Jamie Yu

Honors345
Final Paper
Going Home

Independent travel is good experience, my mother insists, for both you and your brother.

Plus, Taiwan is a familiar place, you can speak the language, you have lots of family there if you

ever need help. She doesn’t have to mention the real reason she didn’t come with us; she had run

out of vacation days at her office.

It doesn’t matter whether she came with us or not, she tells us, more to herself than to us

as we stand outside the airport in the already stifling heat of Oklahoma, even though it is barely

past five in the morning. Are you sure you have everything? Don’t forget to play the counting

game, make sure you have the same number of things when you get on the plane and the same

number when you get off.

Derek and I try convince her that we aren’t ten years old anymore, that we’re going to be

just fine, but she isn’t convinced. We finally disentangle ourselves from her worried chatter and,

with our heavy suitcases lugging behind us, we walk through the automatic doors into the airport

that welcome us with a breeze of dry air-conditioning.

We are finally going back to Taiwan, back to the Taipei cityscape and night markets,

back to childhood summers.

The air in Taipei is heavy and humid, sitting on our shoulders. The constant rush of noise

hums around us, traffic and pedestrians left and right, their honking horns and brisk paces

signaling that that they have somewhere very important to go. I look up. The sky is clear, a pastel

blue behind the skyline of tall buildings. The Taipei 101 Building grandly puffs out its chest,

standing tall and proud as its green blue structure seems to melt into the sky above it.
 It’s different every time I look at it. Some days are cloudier, greyer, some days the sun

blares mercilessly down at us, and some days have already descended past nightfall. But no

matter how it looks, it is always a variation of the sight of my childhood, hot summers where I

went back to Taiwan, back to the place where I felt like I came from, even if I came to it with a

blue American passport. It is always the sight of home.

An elderly lady slowly comes up to us, waving a long-sleeved arm, the other on top of

her head, keeping her billowy white hat pinned down. She asks if we know where the Xinyi Anhe

subway station is and I explain to her sheepishly that we’re tourists, not familiar with the area,

sorry we can’t be of any more help.

Smiling kindly, she nods and said that it’s okay, she hopes we’re having fun, where are

we from? America, we tell her. Wow, that’s so far away! Your Chinese is so good for

Americans, she marvels, nodding approvingly.

We go in opposite directions, nodding to each other with polite smiles as she wishes us

luck on our travels, and we thank her graciously, but a sinking feeling weighs down in my

stomach, the heavy drop of it reminding me that to Taiwan, I would only ever be a tourist, a

visitor, a foreigner.

***

But where are you from? was not uncommon around the brown crooked desks of

American public schools. Nebraska was never a good enough answer for them, so I went on to

explain, between probing questions, that I was from Nebraska, I had lived in Colorado for a little

bit, but then moved to Oklahoma when I was five.

 So…your parents…

They’re from Taiwan. They moved to the States for my dad to go to school. I was born

here, I would provide before they could ask the question bubbling at the tips of their tongues. I’m

an American citizen.

So…you’re Taiwanese…?

Well, yes, but I’m also American, was what I always wanted to clarify, but I knew that by

trying to argue with them, we would become stuck in an infinite loop of their confusion on how I

could be American and my insistence that I really was. Instead, I say with a small smile, yeah,

I’m technically American though. I just have a blue passport, I joke, and a few laughs would

float in the air before my classmates dispersed to their own desks, right in time as the teacher

strode through the door to take his place at the front of the classroom.

***

The presence of the Taiwanese night market always seems to surround me first. Pockets

of the smell of frying oil and bubbles of chattering laughter reaching my ears, until finally up

ahead, the dim yellow glow of the swinging light bulbs that dangle above tea stands, frying pans,

and vats of soup. As my feet carry me towards the welcoming lights and noise, my dirty sneakers

scuff along the concrete, scraping across the occasional dropped piece of steamed bun, but

mostly paper wrappers, stained with dirt and grease and pepper, as broken wooden skewers float

aimlessly on dirty puddles.

Derek and I worm our way through the maze of wandering torsos and the linked hands of

giggly couples, swimming between smoky food stands and brightly lit tables of plastic sequined
T-shirts. The claustrophobic heat of the humidity and busy stoves press down on all sides. The

night market is different, but the atmosphere is the same. I can see a younger Jamie clutching the

strap of her mother’s purse, and a younger Derek behind her, gripping his sister’s jacket hood. I

watch the younger Jamie swivel her head, trying to dodge the tall bodies that were in her way,

adults that were oblivious to the obstacle course they were creating. She never lets go of her

mother, terrified she would be stranded among this loud, noisy ocean of food and people,

deserted between a sausage stand and one selling shaved ice.

The man behind two round barrels of liquid and ice shouts something about his winter

melon tea and grass jelly drink and Derek slows, his eyes turning towards the temptation of an

ice-cold drink, but I tug him along, speeding past the shouting man and his barrels to seat myself

on a small, rickety plastic stool behind a metal counter just up ahead. One oyster pancake please,

I request, handing over a handful of clinking coins. The pancake sizzles and spits out oil on the

flat metal griddle and the owner expertly flips it over.

