And the cutlet itself! How could it feel so tender but also offer enough resistance to provide a satisfying bite? Did he steam the cutlets before breading them? Maybe they were fresh and never frozen?
The viscous
katsu
sauce, a little more tangy than I remembered from my previous takeout order, was definitely a homemade recipe, as I could identify most of the ingredients. Cane sugar, soy sauce, onions, and tomatoes for sure. Pureed pear instead of the usual applesauce? Also, he didn't use cornstarch as a thickener. No skimping here.
I applied a touch of hot mustard. The sense of smell is stronger than taste so a whiff of the stuff is sometimes sufficient.
I looked over at the man with renewed admiration. He was talking to a woman with a key ring in her hand, a sign that she owned one of the businesses nearby and had just locked her rolldown gate. She was a country girl in the big city. Skinny, dressed in too-tight clothes, not a clue what to do with her long hair. She started and ended her sentences with flirty, dragged-out “ahs.”
“Kenny-ah! Why do you stay open so late?”
“This is around the time drunk people come in and eat.”
“Ah, people go to the night market to eat!”
“Some of them get lost in the subway and end up eating here.”
“Why do you want to cook for drunk people?”
“I don't.” The disappointment in his voice was as thick as the
katsu
sauce and far less sweet.
“You should have a night-market stand, at least. You'd have more customers.”
“Maybe not.”
“Ah, definitely!”
“Well, this is all I can afford. I borrowed as much money as I could.”
“Oh,” she said. “So that's the problem.”
Kenny began to rub the back of his neck with his right hand. Nervous tic. He looked like he wanted to yank himself off stage. “At least I had the skills to do the redesign myself.”
“You painted those things? You should be an artist!”
I heard his feet shuffle. “I studied art in college but this is what I'm doing for now.”
I finished up my meal. I couldn't believe that cooking wasn't his true passion. Kenny was born with a gift. If I had a Japanese restaurant I'd hire him in a second. But I didn't and cooking wasn't what he wanted to do, anyway.
I rescued him from the awkward conversation by standing up. He swooped down and grabbed my tray.
“Thank you very much,” I said.
“It's my pleasure,” he said with a smile that pained us both.
â¢â¢â¢
It was almost one
in the morning but Nancy was on a mission. She typed on her laptop as she lay stomach-down across the entire couchâthe only position she could write essays in, she claimed. I was relegated to a cushion on the floor. If I'd known she was in “political activism” mode, I wouldn't have stopped by.
She didn't want me to touch or even talk to her. I watched a television show, on mute, that featured fan-submitted footage. UFOs, ghosts, talking dogs, you name it. The camera broke away often to a panel of celebrities to clumsily riff off what they just saw. They never said too much. Mostly they would mug a bit after a scary video and the live audience would whoop it up like trained seals.
The actor Chen Han-dian was one of the celebs and I didn't care to hear what he had to say. I didn't like him. I didn't like his face. I think it was his eyes. They popped out a little bit. I watched him blink. I knew why I didn't like him. He reminded me of my old classmate with googly eyesâCookie Monster. He wanted to be friends but I never allowed that to happen and then he'd tried to shoot me. Too bad. My annoyance at Chen Han-dian shifted to my old classmate and then to the only other person in the room.
“Nancy, are you going to be at this all night?” I asked. She flashed me a sour look and adjusted the angle of her laptop screen, as if that could tune me out.
“I am,” she said. “Just like I said on the phone. You came over, anyway. You said you would help.”
I had a vague memory of saying something similar to that. “What do you need help with?”
“I'm looking for primary reasons why we don't want the trade pact with China. Something that sounds good in English.”
I twisted on the floor. “Where are you going to post this essay?” I asked her.
“I'm not sure yet,” she said.
“You're going to do this anonymously, right?”
She cracked her knuckles. “Don't worry. I'm going to put your name on this.” Nancy gave a tight smile. “I'm also going to put in directions to Unknown Pleasures and say that you want the KMT supporters to go to hell.”
“I don't want anybody to go to hell,” I said. “Well, not until after they buy my food.” In a serious tone I asked, “How much have you written?”
“About a thousand words, but mostly it's background on trade across the Taiwan Strait.”
“God, could anything be more boring?”
Nancy tapped her foot against my jaw. “Don't you care about the future of Taiwan? Every day China is plotting how to capture the island, and our government is going to help them any way they can.”
I pressed the nail of my index finger into the bottom of her big toe. “Are you going to spend the rest of your life here?” I asked.
She moved her foot away. “I might live abroad a little bit,” she said defensively.
“Why would you want to leave?”
