For those of you who don't know--I lived there for a year, a little over a year ago.

Wo shien zai yao gao su nimen wo xiang shem ma dong shi

Now I'm going to tell you what I miss:

-passion fruit green tea

-piling 5 large (compared to Asian sizes) into a small (compared to American sizes) taxi (not to mention the driver)

-stopping at the breakfast stand on my walk to work, and ordering a dan bing (egg in a yummy tortilla-esque wrap) and medium sized warm soy milk

-calling down to Tim, Kami, and Amy's classrooms

-listening to the conversations of people around me, and understanding when they were scamming for our seats on the MRT (mass-rapid transit, aka subway), talking about their boyfriends, or, as with my students, cussing

-bus surfing

-listening to Delirious' "Can you feel the mountains tremble?" as I walked through the park

-Joanne

-any white boy who spoke Chinese

-Daddy Lao's sweet and sour chicken and open heart vegetables

-mangoes and mango milk ice

-always having lots of cash on hand

-deep, heartfelt emails in which your friends told you "you 'da shizzy fo sho!"

-walking, not driving, to work

-warm rain storms in which you would drop your umbrella just to soak up the sky and your clothes

-sitting at quaint tea houses

-eating out for more cheaply than eating in

-praying with my 7th graders

-Walking through downtown Taipei to see a movie or buy shoes

-feeling really smart everytime someone told me, "Ah! Your chinese is so pretty!"

-being a smart alek in a foreign language

-theological discussions with Tim Dolan

-being able to take care of your whole life dealings at the 7-11; which, there were 2 on every block (pay your bills, but whatever you needed, get money, etc, etc.)

-Coop's text messages (referred to as "garbage email" by my students)

-my students' stories and interpretations of my love life

-feeling really confident that I was living the life I loved and valued

-reading Chinese

-dancing in a club with Asians yelling, in ESL, "In the end...it doesn't weally mattel"

-moments: like falling asleep next to an old man on the way home from Tien Shan Gong Yuan, sitting in the little pagoda at the park while I discuss and write with my kids about fishing, buying fruit from the fruit man across the street

-smiling at Asian babies

-old women yelling in tones

-making my way around a huge Asian city

-scuba diving

-the way that everything becomes an adventure

-sitting on porches at night in TienMu, drinking a white Russian, and smelling Tim's cigar smoke wafting by, while listening to ambient or Taiwanese pop

-bo-po-mo-fo

-Our Chinese Teacher, Gwei Lao Shi (English name: Ellen)

-pot stickers

-the exceptional poetry that comes from being in a dark and lonely season

-feeling OK with not being OK all the time

-always being able to have your activity excused because you're a Wei Guo Ren (foreigner)

-walking around at night, and not worrying about being raped or mugged

-getting tired at the end of the school day, and talking to my students in English, while they answered in Chinese, we sort of had our own language

-the discount stores of American clothes, waiting to be shipped

-being recognized at the local shabu-shabu and teppanyaki places

-the bling bling hair things, fun stationery, and really exciting umbrellas

Mostly though, I miss my kids. My friends. And Chinese.

DZai Jian

Love, Trace Wei Tsui Xi