Taiwan: A Love Affair
When I was 22, I heard about Taiwan for the first time. 3 months later, I had a one way ticket. Now, 7 years later, I can’t imagine setting up my life anywhere else.
I first heard about Taiwan in a Chinese style tea shop called The Mad Monk. During this time, I was studying accounting at the University of San Diego, and not feeling very good about it. Classes were easy. My friends were cool. The teachers had no soul. The man who ran this tea shop, that man had soul. That man had philosophy. He had cool books. And he had tea. At that moment in my life, I was only aware of my mother’s tea, which is to say tea that came in bags. I was only aware of tea that he affectionately referred to as “the sweepings off the floor of the factory where they make real tea.” In this tea shop I learned about Doaism, meditation, the five types of tea (black, green, white, oolong and puer) and I learned about Taiwan.
I remember the first time I heard about Taiwan so clearly.
My university had an online portal for us to find post-graduation jobs, which was the main source of concern for me and my business school classmates who were told, mostly indirectly but definitely not subtly, that in order to find any kind of success in this life we absolutely needed a high paying job. I was terrified. Accounting classes were easy, the jobs were high paying, but I knew it wasn’t for me. One day, after looking at this job portal for what felt like the thousandth time, I saw a new job opportunity: teaching English in Japan. I looked at the qualifications, I looked at the salary. They were nearly identical to the accounting jobs I was terrified of, but the idea of going to Japan was so exciting that I didn’t sleep at all that night. I knew that was a sign of something important. The next day I brought my excitement to the tea shop. This was a particularly busy day in the shop, so I wasn’t able to share my findings with the owner directly (he was helping a customer with a rather large order) but the shop was small and I knew he could hear, so I turned to the stranger next to me at the tea table and declared, “I found something great! I can go live and work in Japan!” without skipping a beat, with his back turned to me, I heard the words that would send my life in a whole new direction: “Japan? Fuck that. You need to be in Taiwan!”
One hour of research later and I knew there was no turning back.
My life in Taiwan has gone through many phases.
Initially I was a backpacker. A very ignorant backpacker. I knew almost nothing about what I wanted to do in Taiwan, but I knew there was good tea and meditation.
Somewhere…
After a month of careless wandering and little too much convenience store beer drinking (the idea of drinking cheap, cold beer outside is enough to the get any red blooded American’s heart rate jumping) I settled into a three week stay at a lovely little cult (said with all due affection) called the Tea Sage Hut.
The Tea Sage Hut was (like me, it has gone through many phases) essentially a house of meditation, Buddhist knowledge, incredible tea and vegetarian meals with a room for guests which operated on a tight, monastery like schedule (early morning group meditation, breakfast, tea, philosophical discussion, lunch…). In exchange for hosting and feeding guests, the Tea Sage Hut accepted donations and sold (and continues to sell) a fantastic monthly tea magazine called Global Tea Hut. I loved it.
To this day, I maintain the habit of morning meditation and tea.
I thought about staying at the Hut, becoming a hermit immersed in Buddhism and amazing tea. I really thought about it. But hey, I was 22. I was young. I wanted to party. I wanted to train martial arts. I wanted to talk to girls. I wanted to work. I needed to move to Taipei.
Life in Taipei has been awesome.
Take today, for example: This morning I woke at 8:00 a.m. with the warm spring sun coming through my window, blanketing my body in vitamin enriching light. Back in my hometown in Southern California, this would be a common occurrence, not worth noting. Taipei, however, the weather is so notoriously inconsistent, with so many days dominated by clouds and rain, that the rare blast of sunlight fills me with an overwhelming sense of gratitude.
Then I went to sleep for another hour and a half.
When I rose from my slumber, I put away my mosquito net, folded my sleeping mat, drank an entire bottle of water, and began my daily regimen of yoga, bodyweight exercises and meditation.
Then my friend Iris joined me for tea. Since today was a rather hot day, I poured a young, raw style puer, which, although served hot, has a cooling sensation on the body after consumed. I don’t know why. I do know it works though. After two hours of drinking, talking and laughing, we felt more comfortable in the heat and ready for lunch.
We ate at the local traditional market, a large concrete building with intense air conditioning and a wide variety of vendors. There’s a hair salon, next to a meat seller, next to a fruit stand, next to a kitchen wares stall. And these aren’t normal meat sellers. In America, meat sellers sell only choice cuts of animals, hiding from sight the organs and other less than desirable parts of animals. In this market, you can buy every piece of the animal. Every piece is on display. You can buy a pig’s face. Like just the skin and whiskers. Why would you? I don’t know. But it’s available. And so are the feet.
We ate a relatively mild meal, all things considered. Sesame noodles and sweet potato leaves. Simple, delicious and cheap (~2 American dollars per person).
Then I went to work.
Taipei has some of the best public transport I’ve ever seen. Buses are abundant, the subway system is super convenient, but my favourite way of getting around is, by far, UBike, the public bicycles available for rent. From the market to work is about a 10 minute ride through beautiful neighbourhoods and three parks for the price of 17 cents.
I currently work for an after school cram school called MIT. Today I worked from 1:40–6:00, teaching two classes of 8 students aged 7–10. MIT is my third school to work for and by far my favourite.
The schedule alone is unbelievable to me. The ability to sleep in, work, and still have my nights free is amazing.
A few years ago, I returned to California, naively thinking I could arrange a similar schedule for myself, only to become extremely disappointed. I took a series of accounting jobs, each one leaving me in a state of despair. At these jobs, I was making good money, but my soul was in bad shape. At these jobs, I became passively suicidal; often, as I was driving my car out of the parking lots I would think “I could die in a car crash right now and that would be fine.” While living in Taiwan, I have never thought that. Working at MIT, I have a zest for life that my accountant self couldn’t imagine.
Tomorrow morning, I will train jiu jitsu on my roof with my good friend. I hope we can start filming some content, because I think people would like to see my setup: blue mats on a concrete roof with a view of mountains.
Lately, I have gotten such positive responses to my jiu jitsu that I have begun teaching workshops around Taiwan. In the past year, I have taught workshops in Taipei, Hualien, Kaohsiung and Taichung. In the coming year I hope to return to these gyms for another workshop as well as going to Taidung, Tainan and Hsinchu.
I can’t really think of what else to say.
I love Taiwan for the life that it has afforded me. Nearly every day I can get a full night’s sleep, meditate using ancient techniques I learned on this island, drink some of the best tea in the world, work a few hours with some hilarious and super cute children, train jiu jitsu with my friends and do it again tomorrow.
This is the life I dreamed of all those years ago.
Thank you for reading. If you have any questions or just want to tell me how much you love me, please contact me directly. My social media accounts are all my real name.
Marshall Stamper
0908330679
