A Dose of the Familiar at the End of Asia

This blog has not been updated for three weeks. The reason: I traded in my backpacker label for the more relaxed one of house guest. I've been enjoying myself.

My transformation from rugged adventurer to sedentary lump resulted from increased sentimentality for Canada. February and the beginning of March saw bits of home sneak up on me, grab me by the throat and not let go. A memory popped up, other travellers had their tireless what-will-you-do-when-you-get-home conversations, or a piece of Canadiana would be adapted for local use and I would be temporarily obsessed.

An excellent example: my reaction to the presence of gravy at a Singapore food stall. The young woman behind the counter poured it all over a basket of fries and cheese and I got excited.

ohmygodOhMyGodOHMYGOD!, I thought. "Is that poutine?" I asked. She nodded.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! "How much is it?"

"$4.90 [about $4 Canadian]."

"Well, I've just bought these fries from another stall - crap! Stupid damn sweet potatoes! - but I'll be back tomorrow."

And I was back. I planned the entire next day in Singapore around buying an order of fries, cheese and gravy. I paid my money and ate the first poutine I'd had since last September. Months and months of rice and noodles and I didn't know that the stuff was missing from my life until it showed up at a food stall: a basket of grease; the promise of home.

Incidents like this one told me that I had to change my method of travel for the last month of my trip. Changing countries, changing currencies, changing languages: I needed something different than constant change. I couldn't travel alone, either; the solo routine wouldn't work anymore. I needed a dose of the familiar and an escape from my backpack.

That escape came from acquaintances in the region.

I first visited a friend in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where he had taught English for more than a year. The high speed train from Taipei, modelled on Japan's bullet train, took me south at a top speed of 300 kilometers per hour and, in the darkness of an evening arrival, only chunks of blurry neon told me where people lived.

Chris picked me up from the local metro station on his scooter - the two of us doubling on that little bike was reason for locals to comment and look again. Five minutes from the station, Chris opened the door and I found a home and a dog and a place to stay for a while.

I played tug-of-war with Toby, the white lab. He pulled and yanked and jerked the chew toy and galumphed to the corner where I threw it. He climbed onto the couch and stood over me to show that I wasn't winning, not really. He played in a way that the feral dogs of Asia never could.

I went out on the town with Chris and his Czech roommate and his roommate's friends. They lived in town and went to the local bars. They knew how to avoid tourist trap restaurants. They showed me how local ex-pats and Taiwanese lived.

Chris and I watched television shows and movies. North American humour got me laughing and the bright lights of Hollywood made sense to me.

I lived more like a real person here, not like someone who stayed for a while then moved on to see the next thing. I dropped my backpack in the back room and forgot about it.

This life didn't end with Taiwan; my next flight took me back to Hong Kong, where this whole thing had begun.

My best friend, Dennis, seemed determined to reintroduce me to the life of a working, settled person and, that first Saturday in town, he took me out to party with his co-workers on their weekend at the bars of Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai. We hit Balalaika with its bust of Lenin, its freezer room full of vodka and its fur coats; an Italian restaurant where Ravi, the bar manager, served me a waterfall shot, which nearly singed what remains of my hair; and Agave where we had margaritas better than I've had.

We talked about issues that matter to working people: politics, jobs, families. We avoided the standard, machine gun traveller questions of where-you-from, where-you-been, where-you-going. Well... I didn't avoid them but my point is that I got to talk about those other topics too. I didn't have to limit my conversation to one-word answers and lists. "Canada." "I've been to Mainland China, Vietnam, Cambodia." "I'm going to the rest of Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore." I was grateful to spend time with these civil servants.

As I chatted and laughed, I began to realize that the benefits of living a stable life in Taiwan and now in Hong Kong ran deeper than simple novelty. I would go back home in a handful of days to be faced with North American culture and more white people than I ever remembered being in one place. I would be faced with serious culture shock.

"It was harder for me going back to Canada," said Dennis of his own trip through South East Asia a few years ago. "Give yourself extra time to adjust."

Perhaps, though, spending time outside the transient world of a backpacker would save me the difficulty. Someone last night referred to Hong Kong as "a good departure point" at the end of Asia. This town is a hybrid of west and east. The crowds and open-air markets and Chairman Mao knick knacks remind me that I'm in Asia, but the caucasians in business suits and the almost limitless North American and European cuisine also give me a taste of home.

To start, Taiwan and Hong Kong were only meant to indulge a fancy for friends and the familiar. To end, they might have become essential to move me from the road to home.