You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it […] I can hardly write.

Jane Austen, “Persuasion”

In this chapter, I…

• Grapple with a rare writer’s block
• Learn about the 228 masscare at a museum
• Celebrate my second birthday on this trip
• Indulge on Japanese and Korean food
• Visit Beitou, recall the wonders of sulfur, and experience my umpteenth cultural shock in Taiwan at a hot spring
• Hike crags and marvel at the Niagra Falls of Taiwan
• Participate in Pingxi sky lantern festival
• Cope with a slump in my dating life
• Grow lonely for the first time in Taiwan
• Visit the National Palace Museum and biggest night market in Taipei
• Reach a conclusion about my dwindling potential to experience love

List of volunteers at the hostel:

• Bob, 24, a blue-eyed, blond-haired Russian construction worker from Michigan traveling Asia while home is too frozen for work
• Ewan, 21, an aspiring architect from Bristol with a buzz cut, a deep voice, and a piercing look, like the rugged version of young Ewan McGregor
• Jack, a twentysomething Brazilian from the US, tall and mellow “gentle giant” teaching English remotely while traveling the world
• Toby, 28, a graphic designer from Manchester with brown hair parted in the middle, who’d taught English in Hachinohe in the past
• Brother Neal, 75, a dubious Taiwanese volunteer who we called Big Brother Neal. Looks and acts like the Taiwanese version of Argus Filch

15 February 2024

• 11:00-12:45 shift
• Taipei Botanical Garden (30m)
• 228 Peace Memorial Museum (30m)

Taipei Botanical Garden

Another day of feeling torn between writing down my increasingly perplexed thoughts or sightseeing Taipei. Despite so many tempestuous incidents lately, or rather as a result of them, I couldn’t bring myself to put them into words.

Nor could I allow myself to waste my time in Taiwan. So I walked for 20 minutes southeast to the botanical gardens.

Fern, succulents, greenhouses, a herbarium, a lotus pond. Chinese zodiac plants, including rabbit-tail, tiger-ear, and cow-flower. It was tranquil, with lots of visitors who were quieter than the birds.

National 228 Peace Memorial Museum

Then I visited the adjacent National 228 Peace Memorial Museum. After learning about Chiang Kai-shek, this subject felt apt.

During the Japanese Occupation, 75% of the population had spoken Japanese. In 1937, the second Sino-Japanese had begun; in 1945, Japan had surrendered. Colonial citizenship in Taiwan had come to a close.

Post-war newspapers had still contained text in both Japanese and Chinese – until Chen Yi, head of the new KMT government, had adopted a strict language policy. Condemning the Occupation as slavery, he had banned Japanese. Government policies and news had become incomprehensible to the Japanese-speaking population. Overnight, an entire nation had grown illiterate.

To reacquaint with the national traits, a boom in learning Mandarin had erupted. The Japanese government had attempted to erase all traces of Han people. Yet lack of teachers had impeded this effort, in addition to a multitude of provincial accents.

Soon enough, it had become apparent that liberation from the Japanese had in fact made way for further colonialism by the new Chinese Nationalist Government. Taiwanese people were excluded from politics; the economy was in recession.

On 27 February 1947, governments agents had mistakenly killed a citizen in Taipei’s Dadaocheng while confiscating contraband cigarettes. The next day, a crowd pleading at the governor-general’s office for justice had been shot to death.

Bloody conflicts had ensued across the island. Chiang Kai-shek had agreed to Chen Yi’s request to send military reinforcements from China. Chinese Nationalist soldiers had tortured civilians in the Keelung area, before throwing their corpses to the harbor.

Taiwanese students had formed a resistance army in Yunlin and Chiayi. From March 18 onward, public executions of the leaders had been carried out in front of Chiayi station. Forbidden to be collected and buried, their bodies had been left exposed to the elements for days.

Indiscriminate shootings in Kaohsiung, village “cleansing” in Pingtung, and further tragedies in the the east (Hualien, Taitung, and Yilan) had capped off the bloodshed all over Taiwan.

By the end of March, the Chinese government had sacked Chen Yi over his “merciless brutality”. They had tried him for espionage, and executed him two years later.

The reason for this change of heart was not explained by the museum. I couldn’t fathom how or why the massacre had ended. The carnage might have reached a tipping point. But the truth behind it had been revealed only after the democratization of Taiwan. It had taken until 28 February 1995 for the head of Taiwan to issue an official apology to families of the victims. Since then, 28 February had become a memorial day.

