The iconic Taiwan Store (台灣ê店) has to move -- so let's support them!

I was gonna drop in and take my own picture but I ended up forgetting to actually do so, even when I stopped by. So, here's a screen grab from FTV.

FTV reported recently that the Taiwan Store (台灣ê店) on Xinsheng South Road was being forced to relocate. 

This brought up a lot of memories for me, though I'm hardly the only one and my memories are hardly the most important.

Sometime in my first few years in Taiwan, I heard about The Taiwan Store. Open since 1993, I started visiting regularly. It had an old-school vibe, run by an elderly couple. Although my Chinese wasn't great then (to be fair, I still think it isn't), there was a section with English books about Taiwan, and souvenirs and t-shirts on sale as well as books. Sometimes I'd just drop by on my way to a cafe to peruse what they had, and for awhile they were the only store in Taiwan that reliably had books about Taiwan in English. 

I finally wrote about it in 2011, though admittedly the post is quite mediocre. 

Other little things drew me to the place. When they started making Taiwan passport covers (omitting the Republic of China words or symbol in favor of a more Taiwan-centric design), I was one of the first to get one, though I've never tried to travel abroad with it covering my blue passport. One year, Su Beng did a Lunar New Year calligraphy scroll: very simple, just 台灣獨立, his signature and an outline of the main island. The Taiwan Store gave those out for free: I took two, one for a good friend and one for myself. Although it's just a mass printed image on red paper, I eventually had mine framed. Su Beng has since passed away; there will never be another. 

We'd chat with Mr. Wu, the owner, who was delighted at any foreigner who spoke any amount of Taiwanese at all. My Taiwanese always failed after the first few sentences, and he seemed to prefer carrying on in English rather than Mandarin, some of the time at least. 

I'd bring friends in there and we'd find all sorts of items: a Taiwanese language-learning book created by my friend Ting (I immediately bought a copy), a CD full of the folk songs written by former President Chen Shui-bian from his prison cell, Chthonic t-shirts. It was one of the easiest places to get a Chthonic album, on old-school CD, if you wanted the Taiwanese version of the songs, not the English lyrics available on music-purchasing apps, back when those were a thing. The Taiwan Store has consistently been one o the only places to find a copy of A Borrowed Voice, detailing the support foreigners gave the Taiwan human rights movement under Martial Law. 

Even when Southern Materials re-opened nearby with an impressive selection of English-language books about Taiwan, I'd still pop by the Taiwan store. Their 'English corners' were a bit different, after all. One can reliably pick up a copy of Taiwan's Imagined Geography at Southern Materials, but the personal account of John Dodd, a tea merchant who witnessed the French blockade of Taiwan in the 1880s? That was Taiwan Store stuff. 

The rare titles on offer extend to their much larger Chinese-language selection. Anyone looking for something truly uncommon about Taiwan would find it here. It's one of the few bookshops that seriously attempts to incorporate books on Indigenous issues in Taiwan and promote Taiwanese language learning. 

Not long ago, hearing about their troubles, I started returning more frequently. I referenced a fellow foreigner whose Taiwanese is far better than mine -- "tall guy, blondish, actually speaks Taiwanese, always buying lots of books" -- and Mr. Wu knew him immediately. I've begun buying everything I'd eyed in the past but passed over: the John Dodd account, a book about Taiwanese decorative iron window grilles, a book that breaks down the architectural features of Taiwanese historic sites, well above my reading level but rendered comprehensible by the illustrations. A t-shirt, a keychain, a cupholder. I never did buy that CD of Chen Shui-bian folk songs.

It's not an exaggeration to say that while I don't know the owners well, they are some of my favorite acquaintances in Taipei.

So to hear the worst possible news: a drop in business from the pandemic, yes, but also the plain old capitalist calculus of landlords -- it cracked my heart a little. This is what happens when businesses rent their storefronts rather than owning them outright. The landlord wanted Mr. Wu and his bookstore out, and jacked up the rent accordingly. 

It's doubtful the landlord actually wants more rent. He probably wants to redevelop the property, and the rental fees from Mr. Wu could never possibly compare to the wealth he'd accrue simply by tearing the whole thing down and redeveloping. It's not evil, per se, but it is cold and calculating, perhaps if I'm feeling ungenerous it's avaricious, even. One of the deadly sins but not an unforgivable one. And yet, I don't like that landlord much at all.

According to the FTV piece, Mr. Wu doesn't intend to close permanently. He said his business is still the only Taiwan-themed bookshop in, well, Taiwan. And Taiwan does in fact need a bookshop dedicated to itself.

