(3-97) Pearl is a native Taiwanese girl. She is not very pretty. She has a quality that we mainlanders call "muddy" (tu). The equivalent term in the US would be something like "hill billy" I guess. In other words, she is not refined and cultured.

Pearl and I and another mainlander from Taiwan shared a studio when we were in college. Pearl was the oldest and the least educated one. Being a girl in a not so well educated Taiwanese family, her future is not important enough to drain the family resources. She only completed her six year free grammar school education back home. She then worked as a nurse aid to help support the family. She came to the states through family arranged marriage. She escaped on her wedding night. Not knowing much of any English, she hid herself in a convent. She worked there as a nurse aid for room and board only. She studied on her own, when I met her she just passed her high school equivalence exam, and enrolled herself in the university for a nursing degree.

Our friendship always puzzled me somewhat. I was the spoiled brat. While they were studying, I was busy dating. We took turns to cook and clean. Whenever it was my turn, I whined as if it's the end of the world. She would always help me. House work seemed so easy for her. All I had to do is to sit at the dinner table with wide eye open excitement and praise her cooking. She would be glad to cook again for the next meal. My maneuvering trick was so paper thin that it wouldn't work for the other girl. I am sure now that it didn't work for her either, but she went along spoiling me. To this date, I don't know why she did those things for me.

It is funny how sometimes years of friendship can be crystallized in a single event. I always remember the sunny wintry afternoon we spent together in Taiwan.

I was visiting my father in early February. I was older and much humbled. That year I decided to live there like a native rather than a tourist. I slept on a cot in a small room next to my father. Rats as big as a cat running at night. The weather was cold and wet. No heater. Although it's sunny during the day and no snow, I felt cold because of the dampness and the constant exposure to low temperature without the occasional relief of warm dry heat. I wore layers of clothes including a set of long john bought from the market across the street. The trouble was as I began my foot journey along the alleys and the streets in Taipei city, I started to perspire from within. My long john would be wet against my skin, and I started to peal off like a layered union. But no matter how many layers I took off, I still felt wet and uncomfortable. For I could not take off my long john in the middle of a street. I could never find the right combination of clothes to wear.

Pearl called while I was trying to get reacquainted with the place I used to be so familiar with. She was in Taipei. Her father passed away, she came for the funeral, and did not know what to do at the moment. I urged her to spend a day with me, to get away. She sounded totally lost and helpless. She didn't even know how to go from point A to point B. I finally instructed her to take a taxi to my place, and then we would explore the city on foot with the help of local bus.

It was sunny and cold. We took bus number 5 to down town where the train station was. Then, we were lost. There were literally hundreds of different bus routes in the city. We need to find bus number 230, and I couldn't find it. Taipei is a funny city. The cars have the right of the way not pedestrians. There were bridges and tunnels built in every intersection for people to cross. We climbed up and down the stairs through the heart of Taipei city. A one mile walk seemed like three miles and more. Pearl began to complain. I forgot to tell her not to wear long johns. She started to beg me to call for a taxi. I bought her a meat and vegetable bun from the street vender instead. We ate on the street while walking just like the school days. Every time she began to break down, I would tell her a joke, then she would want to hit me, then I would run, and it's the next but stop, and I would say: "Oh, no, it's not number 230." Then I laughed, and she complained and laughed and wondered how'd she ever agreed to spend a day with me. Finally around noon time we found the bus.

At the time, I was on a quest to find a perfect hot spring place. I saw it somewhere that the place we were going behind the Sunny Mountain (Yang Ming Shan) north of Taipei offers hot spring bath and swimming pool. As we walked down the slope, the air was thick with the smell of sulfur. Then, we heard the sound of a running creek. We passed by it, smoke steaming out of the rocks and water. I asked if she ever boiled an egg in water like that. She didn't. I did. The texture of the egg was perfect, I told her.

It was a rather primitive place. A few bamboo huts with a few tables in the open. A row of concrete L shaped building painted in white and blue. A swimming pool with rough edges also painted in white and blue deep in the ground with seductive steam floating atop. I wanted to jump in the pool immediately, but I forgot to bring a swimming suit. Naturally, neither Pearl nor the shop owner allowed me to swim naked in the pool. We had to settle on a bath tub. I had to persuade Pearl to share one with me. I said we couldn't possibly talk to each other with a wall in between.

The bath tub was a primitive squarish concrete tub barely allows two inside. The highly industrialized consumerism hasn't touched this corner of the earth. Everything exhibited an early industrialized society of crude concrete and steel. The room was small and concrete. I set my clothes on a chair, and slipped into the steaming tub. Pearl was having difficulty taking off her clothes. I laughed and said you have been to the locker room in American gym. Finally, I had to promise that I would cover my eyes before she gets into the water. She turned her back towards me and began undressing. I covered my eyes, but I was looking through the gap of my fingers. I saw her back beautifully shaped along the sunken spinal cord. She slowly bent down and put her clothes on top of mine. I closed my eyes just before she turned around for the tub. I said: "Can I open now? Can I open now?" She giggled. Then I splashed water in front of her. As the water gradually calmed down, I could see the shape of her breast strangely twisted under the water. We talked a bit. We then just sank into silence, simply enjoyed the sulfurated steamy hot water.

As we walked along the creek finding our way back, I felt so relaxed and refreshed. My skin was tightened and warm. I shook off the chill I constantly felt in that early cold, damp February. We walked slowly and talked. She started to tell me how her sister monitored her phone calls back to the states. I was outraged. I knew how much she had been sending money to support the family members. In fact, her sister had a brain tumor, and it was her money that enabled them to have the operation. I ordered her to stop giving them money. She responded with a typical Chinese reconciliatory attitude. After a pause, she said: "You know, according to Taiwanese custom, an unmarried girl can not be buried in her family grave yard." Tears began to flow. She said she just learned that from her family with the preparations of her father's funeral. "God damn it." I said: "I'll bury you in my family grave yard."

I thought about the ghost story of Nie Xiao Qian who died young traveling and whose soul cannot find peace until buried in the family grave yard. She became a ghost seducing young men for their energy until she fell in love with an honest young scholar who later went through hell trying to bring her ashes back home for burial. My god, I said to myself, this is the ultimate exile.

All of a sudden, this country road with rocks and steamy hot water no longer seemed romantic to me. I intensely disliked the concrete houses spread along the road side. What are we doing to this mountain, this creek, these rocks, and the running hot spring water? I looked at Pearl and her tears, I realized I have found what I was looking for. All those days of walking up and down the streets of Taipei city, looking for sights, sound, and smell that I used to be familiar with. They were hollow without the people I love. The scenes were the same, people have all changed. I tried to live like a native, but the truth was I was merely passing by. All I had was this moment, a moment of connectedness, a rest stop for a lost travelor. I put my arm around her shoulder like we used to in school days. Pearl laughed and pushed my arm away and said: "Don't be silly. We know better now. You want people to think we are homosexuals?" I said: "Hey, this is Taiwan, not United States." I put my arm around her shoulder.

It was evening rush hour by the time we got back to the center of Taipei. The streets were filled with buses, motorcycles, taxis, and people. Neon lights flashing against evening dusk. I found the bus for Pearl. We waited. The bus came. People shoveled. I pushed her onto the bus. It was jam packed. I watched the bus disappeared around the corner. I then went to find my own bus home.