The early hours of the typhoon's touchdown. TV coverage showed waves battering the coast and matchstick fishing boats crumbling to pieces on the rocks. Along the island's north-south motorway, a trucking rig had been blown into flooded fields where it sat like a ship in anchor. Soon, the first casualties were reported. Numbers on the television screen.
Morning time, Xifeng sat on her bedroom cot, listening for the typhoon’s arrival. Although well beyond the outskirts of Taipei, and the crown of summits encircling the city, its winds already sounded menacing. To her, at least, they did. But not so much the others, she noticed. Mom and Dad knew how to get ready. They’d already explained. You stocked up on instant noodles and other foods that didn’t go in the fridge. You filled thermoses with hot water, bought candles, and didn't go outside no matter what. Out there, flying debris slashed the air, and power cables swung loose in search of unlucky passers-by. High-velocity gusts could pancake grown men against the sides of buildings.
People flying into buildings and dying. How horrible. Canada was so safe, Xifeng thought, here wasn’t. Vancouver had big earthquakes, but here there were earthquakes and typhoons. Homesick. She wanted to go home. Didn’t want to wait ten whole days. But her parents merely looked at her with amused expressions, or they got angry.
“We both grew up here,” Dad told Xifeng at snack time. “And your grandmother and all your uncles and aunts. We’ve lived through hundreds of typhoons and nothing’s happened to us. It’s okay.”
“I’m scared of the wind.”
“It can’t hurt you.”
“People die in typhoons. You said.”
“Not in the city. As long as we stay indoors.”
“You said the wind could kill people.”
Now, Mom snapped. “Stop whining.”
Hours passed. A distance threat became close up. Violent winds.
“Is it here?” Xifeng whimpered. “Are we in it now?”
“Don’t you hear it?” Dad asked.
Wind lashed the window shutters. Banshees shrieked outside, up in the clouds. A terrifying howl rattled the windowpanes. Before long though, Xifeng was eager to get a look at the boundless fury blasting the city. But opening the shutters might not be wise. Bits of windswept glass, a nail or shard of wood might stab you in the eye.
Expect anything out there. Anything imaginable.
For the rest of the day, the adults lounged on the living room’s bamboo furniture and followed the storm on the TTV News. The same news and videos over and over. Xifeng got bored. The language was impossible to understand. She’d gone to Mandarin class at home, but here they spoke something different. The TV and the people everywhere spoke Taiwanese. Everyone knew Mandarin though. So why did Mom and Dad push me to learn Mandarin? Xifeng blamed her parents for a lot of stupid studying for nothing. It’s useless here. When they were all back home, she’d never go to Mandarin class again. Never, never. Now she had proof it was a complete waste of time.
Xifeng felt left out at Grandma’s. Cast aside. Her whining “I can’t understand anything” usually attracted some pity, but only for a couple minutes. Her mom or dad asked if she didn’t have a book to read. But she couldn’t read all day long. Why did Mom and Dad bother bringing her? The trip wasn’t for her, it was for them. They’d lied.
“I don’t want to stay here anymore,” she told her dad.
“You’re ready to go home already?”
“There’s nothing to do here.”
“We’re spending time together.”
“I can’t understand what anybody says.”
Dad sympathized. “Your grandmother doesn’t understand English.”
“But I can’t understand Taiwanese.”
“True. Tomorrow the wind will die down and we’ll go out.”
“Where?”
“Your uncle’s coffee shop.”
“What’s there to do there?”
“See your uncle.”
“So, when’s that?”
“After dinner.”
“What about during the day?”
No sooner had Xifeng asked that question, than she felt a hand cuff her ear. “Are you trying to embarrass us?” Mom asked crossly. “If you are, you can spend the rest of the day alone in the bedroom. Is that what you want?”
The rest of the day. That was hours.
“I’m bored, Mommy.”
“Go sit with Grandma.”
That evening, Xifeng’s grandmother and aunt tried teaching her mahjong. It was funny because whatever they said, she screwed up her face and shrugged. Every time. Even when she understood a little, she pretended not to. They knew she was joking and laughed.
Later at bedtime, Dad helped his mother tell Xifeng a Chinese fable. A naughty magic monkey and his friends—one of them was a pig. Grandma read in Taiwanese from a book with pictures; Dad translated the jumble of sounds into simple Mandarin. When the storytelling was done, Xifeng smiled brightly to let Grandma know she’d liked the story and loved her. She only hated her mother and father.
“Maybe Grandma can come to Vancouver next time,” Xifeng suggested as her father squeezed toothpaste onto her toothbrush. She was standing on a plastic footstool, in front of the bathroom mirror.
“I can show her Stanley Park.”
“That’d be nice. She’d like that.”
“You’ll have to come with us though.”
“Sure, your translator.”
“Until I learn Taiwanese.”
Dad nodded, then raised a finger and put on a Hey, do you hear that? expression. He cupped his ear and rotated his head around, like a submarine’s periscope sticking out of the water. “Do you hear that?” he asked, still not dropping the act. “Listen carefully.”
Xifeng could tell there was nothing. That was the point.
“I don’t hear anything.”
“You don’t?”
“No, I don’t hear anything.”
“What about the typhoon?”
Xifeng grew embarrassed. She’d totally forgotten.
“It’s gone, I guess,” she said, mostly sure that it was.
“And we’re still alive. A miracle.”
