By Lucy

One of the girls in my dorm that night kept locking us out of the bathroom. The first time we didn’t realize what happened. The second time, I was awake when she came out of the door, and closed it behind her. It must lock automatically, or she was fat-thumbing the lock on her way out, because I can’t imagine why someone would do that on purpose. It locked her out, too.

Whatever. Got up, had some breakfast, packed, summoned an Grab. Let’s go!

My flight is at 7:40. I’ve gotten a little used to breezing through customs, so I let myself sleep in a bit.

Bad idea. I got to the airport and I don’t know if the staff was just having a bad day or something… She actually weighed both of my bags, despite me having purchased the extra carry-on weight. My bags were within tolerance, but she found some fine print that said one bag could only be 10 kgs and obviously most of my weight is in the one bag, so it didn’t “technically” count. I maybe could have persuaded her, if it wasn’t five AM and I hadn’t had a coffee or a good night’s sleep in a week. She ended up charging me 60 Canadian to check my bag, but the cost wasn’t what makes me upset (thanks again Andrej) it was the nerve-wracking possibility that my bags might get lost or damaged. I took a few “covering my butt” pictures before I let her take it away and I spent the rest of the morning feeling like someone had chopped off my leg. I kept doubling back for the bag that didn’t exist.

The most depressing thing at the airport is the FOW line (foreign overseas worker).

Got through customs easily, bought some postcards and some more breakfast with coffee. Duff was chatty, so we talked a bit. I sent him this hilarious photo of some scaffolding I saw at the airport that it entirely unsupported. Never change, Philippines.

Eli was also texting me a bit. Now that I’m not on speaking terms with my father, Eli seems to be the one really stepping into that role, which is so funny. He just offers blanket affirmations; I can guarantee you he did not read the article I wrote, but he said it was cool I got published, way to go kid, blah blah. He’s taken possession of his new house and I still wonder if he might ask me to move in and if that would be a smart idea to accept.

They changed my gate and I had a heck of a time finding the new one.

In no time, we were all seated and in the air. I watched the mountains I had spent the last week traversing slide away like nothing. Man, they really are empty.

For the flight’s entertainment, I had picked the American remake of Oldboy for giggles. First order of laughs; more than half the cast are in the Avengers movies, and less than a year later, Endgame came out and they all had very different roles. Wanna watch Thanos sleep with Scarlet Witch while they try to stop Nick Fury from being the bad guy? Second thing that was quite jarring was, they tried to give Josh Brolin’s character a name that sounds like the original Korean, which is… Doucett. And they say it a lot. If you know, you know.

Anyway, I thought it was alright. I hate Americans making remakes of movies that were already good, just because they were Asian. People decry the acting as wooden, but I think it was fine, it’s just not as balls-to-the-wall wacky as the original.

We flew through some turbulence, landed 25 minutes early and got stuck waiting on the plane anyway because there wasn’t a bay open for us.

Taiwan is one of those places I have very little personal interest in, but there’s always a connection somewhere. Actually, to be brutally honest, I’m not sure most people have an interest in Taiwan. It tends to be skipped by the usual banana pancake crowd. But that’s because they usually go to mainland China, which I won’t do.

So, bubble tea or “boba” is from Taiwan. I’m not really sure when that hit pop culture, but it occurred to me that I’ve been a fan of boba for like 20 years. A lot of the more exotic Asian food I’ve tried was when my mother went back to University when I was 12. Sometimes she’d take me with her – there was a particular funny vignette where the teacher mistook 12-year-old me, sitting at the back of the class reading a book, for a student, and asked me a question which I got correct – and we’d try all the new hotness in downtown TO. I’ve loved it ever since, to the point that I had boba to make at home. I don’t indulge often, though… it’s very high in simple carbs.

Steve from Gamers Nexus was in Taiwan… like, 2 days before me, for Computex (and then I guess he stayed to do some sightseeing). Any halfway serious PC gamer always has one eye on what’s going on in Taiwan. Things look bleak; Nvidia’s CEO has all but stated that his priority is no longer on making personal computers, and RAM continues to be gobbled by AI data centres…

Oh, and the Lucy movie is set there, although barely. It only took them 11 days to film all the bits in Taiwan, because they seem to have done all the exterior shots at one ritzy hotel in Taipei and then got some B-roll and did the rest on a soundstage. It’s a good movie if you haven’t watched it. Proof that you can have an action movie with a female protagonist.

I will also add, all this damming with faint praise was from the first day or two there. By the weekend, I was so in love with Taiwan it was rivalling New Zealand for places I wanted to relocate to.

