Lissy and Clifford came up next to us. “Too busy in the temple,” she said. “Too much smoke and too much noise.”
“Yeah, it’s different from a church, isn’t it?” Clifford said.
That was true. Churches at home were always clean and quiet with people speaking in whispers. Here, it was dirty from smoke and incense, and loud with people talking and kids screaming across the courtyard.
“Churches are more serious,” I said.
“I don’t know if they are more serious—a lot of people here believe deeply,” Clifford said. “But there is definitely more of a sense of humor. Did you see the four little statues on the gate over there?”
We shook our heads.
“They are supposed to represent the best pleasures in life,” he said, “which are—yawning, picking your ears, scratching your back, and picking your nose!”
“No!” we all said in unison, giggling. “Gross!”
“It’s true!” Clifford said. “I’ll show you the sign on the way out.”
“Those aren’t the best pleasures, though,” Lissy said. “What fun is picking your ears or your nose?”
“Well,” Clifford asked, “what do you think the best pleasures are, then?”
“Shopping,” Lissy said. “Or maybe watching TV.”
“Eating candy!” Ki-Ki said.
“No! Eating dumplings!” I said.
“We could just say eating,” Clifford said. “All right, I choose laughing. That’s my greatest pleasure. Pick the last one, Pacy.”
I thought hard. Greatest pleasure… what did I like to do the most? I wanted to say making art, but I thought about my class and painting next to Audrey Chiang. That wasn’t a pleasure at all. I liked writing, too, but it wasn’t the writing that gave me the greatest pleasure. I liked it best when people read my writing and liked it. That’s what made me happiest.
“Reading!” I said.
“Reading?” Lissy said, wrinkling her nose. She was disappointed, probably because she didn’t like books so much. “You and books. Boring!”
“Hey, I think reading is a good one!” Clifford said before I could make any remarks about shopping being boring. “I think just being able to read is really one of the greatest pleasures in life, and not just reading books.”
“What do you mean?” Ki-Ki asked.
“Well, when I first came to Taiwan, I could barely read anything,” Clifford said. “And I remember the first time I went into a store and I could read the signs. I felt so happy. It was truly a great pleasure!”
We laughed. I sort of saw what he meant. In some ways, not being able to read the papers or signs or menus was worse than not being able to speak. All the unreadable words felt like a secret that everyone knew except me.
“You know, the longer I’ve been here,” Clifford said, “the more I realize how hard it must’ve been for our parents, moving to the United States. It’s all the little things, like not being able to read signs or understand directions, that make things so hard.”
Mom and Dad had told us about how they had moved to the United States, but I hadn’t thought about their not understanding TV commercials, not being able to order food, being ignored because you didn’t speak the language—all the things I found hard here in Taiwan. Maybe when Mom and Dad were first in America, everything was just as strange and confusing to them as Taiwan was to me now. It was surprising to think about.
“Good! I’m glad!” Ki-Ki said loudly, shocking us all.
“Glad about what?” Lissy asked.
“That reading is a pleasure,” Ki-Ki said. “Because I know how. I can read chapter books all by myself now.”
“That is good,” Clifford said, laughing. “And think of the even greater pleasures in your future!”
Chapter 23
EVEN THOUGH IT WAS TWO DAYS LATER, IT SEEMED LIKE almost as soon as we got back from Lugang, we were saying good-bye to Clifford, Lian, Big Uncle, and Aunt Ami and getting on a train back to Taipei. Aunt Ami didn’t want us to go. “It’s because you’ll be traveling into the night,” Clifford told us. “She’s afraid of ghosts!”
I had laughed then, but as I sat on the train watching the sky get darker and darker, I did feel a tiny bit worried.
“Do they really say if you travel at night, ghosts will come?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” Dad said. “And there are even more superstitions. If you whistle at night, you’re inviting ghosts.”
“They say the same thing about cutting your fingernails,” Mom said. “If you cut them at night, you are inviting ghosts, too.”
That just seemed silly! We all laughed at that.
“But we don’t really believe in any of those things,” Mom said.
“Some people do,” I said, thinking of Aunt Ami.
“Yes, that’s true,” Mom said. “But Grandma and Grandpa always discouraged our family from all that. Some traditions were fine to practice, but they said you also had to use your common sense.”
“What do you mean?” Lissy asked.
“Like when my aunt Suying was married,” Mom said.
GRANDMA BREAKS TRADITION
When Aunt Suying was to be married, her parents consulted a fortune-teller for a favorable wedding day. This was a custom back then, to ensure a lucky and long marriage, and her parents took this very seriously. The fortune-teller, an old and wrinkled woman, took all the details of the birthdates of both the bride and the groom. Not just the date—the time they were born, too. With that information, she calculated the day and time they should be married.
“September ninth is good,” she told them. “But the marriage must take place during the mao period.”
Suying’s parents were surprised. Each Chinese day was divided into twelve periods, each period two hours long. The mao period was early in the morning, 5 AM to 7 AM! Still, that was the luckiest time, so they made the preparations accordingly.
