What I remember the most from my trips back to my mother's hometown in Hualien, Taiwan were the open markets where my sister and I dawdled around while our relatives did their shopping.The vendors there were good humored enough to let us play around and try to catch rice eels with our hands even though we were obviously agitating the poor things (though I suspect this was because they knew this would prompt my grandma to buying some for dinner).
It's been 10 years since I last visited and since I was born in California, I've felt very distanced from my ethnic background. I don't want to just rely on bits and pieces of memories I had as a child to try to capture that feeling of "home" and I hate that I still have trouble familiarizing the way mandarin sounds in my mouth because I've spent so long avoiding that aspect of myself and never putting in the time and effort to learn more. That being said, I hope to revisit Taiwan soon, it's really been too long.
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