I agree. In any other country that the world recognizes as a country this idea -- we need our own bookshop with books about about our own country -- might seem annoyingly patriotic, perhaps even alarmingly nationalistic. You wouldn't catch me in The America Store. But for a country that has to fight for recognition internationally and whose voices, national identity and even right to self-determination and identification are so often erased or stomped on by others? Yes, you do need that. 

Mr. Wu is 79, though -- not an easy age to make such a big change -- and isn't quite sure where he will move. It won't be immediate: the current location will remain open through April, when the NT$5,000 government vouchers expire. In the meantime, he's been packing up books from shelves he installed himself.

In the FTV article, he spoke of times when taxi drivers would recognize him and say "you own a store dedicated to Taiwan -- I don't need money to drive you." He talked about the memories the store held for him, and the landlord's complaints about the "bad government" (which implies that perhaps Mr. Wu and the landlord have differing political views as well. I don't know if that contributed to the corresponding rent hike.) 

In a Humans of Taipei feature, he elaborated a bit more. After getting his PhD from Columbia, he was teaching at National Cheng-chi University when he was approached by strangers on a hike in the early 1980s, before the end of Martial Law. He was asked about a professor (Bruce Jacobs) considered a possible subversive -- do you know him? He said he did not, but felt an implicit warning: Taiwan is still not a safe place to be. He left Taiwan again and didn't return until 1987, after Martial Law had been lifted. At protests and events, he'd meet someone selling books about Taiwan in a sort of temporary set-up. He asked why they didn't open a bookshop, to which the man replied, "why don't you open one?"

Since trying to learn about Taiwan could be difficult -- books, when they existed, were hard to track down, and it was simply not easy to learn about Taiwan -- he did just that. Business started out strong, although some of his own writing (e.g. on the 228 Incident) was ignored by wider academic circles because he dared to simply call Taiwan an independent country. 

However, he lamented not long before the landlord came in for the kill, business hadn't been doing so well in recent years. People weren't buying or reading as much, he said, but it was still worth it to him to keep the store open.

Now, even that is ending, although an Indigenous friend of his is opening a branch in Taitung.

But Taiwan still needs, well...a Taiwan Store. 

So how can we support Mr. Wu as he looks for a way to relocate his business? Obviously, by stopping by and buying out some of his stock. Give him more liquidity and fewer goods to move. If you don't read Chinese, there are still all manner of t-shirts, banners and souvenirs you can pick up, even as he begins packing. 

I don't know if there's other help they need with moving or finding a new place, and assume they have friends and a support network for that. But every book or item you buy now makes it a little easier, and a little more certain, that after this April there will still be a Taiwan Store in Taiwan.

Here's the address: 

10673台北市新生南路三段76巷6號1F 

1st Floor #6, Lane 76 Xinsheng South Road Section 3

It's across the street from NTU, in the same lane as Guang Yi Cafe and very near the gray Lutheran Church that put up all those anti-gay posters in 2018.  The closest MRT is Gongguan.

Yuguang Beach, Nancheng Books, and I'm still technically on hiatus

The good news: I submitted a draft of my dissertation last week, so I'm close to the finish line.

The still good but not as great news: while it seems I've done a good job, there are still quite a few revisions I need to make, which means Lao Ren Cha's hiatus will continue for now. I'm hoping for more guest posts in the interim (and beyond).

Because I couldn't do anything with the dissertation last week, we took a much-needed break and headed to Tainan. Of course we ended up there during a severe heatwave that even southerners were calling unprecedented, and ended up spending the bulk of the middle of our days seeking indoor refuge.

I don't have much to say about central Tainan as I was there to relax, not to 'be a traveler' per se. But we did do two new things that are worth writing about: we went to the beach on Yuguang Island (魚光島) and visited a massive secondhand bookstore with funky vintage section.

Compared to the paradise beaches scattered across Southeast Asia, Yuguang doesn't particularly stand out. But it has a lot going for it, as Taiwanese beaches go. The greenery backing it isn't particularly beautiful and the sand is dun-colored, not golden, white or any of the more interesting colors. There is no shade whatsoever and the sand gets very hot, so consider bringing a beach umbrella.



First, it's fairly undeveloped: there's a parking lot which includes a restroom, faucets for rinsing off and a changing room, but the beach itself is backed by green scrub, not buildings, and it's set back from the road. The only thing on the beach is a small campsite to one side. There's a small local food stand along the road with a hose that customers can use to rinse off which has basic food (think barbecued Taiwanese sausages) and cold drinks, and a few tables.

Second, it's within a short drive of central Tainan. The only downside is that you do have to drive -- there's no bus out here. We went with a friend who had a car. That said, it's close enough to town that a taxi there wouldn't be prohibitively expensive and one could probably be called to pick you up.

