For me, Taiwan has always been a constant. Something that I know is there, out across the ocean, filled with familiar places and memories and family and history. Growing up, I would visit regularly, not so much as a travel experience, more so a temporary relocation to a second home. For a long time, my idea of Taiwan was a series of living rooms filled with far too many people. Talking, eating, laughing, singing.

As I grew older, things changed. Or, perhaps, I simply became aware of more things as the rosy façade of childhood faded away. Deaths, births, different houses, different living rooms. Even the ones that have stayed the same feel different. Relationships shifted, closer, farther. Everyone grew older, including myself. Which made all the difference.

I was always used to being the youngest, to being fawned over, even fought over on occasion. But as I grew up, I grew out of the living rooms. I no longer needed or wanted someone to hold my hand and take me from place to place. We (my nuclear family) physically “moved out,” no longer staying with relatives, but renting a place or staying at a hotel. I came by myself, met new people, saw new places, made new memories. The living rooms felt farther and farther away.

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Even as I wandered the streets and navigated alleys and labyrinth like subway stations without an extra thought, I became all too aware of the changes, the growing discrepancy between my memories and the reality.

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In 2013, I returned to Taiwan for an internship program. The 9 week experience – the longest I had ever stayed in Taiwan – was mediocre at best, unfulfilling at worst. I began to feel the easy sense of belonging drift away. Even as I wandered the streets and navigated alleys and labyrinth like subway stations without an extra thought, I became all too aware of the changes, the growing discrepancy between my memories and the reality.

For ten years I had visited this home away from home once, sometimes twice a year, always for weeks at a time. Taiwan felt more home than the many towns and states I had at some point called home back in America; it was always there in my past and in my future whether I lived in Columbus, Fort Lauderdale or Los Angeles. But then the annual trips stopped. The first year, around spring, I felt the familiar cravings. The nostalgia hitting hard, as if subconsciously preparing myself for the trip. I dreamed of the food, walked through the streets in my mind, scavenged blogs and looked through old photos, remembering the familiarity I would soon be reunited with.

In June of 2014, I once again made my annual trip to LAX. But this time, it wasn’t for a 13 hour flight across the Pacific. In fact, this time, it was for a domestic flight- my first in years – to Seattle…to transfer to my flight to Paris. It was my first time in Europe. Later that same day, the rest of my family would go to Taiwan without me.

It felt weird, calculating a time difference from Paris, when the 15/16 hour conversion between Taiwan and California came naturally. It felt weird getting to know a metro map that was not Taipei, living in a city that is not LA or Taipei. I found myself making comparisons, even finding familiar store and brands (that always seemed to have eluded America). It took a while, but eventually Europe swept me over, and it became an experience in itself beyond the shadows of my past travels.

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I was surprised by how naturally foreign streets become familiar

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As a part of my scholarship for studying abroad, I wrote a blog and travel guide for future French students. I was surprised how easy it came. Just weeks before, I was a dead tired student who had barely a years worth of French education, dropped in the middle of Paris with nothing but a piece of paper with an address, a huge suitcase and a jabbering taxi driver; who got lost her first day, and then finally found her homestay only to be locked out and have to wait it out at Starbucks and McDonalds. I was surprised by how naturally foreign streets become familiar, by how I could navigate Paris like it was Taipei. Perhaps better than Taipei.

It was in Paris where I had the true experience of an immigrant for the first time. Though my Chinese is far from advanced (I am, for most intents and purposes, illiterate), I was able to communicate easily in Taiwan. In Paris, even the simplest interactions were a nerve-wracking endeavor. The syllables of French sounded as foreign to my ears as they felt on my tongue. In the midst of such an experience, I gained a greater understanding of my parents and their remarkable ability to find a Chinese restaurant anywhere they go. To be somewhere that didn’t feel home, and then find a tiny enclave filled with the familiar sounds of Taiwanese was surprisingly comforting. It was unnervingly relieving. Like a piece of home in a faraway land; a friend’s face in a sea of strangers.

