African Tour:Cape Agulhas

Cape Agulhas
Photograph by Job Thomas
About a week into Cape Town, a few of us decided to go to Agulhas National Park. As national parks go, Agulhas does not have much to brag about. Apparently, it is the smallest national park in South Africa. That was a little refreshing. Everything else claimed to be the largest whatever it was on the continent. Agulhas has no need to overcompensate for how tiny it is. There are two reasons to go, which happened to be the two reasons we wanted to go.

Cape Agulhas is as far south as you can possibly go in Africa. It is also where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans crash into each other. I doubt I will ever go to the southern tips of Argentina or Chile. Unless I go to Melbourne or New Zealand someday, this is about as south as I am ever going to get.

Since Agulhas National Park was not on any scheduled guided tour, we had to find our own way. Since it was over 200 kilometers from our house, taking a taxi was not an option. Something we found incredibly easy to do in South Africa was rent a car. Or hire a car in the local lingo. In some parts of the world, renting a car can be difficult when you have a foreign driver's license. I have had an international permit for years, but using it is always hit and miss. Since my Taiwan license is entirely in Chinese and my Hong Kong license has a lot of Chinese on it, people in English speaking countries get confused. Oddly enough, it never bothers anyone in Israel, a country whose language looks absolutely nothing like English or Chinese.

In South Africa, a country that speaks English and a dozen other languages, no one cared about all the Chinese. Their big rule was that only one person could drive the car, unless we paid for additional drivers. That turned out to be unnecessary since all of the lower priced rental cars had manual transmissions and I was the only one in our little group who could drive a stick. And as terrible as it sounds to say, everyone else was Taiwanese. They had no business driving in a country that obeys basic traffic laws and common sense. Most stereotypes are beyond ignorant, but Chinese drivers truly are horrible. The biggest reasons for that, in my professional opinion, are that no one has to learn how to drive before taking the driving test and none of the existing traffic laws are enforced. Why learn how to drive properly when no one cares whether you do or not. There are no police patrolling the streets of China/Taiwan, so you will never be pulled over. As long as you stop at the red lights that have cameras and only seldom crash into anyone, you can drive as incompetently as you want.

I learned how to drive in Minnesota. I realize how American that makes me sound, but we had to demonstrate an ability to operate the vehicle in traffic in order to get a license. And we had police cars all over the place, any of which could pull you over at any time for a million different reasons. Unlike Taiwan, you can actually lose your license, or even your car, by being a bad driver in the United States. There is ample incentive to do better.

In Cape Town, we rented a shiny blue 2022 Volkswagen Polo 5 speed. Back before I owned a car, I used to love renting cars. It was an opportunity to drive, usually in an unfamiliar place. Now that I have my own car and drive to work every day, some of that magic is gone. There is nothing wrong with the Volkswagen Polo, but my car at home is better in every measurable way. The only thing I would change about my car if I could is that it is not fully manual. The rental car was. So even though it was a much weaker car, it was fun to drive.

The drive from Cape Town to Cape Agulhas was scenic, once we got out of the city. Cape Town is a beautiful city surrounded by nature, but unless you are looking directly toward one mountain or another, the view from most freeways is grass or suburbs. Beyond the city limits, we went up into the Hottentots Holland Mountains. They actually named them that. It was mostly winding hill roads going up and down with a few small towns here and there. Just before the cape, there was an endless stretch on a flat road that went in a straight line. We went from a scenic mountain drive to Interstate 5 in Central California. I almost fell asleep. When the road followed the coast, we drove between the shore and some comfortable looking houses. There was a nice mix of new and overpriced to older beach cottages. They all had great views of the ocean.

The last residential area before the cape was the little laid back beach town of L'Agulhas. Rather than overcharge tourists for the food, every shop owner seemed genuinely friendly. The cashier at the local grocery store told me that they rarely got any foreigners. Given its distance from Cape Town, I could see why. That also explained why so many locals were curious about where we came from. Taiwanese are not the most demonstrative people in the world, and my friends were uncomfortable at first with total strangers coming up to us and asking questions, until they saw how relaxed I was. Since they knew I was from a place with infinitely more crime and chaos than anything they could imagine, they generally looked to me when trying to decide if any given situation was dangerous or not. That was a lot of responsibility, especially when I had never been to South Africa. The country was just as foreign to me as it was to everyone else. Even worse, my last real boyfriend was from South Africa. That gave my colleagues even more reason to assume I knew anything about the place. He told me stories of his homeland, of course, but I was as much out of water as he would be in the United States.

