was more like a closet. That first night in our new home, I slept in the master bedroom, lulled to sleep by the rhythm of a ceiling fan gently pushing cool air down on my sweaty body. The next morning, I sprang out of bed and entered a kitchen where I could cook a meal after ten months of eating on the streets of Taipei. I boiled a pot of water and steeped a few tablespoons of expensive Oolong tea I had purchased on my trip to Alishan. I opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the narrow balcony overlooking the streets behind the building. I had grown accustomed to Taipei's noxious smell of oil, trash, and mildew but the air in Tianmou smelled of the surrounding hills that were carpeted in dense green vegetation. My new neighborhood was a jumble of apartment blocks separated by alleyways tucked into the hills above Taipei. I sipped hot tea and gazed down upon a sea of laundry hanging on clotheslines strung across neighboring balconies. Most people in Taiwan did not own clothes dryers. At Wu Tai Tai's house, I had washed my clothes in a rickety

washing machine that tore fabric during the spin cycle. I dried my clothes on lines that were often rained on overnight. Most foreigners skipped the hard labor and took their clothes to a shop where a broad shouldered woman weighed the laundry and charged by the kilo to wash, dry, and fold clothes. I was alone, surveying my new neighborhood, toying with staying in Taiwan permanently. I liked the life of an ex-patriot. I felt liberated in Taiwan, unregulated by other people's judgments or false perceptions. I did not feel compelled or pressured to obey the cultural norms of the Chinese, nor did I need to obey U.S. standards of behavior. If I did something idiotic, the Chinese forgave me for my ignorance and tolerated me as if I were a child. If I tried something new and failed, no one from American was around to judge me. I could make up my own culture, a blend of the old and the new. I could be myself, secure in my identity, not in relation to American values or Chinese values. I felt autonomous living abroad in a non-western culture. In some ways, I was dreading going back to the Los Angeles desert. Southern California was an empty land void of people compared to the jubilant streets of Taipei. There was a 1980's song, "Nobody walks in L.A" by Missing Persons, and the lyrics were truthful. People in L.A. were isolated from each other driving in their air-conditioned cars. They never got out to walk to a store or restaurant. Millions of cars were streaming down gigantic freeways or stuck in traffic jams inching forward at five miles per hour. On the streets of Taipei, I commingled with other people. In Taiwan, strangers talked to me on buses and in restaurants, whereas in Los Angeles I was isolated from people. In Taiwan people were excited to see a foreigner. It made me feel special to get so much attention. In Los Angeles, I was just another tall, lanky blond with sun burned, freckled skin like everyone else sitting in a car. In Taiwan it took me hours to cross the city on a bus or on foot giving me time to notice details, like children playing or old women standing in doorways. In California, I raced my car north on Highway 101, or along the 57, the 405 or the 10 freeways, glancing out tinted windows at bleak and treeless hills. The landscape was a complete contrast to the verdant, dense forestation of Taiwan, a wet, humid, subtropical island. Although the humidity was oppressive it was soft on the skin and gave my hair some

bounce. The heat and humidity of the tropics felt like a wet, full body hug, while the dry heat of the desert was more like a slap in the face. I would miss the rainy nights and steamy streets in the morning. I worried about relating to my friends. They had endured another year of mind numbing lectures in giant halls, while I'd been in classes with four and five students. While they were watching television every night, I was wandering the streets of a developing nation. While they had been drinking beer around campfires on the beach, I had traveled to Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China. I had seen poverty and prostitute that made my American life seem like a moronic sitcom. Living in America was like driving through the ghetto in a bulletproof limousine. If you looked out the windows, you would be depressed but if you kept your eyes averted you could enjoy the Champagne and a comfortable ride. I'd taken a few steps outside the limo and was a bit shell-shocked. I contemplated my relationship with Harrison. I'd grown tired of our superficial conversations and tedious routine of club hopping and shopping. There was not much else to do for entertainment in the city. I had grown up in California with parents who loved nature and took me camping and hiking all over the state. Harrison was not outdoorsy and wasn't interested in sightseeing or exploring the mountains, monasteries, or rural villages outside Taipei. Maybe he'd tired of hiking during his two years in the military and he seemed embarrassed by the rural villages outside the city. We'd exhausted most of his English, and we couldn't start over in Chinese because I communicated like a five-year old. I was ready to breakup with Harrison, but I didn't know how to do it without hurting his ego. I was also considering the "loss of face" he might suffer in his circle of friends. I really worried about his reaction. The Chinese were very dramatic when it came to the loss of love. Amy told me the sad story of Clay and his exgirlfriend. The girlfriend had gotten pregnant accidentally and so the two lovers decided to secretly get an abortion. Their families would have been devastated by an out of wedlock pregnancy. After the deed was done, Clay and his lover were inconsolable. The girlfriend became depressed and haunted by the loss of her baby. Clay grew agitated and took out his anger