It was raining when we got there. It spent most of the next week raining, not that I’m complaining.

We had to go through a few queues… not helped by my luggage being checked… but everything was orderly. Unlike a lot of southeast Asia, there were clearly marked lines and multilingual staff and signs everywhere.

Stamped through. 90 days visa-free, baby.

Everything is so frictionless here. The airport express takes you right to the main train station, from where you could go wherever you need to be. You can buy a single ticket, but if you’re going to be in Taipei for more than a few days, I’d suggest buying an Easycard. There’s an option at the airport to get it pre-loaded with 400 NTD and then you just tap-on tap-off of the buses and subway. Plus, when you fly out you just return your Easycard to the kiosk at the airport and get 100 NTD back (the cost of the card). Tapping on and off the train reminded me strongly of being back in TO.

Once the train dropped me off at the Main Station, I was lost. There’s like 5 different malls under the station, and the maps are in Chinese. Plus, I had no idea which exit I wanted for which street. I just picked I direction and kept walking up stairs until I found myself in the drizzly Taipei air.

I sucked in a deep breath of cool, damp air, and breathed out a whole lotta stress. As much as I enjoyed the Philippines, there’s no denying that it was objectively the most dangerous place I had visited on this trip and I was glad to be out of it.

Everything just felt normal and relaxed here. Once I found my bearings, I was delighted to be able to cross the road at a crosswalk again, and not wade into a river of poorly maintained scooters and potholes. The traffic is much less here; the transit is so well designed and cheap, barely anyone owns a car. The streets weren’t covered in trash. Everyone was politely dressed and walked on the right side of the sidewalk in neat rows, phones muted. The air just smelled clean.

I found my hostel, which had a lovely view of the Main Station and was around the corner from a subway entrance. It was also down the road from a beautiful park. Taiwanese people love their green spaces and there’s parks everywhere, and many roads have shady trees.

I was too early to check in, so they showed me the common room. One quirk of Taiwan hostels, I’ve noticed, is that they tend to have their floors organized by gender. This place was called WorkInn, and I picked it for the promise of a proper seating area, which it delivered.

Now time for a cold shock.

Grab is no longer of use to me. It doesn’t work in Taiwan or Korea. Back to Uber.

Wise also doesn’t work here, which sucks. I was hoping to stop having to take out cash.

Food is expensive, which I anticipated. One NTD is 22 CAD, but I never found a meal under 100 NTD, which is about 5 bucks.

I went down to the 7-Eleven on the ground floor, grabbed out some cash, and broke a thousand buying something for lunch.

More quirks of Taiwan. They LOVE gambling. To promote people doing their taxes, every receipt – even your 7-Eleven receipt – has a lottery number on it. They do a draw every two months and anyone can collect, even tourists, although you have to be in Taiwan, but you can check the numbers online. If you don’t feel like checking, just leave your receipts for room service as a tip.

Every third store is a claw machine arcade.

They love cilantro. They even have cilantro chips and beer!!

I hate cilantro.

Around 3, they let me check in. When I unzipped my bag to unpack for the week, a giant bug crawled out of it. It was a feisty thing, so I bludgeoned it to death. Where the heck had this thing come from? Under the plane?

For dinner, I went out to find a bento box.

Bento boxes are big in Taiwan. Like Korea, they have a pretty intense work culture, so grabbing a bento box to eat at your desk is common. They’re super healthy, though; every box I bought came with a serving of greens, purple rice (a rice variant that has even more protein and iron than brown rice, plus the antioxidants found in blueberries), a portion of sweet potato and half an egg, in addition to the meat (or tofu) and seasoning of your choice. They usually cost around 120-140 NTD, although you can find more premium offerings like salmon for 190. Why can’t we import this?

I’d downloaded a list of bento box places from Reddit and one was across the road. I went down, crossed the road in the rain, and ducked into the ally.

Alleys here are nice. This one was a food alley, and the sides were teeming with quick-service places offering take-out boxes to men and women in business suits, running down to grab something quick before heading home. There was a couple of vendors offering bubble tea, and one offering egg tarts (overpriced egg tarts, in my opinion). I kept getting tempted, but I held my nerve and found the box place.

I hung back for a minute and watched some other people order, to confirm they accept cash here. The cashier did not speak English, but fortunately they had a giant menu stuck on the wall, so I just pointed and handed my money over. Less than 3 minutes later, she handed me a hot box of food and I escaped back into the rain.

It’s such a silly thing, but I was giggling with happiness when I got back to the hostel and set my little bento box down on the table. The vibe here is much more my speed.

I didn’t go out much that evening. Just acclimating.