I felt at home in L'Agulhas. It is a tiny village of only a few hundred people. I could never imagine living somewhere so small, yet like Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy and Lisse, South Holland, there was something about it that felt innately comfortable. It also would have been an exceptional place to ride a bicycle, called a boney for some reason. Coincidentally, I rented a Volkswagen Polo in Normandy, though a much earlier model. Other than the name, I would never know they were the same car. I could not have planned that even if I wanted to. When we made the reservation, we booked a Toyota Yaris “or similar”.

Almost the entire route from Cape Town to Cape Agulhas was well maintained highways and roads. Until we hit the Cape Agulhas Lighthouse. The lighthouse itself was pretty small and not much more than a pit stop right around the corner from our final destination. Beyond the lighthouse was a dirt road leading to a small dirt parking lot. There was also a wooden walking path from the lighthouse to the ocean. I was expecting some kind of monument, and was delighted to see that they left everything natural. Other than the wood boards and a small sign pointing out that the Indian Ocean was on the left and the Atlantic Ocean on the right, the area probably looked the same as it did a few hundred years ago. There were some serious waves while we were there, but no one went to surf. The shore is several miles of jagged rocks. Even swimming would be suicidal. The only real reason to go to Cape Agulhas is to say that you went to the southern tip of Africa.

One of the first things I noticed about driving in South Africa was how polite the other drivers were. In China and Taiwan, it is kill or be killed. Everyone wants to be first, all the time. There are no stop signs because there is no right of way, so we all get to spend more time at stoplights. There are no passing lanes because everyone has to be first, all the time. In South Africa, drivers actually changed lanes so I could pass them. Not only did they not try to block me, they actively moved out of my way. At one point, a big rig truck moved into the next lane so I could pass. We were going uphill. Changing lanes must have slowed him down, but he made the effort for no other reason than for my convenience. And maybe the law. I was blown away. That would never happen in Taiwan. You either find your own way around the truck or stay behind it until it gets off the freeway. The first few times I let someone pass me, I wondered why their emergency lights were blinking. Something I have never encountered anywhere else in the world was drivers thanking each other for pulling over by turning on their emergency lights. That seems like a pleasant little habit we could easily make universal.

Most of the driving rules in South Africa were pretty straightforward. All of the road signs were in English, which was convenient. My Taiwanese friends found it disorienting, or disorientating, that traffic flowed on the left. Since I have been driving in Hong Kong for almost 12 years, it felt normal to me. My car at home is right hand drive, even though Taiwan is traffic right. If I can get used to that, driving a car with the steering wheel on the correct side relative to traffic is easy. I still prefer to shift with my right hand, but I will take what I can get.

Filling the car with gas was almost the same as Taiwan. The people who work at the station do it for you. Except in South Africa they also wash your windshield and check your tires, or tyres. It was almost like full service in the United States, without any self service option. I can't remember the last time I actually pumped my own gas. It might have been in Spain.

L'Agulhas, South Africa

African Tour:Cape Town part 1

Cape Town International Airport
Cape Town, South Africa
The flight from Durban to Cape Town took a little over two hours and was the opposite of eventful. As with Durban, we were all driven by car to different apartments/houses. The biggest difference was the size.

King Shaka International Airport is in the suburbs of Durban, outside of the city limits, but no more than a half hour drive from downtown. Cape Town International Airport is smack dab in the middle of the city, but it took us over an hour to get to our house. Not only is Cape Town ten times larger than Durban, but our house was in Simon's Town, about as far south as you can go on the Cape Peninsula without hitting protected wilderness. Getting to the house from the airport required three different freeways. When we finally got off the freeway, we were on a long street along the coast. The street got noticeably smaller as we passed through downtown Simon's Town. With most of the city behind us, we turned onto a smaller road that went gradually uphill and then dramatically uphill. We turned onto a tiny lane that looked more suitable for Taiwanese scooters than South African pickup trucks. From scooter lane, we turned onto a slightly wider road that went even further uphill. An hour and twenty minutes after we left the airport, we turned onto a dead end alley. Had this happened in the middle of the night, and had our driver been even close to menacing, this could have been a spooky ride. But we left the airport at ten in the morning, the drive along the coast was cheery, and our driver could not have been friendlier.