on the girlfriend. To demonstrate his emotional suffering, he shaved his head and swore he would never fall in love again. I had witnessed young couples arguing in hushed, angry tones. The girlfriends swung their hair around, shook fists and stamped their feet. The men acted sullen and controlled. I was not sure how Harrison would react to a break up. After contemplating my dilemma, I decided to do it the "Chinese" way. That meant avoiding direct conflict and not discussing an issue openly. One afternoon I brought up the issue indirectly, "I'm going back to American soon," I reasoned, "maybe we should move on." He did not understand the idiomatic expression "move on" or the subtle inference that I wanted to break up. I tried to get more concrete, "I have to go home to my parents and go back to my university." He did not respond. What was he thinking? What did he hope would happen at the end of my school year? Did he think I would take him to America? Was that his hope, or his American dream? "It's not as if we will get married," I explained, trying to get him to understand that our relationship should end. "Why did you say that?" he asked plaintively, "We could get married someday. You said you loved me." And there it was before me, an emotionally laden word coming back to haunt me like a hungry ghost. The problem lay in our divergent definition of love, a mistaken translation. I had said I loved him and he had said it back. In his mind, we were in love and on a path toward marriage. In my mind, I loved him along with many people, including Amy, my family and a couple other ex-boyfriends. He was a temporary best friend who had adopted me into a culture where much was unsaid, unable to be voiced because we did not have the vocabulary or cultural competency to imagine the other person's perspective. "We are a good couple," Harrison assured me, "we never fight like so many other couples."

I could only reply silently that we did not fight because we didn't have a common language or any strong opinions to defend. Our time together had consisted of weekends at nightclubs, restaurants, night markets and shopping malls. We'd barely traveled together except our trip to Tainan. We could not discuss political or social issues because Harrison had lived his whole life in Taipei, and he'd never studied in a university. He couldn't discuss the divestment of funding in South Africa, civil rights, woman's rights, and whatever else I thought was important during my years as an American university student. Harrison lived in the world of friendships built on male hierarchy that in turn were subservient to the demands of his family. I knew that in his mind, he was taking a risk by dating a foreigner. Association with a foreign woman may have sullied his reputation with future Chinese women. There was so much we did not know of each other. I had so many questions I never asked. I never believed that he was single when we met. How could that be possible? He was tall, handsome and recognizable. Amy's boyfriend Clay left a girlfriend to start a relationship with her. Harrison also looked older than twenty-six. He acted older than a man in his twenties around his friends. I wondered about his job as a model. Was he really able to make money doing fashion shows? Harrison had always been polite and kind toward me, but I wondered if that was simply his lack of English fluency. Over the months as my Chinese improved, I began to recognize the tone of authority he used with his friends. In English he seemed like a sweet, naive man. In Chinese he sounded like a kingpin. I never felt afraid of him though, not even as I tried to break up with him, which he did not seem to comprehend. So instead of officially breaking up with Harrison, I did a terrible thing when Amy and I moved, I didn't tell him I was moving to the suburbs of Tianmou. I ditched him and let him think I had moved back to California without saying goodbye. In the end, I saw Harrison one last time in late July, a week before I left Taiwan forever. Taipei was a small place and by the end of the summer, my Chinese boyfriend had tracked me down to say a final farewell.