Third, it's clean and safe. There's relatively little litter on the beach given how close it is to the city, the water is clear (you can usually see your feet) and the waves are pleasant but not dangerous. It as a gradual slope so you can go out quite far. Further out, parasailing and surfing are possible. Be aware that there are no lifeguards, though there are some flotation devices.

Finally - and most importantly - there are no insane rules on where and when you can swim. Such regulations are easily the worst thing about Taiwanese beaches. Baishawan is so boxed in, it's like taking a bath with 500 other people. Fulong is backed by ugly buildings and an uglier bridge. Wai'ao has interesting black sand but is backed by a road, parking lot and ugly food court, and the lifeguards make you get out at 5pm for no good reason. Kenting is packed and dirty (though there's a beach further along, past Eluanbi, which is better at low tide). At Yuguang, you can swim where you like, for as long as you like, without feeling like you're being herded through a large and crowded bath rather than trying to have a nice swim in the ocean.



Because we had a car, when it got too hot around lunchtime, we left the beach and headed for Chou Family Shrimp Rolls (周氏蝦捲) in Anping (there's a branch in downtown Tainan but it doesn't have the same feel). It's hard to get shrimp rolls this good anywhere else - even my favorite spot in Taipei doesn't make them crispy like Chou's. There is a bus out here, so a car isn't strictly necessary.

Nancheng Books
台南市中西區慶中街68號
#68 Qingzhong Street, West Central District, Tainan
(near the Five Concubines Temple / 五妃廟)



The next day, needing a respite from the heat, I found a secondhand bookstore while trawling Google Maps looking for interesting local things to do. Nancheng Books (城南舊肆) is massive, and includes an eclectic, if poorly organized, English section. There's also a small vintage/antiques area, though some of the items are a bit pricey. Nancheng is in a modern glass building with lots of natural light -- the only thing it needs is a few chairs scattered here and there for readers who want to peruse books they might buy. They only take cash.

It's near the Five Concubines Temple, so if you're walking that way from the Confucius Temple, it's a good break for what is otherwise a long and generally unrewarding walk.

We did other things too, but nothing you've never heard of before. So, enjoy this totally weird tapestry in a shop on the pedestrian street across from the Confucius Temple (the one that starts at the stone archway). 

The Glue on a Post-It

Yesterday evening, a few hundred people gathered at Freedom Square in a vigil to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In previous years, these events had been more formally organized, with red plastic stools, a stage and a sound system (which was often terrible, but nobody minded). Some were sparsely attended, such as in 2018. Others were packed - commemorations in 2014 following the Sunflower Movement and 2019 for the 30th anniversary were both packed, the latter likely also due to the recent outbreak of the Hong Kong protests.

This year's meeting felt more deconstructed, like a spontaneous sit-in than a formally-planned event. There was no stage, no sound system to speak of - there was a speaker of some sort but it didn't really work. 2019 saw a host of high-profile hosts and speakers, including the then-vice president; this year I had no idea who was speaking. It could have been anyone. Instead, people sat on the ground and lit candles, in some cases simple tea lights. Hastily strung-up tape kept the central crowd from getting too big - probably as a coronavirus safety measure - but onlookers were welcome.

The feel of the gathering was a good reminder that these events aren't "official"; the government here supports them (even in the age of coronavirus, the permit to gather was clearly not rejected), but they're put together by regular people. Anybody can do it. Regular people keep the memory of Tiananmen alive and support Hong Kong from Taiwan. Regular people light the tea lights and play music from their laptops that almost nobody can hear, but everyone sings along with anyway. Governments don't light candles - people do. 



 
To be honest, in 2019 the gathering felt full of anger and enthusiasm. Vigor, but also fear. It was like the rebel station on Yavin-4 just before the big mission to deal the Empire a hopefully fatal blow.

This year felt more grim and determined - like the rebel station on Hoth. Like all fear had been burnt away over the course of the past year, and all that was left was an embattled will to fight on. I don't need to tell you why.



There is a right and a wrong in this war. Imagine you are right, and knowing not only that you are right, but that most of the world realizes it too, yet still feeling like you're losing. Imagine feeling like all reasonable people - including many in the establishment - understand the justness of your cause, but that doesn't stop the establishment from telling you that this is just how things are. Hong Kong is a part of China, Taiwan isn't, but cannot be recognized as such. Sorry. Shrug.



This year was not just about Tiananmen. Many attendees were clearly Hong Kongers residing in Taiwan, and many of the chants were in Cantonese. Hong Kong protest flags and signs outnumbered remembrances of Tiananmen. One speaker said in Cantonese, "don't think that the Tiananmen Square Massacre has nothing to do with the Hong Kong protests", which I can assure you nobody was thinking. (I don't speak Cantonese but a friend I attended with does.) 



