I put on my new dress pants and a polo shirt and braced for the wall of heat that awaited me in the un-air-conditioned hallway outside my room.

The heat for the last couple of weeks has been stifling. No surprise, it's Taiwan.

In the car, I ate breakfast -- a muffin and a banana that had looked good before I opened it, but ended up being entirely too soft to enjoy. By the time we were on the interstate, Fanfan was asleep. I sat alone in my minimal communication conducting cultural studies of Taiwanese pop music of her parents generation, listening to the tape her father had put in (Fanfan was listening to her iPod).

If Chinese is a tonal language, how can they sing to the music? If the word you're singing is anything but the first tone, doesn't that require you to be out of tune to sing it? Fanfan says that a lot of times in songs, they don't pronounce the tones if it doesn't go with music. Maybe one day, I'll understand the dynamics of singing in Chinese.

Though I had brought books, since every moment of my life should be spent doing something, since I have to waste so much time sleeping every day, but I couldn't bring myself to concentrate due to fatigue. I watched the Taiwanese countryside pass by and listened to Fanfan's mother and father chatting away, trying as much as my tired brain permitted to understand. Though there were sentences I understood almost every word, their meanings were unfortunately lost in one or two key words that attached subjects and predicates or illuminated the actions between he and she, this and that, and you and I.

After about four hours of watching the country unfold around me, we arrived in the tiniest of little villages in the middle of no where somewhere in the vicinity of Taizhong (台中). When Mr. Zou's -- Fanfan's father -- parents found out we were heading in "their direction" (it was two hours out of the way) they told us to come help them cut down some bamboo.

When we arrived, I had no idea where we were, but I didn't care. I was fascinated. I sometimes feel like I walk a very thin line here of trying to be a part of the family and being a sociologist trying to figure out why "these people" do what "they" do, why "they" live where "they" live, etc.



Case in point, the first thing I noticed was the large family alter in the center building. I see these all over Taiwan, in autoparts stores, people's houses, etc. Fanfan's family does not have one in their house, but her grandparents certainly do. I don't understand this, and it's still quite foreign to me. Most Taiwanese people my age don't seem to be able to explain it either -- at least not in English or French. It seems to be a part of a dying belief that is disappearing with the older generations here.

The house was an old, mostly deserted, Chinese-style house with different buildings, meant for married sons and their families. It was clear that most of the rooms had been empty for years. In the kitchen, the pots had cobwebs on the them because her grandmother is far to old to be cooking, and spends most of her day in bed.

I don't know how they got food, but I assume someone brings it to them.

I came in and gave them my salutations to her grandparents. I've met them several times, seeing as they come stay at our house in Taipei most weekends. The room was a mess. Stacks of fly paper on the couch, old electronic equipment on a table in the den, newspaper on the floor. A layer of dust covered everything, except a shiny new DVD player that seemed to be impervious.

After a little small-talk, it was out to the field behind the house to cut down Bamboo sprouts.



Here again, I saw something that has astounded to no end here. At eighty-four years old and nearly deaf, Fanfan's grandfather came out of the shed with a ax-like cutting instument and preceded to start slicing the bamboo coneheads down. It's not the fact that he was doing this, but the way he did it. There was a certain youth and vitality in the way he carried himself, in the way he leaned into the blade, and caught himself with it started to slide.

At over sixty years old, Fanfan's father is no different. He has a certain energy and indefatigability that I've rarely seen back home. He often seems so full of energy that he can't even sit down. That morning was no different, he also started swinging the ax, popping off the sprouts wherever he found them.

Of course, my turn came, and -- hoping not to be shown-up to men decades older than myself -- I leaned into the blade, and nothing happened. But with some guidance, hand gestures, etc. I was soon decapitating the fleshy steepleheads.





Once we had thoroughly heated up, negating my decision to wear a polo shirt, which was now sweaty and dirty. We were treated to a purple potato (芋頭) popsicle, and, with a huge sack of bamboo sprouts, we were on our way.

Not long after, we arrived at Mrs. Zou's sister's house. It was in the middle of nowhere again. We pulled into the driveway of a large, three-story house that had no neighbors nearby. We were all met with an unwelcome odor when we exited the vehicle: the stench of chicken crap by the truck load. It seems, by some unfortunate stroke of fate, we were downwind from the chicken coop about fifty yards away. The stench was nauseating.

On top of that, I was about to face that awkward moment of entering a room full of Taiwanese people. I don't mean to imply that I'm unwelcome or glared at, but I am a sort of side-show attraction. As I walked into the house, thirty heads turn and look at me. People approached me cautiously, smiling all the while. Children stared at me in unabashed awe.

I just wait for the shock to ware off.

There were fields of rice, fruit trees, and grape vines all around, and there were tons of swallows darting about.



A couple hours later, in a restaurant nearby (which was quite posh to be somewhere in podunk Taiwan), the children were climbing on me like a jungle gym, people were aproaching me, complimenting my Chinese, taking videos as their children spoke English (quite well, I might add) with me, drawing pictures off me.

Speaking of cultural studies, I had to ask this man, an uncle of Fanfan's, if I could take a picture of him, because I was enthralled by the tuft of hair he displayed. I've never gotten over how many men here wear a couple of long scraggly hairs a badge of sagacity. I don't mean this in any way as an insult to a very friendly man. I just simply am still not used to seeing this.

As the day wound down back at the chicken farm house, two of the little boys got in a fight that could not be resolved, despite the best efforts of their parents. One of the little girls put it on my head and tied it tight. I looked down at one of the pouting little boys who was trying his best not to laugh at me, so as not to give the impression he was anything but ticked off. I started dancing and both boys started laughing, together.

Everyone looked at the mysterious foreigner who had saved the day.

My work there was done, and we left with full bellies (and a trunk full of bamboo, that we've been eating all week).

This was perhaps the best day I've had hear so far in Taiwan. It was nice, first of all, to get out of Taipei. Even in such a place that is so different and fascinating, it's so easy to get stuck in a routine, and to lose sight of all the wonderful things happening around you. I came home with a new desire to learn about this tiny country.

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