You guys aren’t from around here, are you? the owner asks us, setting down her metal

spatula with a loud clang as she slides a hot plate of pancake towards us. She must have heard us

conversing in English. We answer no, that we’re from America, we came back to see new sights

and family.

The owner sticks her calloused hands into the pockets of her grease-stained apron. You

two speak Chinese to your grandparents? I nod in affirmation for the both of us, since Derek is

too busy trying to swallow the still too-hot pancake. She nods, smiling, only half-talking to us as

she remarks to us how good it is to see family. Come back to Taiwan often and don’t forget

about your family here, home is where family is, she reminds us and we nod, chiming in slightly

awkward thank yous.

 The oyster pancake is delicious, the chewy texture complementing the saltiness of the

egg, paired with the lightly-seasoned cabbage and a sweet sauce that rolls over my tongue. It

tastes like the first time I ever had oyster pancakes, a night out with my mother and grandmother,

walking through the streets of Taipei, looking for food and snacks, just like any other family

there. It tastes of the summers of my childhood and it tastes of home.

***

No one knows that I tried to give up being American.

When my mother began another one of her long monologues on Chinese history or

Taiwanese politics, I forced myself to hang on to every word, carefully listening as my fingers

peeled cold, limp shrimp or washed oily pots. When she watched Taiwanese dramas in the living

room, I sat next to her and paid attention, even if I hated the soundtrack and the male lead played

an annoying character. If I understood all of these historical, political, and cultural aspects, could

I be more Taiwanese and less American?

In the school cafeteria, I proudly ate the rice balls my mother made for me and the

pickled plums we brought back from Taiwan, taking small spikes of pleasure every time I had to

struggle to explain the foods that had no English names to my curious classmates. That’s right, I

tried to signal to them. I’m not like you. I’m not American.

To further emphasize my un-American-ess, I began to humor my classmates who were

taking Chinese 1. Each of them thought they were the only ones who tried to hold a conversation

with me in their barely comprehensible Chinese. Some of them even tried to quiz me, which

resulted in awkward attempts to tell them that they were strangling the syllables into such twisted
shapes that I really had no idea what they were trying to say. I was always relieved when the

conversation drifted and they began to ask me easier questions. Well, how do you say sun?

School? America? I dreaded the moment they would ask me to translate a word that I didn’t

know, that I would be rendered speechless and reveal that my English was really much better

than my Chinese, that my status as un-American would be challenged. But it never came. They

got bored easily and the conversations would turn yet again, this time to the football game last

weekend and I would fade into the background, their interest in me diminishing once they had

satisfied their curiosity for the exotic Chinese.

Oh yeah, that quiet Asian girl.

When this was the phrase that floated all around me, it was easy to forget that I was one

of them, their classmate, their peer, just another American preteen in middle school. I began to

relish in the fact that everyone thought I was different, that I really was different from all the

white people that lived in Norman, Oklahoma, that perhaps, I wasn’t American.

My friends at Chinese School took another approach. They had wanted to fit in,

sometimes so much they would refuse to speak Chinese. Their conversations with their parents

sounded bizarre to my ears, their parents speaking to them in Chinese as they would respond in

English. Sometimes the parent would try to also engage them with their broken English and I

wondered if they found it as awkward as it sounded to my ears.

Like most of my other classmates, I hadn’t wanted to attend Chinese School. My teacher

always assigned pages and pages of homework, as well as essays, and every class began with a

vocabulary test. And even after two hours, I still wasn’t free. If I didn’t have to be at dance class,

which wasn’t required but was socially obligatory anyways, I had to watch my brother teach his
Chinese yo-yo class, which always seemed to end up with me leading the class as Derek and his

co-teacher tried to one-up each other, attempting one frivolous trick after another until one of the

yo-yos nearly ended up stuck in a tree or just barely missed knocking a person off his bicycle.

But I couldn’t help enjoying myself during Chinese class and the teacher would call me

on to talk about the lessons we just read. I always spoke the most because I was proud of my

Chinese. My reading and writing, and certainly not my penmanship, weren’t a lot better than my

classmates, but I spoke well. I didn’t have the “American” accent that hung onto my classmates’

tongues, pulling back the unfamiliar syllables so that it came out like an unpleasant frog crawling

through their lips, the tones of each word a guess so that their face would pull into a grimace as

they realized it sounded wrong when it escaped past their teeth. But I spoke naturally, and when I

knew what I wanted to say, I was fast, sounding much closer to a native speaker than my

classmates could ever manage.

However, with each English word like “zebra,” “paranoia,” or “accommodate,” that

slipped into my Chinese, I felt the ironically foreign English letters weigh down my entire

sentence, a rude, abrupt stop, and this temporary interruption poked me in the chest, reminding

me that I was American, American, American.