***

It really wasn't that hard for Harrison to find me. I was on a television show. Everyone on the island must have seen me. Amy was walking down the street one evening after working at the English school when she was stopped by a couple of television producers. The men asked her whether she would be willing to appear on a television game show. Amy was always ready for a new experience so she readily agreed and asked whether she could bring along a friend. "Is she a foreigner?" they asked. Amy assured them, the friend was tall and blond just like her. The television producers thought they'd hit the jackpot with this line up. The show, it turned out, was a dating game. The men gave Amy a business card with the date, time, and the location written in Chinese so a taxi driver could deliver us to the show. I had attended a television taping before so I was very surprised when the taxi pulled into an open field rather than dropping us off at a studio. We exited the car and looked around at what appeared to be a movie crew setting up a war scene. In the middle of a large dusty field the film crew had set up a military obstacle course complete with heavy green netting, old tires and small walls. Other game show contestants our age were starting to arrive. No one spoke English. "What have we gotten ourselves into?" I wondered. Amy giggled, relishing the bizarre scenario. We were the only foreigners on the set and the producers were giddy with delight that we had joined the production. A well-groomed man wearing a crisp white button down shirt and dark sunglasses waved all the contestants over to the side to give us directions, none of which I understood. Amy and I still had no idea we were about to participate in a reality television dating

game. Reality television didn't become popular in the United States until decades later with the outdoor adventure show, "Survivor." In Asia, however, reality game shows had been running for many years. Many shows put contestants in embarrassing situations or forced them to take risks and endanger their lives. For the amusement of Taiwan’s television viewers, two foreign women were about to appear on one of the most popular outdoor adventure dating games. Amy and I were clueless and had no idea we were participating in a dating game, let alone an outdoor challenge game. A costume designer circulated, handing each contestant dark green military fatigues. I stepped into the green pants and buttoned up the camouflage jacket over my tee shirt. Then the producer directed us to form two lines, boys on one side of the obstacle course, girls on the other. A good-looking game show appeared, wearing aviator style sunglasses and full military garb. He grabbed a microphone and took command of the troops. He was confident and aloof, like a famous movie star. Amy and I huddled together and laughed at ourselves. "Are we nuts or what?" I asked, "Do you think we can get out of this?" The host waved forward each contestant one at a time. He asked a few questions then directed each participant to run through the obstacle course. Amy was raring to go, hysterical with laughter that we were doing something so absurd and ridiculous. When it was her turn to enter the obstacle course, the host asked her a few questions in broken English, "Where are you from?" "Do you think you go faster than the other girls?" Amy threw her head back laughed like a mad woman, faced the camera, and shouted, "I will win this contest if it's the last thing I do here!" She raced into the obstacle course at full speed clambering over the walls, crawling under the netting and dancing her way through the old tires. As she sped around the last turn, she triggered a deafening explosion and the earth erupted all around her. She and everyone screamed with shock. Amy regrouped and ran on, completing the course in record time. Then it was my turn. I was nervous but Amy's enthusiasm lifted my spirits, and I decided to participate in the madness. "Who cares?" I thought, "I am in Taiwan. No one I know will ever

see me on such a stupid T.V. show anyway." The host asked me a few lame questions, "Where do you study university?" and "How you like California?" I looked into the camera and answered in Chinese, which probably made everyone in the audience cringe as they heard my terrible pronunciation. I decided to make a mockery of the game, which everyone else, including Amy, seemed to be taking seriously. I entered the obstacle course skipping like a child, swinging my arms and taking my time delicately climbing over walls and dancing around the camouflage netting rather than crawling under it. It took me a few minutes to tiptoe through the tires. I glanced over at Amy and saw her bent over hyperventilating with laughter at my creativity. I felt pleased that I could entertain her. When a bomb exploded next to me I stopped and screamed at the top of my lungs for about a minute, then continued skipping along until I'd completed the course with arms held high in triumph, as if I'd just won a marathon. Amy ran to meet me, and we jumped up and down like cheerleaders slapping each other high fives. The Chinese director seemed confounded by my performance. After several more competitions that consisted of throwing grenades and running a relay race, the host suspended the games and the dating part of the show commenced. I never understood the premise of the show or how the competitions culminated in a boy-girl matching game. The television host selected me to go first. He pulled me out of line set me in front of two tall, lanky young men. One was handsome, and one was ugly. They were both around eighteen or nineteen years old. The handsome boy had run through the obstacle course, athletically jumping over walls and crashing through the finish line in record time. The other boy wore round John Lennon style spectacles, and his face was pock marked with acne. He was no athlete and had tripped through the course practically spraining his ankle. He also seemed completely uncomfortable to be standing in front of a foreign woman. The host narrated a long-winded analysis of each man's performance during the games, none of which I could understand. Then he turned to me with a very serious expression, and the cameraman came in for a close-up.