“I want to see other places in the world. Why did you want to leave?”
“I wanted to leave and never come back.” I lay down flat and added, “Now I'm stuck here with you.”
Nancy snapped her fingers. “Hey! Maybe you should finish your college degree!”
I bit my lip. The truth was, I had thought about it, but there were two major hurdles, one psychological and one financial. At UCLA, I'd had a pretty good scholarship for international students but it had expired long ago.
My most ambitious plans these days were the nightly offerings at Unknown Pleasures. Now, it isn't an easy thing to draw up a menu at a night market. It requires creativity and flexibility. Your kitchen is literally steps away from something potentially more interesting.
One night I saw that another skewer stand was advertising a Jeremy Lin three-pointer skewer that included chunks of beef, chicken and chicken gizzard. I one-upped them by creating a Jeremy Lin and Kobe Bryant double skewer that included a folded pork intestine that connected the two. Wait, was it a cow intestine? In any case, it had been a great night, better than Lin and Bryant ever had playing together, that's for sure. Creating something like that was the product of years of on-the-job learning no one could ever teach in school.
“I don't need to finish my college degree,” I boasted. “Have you seen Unknown Pleasures' online reviews? Thousands and almost all of them five stars!”
Nancy hit a few keystrokes and I heard her laptop chime as she saved a file. “You used to hate being there,” she said. Succinct and so true.
“It used to be more of a burden. I'm a minor celebrity now.”
“Celebrity,” Nancy said as if her mouth were coated with expired cough medicine. “That means you've sold out.”
“I said âminor celebrity'âI still know where my roots are.”
“With your lofty status, you could come out to the protest and raise our profile.”
“That's not for me,” I said. “I work full-time. Besides, when you get arrested, you're going to need me to bail you out.”
Nancy rolled on her side and her hair flopped over half her face. She tapped her fingers on the wrist rests of the laptop. “I guess that's true. I doubt they can arrest all of us, though.”
I hooked an arm around her right leg. “If I were a cop, I'd pick you out and spank you in front of everyone.” I tickled her foot, but she managed to free it and buried it under a cushion.
“I have to work, Jing-nan!” she grunted.
I fell asleep on the floor to her furtive typing.
Chapter TWelve
There are legends about
nearly every temple in Taipei tied to whatever deities are housed within. For example, there is the Zhinan Temple located on the Maokong gondola line. Supposedly L
ü
Dongbin, the main deity of this Taoist temple, has such unrestrained lust for women that any male-female couple that visits the temple is doomed to break up due to spiritual interference.
I don't believe in things like that but Nancy and I are not going to visit that temple anytime soon. It's so out of the way and there are so many other temples for us to visit, if we were into seeing them. The fact is that most people who go to temples are under some duress. They have some money/health/love problems that require divine intervention. Happy people at temples are tourists. I pray that we never find ourselves in such a dire situation that we have to pray at a temple.
Fortunately, my young cousin Mei-ling had no need to consult supreme beings. After all, she had me to help guide her life and career, for the next week or so, anyway.
Mei-ling and I took the MRT line all the way east. On the elevated tracks we went over an old
juancun
that was slated for demolition.
Juancun
s, sometimes not much more than multi-level concrete bunkers, were built as temporary housing for soldiers who retreated to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. When the counterattack to retake the mainland was put on hold, these mainlanders had no marketable skills to allow them to participate in Taiwan's economy, which was growing like mold in a humid climate.
As the island rapidly industrialized from the 1950s to the 1970s, factories went from making umbrellas that reeked of chemicals to consumer electronics good enough for Americans. We learned all about the “Taiwan Miracle” in school, but not much about how society itself changed as it grew richer nor about those left behind.
The aging mainlanders did what they could to get by, running rickety beef-noodle soup stands or driving cabs. As they died off or moved out, their rooms were taken over by working-class
benshengren
, yams new to the city. More recently, artist types moved in and squatted. The walls continued to crumble but you couldn't beat the rent, which was nearly free, apart from communal costs for water, electricity, and gas.
Now this strange alliance of elderly mainlanders, barefooted yams and freaky artists were fighting the city, which had recently declared that the residents were living in an illegally constructed apartment complex. Never mind that the government itself had originally built it.
Each tenant owed back taxes of NT$40 million. It sounded bad even in US dollarsâabout $1.3 million. The city generously offered to forgive the debt of those who moved out immediately. Some took the bait. Most stayed.
kill us or leave us alone!
read a defiant bilingual banner, strategically placed for the viewing pleasure of MRT riders.
About a year ago the courts had ruled that the
juancun
had to go, but then the judge was busted for taking bribes from developers, so this story still had some time to play out.
