The Rains of ‘22

Friends,

Hello from Taipei, where it is not raining. It is surprising that it is not raining, because 2022 has been a record year for rain here in Taipei. The average rainfall for February is around 110mm, this year it was 252mm. It’s been a good time to make sure you’re getting your Vitamin D supplements and to curse yourself for choosing an apartment without a clothes dryer.

On the few days it’s been sunny (and one of the days it was rainy), Carolina and I have taken it upon ourselves to be better explorers of Taipei, to verse ourselves in a wider scope of neighborhoods. Our strategy for this venture is to choose a subway station we’re unfamiliar with but seems nice from Google Maps, then make a list of nearby things to check out. Examples include coffee shops, restaurants, parks, libraries, university campuses, bookstores, street markets, etc. Then we’ll spend half a day walking around, finding reasons to return, seeing how it stacks up.

So far, our favorite area is Jingmei . I’m still also really partial to the area around Sanxing Elementary , Wuxing Market , and Taipei Medical University , though wow I wish it had more bus routes nearby.

We’re doing this for two reasons. The first is that it’s a good way to motivate us to go out and walk and get some sun. We have to do that now, before summer heat kicks in. While we each have our independent way of trying to stay active — Carolina wakes up early and goes for a walk before starting work with a trip to the market on the way back as a reward, while I tailor a small workout to fit in front of the TV while watching an anime episode — having this together is more motivating and just plain nice. I even got a sunburn while checking out the area between Kunyang and Songshan stations (note: nice, but not liveable).

The second reason is that we’re checking out what options are out there, thinking about possibly moving into a new apartment. As I’ve written before, we want a little bigger kitchen and to be a little closer to a park (and yes, maybe with a clothes dryer as well), and both of those things seem easily doable now that we’re not confined by being close to a specific work place. We might not move; after all, we’re pretty comfortable where we are and moving is a huge pain, but who knows! But, really, we only know a few parts of the city, and several of those parts are not places where we’d want to or could realistically live, so we are getting to know the city better. To what end? Ask me again later.

Which begs the question of what it means to really know a city. I don’t have any experience to draw from: I didn’t have enough money or time to get to know DC, and I didn’t have the desire to really get to know Austin. In Taipei, it’s hard to draw a clear distinction between cultural and linguistic barriers versus just adjusting to living in a new place. I feel like I’ve mostly gotten through the “understanding what’s going on in front of me” stage, though there are still gaps. I still can’t figure out why all the people driving Uber have such nice cars (I’ve been picked up in a Mercedes twice??), when cars in Taiwan are a good bit more expensive than in the United States both in sticker price and taxes/fees. I don’t understand how Taipei’s real estate can be so insanely expensive and skyrocketing every year yet pretty much everywhere in Taipei is a stone’s throw away from a ground floor shop selling bowls of 滷肉飯 for less than $1.50 USD, or a super cheap breakfast place that’s open less than half a day, or a blanket and bedding store that I’ve literally never seen a customer in how are you still open. But those are fun mysteries. So, “understanding what’s going on in front of me” is MOSTLY complete, now I’m working through “mostly knowing what’s going to happen in front of me.” Sometimes I see people I know randomly in MRT stations. When people ask for a recommendation for a type of restaurant or bookstore or cultural experience, I can usually think of one. So I think I’m getting close to feeling like I know a small slice of Taipei, and now I’m working to make that slice bigger.

Or I’m just going for nice walks. A win either way.

Further reading:

• Like many people, I’ve been completely immersed in the world of Elden Ring . Its the latest, much changed iteration of the “Soulsborne” video game series. This article is probably a little basic for someone who loves the games, and a little esoteric for someone who doesn’t play video games, maybe you’d enjoy the profile of the creator in The New Yorker .
• RIP Amazon’s brick and mortar stores . You won’t be missed .
• Sowmiya Ashok is an Indian journalist who recently arrived in Taiwan. This month she had two fun pieces, one profiling the laundromat couple who went Instagram viral for posing wearing clothes people abandoned at their business, and the other doing interviews about Taiwan with young women here . They’re both great.
• “Queering the Map ” is a website dedicated to “digitally archiving LGBTQ2IA+ experience in relation to physical space.” It’s a beautiful glimpse into little moments of tons of lives around us. While America is full of pins, it’s especially touching to check out the pins in places where homosexuality is more dramatically discriminated against.
• I’m not a close follower of J. Kenji López-Alt, but his conversation with Helen Rosner was a good read. Between it and the ridiculousness around Taylor Lorenz, it’s a nice time to read people navigating their relationship with the internet.
• Having been a longtime follower of Hanif Abdurraqib’s words on social media and a few sites, I’m ashamed to admit that I just recently finished his essay collection They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us , which is one of the all-time great collections. He dances between music, community, sports, and interrogating his own past selves in such a generous, meticulous way. I could read him writing about anything.
• Anne Helen Petersen wrote about her first colonoscopy with the hopes that it would begin more conversations and make the process of colonoscopies and other similar medical procedures less soaked with “fear of the unknown.” It’s quite the tale, and prompted me to go get a related checkup I had been putting off (which turned out to be nothing, but still relieved some submerged worry). You should, if you’re able, as well.
• Finally, plugs: I wrote a little silly reimagining of Great British Bake Off as a thesis committee instead. It got published in a GBBO -related Zine through Daily Drunk Magazine . You can check out the PDF here . Additionally, I blogged about my hunt for a favorite neighborhood coffee shop because I couldn’t stop thinking about it, which you can read about here .

One more nice thing I’ve gotten into while walking is contributing to OpenStreetMap using the StreetComplete app. It’s kind of like an open-source non-profit-ish alternative to Google Maps, and they look for volunteers to help them fill in missing or verify old information, with the goal of anyone being able to use the data. It gives me that little hit of dopamine for walking somewhere new (and, unlike winter melon tea or a green onion bun, it’s calorie-free) and pushes me to walk a little further. A push that I need, despite my best efforts, many days.

I hope you find the push you need as well.

-g