***

I think we got off at the wrong bus stop, Derek says slowly as we turn in a circle around

the intersection. The sky is dimming into an orange glow as the street fills up with suited office

workers rushing home and T-shirt clad salespeople setting up their stands, displaying cheap,

plastic hair adornments, three for just twenty NTD, guaranteed to be the best deal you’ll find.
 Maybe we should go this way? I suggest, pointing in a direction that I think could be

correct. The streets, the buildings, the shops, they all look distant and unfamiliar. I am reminded

once again that I don’t know this area, that I don’t live here, that this isn’t my home. The honk of

the yellow taxicab rushing past seems to be directed at me, scolding me for trying to pretend that

I belong here.

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the wrong way to go, Derek tells me drily. He points in the

opposite direction, adding, I think that’s where we’re supposed to go, you know, I think it’s this

street.

It’s not this street, this is Songlong, we’re looking for Jilong, I say as I point to the street

sign. Derek has been gifted the ability to have a strong sense of direction, leaving me with none,

but I am only one who can read Chinese characters and make sense of any signs we came across.

The old, worn buildings are a palette of beige, tan, and dirty cream colors. The warm

glow of the setting sun has softened the colors and edges of the structures. The whole skyline

seems to relax for the evening, but the roads are as alive as ever; they are just waking up. Bright

yellow taxi cabs stand out among the dark sedans and scooters weave in and out between the

waves of cars. Angry horns and muffled music trail from the lines of asphalt, broken by the

occasional jingle of bicycle bells on the sidewalks beside them.

The heavy air presses down on us, and although the lack of sun has allowed it to be

marginally cooler, the humidity still coats every inch of skin, worming its way underneath our

thin T-shirts and shorts. We wander, pushing through the muggy air, Derek guiding me as I

search for familiar street names. The orange sun continues to set, inching its way behind stone

buildings. As it drags the canvas of the night sky behind it, it completely ignores us, solely

focused on crawling towards its home below the horizon.

 I spot it first, the neon green sign of the small supermarket, a bright banner that seems to

beckon at us. With the location of the supermarket known, the geography of everything around

us clicks into place. Excitedly pointing out the familiar buildings, we nearly jump with

excitement as we suddenly realize we aren’t lost anymore. I can see a younger Jamie and Derek

clutching handfuls of sweet drinks and snacks skipping out from the automatic doors that played

an automated recording, thank you for your service, to the backs of their heads. Retracing the

steps of our childhood selves that shuffled with loose sandals slapping the uneven concrete, we

walk home.

***

On the hour, the clock tower sings its echoing rendition of our state song Oklahoma, each

hollow note sluggishly falling from the bell to the sidewalks of the University of Oklahoma

campus. The buildings are mostly red, the trees are mostly green, and the campus is mostly

empty. The warm orange glow of the setting sun blankets the university. I can point out which

buildings my dad has worked in, which one I had my Italian class in, which one had constantly

blinking overhead lights that always threatened to burn out but never did.

The streets are so empty that I can ignore this red light and turn whichever direction I

choose. Instead I wait for the light to blink green before turning left, flashing my turn signal to

the nonexistent car behind me.

On Main Street, I pass by the familiar sight of my high school on one side, the other side

a myriad of memories of a younger Jamie eating bagels at the café with her friends, the one and
only time she walked into the sketchy Circle K gas station, the store where she once went with

Derek to buy last minute party foods that used to be Homeland.

The streets aren’t empty anymore; beaten red trucks and dirty minivans all shuffle along

the three one-way lanes that make up the road. There are still shops that I haven’t been in, shops

that I’m convinced no one has been in, like that old record store on the corner and the random

lingerie store between Crawford and Peter. I’ve been to most of the restaurants, simply because

it’s been there forever, it can’t be that bad, and they’re not, but they’re not amazing either.

At the next stoplight, I turn my head to see the old, beaten warehouse that used to read

“Bill’s Used Furniture,” the one that was rumored to have been the location of a drug bust, but

the girl who allegedly saw the SWAT team go in has moved to Texas and there’s no one left to

confirm the story. The traffic shifts to a small green arrow and I turn with it, leaving Bill’s Used

Furniture behind me.

This road leads straight to my neighborhood and everyone speeds here, even cops. It’s

not as bad as the ones by Noble, Derek would argue, the limit’s, what, fifty? I swear people go

up to sixty-five there!

I pass by the plaza that doesn’t have a name except “where Blockbuster used to be” even

though Blockbuster hasn’t been there for years. I keep going and speed along with the rest of the

traffic, leaving behind the Homeland that hasn’t closed but is still referred to as “Albertson’s”

even though it’s been Homeland for over eight years, going past the drooping structure of my old

middle school where they decided to buy a brand new electric marquee instead of fixing the

lopsided desks in most classrooms.

 I turn into the entrance of my neighborhood. The houses all look about the same, but I

can point out the one where my eighth grade Social Studies teacher used to live or the one that

always goes all out on Christmas decorations.

People will still confuse us with the elderly Vietnamese couple that lives three houses

down, always assuming we live in their house and they live in ours, and every time we let our

neighbors know that we’ll be gone for just a couple of weeks, they’ll still ask, are you going to

Thailand?

But I know all the stories here and when I back the car into the garage with the creaking

garage door and climb out, I can open the door with the slightly mismatching doorknob because

the original broke to a brightly lit kitchen, and call out, Mama, wo hui jia le. Mom, I’m home.