May is over and I spent it ducking into subway stations and convenience stores. (June is over and I spent it trying to piece myself together.)
I’m sitting in a corner formed by two matching leather sofas, on a plastic stool, atop a Persian rug, typing on a red granite table. My grandmother is curled up on the leather armchair across from me, dozing off. It’s about 7 pm. Last night, my father watched Monster (2023, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda) on the plane back to Taiwan from Singapore. I watched with him until he started skipping to random points in the movie.
I know better than to sit on this plastic stool because I get mosquito bites the size of kumquats or cherry tomatoes along the insides of my thighs. I do my best to evade the wrath of tropical mosquitoes, but there’s always a learning curve. During my first couple weeks, the back of my legs resembled bubble wrap. Thanks to my grandmother on my dad’s side, I wear light, loose, long pants that are sinched at the ankle. They are stellar at keeping the mosquitoes away.
It’s hard to quantify how much time I’ve spent in Taiwan. My heart feels like I’ve been here for too long, but the rational truth is that I’ve been here for just about a month.
i (truth & time)
The empiricist truth is that I worried so much I lost track of time.
Pulling up my tuition statement of account, I found out that I didn’t do well enough last semester to maintain the GPA I needed for my scholarship. An additional fifteen thousand dollars I would need to pay. I don’t know if I can get it back, as I’m currently taking ten credits over the summer. I know I can get that GPA back, but I have no idea about the money. I’m too afraid to ask. I don’t want to be even more of a financial burden on my parents. It feels humiliating to lose the scholarship. I have kept this to myself, shamefully. I started stressing so much that it was evident to my dad, who was with me at the time. I remember waking up on a Saturday morning extremely frustrated because I hadn’t slept enough (睡飽) and my grandmother on my mom’s side had woken me up because it was “unhealthy to sleep for so long.” My mother called and I broke down a little bit. I did not tell her. My mother just attributed it to the amount of classwork I had to keep up with while I was away. I wanted to let her believe that.
ii (familiar leather and familial tethers)
Speaking of mothers, here’s a journal entry from around Mother’s Day:
My mother grew up in this house and I think I did too. Sweat sticks onto my skin like the tears on my face. Crumpled, tired, frustrated. My grandmother is talking about my appearance and how short my shorts are and shopping [for new clothes] amd weight loss and shopping and I can’t take it anymore. I get it. I’ve gained weight. I’m trying my best. I really am. It may be true, but saying “I can’t control it” [is like throwing water on a grease fire.] There is only so much I can take. There is only so much I can take. Why do I have to endure this? I know she doesn’t react well [when I stand up for myself]. She guilt trips like crazy. I love her, but I hate spending time with her. It’s so tiring, so draining to spend time with her. I constantly have to be fending her off. She offers so much food and then talks about how I should eat less? Talking about how I gained weight by eating twice as much as other people?… I’ve had enough, I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be enjoying my time but instead I am entertaining someone who has never changed nor listened to anyone in her life. Why should my time and effort and energy be spent defending myself from my own family? I didn’t get to choose anything. I chose to come back to Taiwan to spend time with my family. I didn’t get to choose my family. I don’t get to choose where I live nor who I love. I want to be happy. I have one life and it has been miserable enough. I have one life. I have one life.
Happy Mother’s Day to my grandmother on my mom’s side.
iii (on finance and grief)
I’m sitting in my uncle’s private equity firm, taking up an empty cubicle with my laptop and my tissues, sipping on a sugar-free Red Bull to fend off the drowsiness that has plagued me every day for the past three days. This office building is nothing that resembles the phrase “private equity firm.” My uncle and his family used to live in this very space. They are moving about two blocks away, right on top of a subway station, where I’ve been staying for days or two within the month or so that I’ve been in Taiwan. The last time I was in this apartment was before the pandemic. Before my cousin passed away. This was the last place I saw him. My uncle and his employees hold meetings every morning in the room he lived in.
I can barely pay attention to the morning briefing, not comprehending the financial graphs and the winding sentences of Traditional Chinese text that I never mastered reading or writing. My uncle juts in with comments about insufficient information and interrogatives while I fight for my life trying not to nod off.
iv
My earliest memories take place in the four months my family spent in India – my father worked at an office in New Delhi for a bit, before we explored the country. I remember my grandmother (on my dad’s side) stirring milk over the stove, making it safer to drink. The dorm I lived in three months ago reminds me of that apartment in New Delhi, funnily enough. I remember rickshaws rattling about the street like chickens chasing after their morning feed. I remember the Hindi preschool I attended – I was three years old – dancing on stage in a maroon sari with microscopic bells on its fringe. I remember the cold marble of the Taj Mahal under my feet, a blessing in the shade away from the scorching sun. I remember a houseboat carving into a golden river.
v (going on a walk with my grandmother on my dad’s side)
The rain pitter-patters on my umbrella in a pattern I cannot decipher. Maybe if I knew Morse code I could understand what the sky was trying to tell me.
