Chinese New Year

It's Chinese New Year, and people are just starting to come back to Taiwan from their family homes all over Taiwan.

Last week, a friend invited me Taoyuan for New Year's Eve. Quite an honor. On Saturday afternoon, I got on the MRT to meet my friend's good friend Chi in downtown Taipei, and we would take a bus to Taoyuan. By the way, Chi is also my good friend and we sometimes talk about very, very secret things that not very many people talk about.

I had taken a shower and wore my nice clothes, and got on the train at the zoo near my house. There were like two other people on the whole train with me as I made the trek from Muzha in southern Taipei to where Chi was waiting for me. Taipei felt empty. Everyone, I later found it, packed into their cars, onto trains and buses, after finishing work on Friday afternoon.

By Saturday, when I got onto that train, everyone was already back in Kaohsiung, or Yilan, or Taichung, watching TV with their families, eating nuts, fruits, getting ready for a big dinner. While eating these snacks, firecrackers were going off everywhere in Taiwan, continuously. This is to keep away the big bad monster that threatens everyone's good fortune for the next year. His name is Nian, and I say, keep the explosions coming, because I'm for good fortune!

Chi and I were waiting for the bus on Minquan West Road on Saturday afternoon at about four. I had brought a bag of goodies for our hosts and Chi was checking it all out. In the meantime, the bus went by. Chi was a little flustered and told me that if she hadn't been checking out my chocolate, then we wouldn't have missed the bus. I like my friend Chi so much, that I told her that now and in the future, she is allowed to blame me for any kind of traffic-related lateness or even an accident or two. That's how much I like her!

It was no problem, as another bus came ten minutes later. We arrived in Taoyuan about a half-hour later and our friend Cecilia picked us up. She just got back from getting her MBA in Holland. She told me that it is not fair that Taiwanese parents will not hire her to teach English even though her English is good. Well, I sort of agree that it's not fair, if they are not hiring Taiwanese people who grew up in the States, but she grew up in Taiwan. So I gave her a hard time and told her that if I were a Chinese parent, well, I would want a native speaker, too, and I don't think it's discrimination.

I love languages, and the more I study Chinese, the more I come to love English. And the more I come to appreciate how languages contain so many cultural codes. And that to really learn a language, one has to live with it every day, hear it until it enters deeply the limbic part of your brain, until it becomes completely unconscious.

In every sentence, there are layer upon layer of meaning, nuance, feeling, and history. There are things that I can say to another native speaker that even proficient non-native speakers of English in Taiwan would have a hard time understanding. And, needless to say, the same thing happens the other way around, in Chinese.

Cecilia introduced us to her parents and we sat down to chat before dinner. I can't say that Chinese has fully entered my limbic system, but it is dancing around my cerebral cortex at most hours of the day (including in some of my dreams), and so I can hold a conversation with them. We have a little wulong tea.

Some more guests arrive, some friends of Cecilia who were from Holland. They have two beautiful children. Their Dad drives TGV trains in Europe, and is here teaching operators to use the new high-speed rail here in Taiwan. We chat about the project here in Taiwan and he explains that because of politicians, it is a big fucking mess. They are using Japanese trains and German tracks, or Japanese tracks and German trains or something like that, and the French guys can't talk to the Japanese guys.

Before we get too cozy in the living room, we are invited to the dinner table, and we feast. As we fill our bellies, I suggest we sing karaoke after dinner, and sure enough, Dad informs me that the family has a whole karaoke setup in the living room, complete with spinning colored lights.

I had been invited a few days earlier to visit my friend Wan Ling in Yilan, and after a group of us got back from the night market, her Mom joined us for snacks and a little plum wine in their den, where they had a high-tech karaoke machine and several songbooks with song codes. I sang "It's a Wonderful World" and then me and my friend Kenny sang "Uptown Girl". Afterwards, Wan Ling's mother asked us if all those "wooo-wooo-wooo's" were actually part of the song, and we told her that they were indispensibly so. We all laughed a lot.

Back to Taoyuan, where more karaoke is taking place. Some English songs, but mostly, Cecilia's parents are singing in Taiwanese, with a few Chinese songs. Cecilia's Dad has a great voice. He's always in key, and he's got an authentically raspy voice, as if he's smoked just the right number of cigarettes to make it sound cool. I especially like his rendition of the Chinese version of "My Way".

As midnight approaches, we all head out. I put on my shoes and thank my hosts repeatedly. The next morning, I'll need to get on a bus to head to the south. My student has invited me to spend time with her family in Kaohsiung.

I arrive at home at one in the morning, and start packing. My phone alarm rings at eight, and I make some tea, eat the tea eggs I bought yesterday at 7-11, get dressed, and walk down the mountain, getting ready for meeting another Taiwanese family.

There's certain to be a lot of food, smiles, a few cute Taiwanese kids, and as always, too much complimenting me on my Chinese. I don't have family in Taiwan, but somehow, people come forward, and they take care of me, they feed me, laugh with me.