I will say, I never heard from Paolo again. The minute I left the Philippines, I ceased to exist, apparently. I sent him a message and waited a couple of days, then I moved him to my spam messages. I didn’t want to delete him in case I found him useful later.

In the morning, I made myself venture further afield. I went down to the park as that was the closest “Taiwanese breakfast” place I could find.

You mileage may vary, but I didn’t find a lot of people who spoke English, or at least English well enough for me to order food. Chinese is hard to learn, partially because Taiwanese Chinese (Gouyu) is sort of frozen in time from the revolution, so Google translate gets confused, and partially because obviously I have 0 experience with Chinese characters. The Engrish is real, which can be frustrating when what you’ve ordered doesn’t match what you wanted.

Anyway, this place had an English menu. Credit to him; when I walked up, he didn’t assume I spoke only English until I said “Hello” and then the realization flashed across his eyes and he handed me a laminated page. I ordered a youtiao (fried breadstick) with an omelet wrapped around it.

I walked back through the park. It seemed to be some sort of memorial. There’s lots of herons in the park.

I noted a pin on the map that said there was a free walking tour that meets in this park at 10. I went back to my hostel and ate my breakfast, then came back for 9:50. When no one showed up, I went to the website proper; the two times available were actually 9 and 4. Lame.

Well, I didn’t really want to go out at 4, but something told me to take the tour, so I “booked” it, and went back to the hostel.

At 4, I packed up and headed out. I stopped at a bubble tea place; it was too early for dinner, but I’d definitely be hungry before the tour was over. Bubble tea will thread the needle. The cashier told me I could order in English, but he clearly bit off more than he could chew. Eventually I ended up with a drink and walked down to the tour spot.

By 4:30, there was a few of us milling around the tour spot. I expected the guide to be an older man, doing the tours out of boredom or a sense of civic duty, but it was a man around my age, named Leo. Once he’d checked us all in, he said the question he always gets is about Taiwan’s relationship with China.

What? I clutched my pearls. Who really just asks that?

I think most people are aware of Taiwan living in the shadow of China. For those that aren’t, a quick primer. In 1911, the Qing Dynasty was overthrown and China became the Republic of China. One prominent member of the new Republic of China was Chiang Kai-Shek. In the 1940’s, Mao Zedong led his Communist revolution, then-president Chiang Kai-Shek was forced to retreat, and set up a government in exile on the island of Formosa, now Taiwan. But, like North and South Korea, the war was never officially conceded, and both governments claim to be the proper ruler of China. Up until 20 years ago, the Taiwanese passport didn’t even say Taiwan on it, it said Republic of China (technically mainland China is the People’s Republic of China, or PRC). Even into the 1970’s, Chiang Kai-Shek’s government was the one that represented China at the UN.

The island has been in limbo ever since. Chiang Kai-Shek died having never returned to mainland China. As the PRC has been slowly gaining power, they’ve been making noises about reclaiming the island. Decades ago, it seemed silly, but the point becomes more and more salient as the AI race heats up. The Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company produces the majority of the world’s semiconductors. He who controls Taiwan controls the next era.

We walked across the park to the museum. One of the other’s in the group is also here for the Rotary conference, a woman from North Carolina named Pat. She has a pretty neutral accent, but whenever she gets really excited, she slips into a southern accent. Whenever she gets really really excited, she slips into an Asian accent I later found out is Laotian.

“I went to Calgary last year. I was surprised it was…”

“Full of cowboys.” I interrupt.

“Really multicultural!”

Oh, yeah I guess an American would find Calgary to be multicultural.

At the museum, Leo explains that the building was built during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. I didn’t even realize Japan occupied Taiwan! Leo said his family has been here for about 250 years and represents the middle slice of Taiwanese citizenship.

Broadly, there are three “groups” in Taiwan. The ancient people related to the Filipinos, who have been here for thousands of years, the Chinese people who immigrated here “recently” (meaning 250 years ago), and the ones who fled here during the Communist revolution.

The Japanese occupation lasted about 50 years, and was so complete Leo says his grandmother still speaks Japanese as a first language.

The group is a little quiet, an effect of the lingering rain, perhaps. I make silly answers and allow myself to be overly excited by Leo’s monologue, to generate some interest from the rest of the group. He puts a lot of effort into these tours, so I wanted to help him out. Slowly everyone unthaws and starts asking questions and responding to him.

On to the next destination, the memorial I saw earlier.

Here I learn I wasn’t far off. It’s not a war memorial, though, it’s a memorial to the 228 massacre, so called because it happened on February 28th.

