It's been an overcast and halfheartedly drizzly day here in Taipei. I flew in from Hong Kong yesterday, and it seems as if the entire region has been shrouded with a thick, dense layer of clouds since I arrived in Asia. My hotel in Taipei is the Highness Hotel, an older place with rooms that still have the unmistakable baked-in stench of stale cigarette smoke. A few minutes after I had checked in and had dropped off my bags in the room, I was supposed to meet a few people in the lobby for dinner. But as I walked out of my room into the hallway, I noticed one of the housekeepers a few doors down in a utility room. She was bent over, pulling on something that was stuck on a shelf.
I was just about to close the door behind me when the housekeeper, oblivious to my presence, took it upon herself to contribute a mighty wind to the hallway's atmosphere. It was a giant eruption, the likes of which you'd think would easily send a spacecraft into low orbit.
I stepped back into my room because I didn't want to embarrass her, waited a minute, and then made my escape. She was quite friendly when she saw me, offering me a "Good evening, sir!" greeting and a big smile. Obviously she didn't know what I knew.
After we had finished a series of meetings the next day, we had some time to take a quick tour of the busy electronics market street in downtown Taipei. This is different than the night market I had been to before, but it was just as crowded and just as frantic.
My host, Gene, told me I had to try some pearl milk tea, a Taiwanese invention. He handed me a cup that had an oversized, wide straw in it and told me to drink up. Immediately, I noticed the tea was full of these small jelly balls that got sucked up when I took a sip from the straw. I chewed on the first one jelly ball, drank some more, chewed on another, and then drank some more. In a minute I grew quite accustomed to it and found I rather liked it. Tea you could drink and eat. Fantastic!
I noticed Gene was drinking something else, so I asked him why he wasn't having any of this famous tea, which, I noticed on the cup, was also called Bubble Tea.
"I can't have milk like that this early in the day," said Gene. "It makes the . . . makes the gas happen. You know. It gives me the fart."
"Thanks for the warning," I said. And then he gave me the thumbs up.
I wonder if that's what happened with the Highness Hotel housekeeper: too much Bubble Tea before her shift.
Maybe the cups should come with a warning.
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