Maurice, orchestrator of the infamous Voyage to Sh…
Maurice, orchestrator of the infamous Voyage to Shulin, has got to be the worst purveyor of bad instructions I’ve ever met. Not only was the address for Carl’s Appreciation dinner wrong, but even the right one was misleading. And Maurice was 40 minutes late. Consequently, I wasn’t able to eat before I had to leave for the Moon party in Hsichih. I did see a lot of the people from the play, though, which was good. Steve was there, saying farewell before he sets off for Blighty. The long table the restaurant had prepared was still half empty when I left, so I assume there were more people on their way.
The driver of the taxi I took on the congested route out to Hsichih was one of the more inquisitive I’ve come across, and he had me talking about all sorts of things. When he heard about my peculiar situation, he said to me, “Wow, so you have two families! That must be nice!”
“Not really,” I replied. What I meant by that was, in the states, legal status means a lot, so the fact that I was legally adopted by Taiwanese parents means that my family in the US doesn’t seem to be willing to accept me as part of their family, while blood is more important to Taiwanese, so the fact that I am not ethnically Chinese means that my family here doesn’t really consider me a “real” part of their family.
Fortunately, this rather depressing train of thought was interrupted by our arrival. Lots of people were there, including Harry and Kirk, and the food was delicious. Later on Yuan-ming, Ah-hui and Guang-ping showed up as well, just to see me, which was really nice of them, especially as they could only stay for a little while. I also made some new acquaintances, including a policeman from Panama named Victor who is studying Chinese here for five years (he only has two years left).
Kirk and I were the last to leave. We caught a taxi over to Funky, which we found packed with people. There were some rather good-looking guys there, but for some reason I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Everyone there seemed just too damn happy. The kind of happy that makes you suspect an unsuccessful lobotomy or two is lurking in their past. Rather than just getting drunk and just enjoying it all, we decided to catch a cab home instead. Tomorrow there is supposed to be an event ironically named the “Churchgoers Party” at the Source. I might go check it out, even though I said I wouldn’t go there again. If it’s anything like the Tea Dances they used to have in Hong Kong at Club 1997, it might be worth going to.
