Because that’s my first abroad country, I’ve experienced a lot of remarkable events; cycling to Haneda airport at midnight; buying the flight ticket at the airport; all weather track in every elementary school; Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall as a public place - people are gathering, training their hobby; let’s use Taiwanese, not Chinese; happened to arrive at flower market under the highway; pull up at Taiwan tech Univ.; overwhelmed in night market; only western guys(looks typically) are gathering at the local pub; morning 8km running; and Finally the long queue for the breakfast. However, I would focus on only one thing here, about the woman I met in that queue.

She has been Taiwanese, maybe still keeping the nationality, but immigrated to the US around 20 years ago. She visited her home country for the first time since COVID began. we made the queue next to each other and talked to spend 1.5h long waiting time (actually, she first spoke Chinese to me who looks a local guy…). Finally, we had breakfast together with her brother who came later, then they asked me if we would walk around Taipei city together. I haven’t had any plans in advance, so that’s just an oppotunity what I wanted.

We had a time around Huashan1914 - Creative Park, then finally decided to go to the temple on the mountain near his home where a famous sightseeing place for local people, not for foreign people. We took a taxi to that place and the controversy started. The driver and the brother started to talk about politics (of course, they have been speaking Chinese, just I guessed the topics). And, she explained to me, ‘he likes there’. I understood ‘there’ means mainland china - they are talking about the People’s republic of China and the Republic of China.

Also, she asked me ‘you learn history? you know 50 years?’. Of course, I know the history that Japan colonized Taiwan, however, I was not able to come up with 50 years means that. Carefully thinking, I know the Sino-Japanese war in 1895 and the end of WW2 in 1945, therefore Taiwan was under Japanese rule for 50 years. I really regret that moment. I should have known 50 years, might have talked deeply. What’s the purpose of a journey…? Now, It motivates me to learn the language and history, and more knowledge to realize and grasp the detail of our world I’m living in. At this point, my first abroad is the ideal event that I expected.

After returning to Japan, I sent some gifts to them. I have created a letter in Chinese for the first time in my life. that’s here:

你好 哥哥。 (對不起，我忘了問你的名字…)

首先，你可能想知道我怎麼知道你的地址。事實上，當我們到達你家時，我就記住了它，因為我已經決定要寄一些東西作為感謝。我真的很感激你們兩個，我的第一次出國旅行成為我人生中最美好的經歷之一。 我送了米餅和東京香蕉（與Pokémon的特別合作）。你給我看了你孫子穿的Pokémon襯衫，我不知道他是否喜歡Pokémon，但是，我也送了Pokémon的物品（毛巾）。我聽說台灣人通常避免用毛巾作為禮物，因為這意味著告別（對嗎？） 但是，我在東京的所謂 “Pokémon Center”的商店選擇了它，只是因為印象。另外，那裡有一個空間，所以我裝了一些日本式的糖果。也許在台灣也能買到。

謝謝!

Returning to the queue, a local YouTuber interviewed people, and also they asked me how’s everything about Taiwan. I could just answer ‘hot’ due to my English fluency. But, I actually wanted to answer that I felt somehow a sense of entropy (how can I describe…) in that place, never felt in Japan. That would lead me to Taiwan again.