Basically, as you can expect, once the ROC had retaken Taiwan after World War 2, they viewed the Taiwanese who had lived through the occupation as second class citizens, not “proper Chinese”. A police officer beat an elderly widow for selling black market cigarettes, and when a crowd formed to defend her, the cop shot a man in the crowd. Enraged, a protest broke out, culminating in a crowd taking over a nearby broadcast station and broadcasting the revolution to the entire island, which erupted into a massive riot. It lasted several weeks and no one really agrees on how many died, but many were killed, both local Taiwanese and recent Chinese immigrants targeted for representing the ruling class.

I listened to this story in horror, my hands over my mouth. As Leo ended, I exclaimed, “Why are you guys so chill?” Everyone else glanced at me, confused, but Leo smiled.

“That’s a good question.” He says.

I mean, when you think of it… there’s the indigenous Taiwanese people, who have been entirely sidelined in this mess. The still-living survivors of the Japanese occupation, who presumably never got a formal apology from the Chinese government for being treated like dirt. And then, a couple of decades later, you have this massive influx of mainland Chinese coming with the Republic of China, bringing their war with them, so now everyone in Taiwan is in danger because Chiang Kai-Shek set up this government in exile. How stratified are the classes here??

We walked on a bit longer, stopping in front of the broadcast station that was overrun during the riot, which is now a museum to the massacre. He talks about it a bit more, then asks if anyone has been to the Chiang Kai-Shek museum. A couple of Americans who are going to school here throw up their hands.

“Did you notice the museum is divided in two? One half to the Republic of China, the other half to the local Taiwanese and the 228 massacre.” He looks at me, “That’s how we’re so chill here. We make space for both sides.”

I nod. That makes sense. If only we could.

The next bit is a bit of a long walk. Me and Pat talk on the way; once she says she’s Laotian, I feel a bit self-conscious about having skipped Laos, but she understands it. We talk about my travels a bit, and she mentions she only managed to convince her father to come with her to visit Laos in 2023. He fought for the monarchy and spent years in a re-education camp, and he was both afraid to go back and also aware that the Laos he’d be returning to was not the one he fought for.

I was a little worried that Pat would be unpleasant to talk to, but fortunately, she remembers the plight of immigrants. She’s grateful to be in the US, but she remembers how the government gave them the bare minimum to survive on when she was a kid. She’s afraid that her Asian face will make her a target to ICE and anti-immigration raids and riots.

The pain we inflict on people for the colour of their skin.

There is a Chinese medicine path in the garden of upturned stones that hurt to work on. It’s based in reflexology: the thinking is that the spots on your feet that hurt correspond to the organs that need medicine.

I doubt it works but it was worth a giggle to try and see how far you could walk.

Our next stop is the East gate of the old city, the only bit of the old city wall that’s still standing. It faces the presidential office, which was also built by the Japanese in a sort of figure 8 shape, the kanji for the rising sun (Japan being “the land of the rising sun”).

We wait around for a few minutes to see if the president will appear, but he does not. We snap a group photo and move on.

Our next stop is a night market. There, Leo explains about the local drink, which is not just bubble tea but a specific bubble tea, with the jelly made from a fruit for which he does not have an English name and I cannot find it online. A few of us order one, but since I just had a bubble tea, I don’t want to have too many calories.

Our final destination is where the west gate of the city stood, called Ximen. The gate doesn’t exist anymore, but there’s a sculpture where it stood. This corner is like the Younge-Dundas of Taipei; wide sidewalks flowing with crowds, tall buildings with television displays of ads, lights everywhere.

In one corner is a map of the old city of Taipei. A man in a traditional outfit talks to a man in a suit, representing old and “modern” Taipei. On the opposite side, two teenagers with headphones on take a selfie; “future Taipei”.

“So, when people ask me what the relationship is between the PRC and Taiwan… this is what I think of. A discussion. Between the past, present, and future.” Leo says solemnly.

“And two kids taking a selfie.” I add dryly. Everyone chuckles.

Leo says the tour is now over; it’s taken about 2 hours and night is falling. Tips are suggested; me and Pat exchange change because I’m broke and all I have is a 500 and I’m not giving him 500NTD. He offers his number around for anyone who wants to hangout or ask questions and I accept. Having a local to text on demand is nothing to reject! When I hand him his tip, he thanks me for helping him work the crowd.

Everyone scatters. Me and Pat decide to try and find a night market. She thinks my travels are the coolest thing and she has a lot of questions for me.

The smart thing to do would probably to be to try and find the night market we were at before, with the drinks, but instead we head over to Longshuan temple.

