Another day, another hot pot. I finally have a chance to settle down. It’s been my birthday, and I’ve spent the last few days enjoying so much of life and enjoying time with my friends, new friends, and seeing a little bit of the cultural significance of Taiwan. I went to the museums and then later on in the week I also went to a little fair. I met up with a friend and I had an excellent time. For my birthday, I took the opportunity to relax, take it easy, slow down a little bit.
I decided that the best thing for me to do would be for me to spend the day being lazy. I did basically nothing. I got up, I watched Netflix, I went to my favorite little breakfast spot. I ate breakfast there. Then I leisurely walked around the neighborhood until I figured out what I wanted to do. There wasn’t much to do for the day because I, like I said, I planned the day to do nothing. I decided on where I’m going to go next.
It’s no surprise to you, but I had hot pot again for dinner. Hot pot has become my new favorite go-to. It really is my thing. There’s just something about the ability for you to select, for you to choose the flavor, for you to build the profile of what you’re eating. Choose the different flavors because the place that I go to, it has like a split pot design. So I could always choose if I wanted spicy or if I want a collagen or if I want a different flavor.
And it was really nice. I also visited Taipei 101. I didn’t go inside because it was a little bit late, but I got to walk by it. That building is beautiful. It is. It’s so interesting how big it is. Then the building juts off at different areas. It’s like a very weird, but it works. And it’s, it works so well and so beautiful. It’s a mix between the Asian design tradition and then the aesthetic of the newer modernized buildings with the glass, with the very fancy features at the top with the lights, obviously. So it really is quite an astounding thing to see. I’m going to go inside one of these days, but it was too late this time.
But one thing that I really want to write the journal about and recount on this week was meeting up with another Black guy. Being in Taiwan and being here, you’re not seeing a lot of Black faces. In fact, you’re pretty much not seeing any Black faces at all.
What you’re doing is you’re seeing a lot of what is here, the culture of the people here. There are a few people that have a little bit of a dark tint to them, like Indigenous people, the same people that I heard about in the museum. I did see one or two of them sprouted about while I was walking around. For the majority, the majority are fair-skinned Asian-esque people or Asian traditionally imagined or stereotypical Asian people. So it was so, it was so good to be able to meet up with somebody that shared a little bit of culture with me because he’s not only Black, he’s from the islands.
So I, walking up to him, I saw him from afar. He’s around the same height as me, which was surprising. Also, not very many tall people. I saw him from well down the block, who he was in his green jacket and red hat pulled to the back. And when I walked up to him, you know, we said hello, we dabbed up. And where we were meeting was right in front of one of his favorite restaurants that he frequents.
Jeremy is a student here in Taiwan. He ordered me a few of the dishes that he usually gets. He introduced me to some of the cool things, and he taught me a few words here and there. Majority of the words I do not remember, but it was such a great experience. And we got to spend the entire afternoon together.
Even after we had finished lunch, him and I decided to take a walk, and we walked down from where we are in Ximen to Chengdu, which is the main street. That’s where we met. We decided to take a walk down Chengdu, and we went to Longshan Temple.
In Longshan Temple, him and I, you know, we were talking about our shared experiences, his experience being a student here in Taiwan, and also the idea of being Black in an area where it’s not very usual and there aren’t that many Black people here. Some of the things that we talked about was the interest in his hair. That’s why he’s always wearing a hat.
And, you know, he keeps the buzz cut short. But there’s lots of interest in just who he is and how he is physically that sparks a lot of interest from the Taiwanese people on a general and regular basis, according to him. But that is how it is being a person in a strange land. You’re always going to be the outsider, the they, the others, I would say. But that’s no bother for me. It’s always good to be able to see something different and to get the experience of somebody else, especially because unlike me, he’s been here for a longer period of time.
He’s been here for months. He’s been studying now for over a year. So he’s gotten an opportunity to make friends and create a support group and create a group of people around him that would give him comfort and give him, you know, the usual support that you get from your friends. that’s exactly what we did. Right after we took that walk, we then went to, excuse me, we then went to the fair. What was it? We took the bus to the fair.
I forgot what the exact name of the station was, but when we went there, he introduced me to a few of his friends, university students and other people that were studying there. And one of the people that I met was Maria. Now, Jeremy is a great guy and Maria is a wonderful one from, I think, Morocco. We started talking about so many interesting things here in Taiwan because I did not know that here in Taiwan, they have farms. They have lots of large farms, actually. They grow bananas.
They grow oranges. They grow lots of the same things that we would see growing in Jamaica. What an interesting thing. I would have never thought that because this is the entire side of the world. And plus, in this kind of climate where it’s cold, and you know, I said that to her, she said that they grow in the South. I’m going to have to check that out one day.
But I got to speak to her because not only was she studying, but she took the time out outside of her studies and on her leisure time to also help out and to go to these farms and to participate in agriculture programs. She herself is somebody that’s very interested in agriculture and the fair, the fair was also closer to the agricultural part because it was a sampling and smattering of different foods from where? South America. So I got to taste some dishes, some tamales, some different interesting dishes from there.
I didn’t get to taste anything from Morocco. I was waiting and wondering why I didn’t. I was telling her she should have represented Morocco, but I digress. She and Jeremy were there to support their friends and university people at this multicultural fair that was happening. And happening up on this fair, or even being in a space where I got to celebrate with brand-new people that I met just hours before, is something that I treasure. It’s hard to be able to experience things and being a loner in a different land.
It’s sometimes easier if you make a friend, if you extend the time-out to go to meet somebody and to say, Hey, let’s take a walk. Let’s have lunch. Let’s you tell me what your viewpoint is of this area of this land. I got a very good look at it today. Very good look at it from both Jeremy and Maria. It was such a wonderful experience being able to be there with them and even be a part of this cultural fair and seeing the way that people that are here in this different land, this totally different space from their homeland, they’re making it their own.
They’re kind of bringing their own culture into it. And they’re also being appreciated because they’re given the space to do so. Taiwan is a pretty interesting here. I just wanted to really remember that time, remember those days and put it into my journal because it was a very interesting and wonderful experience being a black person, seeing another black person, being a part of a culture, seeing somebody from Morocco from a totally different faraway land. That’s also living sort of nomadically where it’s not like me where they’re moving from place to place. No, but they are in a different land.
They’ve immigrated here to a space that’s totally foreign to them and have set up roots. They’ve taken some of their culture and put it here or also, even if it’s not putting it here, they’re celebrating it here. They’re doing things here in Taiwan to really make them feel at home again.
And I appreciate that. These are the things to do in Taiwan. I’m a tall black nomad.
Signing off.
-Tall Black Nomad