Decisions decisions

At the Taoyuan International Airport, I was contemplating helping myself to a mudslide and blogging. Now, I am happy to report that I’m doing both

For some reason, leaving Taiwan this time feels a lot like attending the class of 2005’s graduation four years ago — part sad, part somber, part sappy. Maybe it has to do with the fact that, once again, I find so many friends and myself at the brink of inevitable and drastic change. Four years ago, we were saying goodbye to high school seniors going off to college, both excited and apprehensive about our own turns to leave. Now, we will soon be saying goodbye to the same seniors again — except some of us will even be joining their ranks. We’re running out of time. We can’t put off really, truly growing up much longer. Yes, most of us still have three semesters left. But then again, it seems like we had just graduated and gone off on our exotic senior trips.

Naturally, the same ambivalence is there, but this time around it’s also kind of different. The Real World seems much more real, because we are getting closer to actually being in it. For me, this means deciding between starving as a journalist and starving as a teacher — or, eventually, both. But in the Real World, everyone will also be scattered in the four corners of earth. It’s only (or already?) the winter of junior year, and yet half my Taipei loves weren’t even close to Asia. How do we deal when our support systems just spread too far apart? What happens when goodbyes turn into byes for good? We still have time, but it seems like it’ll get pretty hard pretty quickly. I can’t wrap my head around it yet. I’m not sure I really want to.

But to end on a slightly less depressing note, aspects of Taiwan I  have come to love on this trip and will miss dearly:

1. The food. Need I say more?
2. The very public dog owners who have begun popping up everywhere in very public places carrying their little dogs in their arms. Or in strollers. In Stitch sweaters. Complete with a hat with Stitch ears. It’s absolutely ridiculous, but also absolutely amusing. It’s free entertainment on the streets, at the nightmarket, in high-end department stores, and anywhere the people roam.
3. The panda politics. Because you feel better knowing you are so much above forbidding your family from visiting the new, supercute furballs in the zoo, seeing them as Green or Blue when they’re clearing black and white. Well…maybe I won’t miss this so much after all.
4. The growing numbers of the metrosexual/androgynous. Guessing whether its a man or a woman who sports the spiky haircut that’s now oh so popular over there is a great wait to pass time while waiting for the MRT. And once on a train, chic cowboy boots, dangling phone charms, sparkling rings, pretty long nails, and blinding bling make a good story when they belong to a man sitting next to you.