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January 14, 2008 11:32 a.m.

I'm in Durham again, and the new semester has started, and according to custom I am already cramming too many things into my schedule while knowing full well that 2903875 independent commitments will make me want to explode by May. It's fun being in school.

I got back from Taiwan on January 1 (a day that lasted 37 hours, of which I was awake for 28) and vegged out completely with Stan and Dad for the rest of the week. Being at home and in familiar territory, particularly with a brother who'd spent a year there and understood every one of my references and perspectives, managed to stave off the inevitable "I miss everyone and everything" sentiment until I returned to the townhouse in Durham. Then the cravings for food, immersion and family returned with a vengeance. More hours than I'd like to admit this past week were spent on Wikipedia and YouTube following the lives of Taiwan's infinite supply of pop singers, which I guess is how I deal with withdrawal. Hey, it's a step up from the coping skills I possessed at 16, which largely consisted of listening to new CDs and sobbing.

The amount Taiwan has changed in five years, coupled with the amount I changed between the first years of college and grad school, made for an intense two weeks. My paternal grandmother passed away in 2005, and this was the first time I hadn't hauled my luggage to her apartment in east Taipei, the capital city. My cousins who normally take me out were working, in school or in the States. Most of all, I went from never having traveled by myself to thriving on study abroad, scientific conferences and fieldwork, all of which instilled in me a fierce confidence in my ability to take care of myself wherever I knew the language. Maybe that's why having various aunts worrying I'd get lost the moment I stepped into the street chafed more than usual this time. There was definitely a gender factor involved, as I suspect my curfew was imposed under the assumption that the streets would be crawling with dirty old men as soon as prime time was over. (Please�there were more high-schoolers than old people on the metro at 10:00.) My one act of rebellion was not calling right after I stepped off the metro one night and directly ringing the apartment doorbell instead.

Admittedly, my familiarity with Taiwan has lagged WAY behind that of cities I visited in college, where the expectation was for me to go exploring by myself. You know how you don't bother getting to know the place you grew up, aside from the usual roads and old haunts? And how, when you move away from home, you discover you can navigate your new city better than you ever could your hometown? I'm no more familiar with D.C. than the average tourist despite having grown up 30 minutes away. In the same way, I've spent vacations in Taiwan every few years since I was born, but it wasn't until this plane ride that I saw a map of Taipei for the first time. I can't believe I blindly followed my mom into taxis all these years. But this time, all it took was an old copy of Lonely Planet, and I was off.

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Moments:
Lying awake at 5 a.m. and fighting jetlag by dusk.
Walking hand-in-hand with my aunt to get breakfast from a fabulous vegetarian place literally across the street.
Visiting my parents' alma mater and the school where Stan had studied.
Anticipating the lit-up eyes and bear hugs from people I hadn't seen for years. Finding my parents and brother and myself in their faces.
Eating absolutely unbelievable food and being strictly ordered not to pay for it.
Waiting for the "walk" sign to flash, then taking care not to be flattened by motorcycles and taxis turning right.
Writing down Chinese and Taiwanese phrases on the back of my hand ("We are not responsible for injuries sustained from feeding the squirrels").
Meeting up with friends to drink tea in the mountains with nighttime Taipei beneath us.

Staring at women on the metro who ALL look like runway hopefuls and defiantly wearing a T-shirt instead.
Finding out I wasn't defiant enough to wear shorts while jogging.
Being surrounded by Times-Square-sized billboards, "U.N. for Taiwan" banners, Japanese-rocker-hairdo-sporting boys, awkward students in monochromatic school uniforms, and older people wearing plaid pants and purple quilted vests.
Faux-fur-trimmed hoodies, knee-high boots, straight hair, dyed hair, huge permed fried hair, sideswept bangs, pale skin, tortoiseshell frames, females wearing so much make-up I wanted to reach over and peel off their clumped eyelashes.
Glaring absence of second-hand kitsch (where are the emo kids?).

Sneaking into my grandmother's apartment building early one afternoon and crying, two years after the fact, on the top floor.

And later that day, visiting Taipei 101, the world's tallest building, and reeling at the blatant new-moneyness of the shopping center on the ground floor. Watching people fling their credit cards at Dolce & Gabbana, Herm�s, Miu Miu and Louis Vuitton. Most of all, being utterly repelled at the sight of a chopped-up "Guernica" as the wallpaper to an open bar. Who the hell came up with the idea of using a reference to World War II as interior design? Did they even know its context, or did they just not care, because it's Picasso and Picasso means high-end art and that's what they're after, dazzling the world with packaged glitz? Why did this single observation somehow embody my entire perception of modern Taipei? And why do I possess a double standard about the benefits of modernization in the States versus elsewhere? Why do I begrudge them the improvement in lifestyle when my own footprint could hardly be more swollen?

Like I said, an intense two weeks.

==

Deep breath, and pictures below.

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Dec. 18: View from Taipei 101 (actual building here), with errant clouds in the way.

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Dec. 21: My maternal grandmother at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, a department store with an underground Japanese supermarket. She grew up in Japan-controlled Taiwan (1895-1945) and still watches Japanese soap operas.

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Dec. 22: The house where my father grew up, about an hour outside of Taipei. The guy next to me is considered family but not exactly related to us. He calls me Aunt though I'm (a) not, and (b) one year older than he is. It's a little complicated.

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People were out in the streets celebrating the winter solstice. The temple under renovation was all of 10 seconds away from the house.

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Paper-burning shrine meets street vendors meet campaign posters. The opposition Kuomintang (Nationalist) party won a heck of a lot of seats in legislative elections this weekend.

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My dad�s brother and sister (center), my uncle�s wife (left) and my "nephew's" grandmother (see, he's not really my nephew) in the old house eating bowls of rice ball soup. It's a winter solstice custom, and every ball you eat is supposed to add a year to your life.

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Hiking up a mountain after paying respects to my paternal grandfather, who died in 1986 and whose ashes lie in a nearby temple.

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Dec. 23: Also south of Taipei, Sansia�s Zushih Temple, built in 1769, rebuilt in 1833 (earthquake), and rebuilt again in 1895 (Japanese army). The stone columns were new, the air thick with incense smoke.

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The gilded temple interior. I'm not sure who the statue in the middle is supposed to represent.

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Religious figures come with a bunch of esoteric customs tacked on. I think these deities' faces can't be exposed to the world because their eyes haven't been dotted yet. As a result, they get to sit around with lampshades over their heads.

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Two Chinese bulbuls enjoying the local art.

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This is my mom's younger brother, who recently began learning piano and played in a recital when I was in town. Imagine a parade of little kids marching up with violins and guitars, followed by an older guy who walks on, delivers a speech about how a near-death experience changed his life, then sits down fearlessly to accompany himself to Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

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My mom's sister and my uncle's family lavished him with flowers and praise afterward.

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Dec. 24: Mom and me at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. (There was some grumbling; this priceless photo says it all.)

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The newly named Liberty Square, as of last May.

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Dec. 26: My friend Chiu-Ping taking pictures of ducks at a nature reserve in Taipei.

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The ducks (green-winged teals) in question.

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Also present was a field trip group of Very Excited Kids and their chaperones peering through binoculars and spotting scopes.

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One boy volunteered to take a picture of us, assuring us he was a professional.

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I will look like this in every field photo EVER.

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Okay, this is way too long. More photos later, but behavioral ecology for now. Thanks for reading this far.

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