"Whom do you choose?" he asked dramatically in Chinese, it came out like, "which one do you want?" I looked at both boys with dawning comprehension. This was a game of humiliation featuring two naïve young men serving as victims of television entertainment. Who would the sex crazed, hussy American women choose? I imagined the show cutting to commercial to extend the suspense. Wouldn't it be obvious that the foreign woman would select the well-built, athletic man as opposed to the bookish nerd wearing glasses? Both men cast their eyes down, waiting to be the fool. One man would win a date with a lanky foreign woman, while the other would be made a fool on national television. I felt sorry for them. They were probably hoping to meet a cute Chinese girl, and here they were stuck in front of me. I paused to consider how to resolve the dilemma. I hated humiliation of any kind. The outcome seemed too obvious for prime time television. I paused then held up my index finger pointing toward the good-looking man and took a deep breath. Spontaneously, I chanted out the poem children use to make difficult decisions, "Eeny, meeny, minny, moe, catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go, eeny, meeny, minny, moe!" I sang as the cameraman came in closer. My finger settled on the nerdy guy. I looked into the camera with wide eyes and shouted, "Whoo- hoo! Right on!" I pumped a fist in the air as though I had just won a new car. Amy ran over, and we jumped around together, hugging with excitement. The host spent a few more minutes pairing up the rest of the contestants, and Amy was paired up with the attractive, athletic man I had lost. We were instructed to exchange phone numbers because we had just won dates with these wonderful men. To promote the show we took still photos with the host. In the newspaper clipping, the tall, handsome host stands in the center sporting aviator sunglasses and a movie star grin. Amy stands forward, wearing a camouflage flack jacket and grinning like Miss America. I stand behind them wearing a military hard hat and a Cheshire Cat smile. Later that month the photo was published in the newspaper and everyone in Taiwan turned on the T.V. to watch the dating game featuring two zany foreign women.

***

After filming the show, the host formally introduced himself to Amy and me, as "David". He invited us to accompany him to a nightclub and we, as official nightclub connoisseurs, accepted without hesitation. That night Amy wore a green dress and high heel shoes. I felt like a feminine fraud when I wore a dress, so I put on my usual nightclub attire: black pants, a black shirt, thick black eyeliner and four coats of mascara. My fashion mantra was, "you can't go wrong with black at night." We met David at 10:30 P.M. and arrived at the nightclub as a threesome. The elevator doors parted, Amy and I stepped forward into the club with a haughty attitude. David took the lead as all eyes in the club turned to greet us. I noticed that the patrons recognized him and seemed excited to see a television game show host in person. After listening to a few popular club hits, a sexy, slim woman wearing a tight fitting red dress and spiky heels greeted David with a peck on the cheek and then joined us at the table. I eyed his friend suspiciously wondering why she was dressed like a vamp. Most Chinese women dressed modestly, even at nightclubs. I scanned her face, lips, neck and chest noticing something was amiss. Her neck had the prominent bump of a man's Adam apple. David's friend was a transvestite, although a very stealthy one. The four of us sat together at the bar, sipping mixed drinks and watching people dance. Around two in the morning, we left the nightclub together. Amy invited the men to come back to our house to play cards. We hoped in a taxicab and took the trip north to our prestigious neighborhood. Inside our spacious, private abode, the two men relaxed on our couch and held hands. Amy and I laughed out loud. "That is so cool!" Amy delighted, "You guys are gay!"

David smiled and made a joke about the irony of hosting a dating game only to turn out to be a gay man dating a transvestite. I went to the kitchen to bring out some beer, and we sat around the coffee table talking, laughing, and playing cards until four in the morning.

***

I didn't think we would actually go out with the boys from the dating game, but a week later they showed up at our door and took Amy and me down the street to a brand-new Pizza Hut. The men insisted on paying for our meal explaining that the producers of the show had given them the money to take us out. All four of us were polite but conversation quickly stalled due to their lack of English and our lack of Chinese. We never did see them again after that. ***

Harrison tracked me down the day after the television show aired. He was the one who gave me a copy of the newspaper clipping advertising the show. I heard a knock at our door and went to answer it. I opened the door, and there he was standing on the doorstep of my new home. I was surprised to see him, but happy too. "I saw you on T.V." he said, "I thought you went home to America but then I saw you on that game show." I hemmed and hawed and gave lame excuses. I wondered vaguely how he'd tracked me down to my door but guessed he had probably called the producers of the television show and told them I was his American girlfriend. "I never hurt you,” he said seriously.