We stop in front of the temple. “You find this interesting?” She asks.

“Yeah, I’m Buddhist.”

“Oh, me too!” Of course, Laotian. “What’s your school?”

“I’m not really sure… there’s not a lot of Buddhists in Canada. I don’t like Theravada, though.”

“Oh, I am Theravada. Why not?”

“Umm…” How do I not insult her religion? “It’s too… mean.”

She laughs at this.

It takes about half an hour, because she keeps stopping to check the map, sure we are lost. Eventually we find it.

We do a lap around. Stinky tofu is one of those famous foods, so we buy a piece to share. Smell notwithstanding, the taste is soo good we buy a second one because we want more! A few more things, like fried chicken. Around 9, we decide to head back to our hotels.

Walking back only takes 40 minutes. At one point, we pass a themed 7-Eleven and I realize the hostel I’m volunteering at is somewhere around here (turns out, it was behind me). We also found some GIANT snails.

We exchange numbers and go our separate ways.

I debated getting up early the next morning for the Rotary marathon, but I can’t be bothered.

I spend the day flaked around the hostel. I know I should go to the expo centre, check in and check it out, but I just feel so burned out. I end up going nowhere and doing nothing.

One problem is that my phone storage is almost completely full. I regret not getting the larger storage now! I uninstall some apps I don’t need, like the Grab app, and install a photo storage app to offload some pics I don’t need. I set it to auto-upload overnight.

With my dinner bento, I also buy an apple milk. Flavoured milks are a common thing in Taiwan, and I’ll admit, I did like it. All I can think of is the sugar content, though.

The next day is the same. I planned to get up, have breakfast, and head down to the expo, but I can’t motivate myself. The photo app did not upload overnight and I’m left with the same problem. Around noon, Dave (Shelley’s contact) texts me and says “they’re” all going to Taipei 101, did I want to join? When I admit I still have to jump in the shower, he says “See you later, then”.

Alright, time to get my butt in gear. Shower and head down to the expo.

This place is needlessly huge and confusingly laid out. One giant room on the ground floor is just the check-in space. Did they think everyone was going to register all at once?

Grab my badge, which, it turns out, also includes an EasyCard with 400 NTD on it. Well, I’ll be here for a month, I imagine I’ll drain both of them.

I’m so unprepared for this. Turns out there’s something called “The House of Friendship” on the fourth floor and it’s like a proper convention with booths. There’s vendor, stages for presentations, cultural experiences in the “culture village”, Rotary information. Also something I’d never heard of; fellowships, which are basically clubs for Rotarians, like the Beer drinking club, or the knitting club.

I don’t have time for this. I have an orientation at 3. Tainex is two separate buildings, one across the road from the other.

I grab a snack from 7-Eleven and sit outside the orientation room, trying to organize my thoughts. A man from the Chiayi club comes over, calls me beautiful, and tries to flirt with me a bit (I don’t speak Chinese, but it’s all about the body language, baby) before the rest of his club comes over and asks me to take a group photo. Then the room for the orientation opens up and I head inside before I’m bothered further.

The orientation was a bit of a waste of time. Half of it was spent teaching people how to navigate the Rotary Event app – yes, they have an app just for conventions – which I didn’t need. I want to know what the hell this house of friendship thing is, and what fellowships are, and if there’s an AGI. I do learn that there’s 37’000 attendees this year, about 20’000 of which are Taiwanese, which is a good turnout. After Taiwan, the percentages break down into Japanese (interesting), Americans (not surprising), Korean (huh), and Filipinos (also not surprising). I learned later this is also the rough breakdown of the usual tourists.

After I bounce from the orientation, I head back to the house of friendship. I discover there’s a tunnel under the road that also connects Tainex to the MRT. I could be a mole person here, never heading aboveground.

I wander around the HOF. There’s no Canada booth, not that I’m surprised. I collect forms to join fellowships that interest me, like the travel club and the bee club. Some of them snap photos of me and collect my email to send them to me later, but I have not received any of those photos.

I find a booth for Russian-American friendship, but no one is there. I was sort of wondering if they’d have any ideas for helping Vlad. I take a photo and send it to Vlad and he’s surprised there’s even a Rotary club in Russia.

Around 6, the whole thing is shutting down and I head back to my hotel for dinner and to try and make my phone work.

Sunday. Why is the conference opening on a Sunday?

No luck. The next day is even worse; my phone won’t even open Whatsapp or email. Good to know my phone will continue to write data until it bricks itself. I start unloading every app I don’t immediately need, like Duolingo, clearing the cache and rebooting it to get it working again.

