Paradox Blog

Going home is supposed to be like treading down the memory lane. It's hardly so this time. Not many things from my childhood are left standing. The Taipei before my eyes was something completely new, something that did not existed in my imagination of what Taipei would be like in the future of my past. Perhaps, it is because in the past I had never included Taipei in my future. I belonged to the generation that "came to Taida and went to America". I left Taipei in 1985, when buses were still the major means of transportation and though economic outlooks were good, personal wealth was not prevalent and not many people owned cars. Department stores we had some but not as big and many nor were they stocked with so many brand names and so many merchandises. Roads were being constructed but the the boundaries of Taipei were still being drawn north to Yuen Shan, where the City Zoo used to be, west to Wan Hwa, where the famous Lun Shan Temple is, south to Gong Guan, where Taida is and east to Soong Shan, where the International Airport used to be. When did it become such a sprawling metropolitan?

Sure Taipei was expanding even back then but a trip to Dan Shui, where the Dan Shui River enters the ocean or to Mu Tsar where the City Zoo is today took about two hours and could hardly be done on a spur of the moment like we did this time. Even when I visited four years ago, the vision of Taipei today still eluded me. The Rapid Transit was on its way but its construction only made the traffic situation worst. I remembered not being able to cross the street even when the lights turned green in our favor because the motorcycles kept zooming by making right turns that one had to step in front of them in order to cross. After watching the motorcyclists gingerly avoiding collision with the pedestrians for a week, I finally got used to the idea that it's a risk you'd have to take if you ever wanted to get to the other side. What a difference four years made. Considerable amount of cars and motorcycles stayed off the road this time we visited.

Rapid Transit, that's what makes Taipei the modern science-fictional version of an old childhood neighborhood. Never would I have imagined Taipei with the subways when I was growing up. How could I? I only experienced the subways for the very first time when I left Taipei in 1985 and landed in New York. What New York City has is a hundred-year old system with dirty rusty cars and dim holes in the ground. What we rode on in Taipei is a fleet of brand new, immaculately clean, modern mass transportation vehicles arriving in grand underground stations in jet-like speed. The Rapid Transit took us to Dan Shui in thirty minutes, to Mu Tsar in fifteen. It took us around town and even has a main street of its own. On one rush hour trip when we had to take the taxi, the Rapid Transit took hundreds of would-be competitions off the road and cut our commute time considerably shorter than what would have been.

Perhaps it was also the weather that made our visit so pleasant this time. It helped to have visited Taipei in November when one could enjoy a stroll along the city sidewalks without drenching in sweat. The humid weather still showed its force when a couple of late year typhoons got too close bringing flood and muggy summer-like temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit. While walking around the City Hall neighborhood, I noticed there are more small parks and tree-lined sidewalks for pedestrians now. It is not only the City Hall area. I noticed the same when I walked from Suchou University to the National Palace Museum. There was a little but exquisite little park on the side of the road with a lily pond old oak trees and stone steps.

When I was a child, the zoo I visited had animals in cages lined closely to one another. The Taipei City Zoo we visited this time has different habitats for animals from different climates. It took us two hours to walk from one end to another. The Shi Lin Presidential Residence was another pleasant surprise. The gardens there took on so many forms that one could easily spend a half day there without being bored. The only place that did not change much is the National Palace Museum. They must have moved it closer, because getting there was a lot easier and quicker.

"You can never go home again." But I have gone to a much better place this time.