From the alley, it looked like we would all be staying in a tiny cottage not nearly large enough for seven people. The house was on a slope, so we had to go indoors before we fully understood its size. The top floor was a two car garage that could only fit small cars. The garage interior was large enough for an American SUV, but the separate garage doors were barely wide enough to fit a Volkswagen. Half a floor down was the tiniest front yard, the front door, a half bathroom, and what could only be described as the mudroom. They probably call it something else in South Africa. The next floor down was somehow four times larger than the floor above. What we came to call the second floor had a large living room, an enormous kitchen, a decent sized dining room, and a full bathroom. There was also a balcony across the entire rear of the house. The bottom floor had three bedrooms and four full bathrooms. The large backyard could be reached by a sliding glass door from each of the bedrooms. Beyond the backyard was a plot of empty land not quite large enough to build another house. Without the fence between the yard and empty land, we would have assumed the entire thing was the backyard. From the street, the back of the house looked like it should have been the front, except there was no front door and the address was posted on the alley side. All of the houses on the street were similar, with inviting backyards on the larger street and small entrances on the alley.

The bedrooms were nothing like what I expected. Instead of a master bedroom, the largest looked like a dorm room. It had four bunk beds, enough for eight people. We only had seven staying at the house, so the four youngest shared that room. At first, we thought the house only had four and a half bathrooms. Then someone opened one of the closets in the largest bedroom and discovered the door to another bathroom. It was an odd design. From the room, it looked like a wall of closets. If you opened the doors on the left and right, you got closet. If you opened the middle door, there was a tiny hallway that led to a full sized bathroom behind all the closets.

The medium sized room looked like any other bedroom with its own bathroom. Two of our more senior dancers shared that one. As the highest ranking person in the house, I took the single room. It was pretty small, but it had its own bathroom. I never really cared about the size of the room since most of the time I spent in the house was either in the kitchen or on that large balcony.

I liked the Durban kitchen better. It was smaller and felt more like a home. The Cape Town kitchen was large and had every appliance we could ever need, except a rice cooker. The kitchen was fully loaded with a stainless steel refrigerator, oven, stove, dishwasher, toaster oven, toaster, microwave, blenders, mixers, pots and pans, dishes and utensils. But it was all western style. There was not a single chopstick in the house and we all missed not having a rice cooker. The Cape Town kitchen was larger, fancier, and obviously more expensive. It felt like it was designed for entertaining guests. I liked the Durban kitchen better because it was designed for making a quiet dinner at home.

The balcony was the best feature of the house. The view from the front yard was the house across the alley. The view from the backyard was the house across the street. Since all the houses were on a slope, they all had a balcony facing northeast. We had an unobstructed view of the northern tip of False Bay. The sunsets were nice, but the sun went down the other side of the Cape Peninsula. Sunrises were spectacular. Since I generally wake up before the dawn, I watched the sun come up over the mountains that surround Cape Town and reflect off the water in the bay almost every morning. Most of my roommates missed it.

Not the actual balcony, but pretty close.
I also saw a whale one day. I was standing on the balcony minding my own business when a whale just popped out of the water. It was too far away for me to even guess what kind of whale it was, but it was definitely a whale. There were more than a few dolphins in False Bay, but any movement from them just looked like waves at that distance. This was clearly a whale jumping halfway out of the water and crashing onto its back. My roommates spent a lot of time looking for their own whales, but none of us ever saw another one. At least not from that balcony.

Artscape Theatre Centre
Transportation in Cape Town was similar to Durban in that we were all picked up and driven to work. That was convenient, especially since we worked more in Cape Town than anywhere else. In other cities, we introduced a few traditional Chinese dance styles to the locals, everyone mostly got a kick out of it, and we moved on. In Cape Town, we learned a traditional African dance, a variation of the Makhibo. That required extra work on our part. Every other show was full of routines everyone knew backward and forward. The Makhibo was brand new to all of us.