Artwork commemorating yesterday's anniversary explicitly made this connection, and it's doubtful that any Hong Kong protester is unaware of how Tiananmen ended. They fight anyway.

Earlier in the day I dropped by Causeway Bay Books, the recently-opened Taipei bookstore run by Lam Wing-kee, the bookseller whose store of the same name in Hong Kong was closed due to "legal troubles", and who was driven into de facto political exile in Taiwan. Causeway Bay Books is small, and has no street-level entrance - it's on the 10th floor of an unremarkable building near MRT Zhongshan. It's not a swish department-store sized establishment like Eslite, or even as fancy as some of the higher-end bookshops near National Taiwan University (though I hope someday it will be).

Causeway Bay Books doesn't exist in Taiwan only because this is a country that is willing to look China in the face and tell it to take a hike. Nor because this is a country where everyday people were willing to look the KMT dictatorship in the face and tell it to stand down - and won. Causeway Bay Books is also here because regular people helped make it happen through local assistance.



Of course, Taiwanese nationhood is also related, philosophically and ethically, to both the Hong Kong protests and Tiananmen Square. All of these issues cross-pollinate: that's why there were Tibetan flags at the Tiananmen Square memorial in Taipei last night, and pro-Hong Kong, Taiwan independence and Tibetan flags at Pride in late 2019. (I hope to see more East Turkestan flags in coming years; that issue is just as worthy). All of these issues center freedom, human rights and equality, and stand against the CCP's desire to control as many people it can, deny them basic rights and freedoms, and massacre them with impunity.

If you don't see that there is a clear right and wrong in this fight, you are deluded. There's a reason why the international media so often writes about China's authoritarianism in the passive voice: pointing fingers at an easily-angered member of the establishment feels scary, and the CCP's actions are so objectively wrong that simply to list them becomes a litany of (deserved) blame.

The truth is that Uighurs are imprisoned because China imprisons them. Hong Kongers and Tibetans are oppressed because China oppresses them. Tensions with Taiwan are raised because China raises them. Dissidents are murdered because China murders them. Bookstores are closed because China closes them. Protesters are run over with tanks because China runs over them.

These things aren't just done. A government actively does them, and they are not morally neutral. Murder in the passive voice is still murder.




At Causeway Bay Books, there is a Post-It note written by President Tsai which says 自由的台灣撐住香港的自由: free Taiwan supports freedom in Hong Kong. Next to it, there are two more Post-Its, written by children - one saying "don't forget Tiananmen" with a child's drawing of a tank and the numbers "64" (the "4" is backwards). The other has a stick figure and says "Go Hong Kong"! 





President Tsai's Post-It is held to the shelf by the thinnest strip of glue. A sharp gust of wind or a pair of fingers could dislodge it. Yet nobody would dare: it would probably make the news if they tried. It stays affixed to that shelf because people want it there. The seed of Causeway Bay Books has been planted and grows despite China's efforts to tear it out by the roots because people want it there.

The Tiananmen Square memorial in Hong Kong was banned this year, but lived on because people wanted it there.

The one in Taiwan lives on, in different forms, because people want it there. 

The past year or so has shown us how easy it is for these things to be peeled away. Post-Its aren't very securely attached. Bookstores open and close, and open again. A microscopic virus brings most of the world to its knees. An act of violence - similar to so many that came before - exposes the way in which even robust-seeming democracies were built on slavery and oppression, and are weaker for it. Protesters in Hong Kong take to the streets for months, and have a National Security Law shoved down their throats regardless. Western tankies still say that "Hong Kong was able to do what it wanted" and have the gall to praise Xi Jinping. Tom Cotton - a so-called supporter of Hong Kong and Taiwan - publishes an editorial calling for the US government to "send in the troops" against the protesters angry at the death of George Floyd, systemic racism and inequality in general...on June 3rd.

For Taiwan and Hong Kong, even one's allies are not really friends.

For those of us who still stand for what's right, it all feels about as sturdy as the shell of a weather-beaten conch. Or the glue on a Post-It.

But there's strength in it too. Because events like the Tiananmen Square memorial are organized by everyday people, they live on. Governments may try to tear away collective memory, or offend it by calling for history to repeat itself, but the memory clings. We teach our children about it, no matter what country we come from. 




People I know have said they felt the Sunflowers ultimately were "unsuccessful" or didn't have the impact that had been hoped for. However, towards the end of the vigil, after singing Glory to Hong Kong, people sang along with a tremulous laptop speaker to slowly pick their way through Island Sunrise, the Sunflower Movement anthem by Fire EX. These are both songs of hope. 