The sun shines through the clouds over the mountains. Silvery, heavenly. I think I can hear a flute.
My grandmother wants to show me something, a plant. So we walk.
We walk across the main street, dodging motorcycles and cars going too slow to gouge whether we can cross or not. I think there is something in between my foot and the sole of my shoe.
She doesn’t show me the plant because it’s not there. The owner probably moved it away from where she saw it this morning. She tells me her sense of direction is deteriorating. She gets lost more often now. We walk away.
She points out fruit trees on the side of the road, their fruits covered in white bags. I guess mangoes at first. She says I am familiar with these fruits. I know they aren’t papayas because the fruits aren’t clustered near the trunk. I know they aren’t citruses because their leaves don’t have a big-small pattern. I guess lemons anyway. She tells me they’re guavas. I should’ve known. My father loves guavas. He’s eaten them for ten days straight.
We walk along the creek that leads to the ocean, pointing out the trees that line the parallel pathways on both sides. Yellow flowers cascade from their branches (阿勃勒) like chandeliers sold at a sunflower farm.
On a bridge across the creek that leads to the ocean, she pops the boyfriend question. I dodge artfully, citing a focus on schoolwork, which genuinely isn’t a lie. None of this is lying. I don’t know how she would react if I told her who I truly am. I don’t know if she would understand that I am not a different person. She sleeps beside me as I type this.
vi (cold bath)
When you enter the onsen, there is a blue tub to the left, tucked beside the sauna. Large enough to fit just one adult woman and equipped with a wooden spout, I fold myself into the frigid water, so the spout is to my back, gently pouring water on my neck. Crisscross applesauce, I tuck my chin to my neck, so my lips are brushing the water's surface. Through the ripples of water, I look at my body for the first time. The water provides clarity that a mirror could not provide. The folds of my skin and the remnants of mosquito bites are all blurred out in the stripes of light. The stretch marks on my thighs and the odd scars around my waist are all gone. Once the spout stops pouring, the water is still. The only ripples are from the breath of my nose, painting thin stripes of shadow on my submerged skin. I cannot blink. I cannot look away. My heartbeat slows until it is a dull thud in my ears. I can only hear the water at my back. I am there for hours.
vii (an excerpt from my summer playlist)
I am not having a brat summer. Nonetheless, I am in awe of the sentiment. The famously neon green project reminds me of those green-apple-covered lollipops in high school classrooms. I can taste the artificial flavoring in “Apple” and “Talk talk,” and I get hints of the caramel in “The girl, so confusing remix with lorde” and “Sympathy is a knife.” Not to mention when I bite down too hard the shards of the hardened sugar cut my tongue in “Von dutch.” A quintessential candy album celebrating every success and failure of our lives. Who doesn’t need that?
During the weeks leading up to the end of my second semester, I started listening to “hyperpop”.1 My life may not be bass-boosted breakups and intoxicated glitter sound effects but it’s close enough. I may not have voicemail intros (but I should have one because I left Shriya a drunk voicemail a while ago and I still have not heard it again) but I can only aim to be as honest as these artists in their music. Being honest with myself has been difficult and I must do better. I’m happier when I’m not lying to myself.
viii
There are five hours left on this flight. At the time of typing this, tomorrow will be a new day, a new week, a new month. This I know for certain. I also know that I want to be happy. I want to live long enough to control my future. I want to spend egregious amounts of money on film photography and take pictures of people I know and love. I want to yell at TVs at sports bars and spill beer and popcorn at stadiums and write on subways and in libraries and scream at concerts and laugh and love and cry as much as my body will allow me to. This I know.
Here’s to happier, brattier summers!
Thanks for reading,
Sandra
P.S.: I tried something new with the structure, taking inspiration from my dear friend Shriya. I talk about a lot of tough topics in these passages, and I can only hope they bring as much catharsis to you as they brought me when I wrote them. I am not a philosopher, nor a very mindful writer, nor a strong person. Lately, the only place I feel like myself is when I’m in Columbus, Ohio. I yearn for the fourth-fastest growing city in the nation. (Written in a tone of sarcasm-earnestness)
Thank you for listening, reading, engaging, clicking on this thing that I wrote. I love you!
I put hyperpop in quotes because the following tracks are by artists who are known for creating music that once belonged in that category. Now I don’t think I have the expertise to classify music I didn’t have a hand in creating.