Around 11, I head to Tainex. I should be there to network and junk. I go to Tainex 2 because the food court is quieter there and order some fried chicken.

Dave texts me, “I’m hungry, want to do lunch?”

“Sure, I’m in Tainex 2.”

I’m basically done eating by this point, so I clean up and go to wait by the tunnel. A man in a blue shirt walks past me and stands on the other wall, texting. A moment later, my phone lights up.

I wander over, “Hi, you must be David.”

We chat for a bit. He’s interesting to talk to, but I find myself annoyed with Shelley that she didn’t send me any Canadian contacts. I guess no one else in Northern Ontario attended. This is also when I discovered the Thunder Bay clubs (and Nipigon) are in a district with a bunch of American clubs, annoyingly. I know I spent most of this trip saying I didn’t need to talk to any Canadians, but I miss them now! There’s always something slightly off-putting about Americans.

Eventually I head out.

The opening ceremony is at the Taipei dome, recently opened. It’s also a baseball stadium. For whatever reason, they divided the opening ceremony in two. The first one was at 9, but I was assigned the afternoon one, which was at 3. That seems like a stupid time.

I try to sit with David and the others, but I get sent upstairs instead and sit by myself. The dome is packed. Presumably half of 37’000 people.

I thought the ceremony was pretty good. What I could have skipped was the opening 45 minutes, when they announce all the countries that have Rotary clubs. Considering we have clubs in more than 200 countries, which includes a flag bearer crossing the stage while the attendees cheer and clap, this is boring and long.

Apparently everyone else enjoys it. David tells me later most people only attend to cheer for their flag and then leave, which tracks with what I observed. By the time all the flags have been announced, the stadium is more than half empty. What the heck?

They missed the best parts, which was the performance by the HJO jazz Orchestra, direct from Sicily, with vocals by Sissy Castrogiovanni. There was also a speech by the Taipei mayor, our current president, and the past president who was from Taipei.

Of course, by the time the whole thing is done, it’s past 6 and I’m hungry. I head out.

My head is throbbing. I grab an alcoholic beverage on the way home. Vlad is bored, so we watch Thunderbolts together. The movie hits differently now that I’ve been to Malaysia; I never clued in that the opening scene is in Kuala Lumpur. A bomb going off in Kuala Lumpur would be the same as one going off in downtown TO, but people always treat southeast Asia like a hive of scum and villainy. I’m also amused by Bob saying he want to Malaysia to find some drugs. You picked the majority Muslim country to find drugs? These countries really are all the same to filmmakers.

The next day is all “breakouts”. What is the difference between ‘breakout session’ and a seminar? F*cked if I know.

I get dressed, order breakfast, and ride down to Tainex. It’s illegal to eat on the Subway, so I eat in the hallway while I wait for the House of Friendship to open. There’s signs everywhere in Taiwan, not that I’m complaining. I like to know what is frowned upon, before I commit a faux pas.

Once it does, I bee-line to the back, for the Russian booth. No one is there again.

I wait around impatiently for 20 minutes while the other booths nearby stare at me. The booth across the way is for addiction services and is decked out in anti-drug posters like an eighth grade “Just Say No” rally. I roll my eyes. If you’re already at the point where someone is offering you coke and telling you it can help you party longer, you’re really past ‘just say no’ helping you.

A man comes over. There’s no hiding his Russian accent under his America one. We chat about their program for a bit – helping disabled kids – before I cut to the chase and ask where all the Russians are.

“Ah, yes. There’s only 6 of them and they tend to disappear… it’s hard for them to get out of the federation.” He explains. “I was born in Russia.” He adds.

“Oh, I know. I can hear the accent.”

“You can?”

Maybe I just have the ear for it. I explain to him about Vlad. He nods along. “And you think they might have some ideas? That’s understandable… Come back later and someone should be here.”

I run to my breakout; Taking Action to Solve Plastic Pollution Together.

Did you know a turtle that was born in 1950 has lived longer than plastic has existed? It’s kind of terrifying how pervasive plastic has been when it hasn’t been around that long.

They suggested an app called “Plastic Bingo” by End Plastic Soup.

It was interesting but not helpful. The presentation was mostly by the Dutch representatives of End Plastic Soup, and I felt they didn’t go hard enough into the damage that plastic does. Maybe they felt they didn’t need to preach. But I didn’t find the explanation of actions we could do more robust than “plan it out with your club”.

That was a theme of most of the breakouts that left me cold. “Yeah, we’re Rotary, work together to figure it out”. Sure, we need to work together as a club, share ideas, etc, but I kinda came here to come up with some ideas, and to learn about processes, and this is more like a pep rally.

