The Grieving Girl Of Old Street
Alexis Glass
©
Copyright 2025 by Alexis Glass
|
Photo of Jiufen courtesy of the author. |
The
move to Taiwan was planned. Dad’s unexpected death was not.
Amidst
grief, we went. It was (and still is) the angriest I have ever been.
Life stops for no one, and grief refuses to wait. This was how, one
month after Dad’s death, we found ourselves in a cramped bus,
creeping up the winding road toward the old mining village of Jiufen.
Before
we continue, you must know that July in subtropical Asia is hot.
More so in Taiwan, where plentiful mountain ranges form deep valleys
where the heat settles and boils. The humidity is high, so much so
that what you breathe becomes more water than air. To take a breath
of air is to chew on it. It is hot and wet and ceaseless, which is,
of course, the perfect place to simmer in one’s anger and
despair.
Jiufen
is a sprawling hillside town on the Northeast corner of Taiwan, 35
kilometers (22 miles) outside the heart of the capital, Taipei.
Historically, it was a prosperous mining town, outfitted with busy
mines and even busier ore processing facilities. The city, like
Taiwan itself, has endured through political upheaval, military
strife, and decades of occupation by outside forces.
Which
is to say that Jiufen is no stranger to ceaseless heat.
Our
bus deposited us at the top of the mountain, but at the bottom of the
city itself. This is where the initial challenge began. We snuck
through a crowd of packed bodies, crawling toward the entrance to
Jiufen Old Street. Old Street is the main attraction for visiting
tourists, and all other attractions are located in the branching
alleyways that shoot off from the main street.
Imagine,
if you will, stretching your arms as wide as you can. Jiufen Old
Street is that wide. It is tight and meandering, lined on both sides
with restaurants and trinket shops, and in July (when tourists are
still plentiful) they are filled to the point of spilling out into
the busy street. Moss grows in the splintered cracks of the old,
concrete walls on either side. The road winds up and up the
mountainside, and where road becomes impossible are hundreds of steep
cobble stairs and thin, rusted iron handrails.
But
this is not a story about the street; or, it is, but not alone. This
is a story about a journey, and much like every journey, there are
two parts: the adventure itself, and what we gain in having been
brave enough to try. The journey is mine, but could (and one day
will)
be yours.
To
those who who face the endlessness of loss, I offer you a story of
persistence from the Grieving Girl of Old Street:
The
cool hum of an air conditioner calls to you from the street. You
stumble down a flight of shallow stairs and into Jie Jiao Diner. Cool
air dries the sweat upon your brow. You do not speak enough Chinese
to make polite conversation, but you have ten capable fingers and a
menu full of photos. You say “Thank you” repeatedly,
which here is a sound in double-time like soothing a fussy baby–xič
xič.
The
waitress brings you bowls of steaming broth, then plates of thick
rice noodles and grilled intestines. You slurp it greedily. You savor
every crackled crunch. You wash away the gristle stuck on your back
molars with a melon-flavored juice, one that’s bitter and
grassy instead of sweet.
You
used to get glasses of sweet juice from the diner back home. Dad
limited the soda after your fifth cavity, but apple and grape juice
were still fine. You think he’d enjoy this melon juice you’re
having now, and for a moment consider calling home. It is 3 a.m. in
Pennsylvania, but if he could, he would pick up his phone.
You
have another glass instead.
The
regret is immediate when you leave the diner. You wander for an hour
and the summer sun singes what skin of yours remains uncovered. You
clamber up twelve more flights of stairs and wonder if the human
knees were meant to sustain this sort of prolonged torture. You
decide that they weren’t and find another place to rest and
soothe your aching skin and bones.
The
sun is at its highest (and hottest) as you rest inside the Shengping
Theater. Its facade weeps long, black mildew tears down yellowed
bricks. The interior is bright, white, and welcoming. On the walls,
the tapestries detail the history of the theater. Time and time
again, it has been battered by typhoons, its roofing torn and
scattered in the valley below. Time and time again, it has been
rebuilt.
Rows
of polished wooden chairs face an elevated stage where a string
quartet of children has begun to play. You take a seat and listen,
but do not know the song. You never do. It was exactly like this when
Dad would drive you to your brother’s orchestra concerts: a
crowded theater, the haunting whine of instruments in tune (but not
in time), and Dad–still red-cheeked and plump–insisting
that he could be a conductor too, if only given a chance and a stick.
“I
think he really could have done it,” you tell your travel
partner at the tea house later. You pinch the tiny handle of the
ceramic kettle and pour two more cups of tea as you continue
yammering on about it.
The
walls inside the tea house are full of blooming vines that wrap
around the banisters and dip into the top of the fountain in the
center of the room. Some might brush against your head if you were to
stand and stretch. You don’t, though. The room is small, and
the tea table smaller, and if you move too suddenly, you fear that
you might tear the building to its roots. Instead, you sit and have
another sip of tea (from a tiny cup, no bigger than the center of
your palm, which fits two sips of tea and not a drop more).
