The Streets of Taiwan
The Streets of Taiwan
We stand out like white sheep,
Stumbling along the crowded Taiwan streets,
Tripping on cracked sidewalks crammed with clothing racks and crates—
Congestion of vertical signs in Chinese hieroglyph,
An occasional decipherable word:
“Language School”
“Pub”
“McDonalds”
“Tiolet”
People scramble cross streets
(Traffic lights have mild significance):
Do Not Walk?
Fuming busses belching black diesel;
Intertwining mass of cars and
Maneuvering motorscooters;
One carries a family of five:
The father driving with girl in front basket
Behind him her brother in front of the mother
Another child strapped to her back.
Some riders wear surgeons’ masks
To filter the heaviest particles
Of fetid air.
Sometimes the malevolent machinery
Brushes your skin
As it rushes past;
One close call and you sense the presence of Death.
Sudden bleating horns thump hearts into throats.
Taxis darting and swerving,
One topples an old woman’s scooter;
Her foot looks broken.
There are no “senior citizens” on the streets of Taiwan.
Mangy, scabby animals,
Dodging cars and sniffing out
Meager crumbs of existence,
Sorely need Bodhisattvas
To lick their festering wounds.
One cur lifts its leg and pisses on a basket of tomatoes for sale.
Dog shit everywhere on the streets
Liquefies in rain;
Red pools of betel nut spittle;
Endless litter,
Endless litter,
Endless litter…
We stand out like white sheep:
Hawaiian shirts,
Jansport backpacks,
Birkenstocks
Light-haired pony tails.
“Aloha” says a young Mormon “elder”
Cycling past me on his mission to pervert the natives.
He thinks I look ridiculous.
The few white foreigners on the street,
Often pretend not to notice each other;
We sense our absurdity but all look like movie stars.
According to students, fans of Hollywood movies,
I’m Kevin Bacon;
Dan is Paul Newman;
Matt is Bruce Willis (when he cuts his hair).
Locals stare.
“Foreigner” someone mutters in Mandarin,
Others more specific:
“American”
How they can tell I’m afraid to guess.
Could it be our stench of occidental arrogance?
Eager youths sometimes greet us:
“Hello. Where you from? Merry Christmas. Happy New Year,” one says.
It’s July.
He wears long sleeves, while I’m dripping with sweat.
“Happy birthday,” I tell him. “Have a nice day.”
Buy and sell.
Buy and sell.
The endless cycle of commerce:
Infinite food stalls and family storefronts;
Squawking chickens losing their necks on chopping blocks,
Their black feet point heavenward;
Organs hanging from meat hooks;
Dangling entrails;
Pigs’ heads staring blindly at Buddhist temples,
Where ghost money ash
Floats from ornate furnaces, and
Incense wafts serenely,
Honoring ancestors.
Buy and sell.
Buy and sell.
Old women in bamboo hats
Balancing vegetables on shoulder poles,
Straight and strong like scales of justice;
They need no license here to sell their goods,
And few are homeless;
Beggars here lack arms and legs,
Are covered in tumors or pustules.
They do not clean your windshields.
They do not “work for food.”
Tired and smoke-choked and seeking reprieve,
I ride a rattling bus to the beach at Kuan Yin—
A village named for a disciple of Buddha’s compassion;
A temple there honors her:
Ong Ma Nee Bei Mee Hong
From the temple a long, hot walk to the water,
Where I pass two soldiers carrying automatic weapons;
“I’m visiting the beach,” I tell them
In mangled Mandarin.
Others with binoculars watch from coastal towers lining the shore;
Military radios scratch the solitude.
As I wade the warm waters
collecting coral and shells,
Observing concrete fortifications from the second World War,
I imagine soldiers crouched with rifle barrels
Jutting from the narrow cement slits,
Awaiting impending invasion.
As I leave the beach,
Vaguely thinking of Taiwan’s streets,
I see the huge white figure of Kuan Yin,
Palms upturned,
Arms outstretched,
Serenely gazing over the Taiwan Strait,
Facing China.