The session ended at 11:30 and I went down to the cafe to grab lunch. Dave texted me and we met up for lunch again. One of the cafes was offering bento boxes, so we grabbed one each and Dave paid for mine, which is nice of him.

I actually do like talking to Dave. I’m starting to see why Shelley sent me his contact information. He mentioned a gathering tonight, so I agreed to go. Networking is the name of this game.

I don’t want the world to see me

‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand

Right, we are rejecting that line of logic. Time to be seen. I draw in a deep breath.

“Actually, Shelley is really invested in this project I want to work on.” I start.

“Oh yeah?” He takes a bite. “What’s it about?”

I start to ramble about my idea for changing building codes to require hempcrete instead of concrete and glulam beams instead of steel. At first, I keep it somewhat generic, but as he’s obviously listening, I get deeper into the details, wishing I had some stats to throw in and make it sound more professional.

“Well, that’s all very ambitious.” He says at the end.

“Go big or go home.”

We go separate ways. Pat texts me and I head up to the HOF, where she’s waiting for a session to start. We both have the same sessions on our schedule, so we agree to go to different ones and meet up to share details later, except I never hear from her again.

I have an insane case of the hiccups.

The next Breakout is “Alleviating Poverty; How Rotarians Can Create Impact and Sustainability”. It was only 20 minutes, but I found it very enlightening, my favourite. No need to reinvent the wheel; very basic things can dramatically improve lives. Stats show every 1% increase in agricultural incomes reduces poverty by 2%. Things like vocational training do more than just throwing money around. There’s also options for offering prizes to scientists who can come up with new innovations.

Hey… I have an idea.

I want to stay and talk to the man after the talk is done, but I have to run to my next session.

The next session is about rest and resilience, by Dr Surani. The first 20 minutes tell me nothing new and I bail. I head to my next session, Boost Membership through Public Image. It also loses my interest, but I can’t be bothered to find something else. I sit at the back and work on my idea.

When it’s over, I hop on the train and head down to the meeting spot, someone’s hotel. I meet Kim and then we wait forever for the rest to arrive. Turns out they were all at the rooftop bar pre-gaming and didn’t bother to tell us.

As they exit the elevator, a man with a bushy mustache smiles at me, “Ah, you must be Lucy, David’s new girlfriend.”

I smile tightly. He senses the joke didn’t land and switches tack, “I’m Peter, your new District Governor. I was just in Thunder Bay two weeks ago, actually, I didn’t see you there.”

“That’s because I’ve been in Asia for 6 months.”

“Wait, what?”

Just then Tyler – Kim’s stepson – shows up with Ubers, so we split up and hop in.

We head to a proper Taiwanese hotpot place, where Tyler’s Taiwanese girlfriend meets us. He’s been here for the better part of a decade and the two of them order for us. Peter and Dave continue drinking. Kim looks queasy at most of the food. I end up getting into a good conversation with Tj, a former military man who’s travelled most of the world and has a real appreciation for other cultures. He works for Costco and is surprised to hear that we’re just opening one in Thunder Bay, but comments that he’ll probably be there for the opening, so that’s cool.

Once we’re done, we walk down to Lijiang Night Market. There’s nothing particularly interesting here, but we try a couple of things. There’s signs everywhere saying “Jenson Huang ate here”, ugh. The rest of them stop at an ice cream place, but me and Rick aren’t interested, so we keep walking and talking. He’s off to Vietnam tomorrow, the first time he’s been there since the Vietnam war.

Around 9, we call it a night. Me and Rick walk to the nearest MRT station and head in separate directions. I grab another drink on the way home.

The next morning is grey. My head still hurts. There’s some kind of “General Session” planned at 9:30, which is of interest to me only because Malala Youzafsai is speaking!!! I grab whatever from 7-Eleven and hop on the MRT to the Dome again.

The Dome is pretty empty, but then they are running breakouts all through this time, for some reason. All of us sit together at the back of the bottom tier; I sit with Tj and his wife. David and Peter show up halfway through, clearly hungover. Kim also shows up late, but this is her first trip outside of the US and it clearly isn’t agreeing with her.

Malala was amazing, of course. Curiously, they ask us not to take pictures or video of her presentation, which I ignored. There’s no way I’m not taking photographic evidence that I saw Malala speak.

Her presentation is one of the last, so we head out shortly. As we stand in the entryway, deciding where to go, Dave says, “Hey Kim, Lucy has this idea I think would be good for Programs of Scale.”

