The first morning was a hazy one.
It was as if the air in Taiwan was so dense with moisture that it just seeps out into droplets of rain, or sweat. I was on the MRT (Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transit, otherwise known as the metro). It’s always interesting for me to be a part of the commute, because personally, I hate commuting. I had a long commute from home to my high school, a long one hour and a half trek through New York’s subways and buses and mean streets. Of course, I’ve also had very short commutes in college, a two minute walk across Harvard Yard to the Science Center.
Be it two minutes or ninety minutes or three hours, commuting always seemed like a chore to me. It’s really a waste of life. People do it because they have to; the only reason people do it is because they would rather not live around where they work (for a variety of difference reasons of course). I haven’t met a single person who loves to commute. Because commuting is such a waste of life, people try to figure out all sorts of ways to deal with this problem, and that’s why I love watching people commute.
For the most part, people had a grim expression on their faces. I assumed most of the people who shared that train car with me are going somewhere to work. Some are sleeping. Some are reading newspapers, with giant block characters denouncing the latest government policy. Hardly anyone talked, except for the occasional cell phone conversation. Watching people commute to work really hit home that point about being in an exotic place: for these people, Taiwan is not an exotic place, but a routine that cannot be easily escaped, moisture and all.
***
The first stop for us is National Taiwan University. Our delegation, all 15 of us, crowded the Xindian-bound MRT, all dressed up in black suits and shiny, fancy ties. We probably looked like a cluster of crows that somehow got stuck inside the train. Dave was talking about trying to find an oil baron’s daughter to marry.
“You know, there aren’t any oil barons in Taiwan.” I explained. “There are electronics barons though, but I think their daughters are taken.” I briefly imagined a waiting list one has to sign up to court one of these electronics barons’ daughters. You’ll have to put down a deposit to hold a spot on the waiting list. The first 10 or 20 names on that list are probably politicians’ sons who are in fact idiots.
We were greeted at Gongguan Station by a bunch of beautiful ladies from NTU, and Danny. Somehow I got stuck talking to Danny, and as it turned out we went to the same high school when Danny was living in New York. He had been studying finance (I hope my memory serves me right, Danny if you’re reading this please let me know!), and later on he would go on to do a bike tour across Taiwan, similar to what former KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou did some time ago, but without the supporters or protestors on the sidelines.
The actual meeting we had that morning with the NTU President was actually quite boring. However, we did discover that Alonzo was featured in a pamphlet for NTU’s language exchange program, which was pretty cool. I must have been daydreaming during the meeting…I honestly don’t remember much. What I could tell though, was that I could feel NTU’s desire to reach out internationally, and I applaud that. Taiwanese students will learn a lot about themselves from foreigners, and I’ve certainly learned a lot about myself on this trip being with my new NTU friends. More on this later as we meet them again…
After our meeting with the President, our NTU friends took us on a tour. Outside the day was still hazy, but that didn’t stop a couple from taking wedding photos near the building we were in. I wondered if the NTU campus was a popular backdrop choice for wedding photo shoots. Personally, having Pound Hall or the Hark in the same picture as my wife in her gown just doesn’t seem right to me.
The NTU main library looms in the background like a giant battleship. This battleship had gone through some real battles, but she’s now mediating quietly in the center of campus, black streaks of mold hinting at her age. We entered. On the left there was a reading area for periodicals. A couple of students had put their faces down on the table for a nap. Ahead of us were rows of computers, and some students were hunkered down typing away. Were they writing an email to ask someone out to dinner that night? Were they checking the latest news? Posting on PTT?
Continuing our tour, we bumped into a small stand next to a cluster of classroom buildings. A bunch of students were selling snacks.
“They’re visiting from HARVARD,” our hosts said to the students manning the stand.
The students explained that they were a club of students from Hsinchu promoting local specialties and local culture, and they were selling some traditional Hsinchu snacks as a fundraiser. “OH, here, try some of the food we have! No charge, everything’s free for you guys, here, try some. Go ahead, it’s totally cool, take as much as you want. Come on, don’t be shy!” Eventually we took some food and it was chewy, sweet, savory all at the same time. We thanked them, and moved on.
Walking in NTU’s campus, I felt a strange feeling. There were students dosing off inside air conditioned classrooms and libraries, but also students hard at work fundraising for their club, not to mention our hosts who took time out to entertain us and made sure everything we desired was taken care of. At first, I had a lot of respect for the latter group, and I also wanted to smack the first group of students as hard as I could. But now as I thought about it, the feeling was deeper. It was a pervasive thing from the commute that morning, but also throughout the entire week.
Uneasiness.
Everyone that morning was dreaming in some way. The commuters were going to work dreaming of a better life for their families, or dreaming about breaking away from the grind, maybe. The kids who fell asleep were probably dreaming of making it big one day, or whatever their computers are download as we speak. I briefly spoke with Maggie, who planned to work at a public relations firm after she graduates, with dreams of graduate studies one day. The couple near the palm trees taking wedding photos were probably dreaming about something else, but the more I thought about it the more I wasn’t sure.
We are dreamers. But for the people in Taiwan, you are afraid to dream. What you see in your dreams are too out of line with reality. You dream of becoming an Olympic swimmer, but you are stuck in a inflatable pool. You dream of a fresh air and unlimited opportunities, but you are chained down to an island---finite, enclosed, isolated. Dreams of possibilities, with an ever uncertain future, as individuals and as a society, in the face of China and global competition. It was an uneasiness about dreaming too much.
The sky was still hazy when we went to lunch.
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