Hello all:

     I will try to finish writing my experiance about Japan ASAP. I own it to myself for reflection anyway. But yeah, I pray and hope that y'all are going to have a great rest of the day, and have a great tomorrow. Hopefully I'll see you all around.

Ray

I haven't updated because I don't have a desire to write. Yeah, I guess I got lazy. Everything's doing rather well, and I'm thinking positively most of the time.

I went to several malls while I was in Taiwan. The one I went the first day was the most spacious and pretty place. It's American style. I would say it's the size of Lake Forest Mall if one put all the stores together, and arrange them in a circular formation.

I would try to write more next time...I guess I haven't written enough experiance in Taiwan/Japan. There is more...

(thanks, guys!)

My mother then went to my grandma, and told her: "Little Yuan is back. Look, it is him." My grandma repeated what my mother said, and then she tried to talk to me. I know she was trying very hard because I was looking at her hard. Who was this? I thought to myself.

It isn't like I didn't know who I was talking to, but the more I talked with her, or to put more precisely, the more she talked, the more I realized that she recognized at some level, and her mind had to be somewhat more clear than what my family told me at that time. She tried very hard to talk, but all she did was repeating: "Sit, sit for a while. Stay a while to play. Sit. Play." She turned her head with some difficulty, and asked the nurse to bring some tea to me.

I loved drinking tea as a child, that's before I discovered that cafferine is bad for me.

I tried to talk while watching her face. The more I watched, the more I was convinced that my grandma is in that body somewhere. I looked harder. She had a disappointed look on her face, as if she was trying hard to convey what she really wanted to say to me, but she couldn't.

After a while, I took her hand. "See you later." I said quietly, and left that room with my mother.

Around 10:00 AM, we went to this mall near my house. When I was a child, I didn't even explore places near my neighborhood. I was told by my grandma that I would get lost and never come back. How I hate these stupid words these days. We walked through the streets, and I was in a different place.

Oh, Taiwan was still Taiwan, but I felt I was in a new world.

The street were narrower than I remembered, and even around 10:00 AM, it was hot, and even though more people had gone to work, and the streets weren't filled with people, it was crowded. We made our way through the people on the sidewalks, but the sidewalks were slim, and sometimes there are motorbikes parked on them, so we crisscrossed, and sometimes "slithered" through the narrow gaps.

Believe or not, as much I was complaining about the inconveniance, and watching for cars coming from behind when we had to walk on the road, it was fun. Nobody really noticed us as we walked. I guess it was because I really didn't look that much different. I was the same. I like being the same. In US, I've never felt that I was same with most people. In Taiwan, I was not different, or rather, my difference was hidden as my mother and I walked silently.

The Jin-Hwa mall (Jin Hwa Chang - Lit. Jin Hwa City) was a huge circular mall with 2 entrances. We went in from the back. Some guy at the door was holding a device, which we put to our heads. My mother told me it was for measuring temperature.

I had completely forgotten about SARS.

We went in, and then started the "tour."

(Continued from yesterday. Art, thanks )

Eating breakfast in Taiwan was not something that I thought a lot about when I was a kid. Back then, my grandmother wasn't afflicted with altzchemer's disease, and she wasn't bed ridden like she was when I saw her for first time in years. I didn't get to see her until after breakfast.

When I was a kid, she would prepare milk made with these milk powder that was so popular in Asia, together with a raw egg and some seasame powder, pour boiling water and stir the whole mixture. That was breakfast. But since she has altzchemer's now, she doesn't make breakfast any more, or any meals for that matter. She hasn't in years. Therefore, my mother went out and got xiao bien, deep fried bread, and some cold soy milk for me. The weather was simply too hot and sticky for hot soy milk like we would have at restaurants here.

"How you like these?" She asked with a grin. "It has been years since you have some real Chinese breakfast, eh?"

I nodded. Eating was more important than talking at that moment.

The choices of food, even breakfast, in Taiwan was great. Aside from more traditional stuff, one can easily get sandwiches, rice balls with fried bread and salty radish and dried meat, egg scallion pie, even sausage, egg, and toast, and McDonalds. I stuck with more traditional stuff the rest of my stay.