Fortunately, we had some free time in between all the rehearsing, though finding our own transportation was more complicated. Since Durban is ten times smaller than Cape Town, it was much easier to get around. I could walk to the beach in less than half an hour, and walk the entire promenade in less than an hour. Cape Town was a harder city to walk around. Boulders Beach was only a few hundred meters away, but with all the winding hill roads, it took a good ten minutes. Downtown Cape Town was more than 40 kilometers from the house. I have no idea how long that would have taken to walk. When we arrived, it looked like staying in Simon's Town was going to be inconvenient.

Local transportation in Cape Town is not exactly admired the world over. The bus lines were convoluted and never really went where we wanted to go. The Metrorail's Simonstown Line went from the main station to Simon's Town. People rave about the view from the train, but that is only during the 20 minute stretch along False Bay. The rest of the ride is an hour in the suburbs. Since Cape Town was designed for cars, taxis were our primary ride off the clock.

And we had plenty of places to go. Cape Town has pretty much everything you need in a single city. You can climb a mountain, swim in the ocean, ogle birds, keep at least one eye on baboons, and run away from an ostrich all in one day. As long as you have transportation.

African Tour:Durban

Lanseria International Airport
Johannesburg, South Africa

King Shaka International Airport
Durban, South Africa
Our flight to Durban was short and easy. We spent more time in the terminal than on the plane, though there were no delays this time. Rather than fly out of OR Tambo International Airport, we left Johannesburg from Lanseria International Airport, a much smaller airport. It has international in its name, but I only saw signs for flights to other cities in South Africa.

The drive to the hotel was also faster. At least for four of us. Instead of piling everyone into a business hotel, we all stayed at apartments and B&Bs around town. I have no idea if that was a better arrangement, and I doubt it was more efficient, but I liked it a lot more. There was nothing wrong with the hotel in Johannesburg. It was a clean place to sleep and close to major thoroughfares. In Durban, I stayed with three other dancers in a nice little apartment in the Morningside neighborhood. We were an easy walk to Mitchell Park, a Spar grocery store, Florida Road, and Battery Beach.

The grocery store was convenient since we were in an apartment instead of a hotel. The apartment's kitchen was more than adequate and was even stocked with a few staples right before we arrived. The husband and wife owners lived close by and were happy to help out with pretty much anything we needed. Caroline brought us homemade rusks every morning, which we all appreciated even if we never ate them until later in the day. She even drove us to the grocery store when we made our biggest run. There was a washer and dryer directly below the apartment, but we found the washer difficult to use. Betty, the housekeeper, did all of our laundry for most of our stay. I felt a little bad about having an older black woman wash my clothes, especially in a South African apartment owned by a white couple, but she did an incredible job. Whenever we put anything in the laundry bags, it came back cleaned, ironed, and neatly folded. No one ever charged us anything for the laundry, so we left Betty a decent tip before we checked out. My Taiwanese roommates thought that everyone should do the best job they could regardless of their pay, but I convinced them that in tipping cultures, it is always a good idea to tip well for exceptional service. I had the same conversation every time any of us went to a restaurant.

Betty was the highlight of Durban. She probably had a fascinating life story, but was reluctant to talk about herself, so I never pushed her. Something she loved to talk about were her grandchildren, which made my roommates feel bad that she was cleaning up after us. The cultural differences were interesting. Where I had white guilt and never really thought about her age, they had generation guilt and never thought about her race. For her part, Betty seemed to have the meaning of life sorted out. I would not mind spending a day as content as she always was.