The candles are still lit because we light them. Our countries may be in ruins, but the mountains and rivers remain. 

Book Review: The Astonishing Color of After

The Astonishing Color of After
Emily X.R. Pan


I like to situate my book reviews in the real world - whatever is going on in my life, I try if possible to relate it to what I've read. I do this because I'm not a professional book reviewer, and I want to offer something more unique than a bog-standard review you might read in a newspaper.

As it so happens, I read The Astonishing Color of After - which deals with depression and suicide - during a time when I was (am?) coping with anxiety, mostly related to graduate school. I don't have depression - anxiety is not the same thing - but what drew me in was a line towards the beginning of the novel - the colors around me were all wrong. I was lucky, if only because I was able to see that something was wrong in time to seek professional advice (it turns out that my case is mild and I don't really need anti-anxiety medication if I make a few lifestyle changes - breathing exercises, no social media before bed, that sort of thing). But what really helped me connect with this novel was realizing that while I'd always known intellectually that sometimes brains just don't work the way they're supposed to, I hadn't really understood personally - viscerally - what that could be like, even mildly. Now I do.

The Astonishing Color of After is, theoretically, YA (Young Adult) literature. The writing style is fairly straightforward, the first-person viewpoint character is a teenager dealing with teenage issues and it fits nicely alongside other YA classics. Because of this - and despite it being quite fat - it's a quick read for adults. I didn't realize that when I picked it up, but I'm happy things shook out that way - I'd just finished my dissertation proposal and needed some mental rest with easier prose. It surprises me that it doesn't seem as though this novel has gotten a lot of press among English-speaking Taiwan bibliophiles. I knew when Green Island, Lord of Formosa, My Enemy's Cherry Tree and Wedding in Autumn all came out, but hadn't heard of this book until I came across a copy at eslite. It's a shame, too - YA literature about Taiwan that can be enjoyed by anyone, even if they have no connection to Taiwan, is a niche that needs filling. That kind of soft power helps.

That said, because the narrator is a 15-year-old girl, the prose is written a bit too...muchly. There's explicitness where something might be implied, melodrama where subtlety and implication would suffice. It works, though - the story is told as a 15-year-old might tell it. You can almost envision what the journal entries of the narrator would be like.

Without spoiling too much, the story follows Leigh Chen Sanders, 15-year-old American-raised daughter of Dory Chen and Brian Sanders. When her mother, Dory, commits suicide, Leigh is convinced she's turned into a huge red bird, and eventually seeks answers to her mother's family history in Taiwan. Leigh not only grapples with her mother's death, family secrets and feeling lost in an unfamiliar country, but a father who can barely cope himself as well as a very common teen issue: wanting to do something creative with your life as one of your parents pushes you down a practical path that you are entirely unsuited for.

This struck home for me too. I'm not a teenager anymore, and I'm not in a 'creative' profession (writing is a hobby, not a consistent income source). But along with my dissertation, I've been grappling with exactly why I chose to become a teacher when I don't feel the money I earn really justifies my choice (and don't always feel appreciated in a professional capacity either). I know people think foreign teachers out-earn other professions here, but that's really only true early on. When you hit your thirties, gain experience and professional development and credentials, you start to notice that if you'd gone to work for some corporate machine you'd be earning more by now. But, as with art or music, there are other reasons to choose teaching.

Taipei is rendered as accurately - if generically - as post-smartphone suburban America, and the story is deeply engaging. Pan does a great job of narrating the difficulties Leigh has with Mandarin - a language she is familiar with but doesn't really speak and can't read at all - and Taiwanese, which is incomprehensible to her. The flourish of her Taiwanese mother not really wanting to return to Asia despite her American father being keen do to so - and that same American father speaking and writing fluent Mandarin as his Taiwanese wife avoids her native language - presents a flourish to the story that upends stereotypes readers may have. Frankly speaking, it's a circumstance I've seen play out in real life, and it was interesting seeing it depicted in fiction. It reminded me of how my own grandfather, himself not a native speaker of English, purposefully never taught any of his children Western Armenian. As a result, I never learned it either.

I'm of two minds about Pan's depiction of Taipei. Everything was accurate - the alleys, the doors, the weather, the parks, the house slippers, the apartment shrines, the shops and temples. The depiction of supernatural events fits fairly well within Taiwanese religious beliefs, and the touch that Leigh's mother would visit both a Taoist and a Buddhist temple and not see any problem with that sort of syncretic belief (a fairly common thing to do in Taiwan) was a thoughtful flourish. Leigh's grandparents could be any number of older couples in Taipei city.

