Back in Taipei and hello Internet connection! Sad that this is such a damned plus point for me, but along with the rest of civilised living comes a certain lack of cricket sounds outside my window, frog calls when I’m walking back to my room and none of my mother asking me to take deep breaths in the morning for “true mountain fresh air”.

I think one thing we take for granted in Singapore is the rarity of getting hit in the face with the smell of sewage. I know it’s more common in other countries, and boy was I reminded of that fact tonight. The good news though, is that I’m able to tell the difference between fermented beancurd and human waste, having been exposed to the two smells alternately and repeatedly all day.

I’ve not been exposed to very much of this outside of China and Korea, so I’m going to assume it’s an Asian thing: You know, when your tour guide talks in passing of a national product, and coincidentally brings you to a little place where they do a presentation and then proceed to sell you exactly that product at exorbitant prices?

In China, it was Chinese medicine and tea. In Korea, it was manuka honey. Today, it was ling zhi and tomorrow I have a feeling it’ll be jade, going by the tour guide’s diatribe in the bus on how to avoid jade of inferior quality.

But I’ve never been accosted so aggressively. I mean, usually they let you leave the shop with just a few nicks and cuts, but today, my father and I were cornered by two salesgirls (dressed disconcertingly as tribeswomen with large feathers in their hair) and yelled at in broken English.

So your eyes are assaulted as well as your senses. I can’t recall if we bought anything, because my memory blanked out moments after, but I do recall her asking:

Lady: You speak English? You not understand Chinese? Just now we talk you no listen??
Me: Umm I listen yes.
Lady: But you not understand so you listen now!
Me: To…?
Lady: See ling zhi very good, mind strong, your mind not strong?
Me: I don’t know…
Lady: Not strong! Forgetful! Slow!
My dad: I do take it in capsule form at home.
Lady: NO GOOD! You buy Eu Yan Sang one? NO GOOD! FAKE. FACTORY. Our is nature, very nature, Eu Yan Sang is CHEAT MONEY!
My dad: Actually I do buy it from there…
Lady: YOU NEED LING ZHI NOW! See you smell you smell!
*hands out a round, brown, bony structure and I sniff it*
Me: Ling zhi?
Lady: GOAT FOETUS!

And that’s the bit where my memory blanks out. Clearly, goat foetus is the kryptonite of ling zhi.

9:30 pm, November 20

Wow, this “farm” I’m on really…isn’t one. It’s a mountainside orchard-villa-cultural exchange, all rolled into one. Once you arrive, you’re greeted with a sight so unmistakably Chinese: stone and wood furniture, calligraphy carvings and paper wall partitions. A short walk around the scattered villas reveals an orchard—no, a park, really, just with fruit trees—snaking around a fenceless ravine down to the bottom. (Way, way down to the bottom.)

And the cultural exchange began sometime around after dinner. Perhaps only on holiday do people not find it strange sitting around a wooden table with strangers, making small talk whilst handrolling little glutinous rice tang yuan balls. (Maybe just a little strange, hopefully.) And then having a bowl of those boiled in what looks like sugared water (”what looks like”, I say, since I didn’t have any) and writing wishes on small hot air balloons, before sending them off into the dark sky.

I wished for something completely unsurprising. And I also made my mother write the same wish down, just to double my chances.

Back to civilisation tomorrow. And back to an Internet connection. People say I might be addicted to it, but don’t worry, I’ve got it under control. *Breathe*

*Looks at stagnant e-mail box.*
*Stares at empty browser window.*
*Chews nails*

*Breathe*