Florida Road is this week's trendy restaurant street. We saw plenty of tip jars. It had Spiga, a vaguely Italian café with a lot of penne dishes; Glamwich, a haven for avocado toast and bunny chow; Times Square, which always seemed more popular at drinking time than at eating time; Bird & Co, a chicken and pizza place that looked like fast food at restaurant prices; Paul's Homemade Ice Cream, which had confusing flavors, like the vegan “No Cow and Chicken”. I understand the no cow part, but never knew ice cream had chicken in it; House of Curries, with the largest bunny chow menu; the Firehouse, a pizza place with trendy toppings like avocado, toasted coconut, cashews, and teriyaki sauce; Sofra Istanbul, a Turkish restaurant with frozen french fries; Sabroso, with its generic Mexican menu; Fired Up Pizzeria, with pizzas so ugly, I did not even want to step inside; Flamin' Wok, a vaguely Thai restaurant with fortune cookies; and Tommy's Sushi, with “Chinese takeaway”. It was not Chinese. There were even more restaurants on the next block. The entire street was wall to wall restaurants. We could have eaten at a different place every day, even without going to other parts of the city.

The Thai place was noteworthy, even though no one thought it tasted like Thai food. They had fortune cookies, which I had to explain to my Taiwanese colleagues, who had never heard of such a thing. There is something surreal about sitting in a Thai restaurant in South Africa and describing American Chinese food to Chinese people. My colleagues were flabbergasted when I told them that everyone in the United States thinks Chinese people eat fortune cookies.

Bunny chow had to be explained to all of us. It is a loaf of white bread stuffed with curry. A quarter bunny is more than large enough for one person. Rabbits are not involved in any way. It was invented by Indian immigrants as an explicitly vegetarian dish. There are disputed theories about why they are called bunnies and which restaurant in Durban, if any, has the original. Fortunately, we asked what bunny chow was early in the trip. We would see it on more than a few menus throughout Durban.

Transportation in Durban was a little more complicated than Johannesburg. Rather than pick everyone up from one hotel in a charter bus, our drivers went to all of our different apartments and drove us around in cars. That meant we never all arrived at rehearsals at the same time, which meant more time in transit despite driving shorter distances. Guided tours were also more complicated. Everyone was driven by car to a meeting point and then driven as a group by bus to whatever tourist trap was on the agenda that day. I mostly avoided all of that, with a few exceptions.

Gateway Theatre of Shopping
Umhlanga, South Africa
When everyone else went to the Gateway Theatre Of Shopping in Umhlanga, a few of us took the bus and went to Umhlanga Beach. The Gateway Theatre Of Shopping claims to be the “largest shopping mall in the Southern Hemisphere”. Umhlanga Beach is famous for its lighthouse and rocky coast just beyond the soft sandy beach. With a long promenade right next to the beach, it is a great place to walk on sand or pavement, though a lousy spot for surfing or swimming. There was no way any of my colleagues would want to swim in an ocean anyway.

Umhlanga Beach
Photograph by LC Swart
When everyone took a bus to the Pavilion Shopping Centre in Westville, I walked down the Golden Mile. From the pictures I saw, the Pavilion looked a little like the Taipei 101 mall. One of the stores at the mall is a Christian bookstore called CUM Books. Being immature, this caught my attention. I was disappointed to learn that CUM stands for Christelike Uitgewers Maatskappy, which means Christian Publishing Company in Afrikaans. The Golden Mile is both a beach and several beaches along a seven kilometer stretch from Blue Lagoon Beach to the North Pier. It has none of the famous rocks of Umhlanga Beach up the coast, which makes it a much better place for surfing and swimming. It has the “longest beachfront promenade in sub-Saharan Africa”, which only made me curious where the longest promenade in North Africa was. The promenade and beaches were an easy walk from our apartment, so I went there more than a few times. The first time I went into the water, I thought it was my first time in the Indian Ocean. Then I remembered that I did some beach swimming in Bali almost ten years ago.

Not that I avoided all the guided tours. I went with the group to the Durban Botanic Gardens, which was far more botanic than the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens in Johannesburg. It had more flowers, which is probably a good thing. There was even a separate orchid house, the “largest orchid collection in South Africa”, naturally. It was closed that day. The butterfly habitat was open, and a great place to look at butterflies, if you are into that sort of thing. The garden was especially proud of its tree collection. They bragged about their palm trees, which are not so impressive for those of us who live on a tropical island. They also had a lot of jacaranda trees, which are common in South Africa and not something we ever see at home. Even though we were there while the flowers were in bloom, the locals did not seem to care. What we found different, they found ordinary, and vice versa. The best part of the gardens was probably the small lake, where we saw more than a few birds I could never identify.