I do a double take. I wasn’t even sure Dave was fully listening to my speech the other day, but apparently the joke about me being his girlfriend is because he won’t stop talking about my idea. Something about it grabbed him. I tell Kim about it, but she’s clearly not here. Another time.

Me and Dave get in the line for the shuttle back to Tainex and I grill him about what “Programs of Scale” mean.

I head to the HOF again. There’s some Russians here this time, amazing. I listen to their talk about their project, then I try to ease into my request about Vlad. Her eyes light up with alarm and she cuts me off, “Photos! We need photos!” She drapes me in a costume and takes a photo of me, then requests my email to send it to before pretending to be busy with something else. I never get the photo in the mail. Well, that was useless. Vlad thanks me for trying.

Me and Dave go for lunch again – he picks an expensive place and I tell him I’m only eating there if he pays, which he does – and I try to go to another breakout, but I’m not interested again. There’s a District wide event at a cocktail bar at 4, so I hop on the MRT to head there.

I’m the only Canadian there. I get asked a few times if I’m sure this is the right event, but I’m positive. I’m just the only Canadian in this district.

This is terribly lonely.

Eventually the others show up. I sit with TJ for a bit and he buys me a glass of wine. I get up to go network, but everyone is in the groups they came with and it’s hard to break in.

At one point, Dave grabs my arm and introduces me to Dr Surani, the one who’s breakout I bailed from for being boring. He gives me an opening to tell her about my idea, but I choke.

“Well, at least you’ve met her now, so she’ll remember you later.” David says, after she leaves.

“Yeah, remember me being too anxious to talk to her.”

“That’s not the point.”

I know, I know.

It’s beastly hot and loud in here. They didn’t expect this many people here. I head out around 6, in a break between rainstorms, grab dinner and another drink and relax in the hostel. I’m so glad this thing is almost over.

There’s more breakouts the next day, but I can’t be bothered. I grab breakfast and head to the “culture village” portion of the HOF. Closing ceremonies are at 3, so I just have to kill time until then.

I find a section for indigenous Taiwanese. I try to open with a line about the diadems on display, which are clearly wrapped in pangolin skin, but the female presenter clearly misunderstands me and explains that it’s for men. We chat for a bit about the diadems and she takes a photo of me.

I ask her about local customs. It’s the solstice this weekend, which means the longest day of the year as the sun transits exactly parallel to the tropic of cancer, but they don’t celebrate that here. They do a millet harvesting festival instead.

We start to really vibe and I show her my tattoo from Buscalan. She recognizes it immediately, because she also has one from Apo. Her eyes light up as she can tell I’m really invested in indigenous rights, and we have a long conversation about Austronesian people and how the Maori have such a good deal with NZ and how jealous we are of them.

We get interrupted by a man, and I decide to keep exploring.

The next exhibit has spinning top painting. I spend half an hour painting one, probably trying too hard. They gave me some post cards as well. The booth after that is body painting. My arm is too hairy, apparently, so she paints my hand.

As I stand watching the drummers on the stage perform, I notice a group in all red nearby. One of their name tags catches my eye; Canada.

“Omg, Canadians!” I exclaim, runnning over.

They’re all from Calgary. Everyone seems a little unsure of me at first, but when I explain that I’m the only one from my club and I’m so alone, they welcome me with open arms.

I do miss Canadians. I’ve finally been away from home long enough that I do. Talking to the Americans really solidified it; they just don’t get me like another Canadian does. I’m almost in tears.

They all take group photos. At the end, someone yelled at me to jump in, but I didn’t get a copy of that one.

Then we all go to lunch.

We spend a couple of hours at lunch, partially because no one can figure out where to go, and then how to order.

I excuse myself to run back to the HOF, but they’re shutting ‘er down. End of the conference, pack it up. Time to head over to the dome for the closing ceremony.

I never did run into Minda and her husband. I grabbed a few Filipinos when I saw them, but they either didn’t know her or she was busy. I suppose I could have emailed her, but I decided I wasn’t high in her list of priorities.

The closing ceremony was short and sweet, thank goodness. There was a circus act that was alright. A display of all the past presidents that was just white men until the 1980’s. Inclusivity! We’ve had 2 female presidents and one of them was Canadian!

I rolled my eyes; the president’s son was playing guitar in the band that closed out the ceremony. I mean, he was fine, but you always gotta wonder…

I also did a double take at one point; the incoming VP is from Barrie! I bet I could use that… somehow… but that requires… hm…

At 5, it was finally over and I headed back to my hostel. There had been some discussion of the Calgary club meeting for drinks, but I couldn’t find them. Dave and the other invited me out for drinks as well, but I declined. I actually just want to be alone.