Saturday 9/21/0:2 Mid-Autumn
Festival
Stella
had mentioned she was going to another club on Saturday, 2nd Floor,
but didn’t invite me again which was alright since this was enough for me for
the weekend. I hadn’t gone
to sleep until 4AM after showering and all.
Today was
ChungChiouJie, mid autumn moon festival but it was raining. Everyone’s supposed to spend it with
their family and BBQ. Gu Ma had
vaguely mentioned having Mom and me over, but Mom said she didn’t know about
it, and she never called. Spent
the day cleaning the apartment and on the side, watching various movies on
cable. Now that I have Cinemax and
HBO and Cartoon Network, there’s always something in English to watch, and I’ve
already seen lots of movies I’ve missed before (Anglela’s Ashes, which was
depressing but good; Rounders was good;
I hadn’t known Ed Norton and John Malkovich were in it; and why does Matt Damon always play a guy with some
special ability?) or seen ones I like again (What Women Want;
Groundhog Day). It’s funny to see
on Cartoon Network the shows are dubbed in Chinese—Johnny Bravo, Flintstones,
Tom and Jerry (don’t really need a language for that), South Park.
I asked
Mom to go to an event at Da An park, near ShiDa (they’d given out brochures for
it in school). By the time we got
there was 8, we walked through and saw various areas set up with
performances: people playing the
Chinese harp, a band playing various instruments (the two performances weren’t
far apart enough so their sounds were mixing and it was horrible), then a
comedian, a Chinese opera that we watched for a bit. Mom explained that they have to train for this since very
young, and every movement, walking and flipping the long sleeves and doing the
voices, is very difficult and precise.
She couldn’t even understand the words herself but they were projected
on a screen so she read and translated to me, but the “action” was slow.
Lastly we
came to a big stage with an orchestra and large audience in front, mostly
standing on the open field. A
woman came out and did a sort of “rap”, or Chinese tongue twister about the
moon, saying difficult words very fast, then two women came out and sang some
traditional moon songs that people all seemed to know as the orchestra, dressed
all in white to resemble lilies (I thought, isn’t all white bad? It means death here) accompanied them.
After a
bit mom seemed bored or thought I was bored, or both, and we headed back. We finally found a stand where we could
hand in any receipt with lottery number for a moon cake or a milk tea drink. I took milk teas because I’ve discovered
I don’t like mooncakes, after trying many by now (JiauJu brought them to work,
and Mom gave me some at Ama’s), each time hoping it’ll be better.
I knew she was hungry so I said I knew there were lots of food places open in this area and took her toward where we usually have lunch, but the school gate toward YongKang Jie was closed, and the lane looked dark and isolated now and not so safe, so we headed the other way to ShiDa Rd instead which was busier, but still couldn’t find places open. Mom said it was too late but I insisted this is a college town and there should be lots open late, but everything was closed, and finally we ended up at an open-air little dingy place where the food was lying out in front. Mom got NuRoMien (beef noodle soup, a traditional popular Taiwanese dish) and I got a fried fish platter, not very good, and it was soooo hot because there was no AC. I felt bad for dragging her all over the place just for this, which she didn’t think was clean and neither did I. We walked back to the MRT and parted at Taipei Main Station going separate ways.