The Durban Natural Science Museum is inside city hall rather than its own dedicated building. It might be the smallest natural science museum I have ever been to, but all the children we saw loved it. That is really all that matters. If you can get them interested when they are still young and care about things, maybe they will care when they get older.

The Umgeni River Bird Park near the mouth of the Umgeni River had even more birds I could never hope to name. I recognized the flamingos, pelicans, swans, owls, toucans, peacocks, macaws, vultures, and those little Australian birds that got Men At Work sued. If they have over 300 species, that means I barely knew any of them. The bird park is essentially a zoo, which is never my favorite place to go. I was in a part of Africa where you can see animals in their natural habitat. Gawking at them in cages is the last thing I want to do, but the Umgeni River Bird Park breeds 17 different endangered species. That has to count for something. It was also free.

The worst guided tour was to the Japanese Gardens, which is a waste of time for anyone who has been to Japan or a garden. It is a park with a few generic Japanese decorations here and there. The only interesting aspect to the Japanese Gardens are the monkeys that wander around. Something we were warned about before we left Taiwan, besides crime, were the baboons in South Africa. Apparently, they are even bigger troublemakers than macaques. The monkeys we saw in the park were smaller and much calmer. Though not at all afraid of us, they never tried to steal anything from anyone.

Next to the Japanese Gardens was Sun Sun Supermarket. Billed as an Asian grocery store “With Everything Asian Under the Sun”, some of my colleagues were excited to check it out. I was more than a little skeptical. Outside of Asia, “Asian” usually means dry noodles and soy sauce. Surprisingly, it looked a lot like a Chinese grocery store, only with far more signs in English. They even had Super Supau, which I have never seen outside of Taiwan. Everyone in the building except me could have been from East Asia, which is what most people outside of Asia mean when they talk about Asia. Nothing west of India ever counts. Though their inventory was much smaller than everything under the sun, my colleagues walked out with full bags.

Watching Taiwanese people shop is an odd experience. We were in a part of the world none of us had ever been to before. Yet instead of buying ceramic giraffes and zebra keychains, they mostly bought clothes made in China and Vietnam from stores similar or exactly the same as what we have at home. When it came to food, the less exotic the better. Even though I could never taste anything, I wanted to try the local dishes. I have no idea what bunny chow tastes like, but I have eaten it in a few different places. They could taste everything, and wanted the most familiar food they could find. Taiwanese would have been preferable, but Chinese would have to do. There was nothing in all those Sun Sun bags they could not buy at home.

The Playhouse Company Theatre
We also did some work with the Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre, who were all fantastic.
September to November is spring in South Africa, so I came prepared. Most of my Taiwanese colleagues did not bring bathing suits because we started in October. Several people pointed out the difference between the Southern and Northern Hemisphere, but to the Taiwanese, October is not bathing suit season. I am often baffled by their insistence on dressing for the season rather than the weather. If it is 30 degrees and humid in July, they wear t-shirts and sandals. If it is 30 degrees and humid in December, they wear coats and boots. I thought that being in a different country at a much lower latitude would change that. I was wrong. Almost everyone dressed for Taiwan October, not South Africa October.

We arrived in Durban at the tail end of a storm. You could tell it had been raining for a while, though it took a break before our plane landed. The next few days had scattered thunderstorms and the threat of rain around the corner. Then we woke up to sunny and warm almost every other day. There was one full rainy day in Durban and one day where it rained off and on. Otherwise, it was spring sun and clouds. Every night was colder than a Taiwan winter, but none of the days were nearly as hot. Even on the hottest days, which were always below 30 degrees, there was usually a nice breeze coming from the ocean.

