One Image

I want to talk a bit about Tom and Karen’s visit here in September. Now that the trip as a whole has had some time to cool on the windowsill I think I have a more even perspective on the whole event. In fact, at this point, I’m sure I can condense the entire trip into the analysis of a single photo. I’ve chosen this one:

First, I’ll need to outline the content. From Left to right, you’ll see Karen, my friend Beauty, her baby Sarah Nicole, her husband, with Tom on the right. And yes, I truly believe that everything important about our trip can be related back to this image. On the surface, this a great photo of some of my favorite people from the trip. Karen and Tom are obvious, but Beauty and her family are some of my oldest friends here in Taiwan. When I first moved to MingJian at the end of the summer after I arrived in Taiwan, Beauty wasn’t just one of my first friends; she was one of the very first people I met. I remember that I had moved into my apartment and I was wondering around looking for a nice restaurant. I sat down and the server was trying to figure out what I wanted. That was still a challenge back then, my Chinese wasn’t, what you might call, intelligible. Beauty walked in from nowhere and we just started talking. I was so surprised to be speaking with someone in comfortable English that I could hardly contain myself. I just wanted to babble on and on for hours. Back then she was just pregnant. Her baby, Sarah Nicole was born that winter. Beauty and I visit whenever we get the chance. It’s not as much since I moved to Taipei, but she’s still one of my closest friends in Taiwan. She and her husband gave the Cassavants and I some very nice tea as gifts before we left.

On a more general plane, this photo is a great representation of the time that I spent in Nantou and how much I love sharing that with anyone that I can. We took this photo at one of my favorite restaurants, not just because they have all of the traditional Taiwanese foods. But because they have some of the best food in Taiwan. Nothing is more common at a roadside than a soup and noodles café. The soup mix that Beauty’s husband makes every day is so thick with garlic and spices you can’t see past the surface – that’s my measure of a great soup. That’s just the sort of thing that I want to bring to any guests that I have the honor of hosting. With lunch we drank bubble tea with “chunks” in it. Any kind of chewy, sweet thing can go under the general category of chunks – nothing ancient here, it’s just very popular. Just after leaving the restaurant we drove straight into the mountains that make Nantou famous. We walked along Sun Moon Lake the three of us with Bagels. We ran around CheCheng trying their famous plum wine. We visited a famous Confucian Temple with spectacular night-time lighting. All these things and more are special here, found only in Nantou County, Taiwan – my home for a very important year.

But far more can be drawn from that single picture. At its very center is Sarah Nicole’s adorable smiling face. When I first arrived in Nantou, Sarah Nicole was still in her mom’s tummy, just waiting. This photo speaks to me about change. Even when I left Nantou she was a very little baby in a carrier. Now I look at her and I think of how much time has passed and all that I’ve done. I’ve taken a year of rigorous Chinese classes and thrown myself into the China Hash House Harriers. And both of those played a role in Karen and Tom’s trip. If it hadn’t been for those classes I wouldn’t have been able to organize as much as we did in those few days. That’s really one of my stronger suits at this point, logistics are pretty manageable – which makes talking about philosophy in Chinese a great new challenge. But I got a few good things together. I was able to scope out some different hotel options and found one in an interesting area. I made some special requests to the attendant and Tom and Karen seemed please with the hotel. We even got to participate in a Hash run on Wednesday night. Half-way through the run, someone came running back to us shouting about snakes on the trail. Of course, our first reaction was, “Snakes?! We’ve gotta get a look at that!” We, slowly, made our way up the trail in the middle of the jungle. Rather daringly, I took the lead when a dog started barking violently in the dark. I turned my flashlight and a farmer squatted silently next to the dog, holding him. I asked about the snakes and here’s the dialogue that ensued:

Me: Are there snakes on the trail?

Farmer: Yes, many snakes.

Me: Are the snakes poisonous?

Farmer: Yes, very poisonous.

Me: Well, is it dangerous?

Farmer: No, it’s not dangerous.

Me: Um, if there are many snakes, and the snakes are very poisonous, why isn’t it dangerous?

Farmer: Because running in the forest is good for your health.

[Jacob turns away from the creepy farmer and finds a woman was standing behind them the whole time.]

Me: Excuse me, is the trail safe?

Woman: Yes, it’s safe.

[Jacob turns to Tom and Karen.]

Me: Yeah, it’s safe.

Tom: That was way too much talking for, “it’s safe.”

We decided to continue on and we made it to the end of the loop, and joined everyone else for a great bash meal.

That’s what I see in this image.