Interestingly enough, even here, in this tiny and modest museum, was a breastfeeding room.

I returned to Ximen, splurged on some food for a birthday meal tomorrow, and wrote throughout the evening. Jack left the hostel without saying goodbye to us volunteers in the lobby. In my three weeks here, he had never once greeted or acknowledged the presence of anyone.

Traveling full-time while working remotely – a digital nomad who had filled his passport with stamps in just three years – I wondered if he’d grown weary of social interactions. One year into this trip, and I was still excited to meet new people.

I went to bed at midnight sharp, as I turned 29.

Today’s highlight: Taipei Botanical Garden.

16 February 2024

• A Far Eastern breakfast
• 13:20-13:45 NTU hospital station to Beitou station (Xiangshan-Tamsui line) note: Xin-beitou station is closer
• Beitou hot springs museum (30m)
• Thermal Valley (15m)
• 15:11-15:20 Thermal Valley to Dunxu high school of ministry and commerce bus number 小25
• Sulfur recreation valley (45m)
• Onsen @ Kawayu Spa (2h)
• 19:08-19:33 Xinyi Road 3 to Jiantan station bus number 612, 19:49-20:03 transfer to Taipei main station bus number 260Sh
• A Japanese dinner

Birthday Boy

I woke at 11:00. First order of business celebration: a Far Eastern breakfast. I cooked rice, mixed kimchi and natto imported from Hokkaido (HOKKAIDO!), and grabbed boba tea from a popular shop in Ximen.

It was the best boba I’d had. The tapioca was stir-fried and hot. Granulated brown sugar added a pop of texture. Ice cubes counteracted the heat. The cherry on top came in the form of foamy milk.

Then the kimchi lit my mouth on fire, the natto comforted my palate, and I wished there was a place on Earth that combined all three cultures, which I adored. (I later learned that Shin-Okubo, where I’d study in Tokyo, did so.)

Beitou

After this light-on-the-stomach birthday breakfast, I took the MRT to Beitou, Taipei’s foremost hot spring resort.

Today was cool and cloudy. I crossed Beitou park, urban and nondescript. The hot spring museum informed me of this region’s features. Belonging to the Tatum Volcano Group, it contained Hokutolite, the only mineral in the world named after a place in Taiwan (Beitou in Japanese was Hokuto). Incidentally, the only other place on earth where Hokutolite was found – Tamagawa Onsen in Japan – I’d visited on August 17.

In 1896, the Japanese occupiers had turned Beitou into a hot spring resort. In 1979, anti-prostitution laws had led to the abandonment of Beitou and destruction of its bathhouses and railway station. The ruins were discovered in 1994 by teachers and students from Beitou elementary school, who had campaigned to revive the area. Xinbeitou station wasn’t reconstructed until 2017.

There was a large tatami lounge – finally, feeling my socks against tatami! – and a gallery designed like a sento. Three types of spring water could be found in this region: ferrous (neutral), white sulfur (acidic), and green sulfur (the most acidic – only in Tamagawa and Beitou).

I continued west up the park for the plum garden, where I smelled something foul.

Sulfur.

It was raising steam and wonderful stench. Right by Millennium hot spring, a large rotenburo that I skipped because it was mixed-gender and bathing-suit-only.

The plum garden was neither a garden nor a gallery worth entering. So I continued to the Thermal Valley, a jade-green pool of Hokutolite raising steam so thick, that it engulfed everything. I let it fog my glasses and penetrate my nostrils. How I missed Japan.

After a short bus ride, I descended the Liuhuanggu trail to a sulfuric valley straight out of Tamagawa. Ashen grey stones; neon yellow steams; sick brown sand; white smoke. Backdropped by lush green trees and pale reed.

I inhaled all the sulfur I could with deep, smelly breaths. It was the loudest, hottest, and most toxic that a hot spring could get. Ironically enough, Japan was the country among the two that allowed one to approach the toxic vents, and even lie on the scorching ground for a rock bath.

Shock at My First Taiwanese Hot Spring

Finally, I walked for 15 minutes further east into Yangmingshan National park, for a hot spring facility straight out of Japan. Inside, I found one of my biggest cultural shocks in Taiwan.

Adjacent to the changing room was a massage room. A Taiwanese man was eating takeout inside the former, while another was in the latter. The showers featured no mirrors; the open-air bath was paved with concrete, rather than rocks. At 16:30 on a Friday, it was already full.

