I arrived in Taipei for the first time during spring, but the air was already hot and humid. It was impossible to try to breathe deeply, because my breath would stop halfway anyway, caught by the dense, wet air. Taipei was colorful below and gray above; the yellow, red, orange, and green signs of shops, restaurants, and convenience stores filled the body of a city lying beneath a heavy, leaden sky, swollen with rain that would not be long in coming. I had just arrived from Italy, where I had left behind a clear, blue sky - instead, here I had found a shy autumn sky disguised as summer.
Taipei, beyond its colors, was lively and chaotic. I was immediately drawn to the sounds of the streets, the melodies playing in convenience stores, the jingles coming from the arcades filled with claw machines, and the gentle chatter of the people passing by, whom I watched going about their everyday lives - lives that were completely ordinary to them, but entirely new to me. It was at that very moment that I thought: thousands of people live here, and every day they live a normal life, perhaps sometimes mundane, boring, or predictable, while for me every little brick in the pavement is something new, every interaction is a different emotion to catalogue, and a memory to store in my mind.
Taiwanese people walked through the streets with their umbrellas tucked under their arms or hanging from their backpacks, leaving a precious amount of personal space around themselves. Some walked more slowly, already tired from the day; others hurried along, chasing the bus as it approached the stop, often already engaged in what seemed to be an important phone call.
I noticed, in the hand of a girl around my age who was walking near me, a sort of little bag wrapped around a takeaway tea - which I already knew was the famous and renowned taiwanese bubble tea - with a handle that acted as a carrier, allowing her to drink her tea without having her hands busy for too long.
Without realizing it, I pointed at it, surprised by the delicate Asian ingenuity of always finding a solution to even the smallest inconvenience. The girl noticed my surprised expression, looked at me, and gently said: “那裡有一家50嵐啊!” (There’s a 50lan over there!)
My rough Chinese had understood the first part of the sentence, but not the second. 50lan? What did that mean? Was she trying to point out a bus number? Maybe she thought I was asking for information about public transportation. I looked at her with an excited, confused expression, thanked her, and lowered my head in a small gesture of politeness. I turned my gaze, and just a few meters away, a yellow-and-blue sign displayed exactly what the girl had pointed out to me moments before.
“Ah!” I said in my head, perhaps even out loud. She thought I wanted a bubble tea too, but that I didn’t know where to find one. I smiled. I smiled both because I desperately wanted something to drink that could wash the humid heat away from my body, and because someone had just made me feel part of a new world I had only just landed in. She had welcomed me with her words, giving me a small space in which to exist at that particular moment. With that brief interaction, she had brought me back to reality, making me feel less like a stranger, less like a passive passerby.
I headed toward the shop, excited to try my first bubble tea, the one my Taiwanese friends in Italy had told me so much about. I approached the counter and began looking at the menu, filled with options I had read about before, but which, once they were actually in front of my eyes, became symbols without any meaning. Sugar level, amount of ice, cup size, size and quantity of tapioca pearls. All these pieces of information began jumping around inside my head without finding any order. My thoughts became tangled, and I started sweating even more than I already had been.
Being awkward in a foreign country should be considered the most natural and human thing in the world, but for some reason, the embarrassment caused by not understanding makes us feel ashamed, as if no one around us had ever been the new person in a situation.
I chose my bubble tea combination, sugar, ice, and tapioca, and got in line, waiting for my turn behind a boy holding a helmet, his backpack open and full of books. I watched the employees behind the counter working hard, filling containers with tapioca, throwing away empty milk cartons, and restocking the refrigerator at the back of the room with more milk, Yakult, and other drinks.
When my turn came, I placed my order. One bubble tea, with little sugar, no ice, and large tapioca pearls. I had never been much of a fan of overly sweet things, and ice, although refreshing at first, diluted drinks too much.
“一杯珍奶、微糖、去冰、大珍珠” I was proud of my choice, of the little space I had carved out for myself in that world through that order. A small gesture that made me feel as though I, too, passed by there often, as though I belonged.
The boy entered my order on the small screen at the register, but just before asking me to pay, he said, “I’m sorry, but the large tapioca pearls have just been put on to cook. I wanted to let you know that you’ll have to wait ten minutes, fifteen at most.”
I looked at him for a few seconds, trying to decode the message, and a moment later I told him that it was totally fine, that there was no problem and that I could wait.
He looked at me again, perhaps noticing my foreign face and my sweaty forehead, and said, alternating between Chinese and English, “Are you sure? It’s very hot outisde, but you can sit over there while you wait.”
I looked at the blue bench tucked into a recess of the shop, nodded, and smiled at him, thanking him.
I couldn’t read his expression; his face was covered by a white mask, but his eyes were kind despite his obvious exhaustion after working for long hours.
He charged me, I handed him my coins, and then, along with my receipt, I received a small slip of paper with the number 23 on it.
I sat down on the blue bench with my receipt in my hand and was suddenly overwhelmed by a sweet feeling of affection, tenderness, and warmth that I hadn’t felt in a while.
The clerk’s kindness in warning me that I would have to wait in the heat had made me feel the way I did as a child, when your mother would peel fruit for you because you couldn’t hold a knife in your hand yet, because that world of grown-ups was still too different, and you could hurt yourself.
In a place so far from my home, where I didn’t know anyone yet, his thoughtfulness reminded me that I exist, even though before that moment, in that place, I hadn’t been there.
That I have the right to be there, and to be there just like everyone else.
That care is for everyone. That being different does not mean being treated better or worse. That even in a faraway place, you can feel looked after.
That it costs nothing to make someone’s day a little easier, especially when that someone is experiencing it there for the very first time.
When I arrived, I didn’t find only Taipei. I also found the kindness of Taiwanese people, in a bubble tea shop, on a hot, humid, rainy spring day.
Fifteen minutes later, I picked up my bubble tea, thanked the clerk, and set off, walking along the sidewalk.
A little while later, I stopped to buy a bubble tea holder, just like the one the girl had, the girl who, less than half an hour earlier, had pointed out to me not only a drink shop, but also a way of taking care of yourself through the kindness of others.
As soon as I bought it, I put it around my tea.
It was delicious.
And those big tapioca pearls already tasted like home.
Valeria Barlucchi
I'm a student specialising in communication, marketing, and advertising, with a strong passion for writing, Asian languages and cultures. I lived and studied in Taiwan for one year, where I also studied Chinese and gained first-hand experience of Taiwanese culture, deepening my interest in the Asia Pacific matters and intercultural communication.