Then came another busy year of school. Work, internships, far too many classes. Come summer, I turned down a month in Shanghai for three in Burbank. Working as a “real adult” full time: waking up to run, packing lunch, gulping coffee while sitting in traffic, working overtime. There’s something scary about routine. It makes an experience all the more powerful. Draws it out longer. Imprints itself in memory while making everything before fade. Summer felt like a year. Taiwan felt like a dream.

Three years later, in 2016, I finally had the opportunity to return to Taiwan with family. It felt natural for my mom, who had gone 4 times since my last visit. I no longer felt the familiar pre-trip mentality. In fact, I felt nothing. I packed – thrown off by a winter visit – and I figured out logistics for work. Before it hit me, I was on the plane. Still disoriented. I used to only fly to and from Taiwan and only in the summer. I had been on a dozen flights since my last summer in Taiwan. Since then, traveling had gained new meaning for me. I hadn’t actually traveled before; I just didn’t realize that until I went somewhere truly foreign. And it was difficult to reconcile this realization with my anticipation of the trip.

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It’s like I left a story only to come back chapters later, unsure of how to catch up.

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[one_half_last]cks memorial hall

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I changed a lot these past years. I felt out of place even in my thoughts of Taiwan. Taiwan as I knew it changed a lot too. In three years, there have been a marriage, 3 deaths, two births and several moves in the family. Taipei gained several subway stations that would have made my life easier years ago, demolished the bridge I would use in my daily commute and opened an H&M AND a Forever 21. It’s like I left a story only to come back chapters later, unsure of how to catch up.

Coming back, I wondered what I would feel the most nostalgic about. I hadn’t been too excited, and was completely thrown off by the seasons. My mind was convinced that it was summer – and the 90 degree weather in LA did not help. I thought perhaps it would be the flavors of the food. Or maybe wandering familiar alleys, given my strong spatial memory (and terrible memory in all other sectors). But as soon as I stopped off the plane into the ramp, it hit me. Or rather, it wafted toward me. It was the smells that were the most familiar. Chinese almost sounded weird. The words that came off my tongue felt foreign. I was (still) illiterate. But the smells reminded me I was home.

I had never noticed that the Taoyuan airport has a distinctive smell. I don’t notice it for LAX or any other airport. Just this one. It smells like vacation and relatives and reunions. (I actually can’t pinpoint what it is.) The air outside has a smell. Even the sewage along the streets smelled familiar before it became repulsive. The pungent smells from stands blended from one to another as I walked through the streets, the smoky smell of barbecue stands, the artificially sweet smell of tea bars, the medicinal smell of herbal stores wafted over before I even spotted the sources.

Even the pollution smelled different than LA pollution. The bathroom to an apartment I have never set foot in smelled surprisingly familiar, as if the dampness in every Taiwanese apartment bathroom triggered the same olfactory sensation. Running errands with my mom, even the administrative buildings had distinctive and familiar smells. Especially hospitals. The alcoholic sterile smell was subtle but unmistakeable. Perhaps it’s because I never go to hospitals in America. Perhaps it’s because I’ve had the misfortune of visiting a few too many hospitals here.

I felt like a room where everything has been shifted. Like I was spun around blindfolded and then asked to navigate a familiar place.

The things I thought I paid attention to and knew were unexpectedly less nostalgic. The subway stations which I had known like the back of my hand, completely changed. The voices of the station announcements sounded strangely off. I felt like a room where everything has been shifted. Like I was spun around blindfolded and then asked to navigate a familiar place.

From one waiting room to a busy intersection to a bus, my mind is numb. Probably from the lack of sleep and mild stress of the work piling up for the night. I think about all the things I want to do, which have finally hit me after almost a full day of mindless walking – all the places I want to revisit, the inevitable dreaded experiences that might not be so bad after all. But I have a month here, and I’ll save them all for another day. For now, I’ll just breathe in and let Taipei soak back into my soul. I’m home.

[big_image caption=”For now, I’ll just breathe in and let Taipei soak back into my soul. I’m home.
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