Small Wide World

White and sticky, dense like a clam. They fall and cling like particles that dance in moist air. Its friend, long and slender, reached to hold it in its arms for a quick second. In it goes, into the portal of the translucent lips of a woman. Or a man. Or both. Into my mouth it goes, depleted and dry. I think this was the third night in a row that I've eaten rice. I've not been at China for long, and I could already sense my foreign body dissociate into its culture. Into its presence. Taiwan was like the change in seasons, and I was the bear, awakening from my long slumber in the midst of comfort. I had not felt this on the first day I arrived out of the travel bus and into the dense peak of the city of Taiwan. Unfamiliar faces obtruded me, but I had not felt lost. Even the buildings look more tired than me, its walls beginning to scratch off and the windows that crackled like witches. On the side, a spectrum of fruit colors. On another side, black-haired forms inhabited small cafes and loudly ingested their warm meals. In a distance, a familiar tune plays in the key of G. It was eerie. The way the red lanterns could sway mystically to the tune. I was hungry. My parents had mentioned of eating a Chinese restaurant, like a story that never ceases to lose its appeal. We walked for nearly 30 minutes, from our hotel to the heart of foreign friction. The busiest parts of the town. The street chatter intensifies, as if I knew what the old lady with her Chinese poodle was giggling about to a man smoking a cigarette. Two women stood in alleyways, hoping to get lucky tonight. Laughter shrieks from an entry way to a silk store. Quarrels endeavor from an entry way of a run-down casino. More chatter ensues as my feet, drenched in the salty prominence of Southeast Asia climate, hurry to keep up with the rest of my family. People pass me; they eye me nervously. As if they knew of my homeland. My honey-dripping youth spent tossing and turning in piles of maple leaves. And cold days spent at a Tim Hortons, as opposed to sheltering myself in an apartment that blended with the rest of this city's landscape. Taiwan was like the change in viewpoint, and I was masticated by its electric city life. We found a restaurant now in the heat to satisfy our built-up hunger. I was greeted by a tank of goldfishes swimming about like Olympians and a man dressed in a fine suit. And here I am now, chopsticks in one hand and rice in my mouth. Only the third night, yet I'm already converged.