Soliloqui

When I think of him his teeth are white but his mouth is closed into a haphazard pout.
There are only so many adjectives in the English language, I say.
That’s news to me, he says as he flashes his gums.

Winter never suit me. I was more of a falling leaves, falling forever type of girl. When the wind blew them into circles I counted the seconds of freefall, silently sounding out the numbers with my tongue, tapping out a soft rhythm in the mist of morning. These moments don’t exist in reality, only in the poetry of temporary thoughts as the traces of sleep slowly slip away.

Maybe there was one. But one. One is enough? That’s what they say. They say lots of things though. They can’t all be right but they sound so sure. Sure, I can roll with that.

His eyes are as I remember. I can only remember them looking straight at me. Any other way and the image isn’t mine.

He has orange mittens, stretched into small checkered holes. I can see his skin but he doesn’t tell those who ask that it was my first time. He holds them to his head instead. Earmuffs.

Yesterday was winter, tomorrow will be fall. The carpet is wet with snow.

My college essay.

“You have to find your own place in the world. And if you can’t, you have to make it yourself.” Maybe this is an overly simplified philosophy. Maybe everyone wages such a task. However, my mother’s deliberate articulation of this advice has resonated within me throughout all these years, especially when I visited Taiwan last year. In my struggle to “find myself”, as many people call it, amidst the ambiguity of a bicultural lifestyle, I created something new, burrowed into a position situated at the threshold between two cultures.

I am sure that finding one’s place in society is hard enough as it is. But I cannot imagine being balanced between two cultures makes it any easier. I am an American, born and educated on the very land that justifies my existence. However, after a long, grueling plane ride, here I am for my summer months. This is the homeland of my ancestors and my own blood. I am submerged in a culture and concurrently on the outside looking in.

I arrive in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, with expectancy characterized by irresolution. Along the main roads, McDonalds sits quite unassumingly next to a Japanese supermarket; Kentucky Fried Chicken now advertises their new Taipei-style egg custard tarts. Taiwan is westernized; nonetheless, it remains clear that two distinct cultures have clashed and found a certain peaceful median in which both can co-exist and suit the people, perhaps even more ideally than before.

Whenever I am visiting Taiwan I feel at ease, home in an unfamiliar place. When I walk into stores and cafés, the people see me as one of them, and I cannot be discerned by race alone. I am constantly balancing between these two worlds, unable to plunge into either realm fully without giving the forsaken one a passing, repentant glance. Perhaps some people, including me, just tend to regard the world in extremes. Too often I forget that the gray area is far vaster than the opposite ends of the black and white spectrum.

I want to be assimilated into American society, in all its beautiful and deplorable ways. I want to speak English free of ethnic conspicuity while picking up the most recent slang. I want to understand obscure pop culture references and be able to sing along to all of the songs played on the radio. Nevertheless, I want to hold onto the traditions of my family, no matter how discordant or outdated. I don’t believe the number four (the Chinese version of thirteen) will bring me bad luck. And I don’t think that burning incense and homemade paper will do anything for the dearly departed. But I hold onto such conventions because they are something familiar to me, a part of who I am and how I grew up. They are embedded in my identity and my love for my family. Every culture has its own distinct way of looking at life.

My newly developed place within the world is multi-dimensional, a home within uncharted territory. Constantly forming, and changing, it is an area of turmoil in the aftermath of a collision. But I am content with such a clash, for out of the ashes my own niche in society has surfaced.

After all, I am my mother’s daughter.