"I know you didn't,” I said not realizing that I had probably hurt, embarrassed and humiliated him. He was a famous model, recognized by everyone in Taiwan. Everybody in Taipei knew he had been dating a foreigner. It wasn't like there were very many foreign women in Taiwan in 1989, let alone tall, blond ones. I had appeared on national television, for God's sake, on a dating game. Everyone on the island must have seen the dating game episode featuring two wild American women winning dates with boyish contestants. What did Harrison tell his friends after I'd left him? How did he save face? "I want to see you again before you go home," he said simply. "I don't want to be your girlfriend anymore," I said so there would be no misunderstanding. He was silent for a few minutes probably collecting his thoughts or ready to kill me. "OK," he agreed. My twenty-first birthday was the following week, and Harrison insisted on taking me out to a Japanese steak house. We sat next to each other, talking and joking as we sipped warm sake. The restaurant was like Benihana's back in California, where a chef prepared the steak in front of the table. Yet like everything else in Taiwan, it was just a little bit more dangerous. The chef stood closer to the patrons, and the fire he cooked on burned higher. His knives were longer and he threw them above his head like a circus performer. I didn't worry about anyone getting stabbed though, I'd seen much worse by that point. I let Harrison kiss me goodbye for the very last time that night. I thanked him for befriending me and taking care of me while I was visiting Taiwan. I told him I'd never forget him and really, I haven't. Months later, back in Los Angeles Harrison sent me a postcard from Italy. He was doing Versace runway shows in Italy and Germany that fall. The last line of his postcard was triumphant, "I got a five-year visa to go to the United States." One year later, after I had graduated from college and was living with my parents, Harrison called me on the phone.

"I am in California," he said, "can I come visit you?" "Yes, of course," I said not the least bit worried he wanted to date me again. I had been very clear on my twenty-first birthday that we would go forward as friends. "Do you remember my friend Tony, the model?" he asked, "He is here in California now. He wants to come over with me." I invited Amy to join me for the reunion with our Chinese friends. When the doorbell rang, Amy and I ran to the door like little kids. My parents stayed in the kitchen, probably thinking we were nuts. I pulled the door open and to my surprise Harrison was not there. Tony stood before us with a man we had never met. The man was tall and good looking, as if he were in the same modeling fraternity as Harrison and Tony. "Tony!" Amy yelled greeting him with a hug, "Where is Harrison?" I invited the men to come into my parents’ large suburban home with towering cathedral ceilings. They sat in the living room, glancing around at all our stuff. My parents escaped upstairs after awkwardly shaking hands with the two towering, muscular Chinese men. Tony looked in astonishment at the wall-to-wall bookshelves my parents had crowding their living room. "Your parents are very smart people," he remarked. "Where is Harrison?" I asked feeling disappointed by his absence. Tony whose English was not very good, explained, "He has a girlfriend now. She is Chinese." "That is great!" Amy and I gushed. I wanted Harrison to be happy and loved. "She lives in San Francisco. Harrison told her he was going to visit you, and she got very angry with him. She told him he must take a plane to San Francisco tonight." Amy and I rolled our eyes at each other exchanging the same thought, "Typical Chinese girlfriend drama." We got over our disappointment quickly and invited the men to go with us to a local restaurant and bar for dinner and drinks. They agreed, and we left. I drove us down the 57 freeway to a

popular Orange County chain restaurant, and we sat down in the dimly lit bar with pulsing pop music. Amy and I talked and laughed freely, but the men seemed uncomfortable and looked around nervously at the crowd of white and Latino middle-class men and women. The friend named, Philip, was judgmental, making snide remarks about my wealth and education. In the end, I suspected that Harrison, had sent the two men on a mission to deliver the news that Harrison had a girlfriend, which implied was engaged and soon to be married, After Tony and his friend left I never heard from Harrison again. However, many years later, as I was dragging luggage through the international terminal at SFO, I thought I saw him standing at the top of the escalator wearing a dark tailored business suit, Versace sunglasses and looking just as regal as he'd seemed in Taipei. I glanced away quickly, hoping he had not noticed me standing below him.