I can’t recognize the sunshine I’m used to be

December 10, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Taichung city, the biggest city in the middle Taiwan. It’s a familiar but unfamiliar city to me. This is the city my first girl friend came from. When I served the military service ten years ago, I went Taichung very often for my break. I ever knew this city well. In the early December, for the ICDF meeting, I finally have chance to visit this city alone. The last time I did visit this city alone is already five years ago.

Taichung city day view

If you would like to spend some extra money, taking HSR (High speed railway) is the best way to get there. It only takes 40 minutes in stead of 3 hours on the highway. That’s how I get there. Honestly, it’s effecient, time saving and convenient. However, when the HSR just built up, most of people didn’t like it. There are many rumors about HSR that there are many corruption scandals behinds this project. Most of the rumors are true. People questioned about its quality. It also showed many problems in the beginning period. For an asian country, if you can’t stop the mysterious twists between the officer and the enterpriser. We evaluate only the result. At least, the HSR now becomes a common transportation in Taiwan. We still appreciated of this.

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High speed railway platform

No matter which city you comes from in Taiwan, no one will doubt about the best weather in Taiwan is in Taichung. I felt the same when the day I visited Taichung. It brings more pleasure when I visited this city. It’s also a new and developing city. Therefore, it brings many “new rich” and adventure stories to this city. The biggest LV shop and the biggest night club in the SE asia are all in Taichung. However, it also hurts a lot by this economic hurricane. Our company has many co-workers in Taichung. But, none of them has good business this time. People’s personality of this city is a lot warm than the people in Taipei. I took few buses during this trip. The bus driver will chat with the passengers. The driver even will tell you the short-cut of the night market and tell you which snack booth is the most famous in that night market.

The biggest LV shop in SE Asia

In field research isn’t my purpose of visiting this city alone. There is a voice asked me to visit the apartment I enjoyed my weekend with my first girl friend years ago before this trip. I wanted to know how I feel when I visited this city alone again. I wanted to know how I feel about the apartment I stayed many nights there. Many years passed, this city changes. But, do I?

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It’s a late night walk alone a beautiful park view to that apartment. I pretended I’m like someone missed home for a long time and it’s time to go back home. Every memory is clear but blurr. What do I expect? I don’t know but I told myself that I need to go there during this trip. I didn’t know how long I walked there and how many photos I took before I got there. I took few photos because the view looks exactly the same as when I was young. I took few photos because the view changes too much that made me hardly to recognize it. Finally, I got there. I think part sentences of the poem called “Settled the waves down” (定風波) which written by Tong-Po Su in Song dynastic describes my feeling well.

Settle the waves down

回首向來蕭瑟處,歸去,也無風雨也無晴

Translation:

When I looked back the way we took and think about the place we ever played the chinese flute and Guzheng, I can’t feel the storm we’ve been through. I can’t recognize the sunshine I’m used to be as well.

xmas