Men with tattoos. A standing bath with a powerful stream for one’s back. One guy was reading a book; the only other foreigner was reading on his Kindle. No one but me took a small towel with them into the bath.

Music was being played. Sad Chinese piano songs, upbeat J-pop, and so on. Men were chatting loudly and stretching in-between soakings. Their skin was pink with heat. The water was so hot, that I barely lasted a minute.

One guy entered the bath while wearing wireless headphones. Another, while wearing boxer briefs. I nearly fainted from shock (and heat).

Japanese people went to onsens to relax. Taiwanese people went to hot springs to play.

They stretched. They lay down on the concrete and rested their heads on shower buckets. They lay down on the concrete and stretched.

TAKE ME BACK TO JAPAN.

What was going on at this hot spring? Where was the silence, the hygiene? One man snuck his phone in. Another hung from a wooden beam like a monkey. One was spitting his lungs out. This was supposed to be a tranquil celebration. Not a circus.

At 18:30, it got darker and quieter. Sad piano music was playing. I reclined inside the bath, shut my eyes, and smiled.

When no one was stretching or yelling in my ear, I quite enjoyed the combination of traditional music and scalding spring water. It was milky white and sulfuric.

19 versus 29

Two bus rides later, I was back in my hostel lobby. Listening to Gypsy by Lady Gaga and Teenage Dream by Olivia Rodrigo throughout today on repeat, I held back tears. Beitou was an extremely touristy hot spring town. It wasn’t the adventure in the great outdoors that I’d come to seek. Moreover, I’d wanted to spend today with certain people, who hadn’t even messaged me.

Ten years ago, I’d had my worst birthday at 19. I’d laid on a couch in front of the TV from morning till evening, checking my phone every five minutes. All my friends had disappeared. I’d ended up not doing anything. 

Since then, I’d learned not to count on anyone for birthday plans. Relying on people always meant disappointment.

So, like in Hokkaido last year, I’d had a marvelous time by myself. Dinner was natto rice and sake in front of an episode of Ugly Betty. For years, it had been a birthday tradition for me to re-watch one of my two favorite TV shows. This year I picked Fake Plastic Snow, one of the best episodes, because it posed the question: what was the difference between infatuation, good sex, and love?

Betty was falling in love with Henry, even though she had a boyfriend. Amanda had unrequited feelings for Daniel. Daniel reluctantly tried to date other women, to see if they made him feel what Sofia had.

“Sometimes your heart knows things your mind can’t explain,” Daniel told Sofia by the end. “And my heart doesn’t race for anyone else.”

The episode claimed that sweaty palms and rapid heartbeats were physical manifestations of love. Something I hadn’t experienced myself.

29 was my first birthday which no one acknowledged in real life. I received enough messages to rejoice over, but even the volunteers from the hostel didn’t say anything. It was also my first birthday without any hugs or presents. Even in Hokkaido, I’d gotten a couple.

My goals for this upcoming year were too many.

• Move to Japan
• Become fluent in Japanese (pass JLPT N2)
• Find a part time job in writing or tourism in Tokyo
• Travel to unexplored prefectures in Japan (done 33 out of 47)
• Revisit Taiwan and Korea
• Rewrite my travel blog into a novel
• Rewrite my speculative fiction novel
• Date until I’m in a relationship
• Understand the meaning of love

Either I cut all my sleep time for this list, or won the lottery. I refused to enter my thirties without accomplishing something with my life. It would be interesting to compare my list of achievements a year from now.

Before going to bed, I bid Bob farewell. Today was his last day.

“What am I gonna do here without you?” I asked. He was the only volunteer I’d managed to bond with.

“You’re gonna do the chores,” he laughed.

At midnight, I went to bed. I felt happy with the birthday I’d had, sad from the expectations I’d come to have from people, and afraid of the possibility that my future wouldn’t amount to my plans. But with a belly full of Japanese food and a head tipsy with sake, skin soft from sulfur and muscles weary from scalding water, I also felt content.

Before I fell asleep, I got birthday messages from three people who made my heart skip a beat.

Today’s highlights: the tri-cultural breakfast; feeling tatami; smelling sulfur; Thermal Valley; Sulfur Valley; the hot spring (in the end); the Japanese dinner.

