#21 Taiwan, Taiwan
Dream, hope, reality,, and surprises
Hey there,
I’m back in Taiwan for almost two months! Whoa, how fast time flies! Too many things have happened. But first, here’s a picture of me sketching with other kiddos in a local art cram school in my hometown, Taichung.
Just in case you are wondering, I’m the one in the lower right corner hehe
Back home after two years
When I was in Texas, I imagined arriving in Taiwan with an overwhelming wave of emotions. I expected myself not to recognize the streets of my hometown, surprised by how much I’ve changed and hit by another culture shock. Surprisingly, when I got off the shuttle taxi from the airport, I felt like I never left.
It’s amazing how I always “became” the city I’m in. My wild nature was all out in the Mexican beach town of Puerto Escondido. I became this ocean girl who swam in the sea first thing in the morning most days. I trained barefoot at an Ido Portal movement school overlooking the sunset on the ocean. I rode my motorbike in the woods, on the muddy road between mountain towns. When I was in the woo-woo adjacent city of Austin, full of creatives but not much stuff to do, I rested a ton, did lots of breathwork, and wrote a lot. Most days, my main activity is just taking an hour-long walk around the river path. My Austin self is calm and peaceful.
When my husband Pauli gave the ADHD me a challenge to make Taiwan a do-nothing trip, I didn’t even attempt to take the challenge because I knew what my Taipei self would be like - a crazy busy bee. And this past month, I’ve been '“expectedly” busy. With all the easily accessible resources, I stuffed my schedule with activities like the old Angie would do growing up. I hired a trainer three times a week, went to art classes twice a week, and traveled between two cities weekly while trying to write and play with my daughter.
Every day, I ended up so exhausted, but thinking I had only three months of opportunities to learn and heal myself physically at an affordable cost, I was too scared to live one day not learning. (Although Pauli has pointed out how I was operating out of a screwed scarcity mindset instead of reality). What can I say? Part of me wanted to connect with my old familiar Taiwan self, and living a busy life as if I had no choice was one strategy it used. Oh well.
That said, I was blown away by how much I can learn in art. Before, I was proud of all the cute flowers I copied from Instagram, but since I only took self-paced online courses or watched YouTube tutorials, I didn’t know how to fix my mistakes. Now, being able to learn in a formal art classroom, although I felt like an idiot at first not being able to paint a uni-color ball or sketch a simple box, I could finally move on from my mistakes and make a big progress. I was so happy that I could paint a picture closer to how I imagined it. But at the same time, learning with all the talented kids and advanced artists made me realize how far I am from being a professional artist who can make a living from making art (I’m still arguing with Pauli if this is some bullshit excuse for not trying)
On the other side, I had mixed feelings about improving my physical health.
I had a serious training injury three years ago. My body was a train wreck, and I have been bothered by a TMJ discomfort since then. Because of my network in the fitness industry, I knew where to find the most advanced trainers and therapists for my issues. I put so much hope on this trip back to Taiwan to finally fix myself. I finally hired the best trainer I knew and sought all sorts of esoteric therapies. With all the $$$ spent, surprisingly (or not so surprisingly), I felt pretty much the same.
These efforts taught me two things. First, I must figure out who I am instead of fixing my physical pain. TMJ pain is known as emotional pain. People who have TMJ issues often suffer from some form of stress or depression. If the results from the medical examinations tell me I’m fine, but I still don’t feel fine, I think I should finally accept that what I need is to deal with my identity crisis, not more manual therapy.
Secondly, *maybe* no one is perfectly healthy. The trainers I hired are the best of the best in Taiwan, and only when I started to work with them that I realized, holy mama, they learned so many modalities because they are also in so much pain! So the new question I ask myself is- if I’m going to have this discomfort my whole life, what would I do? Keep training! I don’t want to wait for one day I’m fully fixed to train again because that day might never come. I need to learn to co-exist with this new normal. It’s a hard and sad truth for me, but I don’t think I have a choice.
Writing in Chinese Again
Before I returned to Taiwan, I thought I would be so fed up with the culture that confines me that I’d double down on writing in English as an escape. But to my surprise, I seem to be pretty comfortable with who I am after all these years of living between cultures (OK fine, after two weeks of being angry at Taiwanese obedient and apologetic cultural norms ). I started to see Taiwanese culture as an objective force outside of me, instead of something that I couldn't escape from or dissociate with. I enjoyed talking with people with a different sense of self and no longer feel ashamed to share my worldview with people around me. (I used to play innocent because I feared standing out.)
One day, I tried to write one sentence in Chinese when I felt stuck in English, and I couldn't stop writing. One sentence became one paragraph, and paragraphs became pages. Within a few days, I wrote more than ten thousand words, with a level of writing far better than my English writing. But I still struggle with consistency, I would write like a maniac for one afternoon, then pause for two weeks until I felt too guilty about not writing again. Now, I’m talking with one publisher and several freelance editors to see if I can have some form of contract or formal working relationship to hold me accountable for writing. Hopefully, it will become something fruitful next Spring.
Here are some snippets of our life in Taiwan:
Until next time!
Angie
Mimi looks so big already!!! Wish you some rest and rejuvenation, albeit super active variations XD