i’ve spent this month in four different time zones, and december’s not over yet. the last issue was about packing and airports, traveling for work and for play, new york and san francisco. and the comforts that i bring with me along the way.
make some tea. light some incense. place my desk tiger on my new desk. and that’s how i start the next chapter of my life—the taiwan chapter.
first, some food from a favorite neighborhood restaurant. it’s simple fare—classic taiwanese eats like dandan noodles, braised pork over rice, and different types of protein with soy sauce paste at an affordable price. (the price quality ratio of food in this country is great.) we sit on stools and eat quickly, since there’s usually a line. but we always end up ordering a second round. and occasionally a third.
i was supposed to move here for my last semester of university but covid protocol meant i had to find an alternative, and i went to cape town instead. (i’ve actually been missing some of my favorite food places from there recently so i might write about my time there in a future issue.) as a result, taipei always felt like a missed opportunity for both myself and sanny, since he’s never been.
i was also looking forward to immersing in a place where i had family and roots, but have only ever seen myself as a visitor in. while the pacific-time-to-asia-time work hours previously prevented me from working from east asia, my new team is mostly asynchronous and we don’t have a lot of meetings. so i thought i might as well seize the opportunity to come to taiwan, see my family for christmas while they’re here, eat all the east asian foods i’ve been craving, and live in taipei for a while before going back to lisbon in april.
living with family again (my parents are here until january) as a working adult is actually very nice. it’s like having roommates, but who perfectly understand my living style and who make my favorite home foods. also, since i only read a few characters of mandarin, they can help me order the dishes i like at restaurants—some places get too busy for customers to order verbally and you have to mark down what you want on paper. but these are all minor things; i’m mainly glad for the opportunity to spend time together in asia now that there’s no quarantine requirement. i know i’m really lucky to have a good relationship with my family where we’re more like friends, and while we can go on vacation together to other places, i can tell they feel more at home in china or taiwan.
some easily-prepared home food
routines/the building blocks of life
i’ve read it’s easier to change your habits when you switch physical locations. establishing new habits and routines in a city is—perhaps contradictorily—both novel or exciting and gives me a greater sense of rootedness in my current city. i’ve only been here for a few days, so i’ve only started building one routine, albeit a very necessary one: purchasing food items.
because there’s a culture of buying food at markets as opposed to grocery stores in taipei (though there are definitely many nice grocery store options too), i start by observing which stalls are good for which items, then mentally marking my favorites, while slowly making my way through all the cooked foods i want to try. deciding which wax apple stall to buy from is easy when your family eats 10-12 a day, and your mother is a self-proclaimed expert in choosing the best ones. in taiwan, markets are both indoor and outdoor, and sell not only produce and raw ingredients but also street food and breakfasts, and range from clean to extremely clean. no running offal here. as soon as i have a good understanding of my preferred options for fruit or soup bones or veg (meaning i’ve performed this routine a few times), i feel settled in.
market operating hours are early to 3pm or sold out in taipei (at least in my neighborhood), and there’s a strong breakfast culture with specific comfort foods typically eaten in the morning. so i get up earlier here, to partake, while in lisbon i preferred to sleep in and indulge in brunch as most places aren’t open before 11am anyway. my working hours here have also shifted to accommodate my new lifestyle; i work 6/7am-12pm and then 8-10/11pm. this is so i can have some overlap with my colleagues in pacific time and participate in the morning city life here. (i could also choose to work from night until 2 or 3am, but that would mean i’d probably sleep in until late.)
beyond markets or grocery stores, figuring out which specific stores to go for what is another necessary yet fun endeavor on the way to becoming comfortable in a city. for example, sometimes one store has really good soy sauces and vinegars, and another has a delicious chocolate. i’ve designated a particular store for dried tuna in lisbon, and one for my favorite soymilk in taipei. (having my parents here to tell me which ones they prefer is definitely helpful here when most signs are in mandarin.) these food stores serve as “landmarks” in the city for me—they are not only reference points to help me navigate neighborhoods but also provide a sense of familiarity, making a city feel more mine.
the few taiwanese friends reading this may think all of these observations seem quite mundane. but the differences in what i think of as the building blocks of life—markets, dining hours, the culture of convenience stores and street food and cafes—all subsequently influence how i structure my lifestyle. and as a result, i feel like i’ve lived many different lives, within a year, from the us to portugal to taiwan.
five observations
or things that were once familiar, but are now pleasantly surprising to me:
the streets here are so so clean.
the flavors of the homestyle food from my favorite streetside restaurants are still unchanged from the last time i was here, or six and a half years ago.
the breakfast culture here is something else. you can have something different for breakfast every day of the month, and it’s all highly affordable. i usually consider myself a brunch person but when in rome… (hence the lifestyle change. i find it hard to be a morning person unless it’s for food.)
parks in the city are small but well-designed and landscaped, and a crucial part of city life here for the older population and children. especially on afternoons after grandparents pick up their grandkids from school. walk down the middle of a park and you may see old people doing their daily exercises or playing chess on one side, while children use the playground on the other side.
taipei is very flat. after living in two hilly cities, it’s a nice change.
that’s all for now—there will definitely be more words and photos related to taipei in the coming newsletters. 🎄 i hope everyone has a great holiday season!
Loved reading this one!!! So exciting you’ll be in Taiwan for the next while — I also feel it’s a missed opportunity and would love to live there sometime. :) really enjoyed getting some insight into what it looks like and tastes like and FEELS like to be there!
Love the updates!! Keep it coming.