`17 February 2024

• 7:50-8:10 Taipei main station to Xizhi station train (local line bound for Fulong), 8:25-9:10 bus number F920 to Pingxi
• Getting a ticket for tonight’s lantern festival
• Pingxi Crags (Xiaozi 30m, Ci Mu 15m, Pu Tuo 15m, overall took ~1.5h)
• 13:05-13:20 Pingxi to Shifenliao bus number 795 (better to get off at Shifen tourist center though)
• Shifen waterfall (45m)
• 14:30-14:45 Shifen tourist center to Pingxi bus number 795
• Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival (2h)
• 20:00-20:40 Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival to Taipei Zoo special and free shuttle bus, 20:50-21:08 Taipei Zoo station to Nanjing Fuxing station MRT (Wenhu line), 21:12-21:20 transfer to Ximen station (Songshan-Xindian line)

Pingxi Crags

I woke at 6:45 after five hours of inconsistent sleep, rushed to Taipei Main Station, and took the TRA eastward. The local train was newer than those in Japan, but featured next to no seats. Then the free minibus to Pingxi zigzagged through narrow mountain roads.

Pingxi was a small and sunny mountainous village. Tonight marked the famous sky lantern festival. At 9:20, the line to a lantern releasing ticket, handed for free on a first-come-first-served basis at 10:30, was already long.

With my ticket secured and free time until the festival in the evening, I hiked the nearby Mt Xiaozi trail alone through a forest. At a forking path with a seemingly abandoned house, I turned right, then left at the road. This way, I reached the main entrance to the trail.

First, I turned left toward Xiaozi mountain. Short but steep flights of stairs led to a circular path up the crag, narrow enough to accommodate just one foot. The last stretch was 90 degrees of vertical fun.

I stood on a cliff as tall and narrow as a column. A breeze was caressing my shirt, damp with sweat. Blackberry bushes adorned the peak. The view of the next two mountains, with vertical ladders, seemed enticing.

Back at the forking path, I turned to Ci Mu. Stone steps, moist despite the lack of rain, indicated a tropical climate.

In fifteen brisk minutes, I climbed the second crag. This trail was thrilling, yet easy.

The third crag also took fifteen minutes.

As I descended Pu Tuo, a minuscule cave temple reminded me of Shodoshima. Moisture dripping from the cave had turned it muddy. Quiet, abandoned, and atmospheric.

Shifen Waterfall

Back in Pingxi, I took the bus to Shifen waterfall, AKA the Niagara Falls of Taiwan. The waterfall park showed where everyone had gone to. Red ribbons, presumably for the new year, preceded a view that made me gasp.

Rainbow.

The waterfall roared with a perpetual rainbow gracing it under the sun. It was so ferocious, that it sprayed water at me from afar. In the bustle that was the hordes of tourists and crashing cascade, I recalled my hardest moment from Korea.

At 10:30, I reached Ssang twin falls. What an uproar!

Two waterfalls were crashing full force opposite each other. I hadn’t thought I’d ever seen something like this. I recalled the waterfall from Jeju Island that had crashed into the ocean. Such a soothing sound.

I climbed to the mouth of the right waterfall and looked down at its stream, and at the left waterfall in front of me, and screamed.

It was a triumphant moment, full of smallness and bliss. A dwarf in a land of forces; a flash in an eternity of stream.

I found myself laughing and crying at the same time. Tears gushed out of my eyes like the twin waterfalls below me. I felt part of nature – I felt like I was nature – and Earth was alone in the universe, as far as I knew. Just like me.

I thought about the demise of this planet and extinction of water. I thought about my own end, and eternal silence, the opposite of the crashing that deafened my eardrums. There was so much I hadn’t achieved yet. So many dreams. I doubted I’d ever live to fulfill them. A barricade was keeping them away from me, just like the one barring me from falling into the stream. Both made by humans.

Societal walls. As if we needed more barriers, on top of nature’s whims.

“New Heights” (July 23)

I wanted to scream now, too, as an older being, but none the wiser. I was as transient as a drop of water falling down the edge. I was falling in love in vain.

White foam on the boulders reminded me of a mane of white hair. Like an old yet powerful magician, a la Dumbledore or Gandalf, who were both fond of rainbows. I imagined myself in old age – still fighting for some reason, not sure for what, perhaps to no avail.

Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival

Back again in Pingxi, I checked out the old street (full of hot dog stands) and rested for three hours until the festival. The Korean guy from July had renewed contact with me lately, months after disappearing, and now we texted again – only for him to tell me about his new relationship.

At 18:00, the festival started at the junior high school with a drum performance. Then the first group of ticket holders released the lanterns.