I took a look at the direction of my grandmother's room as I ate. I hated the milk/egg/seasame mixture she made me ate when I was a kid. But now I wish I could taste that.

My mother went to talk with my grandmother, and her nurse (we hired a person to look and take care of my grandma), and after a moment, she asked me to go see grandma.

I really wished I could prepare myself better. I went in.

There was a very thin and frail looking old lady on a chair.

I didn't know what to say at first, because even though my brother told me about my grandma's condition, I wasn't expecting something like this. My grandma looked like a skeleton with skin and some flesh. Her hair was white and lushless, and her eyes were rather dull with her eye lids semi-closed.

So, after 2 weeks and 4 days, I came back to US on Friday.

I would like to apologize for anyone who wondered where I went. I don't think I really told everyone that I was going on a short trip, taking a short break from life in US.

This trip to Taiwan turned out to have a lot of surprises. For people who didn't know, I was born in Taiwan, and left there to come to US around December, 1989. I think it was the 15th of December when I got here. But I digress.

When I left Taiwan last time, I was 12 or 13 years old. The last thing I remember doing in Taiwan was watching T2, which was fresh and new in the theaters. That should give you an idea how old I was. T3 is out now, and I didn't go watch it in Taiwan. But again, that's off the topic.

Before going on this trip, I was somewhat scared. In my mind, all my memories of Taiwan was from long ago, when I was a child. Deep inside me, I believed I was happier back then, even though I had my share of troubles when I was a kid, I really didn't remember much about that. Well, how many times did I digress today?

After a rather easy airplane ride from DC directly to LA, and an exhausting 15 hours plane ride from LA, to Taiwan, on which I couldn't sleep well because the person next to me kept bumping into me while sleeping (he tured out to be a nice person, and we chatted about changes in Taiwan, the Chinese military, and my old elememtray school). I was relieved when I finally got off the plane. Oh, did I tell you that I had been afraid of rideing on planes ever since I arrive in US? Even before 9/11, I was afraid of taking a plane to go to anywhere. That's another story which I won't get into. But anyway, I got off the plane, waited for my mother to come and pick me up, after that, we took a cab, and rode toward my old home in Taipei.

When I was a child, I never did pay any attention to how the roads in Taiwan work. I got into cars, buses, and when I was very, very young, motorcycles. But I never really understood how the traffic rules work, or how well, or badly people drove. To me, that really wasn't relevant. The only thing I cared about was to get to the place I was going to. But this time, when I rode in the taxi with my mother, I began to notice the road wasn't so narrow. The high way was not as wide as the 4-lanes on the beltway, but it wasn't terribly narrow, as I imagined.

"You're only looking at the high way, son. Wait until you get to the city, and then our neighborhood." Said my mother. Then she mumbled. "Or any neighborhoods for that matter..." I just smiled and nodded. When I was a kid I didn't go to ChangKai Sheik (don't know how to write the English name) airport a lot, and therefore I had not really notice the high way and the scenary around there.

There wasn't too much traffic, and the road wasn't that bad when we got off the high way. The trip to our apartment through our neighborhood wasn't really memorable. The big thing I did notice was that the street was really, really narrow. I mean really narrow, with few cars, but a lot of motorcycles parked on one side of the street, and some on the side I was walking on. The cab drove really slowly and cautiously through the street, until it parked directly in front of the door.

Our place isn't really a apartment complex as people in US may think, but it's more like a town house setting, but instead of a real down stairs living room, we get our own private stair way, which leads up to the living room.

"Boy the streets were narrow. And it's feeling pretty warm already." I exclaimed. "Keep it down, your grandma and her caretaker is still asleep. And yeah, it'll only get a lot hotter and stickier later." My mother admonished with a grin.

I shrugged, and unpacked.

Because I didn't want to be falling asleep in the day time, and staying awake at night because of the timezone/jet lag, I suggested we go shopping later. After all, I was really looking forward to that. That should keep me awake. My mother seemed slightly surprised at my suggestion, but she agreed to it. "I'll take you to that huge mall close to where we live."

(to be continued)