Dragonflies
rest on the rocks that line the edges of the fountain. Big, bright,
blue ones. Deep ocean blue. Lapis blue. Startling and beautiful and
wet like fresh paint. The endless thrumming of their wings flutter
into stillness. It is too hot for any thing to mosey through Old
Street, and so they have come–like you–to shelter in the
misted spray from the fountain.
You
cannot save yourself from your quiet anguish, no more than you could
save the dragonfly from his. So, you keep going.
You
leave only when the sun begins its slide back toward the horizon.
Twilight breaks the bleary heat just enough that you can breathe
again. You muster all your strength and climb and climb and climb,
each breath sharp with exertion, far up until the street beyond
dissipates into the quiet stillness of a neighborhood. You rest here,
at the highest point of Old Street.
Below
you, the sun begins to slip beneath the blanket of the shoreline. It
leaves in a halo of gold, its gentle yellow rays shooting into a
deep, purple sky. The dying breath of light arcs shadows from the
canopy of sturdy camphor trees, whose branches plume wide and
billowy. The road that winds along the coast disappears into the
blackened hillside in the distance, leaving you alone.
You
are alone.
You
stand on a mountainside (so very high upon it), no one knows your
name, and you fade into the background of a quiet night. Then, you
turn around and the world bursts into flames.
Bright
paper lanterns burst to life along the busy street. Round globes of
ruby red and blossom orange float in one unending line down the
winding road. Where the road opens into small market squares, the
lanterns collect above in tiny, dotted constellations. The sunlight
fades, and in its place a thousand tiny suns begin to shimmer.
It
is, miraculously, hotter now.
The
street becomes overburdened with the dinner rush. It explodes into an
endless sea of bodies, hundreds of them slide against each other, and
with them bring the unpleasantness of radiating heat and the musty
air of dried sweat. There is no room for breath or comfort. The crowd
morphs into a singular tube, like the body of some lazy, hungry
snake, slithering at a sluggish pace down the hill.
Then,
you are a glutton.
You
delight in pork dumplings in a rich, golden, buttery broth. It
lingers, satin soft, as you indulge in tofu (fried and not), peppery
pork buns, and salted eggs. You split another ball of fresh fried
fish paste between your teeth and breathe a string of steam into the
air. You take a sip of soup, and the chili oil numbs the inside of
your lips. You peel apart the stringy flesh of barbecued pork and
chicken, and from your fingers suckle on the soy and sugar sauce.
You
eat until the lump within your throat becomes too tight to bear.
You
do not like Chinese food. Everyone knows it. You do not enjoy the
spices, and you’ve never cared for the texture. You’ve
always been a picky eater, which was always strange. You look so much
like Dad, and Dad is thrilled with any food that he can get his hands
on. Dad was
thrilled. But you,
you don’t like anything. You came to Jiufen confident that you
wouldn’t like the food and you wouldn’t eat a single
thing at all.
Except,
you did.
You
ate and ate and ate, and you were thrilled.
You
finish at a small stand at the base of Old Street. A woman peels a
knot from a log of stretchy dough, slaps it back and forth into a
ball, and rolls it in a plastic tub of peanut meal. Her husband runs
the skewer stand beside her. He collects a smattering of pork fat,
peppers, and squash in a bowl beside him. You watch them as you
finish off the final chewy bite of peanut mochi.
A
wagging tail begins to beat against your shin.
He
sits patiently in front of you, waiting for attention from the man
who runs the skewer stand. He waits until the metal bowl of scraps is
gently placed upon the floor. He eats with the slowness of a dog who
knows the timing of his next meal. When he finishes, he sits.
The
hound is fat and old. His graying ears hang long and low past his
neck. Specks of white and honey brown peek through a layer of dirt
that sticks to his fur. His claws, untrimmed, tap against the
concrete as he scratches at his ear.
“He
lives here,” a man nearby tells you.
“Really?”
you ask.
“Sort
of,” he shrugs. “He doesn’t live anywhere. He’s
a stray. He comes here because they feed him. They feed all the
dogs.”
“Where
does he go at night?” you ask.
“Just
there,” he points to the place where the dog sits. “As
far as he’s concerned, that is his home.”
Home,
for you, is on the other side of the world. They all must be waking
by now.
Your
brother must be angry that the muggy Southern heat is slowly
suffocating his herb garden. He grows cilantro. They put that in the
soups here on Old Street. He would love the taste of something herbal
and homegrown, or maybe it would madden him to learn that herbs can
still be grown in unrelenting heat.
Dad
loved that kind of heat. He would be just awaking to the blinding
heat back home. He would reach out to call you and you’d tell
him all about it. He’d tell you that he would have been
delighted to have walked that street with you. The grief becomes less
awful when you think of it that way.
Amidst
it, you persist.
Alexis is a writer and poet originally from York, Pennsylvania, USA.
She is currently an international nomad and moves frequently
throughout the United States and abroad. Her present work explores
grief (and all its facets) and the indomitable human spirit that
attempts to defy it.
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