Dozens of enormous, canopy-like fabrics lit from underneath rose all at once. Against the night sky and legion of phone screens, they shone like spells in the dark; floating so fleetingly until they flew away from us, like a flash of magic.

At 18:45, I assembled with group number 5. The second wave included lanterns engulfed by flames that fell like meteors while I was waiting in line.

Staff members at every waiting station double-checked that I was indeed here by myself. I hadn’t known that the ticket was meant for 2-4 people. Apparently, I was the only person who had come solo.

My ambition for tonight was to release lanterns with some friends (I’d invited the volunteers from the hostel). Better yet, with someone special. I’d fallen in love mere days ago after three spectacular dates – and now it didn’t seem like I’d get to see any of them again.

It was my first time feeling lonely in Taiwan. A gentle drizzle was falling invisibly the whole time. In the audience of non-ticket-holders, I noticed Toby from the hostel.

My turn to release the lantern came. Staff members poured gasoline on my spot while I wrote a wish on the fabric. Someone ingnited the gasoline, and before I knew it, my lantern was released by the staff who was holding the fabric with me. It was smelly and swift, lasting mere seconds – over before I noticed it – but wasn’t that life’s rushes?

At 20:00, I took the special (and free) shuttle bus to Taipei Zoo, where I transferred to the MRT. Lanterns continued to fly all over the sky. I wondered how their debris was collected.

Tonight also marked the beginning of Taipei’s lantern festival, with night illuminations and performances around Ximen. Resting in the dim lobby, thoughts keeping me from going to bed, I reminded myself to curb my expectations from people.

Today’s highlights: Pingxi Crags; Shifen waterfall; Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival.

18 February 2024

• 11:00-12:20 shift
• 13:27-13:31 Ximen station to Zhongshan station metro (Songshan-Xindian line), 13:32-13:41 transfer to Shilin station (Tamsui-Xinyi line), 13:52-14:02 MRT Shilin station (Zhongzheng) to National Palace Museum bus (plenty of lines go there)
• National Palace Museum (2h)
• 16:50-17:05 National Palace Museum to Xiaobei street bus number 304CD
• Dinner @ Shilin night market
• 18:18-18:28 Shilin station to Zhongshan station metro (Tamsui-Xinyi line), 18:32-18:36 transfer to Ximen station (Songshan-Xindian line)

National Palace Museum

Today after my shift I visited the National Palace Museum, the biggest in Taiwan, annoyingly situated far from the city.

It was a large complex heralded by a five-holed white gate, a la Liberty Square. Sand colored walls, turquoise and orange roofs. Inside they stored this week’s latest disappointment.

The first floor featured painted antiquarian books from the Ming and Qing dynasties (15-19th centuries). Subjects included divination, geography, and Buddhism (with medieval-esque illustrations); recreations of rooms from the Qing Palace; crafted artifacts, like a bowl surprisingly reminiscent of Knossos; jewelry and vases, ivory ornaments; golden and threatening sculptures.

The second floor featured ceramics, calligraphy, and a lot of porcelain. The museum emphasized too much of the latter in its collection. Today being Sunday, there were simply too many people, particularly group tours, for me to enjoy the (already uninteresting) objects on display. Staff member in every room were holding “Please keep your voice down” signs. Even the Japanese and Korean exclaimed around me sounded vexing.

The third floor featured bronze weapons; ink stones; and jadeite treasures, such as a spherical tri-ring with carvings representing heaven, earth, and humanity; and a jasper, meat-shaped stone modeled after a braised pork belly.

I left the museum feeling as deflated as an enflamed lantern. It was mind-numbing and expensive. In comparison, the National Taiwan Museum was small, free, easily accessible, and rich with educational artifacts.

Shilin Night Market

From here on, I continued to Shilin, Taipei’s biggest market. Established in 1913, its stalls included dolls, clothes, keychains, and shooting games straight out of a carnival. Kids were catching tiny fish with small nets.

I ate an oyster omelet, the market’s specialty. It was more expensive compared to Donggang, where the oysters were actually tastable. Fried quail eggs in matcha sauce, oyster noodles, and plum-powdered fried potato balls provided consolation. Blasphemously, at the small Cixian temple on the narrow food road, the steps were full of diners.

Stuffed, I took the MRT back to my hostel and spent the evening with the Swiss guy from Tokyo, who was staying here tonight before leaving Taiwan tomorrow.

Then I wrote. A lot. Still unable to produce any prose, nor document the last week, I turned to poetry. Doing so led to poems, realizations, and insight about my present and future.

