Having spent the last year divided between China, Europe and Australia it was with great excitement that I once again set foot on Taiwan’s shores. Over the past year I’ve been asked a hundred times why, of all the places I’ve traveled and worked, I’ve chosen to live in Taiwan. There are a million answers spanning from bubble milk tea to hot springs and all of them are right. But it can be difficult to put your finger on exactly what draws you to a place and, when asked, I struggled to find a nice, succinct sentence to sum it all up. Then I got back here and one short bike ride simply crystallized everything that I love about Taiwan: we passed ornate temples and shrines, banana palms and betel nut girls, and headed down a timeless lane alive with old folks passing the time of the day, and amused by our presence. The lane led to rice paddies which reflected the towering mountains, ringed by cloud, lying beyond. Already I felt light years from the metropolis. Entering a forest the trees were alive with colour, the sun was cutting swathes of light through the bamboo and the cicadas were creating a cacophony. We stopped for a break and, sleepy from the heat, I thought I must be dreaming when I heard, then saw a procession of worshippers hacking through the undergrowth. Hot on their heels a Taoist deity was being shouldered through by four exhausted but elated devotees. Then they were gone, and we were left in silence (even the cicadas stopped), wondering if we had, in fact, imagined the entire event. On the way back we meandered into a pineapple field and a weathered farmer appeared. I expected us to be forcibly removed. Instead, he smiled as he passed me a pineapple!
