Slow Walk Up the Mountain

Tonight, after studying at a cafe, I took a long, slow walk home up the mountain. Taiwan's spring is warm and humid, almost pleasant, giving hints at the scorching summer to come. Like a taller than average twelve-year old, giving us hints that very soon, he'll be NBA size.

I've got to memorize a talk I'm going to give in Chinese, so as I walk up the windy street to my house, it's a perfect time to practice. I turn to the lush foliage and the apartment buildings behind them and recite, 「各位評審老師,各位同學,大家好.我是姚凱元.」, waving my right arm oratorically to the tree on my right.

The floodlamps light the street and I look down and notice the most beautiful butterfly taking a nap on the sidewalk. I stop and look. Its wings are birch-colored and look like wood, with some small yellow and black spots. I am afraid it is dead. I have the urge to touch it to make sure it isn't dead. I'm like a kid. But the adult part of me knows better. I shouldn't disturb it.

A second later, I gently touch it's wing, and to my surprise, it starts to flutter and flies up into the bright streetlight above.

I keep walking and reciting and then see the big, scary-looking spider I see almost every day as I walk up or down the mountain. His body is about two inches long, and his legs make him about eight inches long. His legs are black and thin and look like they're made of metal. He's usually hanging out (literally) in the middle of his web when I see him in the mornings. But tonight, he's walking. Maybe these creatures are nocturnal.

He's walking slowly across his web. Is he picking up his day's food? I look more carefully and I see the light as it reflects off the gossamer threads. After looking for a few more seconds, I realize I am watching a spider construct his web. He is walking and spitting out more thread, making his flycatcher more intricate and efficient. It's all perfectly geometric and I wonder, how does he know how to space the threads so evenly?

I think of the experiments researchers in the 70s did with spiders, giving them LSD. Perhaps they wanted to see if the arachnids might express some kind of creativity. I bet they thought the spiders would spell words with messages like, "Make love, not war."

Then I think to myself, that wasn't a really nice thing those acid-licking hippies did to those poor spiders. And I don't know if those pictures of acid-influenced spider webs in psychology textbooks really serve any purpose besides making kids say, "Hey, look at the webs that spiders on acid build, dude."

I think I should let the spider work, maybe he is getting nervous with me watching, so I continue up the mountain, reciting my Chinese: 「我是一位美籍的中醫師.今天我要演講的題目是中醫對學生的好處.」

I am getting close to my little studio on the hill, and I see the neighbor's golden retriever on the lookout in front of their shack where they sell bing lang, drinks, and vegetables that they grow on their plot across the street.

The dog sees me and he's wagging his tail. I've never pet him before, but he's seen me standing in front of his house as I am waiting for the bus. Last week, I was talking to his owner, the twenty-five year-old son of the old Taiwanese lady who lives there, while he was "playing" with the dog. He would tie a small towel tightly on the dog's head and watch as the poor dog tried to remove it with his paws. Then he threw slices of white bread at the dog, which the young dog gladly caught and ate. I didn't know dogs liked white bread so much.

As I walk by him, I say hello, but I don't walk up to pet him, because I've never pet him before and I don't want to freak him out. You have to be careful with some dogs in Taiwan. They'll bite. Maybe they're not living the suburban life of ease that dogs in the US live. Maybe there's a lot of prozac in the water supply in the States, which has a sort of peaceful, sedative effect on those American doggies.

So, I say goodnight to him and smile. He looks aways and then suddenly runs up to me. I extend my hand and he licks it. I know he's in a good mood, even without the prozac from the United States, and I pet him. By this time he is jumping on me, and his older brother comes out and wants to play, too. The younger one wants to play a little rough, and I am happy to oblige for a minute. He must have had a boring day.

Time for me to head up the path to my room. I'm not rich, have no status, a 30ish American acupuncturist studying Chinese with a bunch of 23 year-old Japanese and Korean kids in Taiwan, far away from my home in the States.

But tonight, I feel at home in the world.