Hope, Heron, Eres, Cowboy, the Korean student. I tried not to miss any of them. But the embarrassing truth was: I couldn’t get them out of my head. Not even for a day.

I ate the crust of the Korean student’s pizza. So trashy and delicious. It had been months since my last pizza.

“Going to Costco always makes my day,” he beamed.

“My day was already made.”

I contemplated him while eating.

“What?” he asked. “Don’t look at my plate.” (Because there was meat on it.)

“I’m trying not to cry,” I said, blinking faster and faster by the minute.

“Because it’s so good?” he asked, pointing at the salad. I was savoring the rarity of fresh fruit and leaves.

“No,” I said. “Because you are.”

I stared into his eyes for a long time. It was like Lupin’s fixed gaze at Sirius for 52 lines in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Nothing existed in my world at that moment, apart from his pupils.

“I would like you a lot more if we were in the same location,” he said. “If we lived in the same city or country.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to get hurt.”

We would both leave Korea next week.

“You don’t want to become attached,” I said.

“Exactly.”

Without thinking, I blurted: “I already am.”

At 22:00, Costco closed. We wolfed down our leftovers and sat on the street outside the store with my melting mango sorbet. Talking, talking, talking.

“We had a perfect day,” he remarked at some point, “didn’t we?”

I couldn’t control it anymore. Tears forced their way out of my body.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

It took me a while to respond. I was looking away, looking at him, looking away again as I was blinking back tears. Wondering if I should say what was on my lips.

“I really like you.”

I explained that I wasn’t used to meeting someone who stood out as he had. Who made it feel out of the ordinary.

“You can say it’s extraordinary,” he said.

“You don’t have to use ‘it,’” I said. “You can say ‘me.’”

Silence. My tears were soft and quiet. They were many, yet slow and subdued.

“It’s a good thing we both leave in August,” he said. “No one will be sad and alone.”

I almost replied that I would.

Because he hadn’t said “I like you” back. I hoped that he was simply holding himself back, out of the fear he’d mentioned. A few days after I would leave Korea, he would fly back to the States, and transfer from Columbia to Cornell. His life was there now.

“Well, maybe we’ll meet again someday,” he said, “and by then you’ll have fifty more guys, and you’ll be married –”

I scoffed. What an absurd thought.

Soon enough, it was time to walk to the metro. The pain that made it excruciating for me to stand returned to prick me.

When sitting down and talking to him, I felt no pain. When standing and walking, I could barely move, and found myself cramping. Only in retrospect did I realize the irony of this. My body refused to get going and progress toward farewell. Better to sit down with him forever.

Standing outside Sangbong station, it was difficult to pick a moment to say goodbye. I knew we’d see each other again before I left. But I already felt the finality of the situation.

I cried on the metro back to Nowon station. Walked fast, sniffing with every stride, breathing hard with ache.

“New Lows” (July 24)

I never saw him again.

The British guy had promised to stay in touch, only to disappear. The Korean guy. And now, the Taiwanese.

Who meant what they said, and who lied? Who out there found me attractive, and worthy of a relationship? Who played with me just to avoid confrontation? Who wanted me in their life, and who couldn’t wait for my absence. Who wanted what out of me. It was easier to invent characters than to deal with humans.

I wasn’t the type of person someone would call more than a friend. I wasn’t the type of person someone would think about for longer than a flicker. Just a lantern in the dark, floating away.

So which was the biggest struggle in a sentient mortal’s life: the awareness of one’s demise, or ignorance toward another’s mind?

Life would’ve been a walk in the park if it were the other way around.

At 19, I’d lent all my thoughts to my future death, fallen into depression, gone to therapy, and dedicated all my free time to writing fiction about characters confronting their mortality. I’d learned about Ancient Greek in university, including pederasty, and the role of an erastes. This had changed my perception of love.

At 29, I’d been lending all my thoughts to my relationships with people, dating, drinking, partying, and dedicating all my free time to writing non-fiction about my life. I learned about intimacy through trial-and-error and the hurdles of communication. This changed my perception of love.

Writing in the lobby into the small hours of the night, I brooded over pain and love, and how they were intertwined. I’d been pursuing the latter while condemning the former. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew that I’d defy all my conclusions about dating from the past year for a chance to rekindle certain old flames. Perhaps, to experience heart palpitations, I first needed to understand what it meant to be heartbroken.

Today’s highlights: Shilin street food; writing at night.