The night before the wedding, Suying had a sleepover bridal shower. All her friends from school, cousins, and sisters came. Grandma went, too. It was a fun time with all the girls laughing and talking. They didn’t go to bed until very late.
It ended so late that everyone had a hard time waking up in the morning. And they were supposed to wake up early! When Suying finally woke up, it was already time to go.
What a panic it was! Aunt Pinmei was there to do Suying’s hair. She was the “good-luck woman.” According to tradition, the bride’s hair must be arranged by a married woman with many children and a good husband, so that the good luck would be passed on to her. The good-luck woman was supposed to speak auspicious words while she combed the bride’s hair and placed on the headdress.
But Suying was already so late that everyone was frantic. Aunt Pinmei could only quickly stammer a couple of lucky phrases as she coiled Suying’s hair and stabbed in the bridal comb.
“It’s crooked!” Suying wailed as she looked at herself in the mirror. The comb with its red tassels perched awkwardly on her head, with one tassel hung over one ear and the other tassel below her other ear. She reached to fix it.
“No!” Aunt Pinmei said, pushing her hands away. “You can’t redo it! It would be bad luck. You can only do it one time. It’s like marriage—once it is done, you have to keep it!”
Suying would have argued, but she was too busy getting pushed out the door to the wedding. She made it just in time, and they were married before the mao period ended. Grandma said no one really remembers the ceremony because they had to do it so fast.
After the ceremony, Suying and her husband were sent to the wedding chamber. Relatives, aunts, and uncles were positioned outside the room—sometimes with teases and jokes, sometimes with food. But there was always someone there, guarding the door, because according to tradition, brides were not supposed to leave the wedding room until the morning after the ceremony. Now this was fine most of the time, but Suying had been rushed in there at seven in the morning, and there was no bathroom in the bedroom!
By th
e middle of the afternoon, she, of course, had to use the bathroom. But every time she poked her head out, someone was there, stopping her from leaving the room. Her aunts and mother shook their heads at her. “Hold it,” they told her. “It will be bad luck if you leave. You’ll have a bad marriage.”
Finally, it was Grandma’s turn to watch the door. Everyone else had gone downstairs as Suying poked her head out again. “I really need to go!” she whispered urgently. “Pleeaaaase!”
Grandma looked at Suying’s begging face. To her, this was not the way a bride should spend her wedding day. A crooked hairstyle, a prisoner in a bedroom—how could any of this ensure a happy marriage? This was just a lot of silliness! At the very least, a woman should be allowed to use the bathroom.
Grandma checked to make sure no one else was around. “Quickly,” she said, and motioned Suying out of the room. Suying ran to the bathroom and back without anyone else knowing.
“Thank you!” Suying whispered, and she was so grateful. Grandma was the only one willing to break the tradition and overlook the superstition. Suying was very thankful and remembered it always.
“In fact,” Mom said, “she still thanks Grandma for it, even now.”
“How was her marriage?” Lissy asked. “Was it still lucky?”
“Yes,” Mom said. “She and Uncle Wu have a big house in Fresno now and two sons. One is a doctor, and the other is a computer programmer, and everyone is very happy. So as you can see, all those superstitions aren’t really true.”
That story made me feel a little better. I also hoped that when I got married, there would be a bathroom in my room.
Chapter 24
RETURNING TO TAIPEI ALSO MEANT COMING BACK TO Chinese painting class. Audrey Chiang hadn’t changed at all. If anything, she was worse. The class had stopped painting bamboo and had moved on to flowers, but I couldn’t even get excited about using my color paints, because I was too busy trying to get my art talent working. It would show up only once in a while, and I didn’t understand why. The fortune-teller had said my special skill would be used all my life. Why did it keep disappearing? It made me hollow and fragile, like an empty eggshell. Compared with Audrey’s precise, clean flowers, mine looked like pink gum balls melted into one another. I hated it when Audrey would glance over with one of her disdainful looks. And she couldn’t hide her satisfaction when the teacher stopped me from painting the sky blue.
“But my plum blossom branch is outside,” I said. “A blue sky will make it look more real.”
“Remember,” the teacher said, “in Chinese painting, we are painting the idea of how things look, not how they look for real.”
His words reminded me of how Dad had said Taichung was more “real Taiwan.” And that was still puzzling to me as well. Even after being there, I didn’t know what was more real about it.
“I was wrong,” Dad said when I asked him later. “Taipei, Taichung—it’s all real Taiwan. Because Taiwan is both old and new, modern and traditional. You’re right.”
I wasn’t sure what I was right about. But I guessed that Taipei was the “modern” Dad meant. Because it was only when we got back that I noticed how large and clean the sidewalks were. So far, to me, “modern” meant it was a lot easier to walk around.
But all that was forgotten because Dad was starting to pack his suitcases. He was leaving, going back home tomorrow. That meant thirteen days until we went back home.
“Don’t you want to stay for Grandma’s birthday party?” Ki-Ki asked him.
“Of course I want to,” Dad said. “But I can’t. These were the only days I could get off from the hospital. Anyway, there will be so many people at the party, no one will even notice I’m not there. “
“But you’re going to miss everything!” Ki-Ki said.