But...but. I wish she'd been more specific. Which street with brick arches did she reference? Was it Dihua Street? If so, the temple she described looks nothing like the most famous temple on that street. Was it Longshan Temple? It could have been. But if so, what street? What neighborhood did the Chens live in? Which spot on the North Coast did they actually go to? (Jiufen is referenced but then not much more is said about it or what the scenery is like.) One thing I love when reading novels that take place partly or entirely in Taipei is reading about the author's description of very specific places that I can go visit, if I like. When Pai Hsien-yung talks about Longjiang Road and a park which is obviously 228, I have specific mental images I can conjure up to give life to the story. There's something to be said for referencing a generic residential lane, a generic neighborhood park - the Chens could be anyone and there's literary merit to that - but I like my fictional Taipei to be grounded in a reality that I can personally reference.

I was intrigued by the very common Taiwanese family story of the Chens - a grandmother born in Taiwan and growing up in poverty, and a grandfather who came with the ROC military from China. Leigh's grandmother speaks Mandarin and Taiwanese (her grandfather's linguistic background is less clear). When we start to see flashbacks of Leigh's mother's life in Taiwan, one reference concerns her marrying someone "Chinese" (me: not Taiwanese?) but later that's references as "Chinese or Taiwanese". Which...huh.

There's a lot of digging that could be done into family political dynamics there, a lot of engagement in that particular issue that Pan - and by extension Leigh - could have pursued. But it's left there; there's no further discussion of issues of Taiwanese linguistic, historical or cultural identity. I suppose that'd be a bit much for a YA novel not necessarily marketed only to readers familiar with Taiwan, but it would have been interesting to explore.

Where the novel does a little better is discussing Taiwanese religious beliefs and superstitions, especially regarding ghosts and the afterlife, and Ghost Month in particular. Although I wish the novel had actually gone to Keelung for Ghost Month after explicitly referencing it, beliefs about ghosts roaming the earth and burning items for them to use in the afterlife, I think foreign readers will find these descriptions interesting.

All in all I'm happy I read The Astonishing Color of After, especially when I did. Its ideas and plot threads came through at a time when they could resonate especially strongly for me, and its clear prose was an inviting fictional place for my mind to escape to when it very much needed an escape.

Even better? I think you can still buy it at eslite!

I have a crush on Indiana Jones's mom

My first sighting of Taiwan was years before I actually moved here.

I was 19 years old, on my way to a study abroad program in India, and our plane from Los Angeles had a brief scheduled stop at Taoyuan Airport. As we cruised in, I saw rugged green mountain peaks jutting out from swirling white clouds and mist.

It was lovely, like coming across slabs of rough green and white quartz while hiking, but more vivid. Yet it was my first glimpse of Asia and second time to travel to another continent; it intrigued me.

Even Taoyuan Airport was of more interest then than it is now: a glass wall installation of Chinese calligraphy, a few shops, a new smell - my first whiff of the many scents of Asia which, while all different, are all entirely unlike those of North America. Perhaps now I find all this somewhat unimpressive - after all, who is impressed by Taoyuan International Airport? - but at the time I was taken.

One of my fellow India-bound students commented: oh, hey, we're in the Republic of China, cool! 

Cool!

I knew that the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China were different entities, but I did not fully grasp all I did not know. I did, I admit, think of Taiwan as the place where Chinese culture had been "saved and preserved". Worry not, I grew out of that absurd notion. I thought to myself that, although this time we would not leave the airport, I would very much like to explore the Republic of China someday. The thought was, to quote my nascent inamorata, inchoate. But it was there.

I didn't go immediately - we stopped in Kuala Lumpur and explored the city for the day, went on to Chennai, then Mahabalipuram, then Madurai, India, where my entire worldview was turned on its head. I returned to the US and finished my degree, fighting what I thought might have been a touch of depression but was actually a compound case of senioritis and the travel bug. I went to China - the People's Republic of China, the other one - traveled around Southeast Asia, returned to India, then the US, then worked a stultifying office job for a few years.

And then, it was time. The opportunity was there in that I finally had the freedom and savings to explore this Republic of China, and I was fast realizing that what I thought was a temporary, curable travel bug was actually a chronic illness whose only cure was to leave and basically not come back.

Only then did I realize I wasn't going to the Republic of China at all; I was moving to Taiwan, or perhaps Formosa. But this was no China. 

I am now an English teacher by profession, but I like to think (pretend?) that I am also much more than that.  

* * *

Why am I telling you this? 

