the.LAUNDROMAT

This 12 o'clock curfew business is really, really ridiculous. I may have to do something about it.

I Love Trash

At 4:30pm and 7:45pm, a garbage truck playing a cheery tune comes rolling through the neighborhood, stopping at designated points along the street. It's the kind of sound that an ice cream truck makes, sometimes a midi version of Fur Elise, sometimes another song.

The neighborhood comes out onto the sidewalks to await the arrival of the  truck each day (except Wednesday and Sunday), all holding their one or two blue bags of garbage to toss into the back of the truck. Recycling trucks tag along behind, with organic waste bins and other containers for plastic, paper, metal, and it's always interesting to see how people obediently dump their foodstuff into one container, their milk bottles into another, and then chuck the general waste into the back of the truck.

Taipei started implementing this new garbage system sometime in the early 2000s, I think, in response to overflowing dumpsters and the ever-present stench of food rotting in the heat. Now, people have to go to their neighborhood convenience store and purchase special blue government-issued garbage bags, then personally toss that bag into the back of the garbage truck. Although it is incredibly difficult to find trash cans around the city, this new garbage system seems to work, since Taipei is clean, garbage free, and smells way better than I remember as a kid.

I think about NY, where at night all the shopowners toss their oozing black garbage bags out on the sidewalk, the same sidewalk where pedestrians walk. And I remember walking home at night and jumping in fright cause the bag next to me rustled, right before a giant rat comes scurrying out to run into my foot. Or then I think about Tbilisi and Dushanbe, where empty lots in the neighborhood become unofficial garbage dumps, and residents just wander over and deposit their trash into the giant pile of brightly colored plastic bags and rotting potato peels. Nevermind that they live next door.

Why don't everyone adopt the Taiwan system, right along with the songs that the garbage trucks play?

HK hit and run

HK, city of 7 million. In the global population rankings, HK is listed as just slightly less dense than NYC, a somewhat distorted picture since there's a whole chunk of sparsely inhabited land called the New Territories skewing the average. On the streets, Hong Kong feels twice as crowded, with people spilling all over the narrow sidewalks and on the walkways above, piled on top of each other in impossibly tall, narrow skyscrapers that put Midtown to shame.

At Chungking Mansions in Kowloon, it seems like all the enterprising businessmen from South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have come together to open up money exchange kiosks and mobile phone stores. Although the hostels in the building are supposedly the cheapest around, I'd never stayed at Chungking Mansions until this time around, and I found it really interesting: dark, dingy, and fluorescent, with sketchy looking men and even sketchier looking women living an alternate life than the one just outside on Nathan Road. 

According to this FT article, 70-80 percent of Kenya's mobile phones come through Chungking Mansions. Seeing the long line of people waiting with enormous bags for the two tiny elevators (to service 16 floors and 4,000 residents), I wonder if maybe all of Kenya could be served by these traders if only they moved to a more efficient building.

Someone named John -- a late 20s/early 30s African with an easy-going, friendly face, a cross between Mos Def and So You Think You Can Dance's Twitch -- was waiting on line at the elevator the other day. I know his name was John because as he stepped into the elevator in front of me, a young Filipina ran down the lobby calling his name and cutting the line to squeeze herself in. Then her friend, another tall African man, materialized to press himself in as well. The elevator (max. capacity 8 though feels like 6) beeped in alarm, and John stepped out with a laugh to let his friends head up first. 

"We don't know where it is!" the girl said as the door closed.

"6th floor!" he shouted at them, "I'll come up soon!"

I wonder what was going on on the 6th floor. But I was a bit too chicken to find out.

Later John, in my elevator, chatted amiably with a South Asian who had his Filipino wife and 2- or 3-year-old son in tow. "You're back," John said to the guy, and they exchanged some pleasantries until John got off. It's like a little neighborhood there where everyone knows everyone, Brixton and Jackson Heights all rolled into one.

Turns out I didn't have to stay in Chungking Mansions if I didn't want to. Because Friday morning at the Lippo Centre, as I ate breakfast at the Pret a Manger before getting my Taiwan visa, the fates and Hong Kong's sheer mass of people managed to be in my favor. I ran into a girl who was in my language program over the summer, coming into Pret to get breakfast before work. I'd forgotten that she'd moved to Hong Kong afterwards, and actually stared at her blankly for a second wondering why this familiar face was in this unfamiliar setting. Michelle and I ended up having dinner, then going out for drinks last night, and though she kept insisting that I stay with her, I kind of wanted to finish out my time in this strange, fascinating building.

I think I'll watch Chungking Express again when I get back to Taipei.

P.S. I miss the British accent.

Nomads

Biking home tonight along the river, some kids were setting off fireworks in the park. First, there was that sound you'd imagine a rocket would make, something in between a shriek and a siren. And then the sound turned into a sight, cascading in a stream of blinking lights before disappearing into the dark blue sky.

The bike ride to school and back along the water is the singularly most enjoyable thing about living in Wan Hua. In the mornings, I think about the day ahead, mull over problems and stare at the old people doing tai chi along the river. At night, I just marvel at the sight of the moon reflected in the water.

I'd had burgers tonight with some friends, satisfying my bi-weekly cravings for grilled meat patties, raw onions and cheddar cheese. The third member of my Xinjiang trio is in town, who has spent the past year traveling around Asia. He's been a true nomad, bumming off one friend's couch for a month, then country hopping to stay with another friend, all the while supporting himself by writing the occasional articles for Time.

I am at once envious and dubious about this kind of life. Envious, of course, because it entails an unequivocal, fervent embrace of that nagging desire we've all experienced while traveling: "Can't we just stay here and do this forever?" But also dubious, because it's also a wholesale rejection of everything that makes daily life daily life: home, a group of friends, a favorite cafe, the bike rides along the river.

I wonder how long I could last if it were me, and whether this life I have now is just his, with longer stops in between.