“I will be missing some things,” Dad said. “But not everything. Before I go, we’ll go see Taipei 101!”
“What’s that?” Lissy asked.
“It’s Taiwan’s most famous building!” Dad said. “I’m sure you’ve seen it from a distance. It’s the tallest building. In fact, it’s the tallest in the world!”
“Second-tallest,” Mom said. “There is one in Dubai that is taller.”
“Still,” Dad said, “it is Taiwan’s shining modern icon! We’ll all go before I have to go back.”
As the taxi drove us there, I did recognize it. Taipei 101 had always been in the landscape. It was made of blue-green glass that matched the deepest part of the sky and looked like stacked boxes reaching high above all the other buildings.
“Is the address 101?” I asked as we got out of the taxi. “Is that why it’s called Taipei 101?”
“No,” Mom said. “It’s because it has 101 floors.”
“Why?” Ki-Ki asked.
“It’s symbolic,” Dad said. “It was built for the new century plus all the new years after. So that is why it’s one hundred plus one. One hundred years, one hundred floors, and one symbolic extra for the extra years to come.”
I stared up at the building. It was very, very tall! The glass sparkled in the sun, and I got dizzy trying to see the top of the building.
“See that?” Dad said, pointing at what I had thought was just a sculpture of three huge stone circles. “Those are to symbolize ancient Chinese coins. Back then, coins had holes in them. See how the holes make the numbers 101?”
Lissy had also been staring up at the building. “Is that round thing on the side of the building a coin, too?” she asked, squinting.
“Yes,” Mom said. “Coins are good-luck symbols.”
“Why?” Ki-Ki asked.
“Because they are money!” Mom laughed. “So they mean wealth—which is lucky!”
“Let’s go in!” Lissy said. “I don’t want to just look at the building all day.”
“Okay, okay,” Dad said as we went inside. “Should we eat or look first?”
I was going to say eat, but Mom said, “Let’s look first. Going up the elevator might upset our stomachs.”
We went to the fifth floor and got our tickets. The word OBSERVATORY was above the counter.
“It’s in English!” I said, pointing, as we waited in line.
“A lot of things will be in English here,” Mom said. “This is a famous tourist place, so things will be in a lot of languages. People from all over come here.”
Mom was right. As we crowded onto the big elevator, two people I guessed were Americans got on the elevator after us. They were a couple. The woman’s light skin was so blotchy red from sunburn, she was like the colors of strawberries and cream. Her husband was tall and bearded, with sandy hair. They stuck out among everyone else in the elevator, like sunflowers in a daisy patch. Looking at them made me see how we must look in New Hartford. I wondered how they felt.
As the elevator doors closed, a pretty Taiwanese lady in a black uniform began to welcome us. First she spoke in Taiwanese, then Chinese, then Japanese, and then English! A lot of languages really were used here.
“This is one of the fastest elevators in the world,” the uniformed lady said in her accented English. “It travels 1,010 meters in one minute. So to take us from the fifth floor to the eighty-ninth floor, it will take thirty-seven seconds.”
“That’s fast,” the American lady said.
“Yeah,” her husband said. “Fastest elevator I’ve ever been in!”
As they spoke to each other, I realized they probably thought that we were Taiwanese or Japanese and couldn’t understand them. It gave me a strange feeling. I wanted to say something to tell them we were American, too. But I didn’t want them to think I was listening to their conversation, either, so I kept quiet.
The elevator began to move, and the lights dimmed. Above, on the ceiling, twinkled hundreds of tiny lights, arranged just like the night sky. I stared with my mouth open. On the wall, an oval screen lit up with an image of the building and numbers next to it with floor, height, speed, and time on it. The numbers flashed as we passed floors. The elevator
was fast! So fast! Tenth floor! Thirty-seventh floor! Two hundred and fifty meters! Three hundred and forty meters! The numbers that told the speed of the elevator went so fast that they blurred, and I couldn’t read them. Faster and faster we went. I thought I would feel dizzy or my ears would plug up like they did on the airplane, but neither happened. It was a really modern elevator!
The doors opened, and we emptied out onto a floor that was completely walled in by glass. Past the stalls selling souvenirs and postcards, the world stretched below—buildings, trees, cars, streets, people, all smaller than dollhouse miniatures. I felt as if I were standing on a cloud looking at the earth below. I hadn’t realized Taipei was so big. It always looked so small when I saw it on a map. There were so many buildings, but there were also green mountains around everything, too. The mountains layered upon one another in softer and softer colors until they matched the color of the sky and melted away.
I walked aimlessly, looking through the glass at the city below all around. At every corner, there was a plaque with the history of the building and other information. I found Lissy reading one of them. Mom was helping Ki-Ki see through one of the tall standing binocular machines.
“It says this building is shaped to look like bamboo,” Lissy said.
“It is?” I said, surprised. I thought about the bamboo I had painted in class. I could see that the segments that joined together to make a stalk of bamboo were kind of like the stacked glass shapes of the building.
“And there are eight sections,” Lissy said, “because eight is a lucky number. It sounds like the Chinese word for prosperity.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said, standing closer to the sign. “I can read, too.”