Because almost exactly 100 years ago, the object of my affection boarded a boat in Manila bound for Nagasaki, passed Taiwan and noted how beautiful the cliffs plunging into the sea appeared:

Formosa, that little-known island in the typhoon-infested South China Sea, so well called by its early Portuguese discoverers - as its name implies - "the beautiful". Indeed, it was the beauty of Formosa that first attracted me....I shall never forget the first glimpse that I caught of the island as I passed it...there it lay, in the light of the tropical sunrise, glowing and shimmering like a great emerald, with an apparent vividness of green that I had never seen before, even in the tropics. During the greater part of the day it remained in sight, apparently floating slowly past - an emerald on a turquoise bed....

My desire to learn at first-hand something of the aborigines of Formosa remained, therefore, more or less an inchoate inclination on my part, and I turned my attention to other things. Then, curiously enough, as coincidences always seem curious when they affect themselves, a few months later...came an offer from a Japanese official to go to Formosa as a teacher of English in the Japanese Government School in Taihoku [ed: present-day Taipei], the capital of the island. 

Girl, I already want you.

You floated by, I floated over, but we both had the same thought - there is a reason why they call this the Beautiful Island, and I would like to explore it. We both set that thought aside for years, and then, for both of us, the right circumstances presented themselves. 

You even came as an English teacher, but you were so much more than that. 

Let this be a lesson to those who would disparage all English teachers as losers, wash-ups, backpackers and weirdos: the single most awesome foreign woman to ever alight in Taiwan and write the classic but oft-forgotten Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa, merely because she was inclined to do so and found the place beautiful as she passed by once, was also an English teacher.

You were not wealthy (in fact, it appears you often published for general interest of of necessity, which may have affected your reputation enough to keep you from publishing in more scholarly circles). You were absolutely a wanderer, absolutely fearless, and absolutely unapologetic. 

Brendan pointed out that you were the mother of William Montgomery McGovern, the possible inspiration for Indiana Jones. Although he did what a lot of adventurous male scholars were able to do at that time, whereas you bucked all sorts of expectations of women, let alone female scholars, and wrote a classic book on Taiwan, he has a Wikipedia bio, but you do not (guuuurl, I am gonna fix that for you, because you are my person.) 

I am not concerned with your son, nor am I concerned with Indiana Jones. It's easy to have a crush on Indiana Jones. I have a crush on his mother who, by dint of what she did despite the sexist time and society in which she was born, was so much more of a bad-ass. 

I can only lament that we were born a century apart. And that I like men, but that hardly matters: I'll make an exception for you, my star-cross'd love. If you weren't dead, that is. 

I am not going to recount the entire book for those of you reading this. It is available online, on Amazon, and can occasionally be found in Taipei (try The Taiwan Store). You will learn quite a bit about the indigenous people of Formosa: for a time, it is likely that nobody in the world knew more about them than Janet B. Montgomery McGovern. I especially enjoyed the marriage customs wherein a lovelorn "swain" (and yes, I adore the old-timey English usages) would play a small mouth harp or create a twenty-bundle monument of firewood for a woman's cooking pot in order to win her hand - and that she still had absolute right of acceptance or refusal.

Brendan and I decided to get married by basically saying to each other:
"We should get married, yeah?"
"Sure, that sounds cool."

So, this was nice. 

But why am I so enamored with Janet McGovern?

She came to Taiwan as a single woman in a time when that was fairly rare - and when it was done, it was usually by missionaries. I love that she had no interest in being a missionary. She never seems to have become fluent in any one Formosan language, but picked up some of many different, rare tongues: more than wealthier expats with more resources today often manage to do for just one language, which is far more well-known, with more learning resources created for it, yet isn't even the native tongue of this country. 

She trusted head-hunters that full-grown men, both foreign and local, were terrified of, and was in turn offered trust, kindness and hospitality. She had such a no-nonsense, take-neither-shit-nor-prisoners writing style (I like to think I also have that style, updated for a new century?) that you could see, emanating off the page like waves of hot steam, that she was also a take-neither-shit-nor-prisoners woman. She totally DGAF before it was cool for women to NGAF. 

Homegirl even said this to a Japanese official, in 1917: 

I explained that obviously I was not a Japanese, also that I was not at all certain that I was a lady, and that if the distinction between coolie-woman and lady lay in the fact that one walked and the other did not, I much preferred being classed in the former category. 

...Suddenly the light of a great idea seemed to dawn upon him. "Ah," he exclaimed exultantly..."but they will say you are immoral, and Christian ladies do not like to be thought immoral."
This struck me as being amusing - for several reasons.
"Yes," I said, "and who is likely to think me immoral?"
"Oh, everybody," he answered impressively. "And they will publish it in the papers - all the Japanese papers in the city, and in the island," he emphasized, "that you are immoral."

...."I am afraid I must continue to go on my wicked way without the protection of your companionship," I said; "and if 'they' - whoever 'they'  may be - annoy you with questions as to the object of my excursions into the mountains....tell them 'Yes' to anything they ask about me," I said, "if that will set their minds at rest."