Xifeng stopped talking. She attacked her teeth with the toothbrush until Dad put a hand on hers to slow her down. She then stalked off to her cot against the bedroom wall, not waiting for her dad to tuck her in. He let her be, switched off the light. Lying there, Xifeng sulked for a time as the grown-up’s voices traveled up the hall. She hated looking stupid. Dad had made her look stupid. She hadn’t noticed the typhoon go away.
The next morning, Xifeng woke up on the cot. Dad hadn’t lifted her onto the bed, but both her parents were close by. They were talking outside the half-opened door. In English. Dad’s mild, placating voice countered Mom’s sharper tone.
“I want her to learn our traditions,” Dad said.
“But not all of them.”
“Don’t you want Xifeng to know her background better?”
“The good things. Not what you’re talking about.”
“That’s just it, you think it’s bad. But people here believe in that.”
“People believe all kinds of things.”
“It’s not voodoo, or anything.”
There was a short pause, Mom thinking up better arguments. Xifeng was used to her parents quarreling, and often not picking up a word of what they said. Usually, they argued in Mandarin spoken too fast for Xifeng to understand. But this time Mom and Dad were using English, so Grandma couldn’t understand.
“Not even the Taiwanese believe in it anymore.”
“Not all of them. But they know about it.”
“Not necessarily.”
“They do. It’s part of their culture.”
Mom wasn’t giving in. “I want to raise a modern woman. Not one stuck in past superstitions. Temple hocus-pocus. I want Xifeng to be free from all that, so she can relate to the people she meets in Canada. That’s where she’s got to live, you know.”
“Canadians believe in religion.”
“Not ridiculous superstitions.”
“Think whatever you want. I want her to know as much about Chinese culture as someone here does.”
“So, first it’s your brother’s coffee shop and then you’re off to a backward, old-fashioned temple. So Xifeng can see one of those grifters pretending to be a god. Fooling people.”
“You don’t have to go along.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not.”
“Not even to be with your daughter?”
“She’ll have you.”
Xifeng pondered what she’d heard. Already, she didn’t like the sounds of it. What temple? She knew they were visiting her uncle’s coffee shop that evening, but had no idea where Dad was taking her after. It didn’t seem like a place she’d like—and what if it was place she’d dreamed about? A temple. With him there. If Mom wasn’t going, maybe she didn’t want to either. She’d only agree if Mom was going too.
Xifeng knew what a temple was. Vancouver had them, they were like churches. But Asian people had temples. She’d even been inside one with her class. Then, Xifeng recalled seeing pictures of Chinese gods that Dad had once shown her. In books, paintings. One had a blood-red face and yellowy fangs. Frightening. Maybe Mom was right, and she didn’t need to see what a temple here was like.
Because he’d be there. Xifeng knew.
“Where are we going after Uncle’s coffee shop?” Xifeng asked her dad later at breakfast. He’d gone out to buy hot doh-jiang milk, as well as sticks of strange, deep-fried bread, and fried-egg crepes. She’d never seen Dad so enthused about eating. He’d been dreaming of a Taiwanese breakfast for years. He talked about them at home.
Xifeng liked the crispy, salty crepes but not the rest. But anything was better than the watery rice and pickled tidbits they’d had their first morning in Taiwan. How did anyone think that could be breakfast? It was weird, awful. Luckily, there were good pastries. Xifeng had had a sweet, spongey bun, and had hoped Dad would buy her one. He didn’t.
“How do you know we’re going anywhere?” Dad joked in response to his daughter’s question. On their Taiwan vacation, he was always making an effort to be lighthearted, funny. Dumb. As if it’d make up for the boring days spent listening to adults talking and laughing and telling stories in a language she wasn’t able to understand.
“You and Mom talked about it.”
“We did?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s a secret. A good secret.”
Dad dipped a bread stick into a bowl of the dou-jiang milk. When he took a bite, the bread shed tiny golden flakes onto his chin and shirtfront. He looked like a little boy.
“It’s a temple,” Xifeng replied flatly.
“How’d you guess so fast?”
“What’s there? Maybe I don’t want to go.”
“That’s the real secret. You’ll see when the time comes.”
“Mom doesn’t want me to go. So why am I going?”
Dad set down the bread. Grandmother was seated at his elbow, and Xifeng saw her ask what was going on. I shouldn’t speak in English, Xifeng thought, Grandma can’t understand me. And she was the only person treating her well. Not Mom and Dad.
“You’re going because you’ll find it interesting,” Dad said. “And it’s something you need to learn about your culture.”
“I already study Chinese.”
“This is something different.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
“Do I have to go?”
“I want you to, so, yes, you have to.”
“Is Grandma going?”
“It’ll be too late for her.”
During the conversation, Mom looked cross. She shook her head twice when Dad spoke. Right now, Xifeng hoped her mother would say she only had to go if she felt like it. That didn’t happen.
During the morning the rain rose and ebbed, sprinkling rooftops and balconies and drizzling against windowpanes. Xifeng spent a lot of time at the bedroom window, watching the weather outside with her fingers crossed. If the typhoon returned, the night’s outing would have to be canceled. Playing mahjong with Grandma was preferable to gods with crimson skin, sharp fangs like lions, and wielding horrible weapons. Spears like axes and swords with teeth.
The temple. It’ll give me nightmares.
Xifeng planned to tell Dad.
To be continued …