Nobody really wins issues in Taiwan. Whatever hot topic has people up in arms is eventually forgotten when something new crops up. Remember how it was so controversial when China wanted to give two giant pandas as a gift to Taiwan? Those opposed were so vehement, you'd think the pandas were ticking bombs. They pointed at them and declared that the animals were evilly named “Tuan Tuan” and “Yuan Yuan” because “tuan yuan” means “reunion” in Mandarin. The Chinese want Taiwan to return to the motherland! Oh no!
After a policy change a few years later, we accepted the pandas and it was “pandamania.” They had a baby and everyone was so in love with the cub that little Yi Ya was given Taiwanese citizenship. The fight was never finished. No closure was granted. Some people still sneer at the pandas, but they're here now, so what can you do? Aborigines probably felt that way when the first people from China floated over to Taiwan a thousand years ago. Taiwanese felt that way when Qing Dynasty officials treated the island like a booty bag to be raided. Then came the Japanese and then the mainlanders. Taiwan's history is a long tale of waiting games. Waiting for people you don't get along with to leave and then realizing one day they've become a part of you.
Mei-ling took out her
headphones and watched the grey tail of the
juancun
disappear around a bend, a sick dragon from another time.
“That's the place they're knocking down to build a science park, right?” she asked. It made me a little sad to hear her say that. Like a lot of things in Taipei, the
juancun
was ugly, but it did mean something to people.
“That's one of the rumors,” I said.
“How did you feel about Peggy making you move from your old spot in the night market?”
“Oh, that. Well, at first, I was mad. I had expected my old classmate to treat me better. After I cooled off, I realized that she was being decent about it, offering better spaces or buyouts. In the end, the outcome had winners on both sides, as opposed to that standoff down there.”
“There's an art collective based in one of the
juancun
suites there. They produce music and shoot videos.”
“Are they good?”
She burst out laughing. “They're popular, but they're no good!”
Ah, she was learning. This young one showed much promise.
We got to the
base of Yuanshan early enough so there was no line to wait in. There was, however, the long desolate walk from the MRT stop to the gondola station.
“The Taipei Zoo used to be here?” asked Mei-ling as we passed by empty buildings with animals painted on the side. I saw remnants of the movers' last meals: empty wrappers, stubbed-out cigarettes, bottles and cans.
“I'm not sure but it looks like these were administrative offices,” I said. “You can't keep animals in an office.”
She hugged herself and shivered. “You should see some of the people at Peggy's office. Their desks are so messy, they bug me to help them find things. This one woman had some old
congyoubing
between loose papers. It was cold, stiff, and oily, but she picked it up and ate it!”
“Ugh,” I said involuntarily.
Congyoubing
, a scallion pancake, has to be eaten within three minutes of being lifted from the pan and sliced into wedges. It has to be hot enough for the crispy outer layers to pull away from the steaming center seams. Eaten cold, it's worse than leftover pizza. There's no chewy cheese topping to correct the slimy mouthfeel. Just grassy, greasy bits of minced scallion.
A smirk pulled Mei-ling's face to the side.
“I told her not to eat it. She said, âI grew up so poor, this would have fed my whole family.'”
“That's so Taiwanese,” I said. “Trying to do something now to fix things in the past. She should have given it to someone who's poor now!”
Mei-ling laughed. “You're funny today, Jing-nan,” she said.
We were almost at the gondola station.
Soon, we would disembark and the ride would be over. Before we knew it, it would be time for Mei-ling to leave Taipei and go back to Taichung. Who knew when I could see her again. I could already see that I was going to miss her. She wasn't going to stay in touch with her ancient cousin. It's not cool at that age. Yet I wanted her to know she could always drop me a line if she was in a spot.
“You're my cousin, Mei-ling,” I began. “You can trust me. What I mean is that we can share things that Big Eye doesn't have to know about.”
“Why are you saying this?” she asked cautiously.
“If you have some problem after you go back to Taichung, you can call or email me and I can try to help you out. I'll keep it confidential.”
She gave a nod that was slightly more than a token gesture. “That's good to know, Jing-nan. Thank you.”
I smiled inside and out. As we stepped into the gondola station, I felt like I was really connecting with my young cousin.
At the first tier of escalators she jumped ahead of me and I chased her. It killed my legs. I felt like an old man when I had to grab the handles but giddiness kept me going.
She was waiting for me at the very top.
“Are you trying to prove that I'm out of shape?” I panted.
She lifted her chin. “I thought you were going to catch me right away! I was wrong!”