GIRL. 

All I can say is this: Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa is an interesting book for its time-capsule like quality of describing Taiwan as it was in 1917, and is interesting for what one learns about the indigenous of Formosa, from a qualified anthropologist, although I would imagine much of the information is out-of-date.

But, I am a woman who once saw the beauty of Taiwan in passing and was inspired by that alone to make it my home, who DGAF or at least tries not to. I have some private but very few public role models of highly competent, fierce women  of knowledge and training - remember, I am trained at the graduate level in Education, though I do not claim the same level of ferocity that Ms. McGovern clearly possessed - who have called Taiwan home among a sea of Western men, some exceptional but most mediocre. I loved this book, then, for reasons entirely separate from its ethnographic riches.

I also love it because I'm not alone. Janet B. Montgomery McGovern walked this path a century ago, and although she ended up at a different destination, so many of her landmarks are familiar to me even now. I have a deep sense of sympathy, although the experience does not mirror mine, of being the woman who should have run the whole show and had movies made starring characters inspired by her, only for that prize to go to her son.

My inamorata is not perfect. She consistently refers to non-aboriginal cultures as "more civilized", although she points out later in the book that the indigenous people she visited themselves viewed other cultures who don't keep promises as 'savages' and themselves as the farthest thing from. I won't excuse this by pointing out that it was a common line of thinking a hundred years ago. I will simply apologize as I like to think she would apologize now, were she still alive. Formosa may still be "little-known", almost as much now as then, but things have changed.

McGovern herself seems to grasp this toward the end, where she questions whether the "civilized" world would be better off, or how different it would be, if they followed the moral and social mores of the people she routinely refers to as "savages", and opines that, at least, it might not be worse: you might lose your head, but your community would provide for you, and everyone would say what they meant and keep their word. She also considers the idea of a matrilocal, matri-potestal "gynocracy" and what an evolution within such a system might have meant for Europe - in this part, you can see a glimmer of first-wave feminism shining through, and I love it.

Perhaps she goes too far in the other direction, making indigenous communities out to be more perfect - more "simple" in their "primitive" ways - than I think any society can actually be, but at least she considers it, which is more than I suspect many of her white male contemporaries were ever able to wrap their minds around.

And I have to admit, as I have said above, I have a bit of a crush on her, and this is my paean - no, my love letter. 

A well-curated shelf

The English-language books on Taiwan available at Bookstore 1920s on Dihua Street


There are a few things that consistently soothe my jangled nerves: flannel pajamas, a purring cat (especially sitting or laying on me), a hot cup of good coffee - yes - coffee. Art projects, especially those that involve intense concentration on details, such as highly-detailed drawings or jewelry-making with small beads.

And books.

But not just any books - in my experience, it's an immediate lift to a hurt, melancholy soul to see a shelf of well-curated books on a subject one is passionate about.

It is oddly difficult to find books about Taiwan in Taiwan - the best selection at good prices can be found on Amazon, but in many cases the sellers don't ship internationally. or don't ship to Taiwan. There are books available at Camphor Press and on books.com.tw and a limited selection sold at the two largest eslite bookstores (I haven't really spent much time in the smaller ones), and of course there is always the wonderful Taiwan Store, But, in general the selection is limited and in some cases (especially at eslite) the most interesting titles are eschewed in favor of less engaging works.

So, when I walked into Bookstore 1920s with my friend Cahleen the other day, I was so happy to see - uplifted really - that although their section on books about Taiwan is small, it is beautifully, carefully curated by someone who knows what they're doing and cares about selling quality literature.

We own many of these books: Far From Formosa, Taiwan: A History of Agonies, Out of China and The Mapping of Taiwan. Each one is wonderful in its own way - the first for its old-timeyness, the second for its nationalist take on Taiwanese history, and the fourth for its gorgeous maps and illustrations: it's a gorgeous choice for a coffee table book (I haven't yet read Out of China). I walked out that day with that copy of Taipei: City of Displacements, because I haven't seen it anywhere else.

Social and political affairs have been rough this week, between learning that according to the Taiwanese government that I'm worthless and would be more valuable if I found Jesus and started teaching locals about how God hates gay people or something, and the atrocious comments made by Minister of Fuckstickery, Chiu Tai-san. Beyond wearing my favorite PJs and cuddling with my cat, I actually find my spirits lifted looking at this shelf.

In a world that doesn't care about Taiwan, and in Taiwan which doesn't think I'm worth dual citizenship, at least someone cares enough to compile a beautiful little collection of books with great attention to detail and quality. Small comfort in uncomfortable times.