The walkway ahead was divided by stanchions into two lines, regular and one, intriguingly, for “Eyes of Maokong.” Both were the same price, NT$50 each way.
We walked to the front and two gangly men in Taipei Rapid Transit Corp. uniforms took notice of us. One swung a car around and the other popped the hatch open. They had the right body type to do the necessary reaching.
“Not yet, guys,” I said. “We want to take a few photographs. Could you hold the gondola still so she can stand next to Hello Kitty?”
The taller one adjusted his cap. “We can't hold a car still,” he said. “It will disrupt the line.”
“There's no one behind us.”
“I'm sorry, we can't do that.” To prove his point, he shut the door and let the cable carry away the car.
“Let them,” said the slightly shorter one. His eyes said that he had plans for Mei-ling.
“It's for an album cover,” I said.
“It's for
my
album,” added Mei-ling.
The taller one pulled off his cap completely and ran his hand through his hair before replacing it. “Who are you?” asked the shorter one.
“We're not ready to launch yet, so we're keeping everything a little secret,” I said. “Taking a picture will only take a few seconds. Would you guys mind?”
Both of them leapt at the next car coming in and held it still. “Here ya go!” said the shorter one.
I told Mei-ling to stand next to Hello Kitty. I'd crop out the two workers later. After a few shots the workers let the car go and I checked the pictures on my phone.
“That's a real good one,” I said. Mei-ling had her hands behind her back, looking equally innocent and mischievous. The two workers stood above and behind me to review the pictures as well. “I guess the kitty is a little blurry,” I said, “but maybe that represents the transition away from mere cuteness.”
Mei-ling slapped my arm. “Jing-nan, you read too much into things! An album cover doesn't mean anything!”
“You have no idea, Mei-ling,” I muttered.
“Mei-ling!” said the shorter one. “Is that your real name or your stage name?”
“Stage name,” I said. “Nobody's named âMei-ling' anymore!”
I spied another gondola car coming in. I could see why it was marked as “Eyes of Maokong.” It had a see-through bottom.
“Thanks for everything, guys,” I said, “but I think we'll go up in this car.”
“Should be nice,” said the taller one. “It's cool to see things in the rain.” The shorter one seemed sad because Mei-ling was fiddling on her phone and he had no idea what to say to get her attention.
“It's raining?” I asked.
“Just started.”
We stepped into the car and the taller one secured the door. The aerial line tugged us upward.
“You could've thanked the guys,” I said. “One of them liked you.”
She continued to look into her phone. “You don't know anything about boys,” she said.
Our feet grazed the
forest as we slid up the mountain. The shorter guy was right. It was remarkable seeing the clumps of trees swaying like living coral. The raindrops pelleted us as the surrounding mountains melted. Mei-ling was lost in her phone.
“Check out the view,” I said to her. “This is really cool!”
“Oh, I get it,” she said in a withering voice. “You've never seen nature before.”
I stood up and jumped on the floor, making the gondola car shake hard. She screamed.
“Oh, I get it,” I said. “You've lived a soft life.”
“Stop it!”
“C'mon, I just did it once.”
“It's not funny!”
“I'm sorry, Mei-ling. Please, will you just look down through the floor? You've never seen such a view.”
She gave a glance too fast to even cheat on a test. “Great, great, I love it.”
At the first stop, the Taipei Zoo South Station, a woman in her late sixties wearing a purple blouse and a white man in his thirties wearing a tight tracksuit stepped into our car.
“We both got out a stop too early,” the man said in Mandarin, the kind people speak in northern China with an emphasis on the “R” sound. “Zhinan Temple is the next one.”
“I didn't mind,” said the woman with glee. “It gave me a chance to chitchat with a foreigner. Doesn't he speak great? He's German but he's been living in China for business.”
“I moved here a year ago,” the man added.
“I hope you like it here,” I said.
“It's much better for me in Taiwan than in China, that's for sure.” He took in a breath, and weighed what he was about to say. “Well, in China, it's getting better for gays but there's still this stigma attached to it. Taiwan is more open.”
His sexuality was news to the woman. She went into a light catatonic state.
“I'm glad for you,” Mei-ling told the man.
“Thank you,” he said, glancing at me.
I straightened up. “Hey,” I said. “I'm not gay.”
He smiled and gestured at my clothes. “I didn't think you were!”
“Why are you going to the temple?” asked Mei-ling.
“I really enjoy L
ü
Dongbin's poetry,” said the man. “He's right up there with the best. I wanted to pay my respects.” After seeing the blank stares from me and Mei-ling he added, “As L
ü
Yán, when he was a mere mortal, he wrote poetry. Some of the best during the Tang Dynasty.”