Our apartment did not have a swimming pool, but the house next door did. I mentioned something about how much I like to swim to Caroline during a random conversation and the next day she told me we could use the swimming pool next door. I have to assume they had some kind of previous arrangement with their neighbors to let tenants use it. It seems almost impossible that we were let into a stranger's pool just because I happened to mention it in passing. Regardless of whatever went on behind the scenes, none of my roommates brought bathing suits. That meant I got the swimming pool to myself. The owners of the house with the pool were much older. I got the impression they had not used it in years. Eventually, my roommates wised up and bought bathing suits, even though it was almost November. One afternoon, some of Betty's grandchildren joined us. It did not seem like their first time in that pool. Though Betty never donned a bathing suit, she kept an eye on those children like a meerkat. I wondered what it must have been like for her to watch a white woman, a few Chinese women, and her black grandchildren all swimming in the same water together, and then to know that it would never be an issue for the children.

Johannesburg is much bigger than Durban and probably has more to see and do. I preferred Durban for a few reasons. Our apartment was in a quiet residential neighborhood instead of in the middle of a shopping mall. The people we worked with in both cities were friendly, but the people of Durban were less big city uptight and more small town relaxed. Durban is on the Indian Ocean and has several beautiful beaches. Johannesburg is nowhere near a large body of water. We spent twice as much time in Durban, so I had more opportunity to wander around and explore on my own without any tour guides. I usually wake up before sunrise at home. After adjusting to the time difference in Johannesburg, I did the same most days in Durban. Since Durban is on the east coast, the beaches are an excellent place to watch the sun rise over the Indian Ocean. Simply walking down the Durban promenade was a better day than any of the scheduled tourist stops in Johannesburg.

Photograph by Liesel Muhl

African Tour:Pretoria

Pretoria is right next to Johannesburg, so there were no flights or sitting around airports all day. The charter bus took less than an hour. We only did two shows, so there was no hotel. We left our Johannesburg hotel in the morning, drove to Pretoria, had a quick rehearsal, did the first show, took a break, did the second show, and took the bus back to the hotel.

State Theatre
Our very temporary home base in Pretoria was the State Theatre, billed as the largest theater in Africa. It did not seem all that big to us, but we quickly found more than a few places that claimed to be the largest of their kind on the entire continent. My impression was that it is similar to every Ray's in New York that claims to be the original. The theater had a decent stage and sound system, and more importantly, ample restrooms backstage, so it worked for us.

Union Building
With limited time between shows, we never strayed far from the central business district. We did some eating, too much shopping, and went to the Union Building Gardens, a hillside park outside the president's house. You cannot actually go inside the Union Buildings because it is the president's house. The park is nice, and since it sits on one of the tallest hills in the city, there was a nice breeze rolling downhill. That is always a good thing between shows.

Photograph by Clayton Majona
We saw why Pretoria is known as the Jacaranda City. Several streets were lined with Jacaranda trees in full bloom. We also saw why some of the locals see them as a nuisance. When thousands of people walk over the fallen flowers, they create a sticky stain that must be a pain in the ass to clean.

African Tour:Johannesburg

Taoyuan International Airport
Taipei, Taiwan

Suvarnabhumi Airport
Bangkok, Thailand

Hamad International Airport
Doha, Qatar

OR Tambo International Airport
Johannesburg, South Africa

Flying from Taiwan to South Africa is pretty simple. We took Thai Airways from Taipei to Bangkok, then Qatar Airways from Bangkok to Doha and a separate flight from Doha to Johannesburg. It was supposed to take 24 hours.

Our first delay was in Bangkok. We spent nine hours at Suvarnabhumi Airport. They never told us why. As other passengers were put onto other flights, we waited. We were a larger group, so it was probably more difficult to find something for us. I am not normally a fan of waiting in airports for nine hours, but something interesting came out of it. Our original Bangkok to Doha flight was supposed to be on a Boeing 777, which I have flown on plenty of times. Our new flight was on an Airbus A380, which I had never flown before. The A380 is that double decker plane that was supposed to revolutionize air travel and replace the 747. Except it never did. Airbus built fewer than 300 planes in 18 years, compared to more than 1,500 planes in 50 years for the 747. Airbus lost money on the A380. Boeing made a fortune on the 747.

We finally left Bangkok at three in the morning. Because of time zones and that whole spinning of the Earth thing, our seven hour flight landed just before six in the morning. Hamad International Airport in Doha seems to be pretty popular. It wins awards from organizations that hand out awards to airports. The first time I went to Hamad International Airport was on my way to Barcelona. That flight was also delayed, so I spent ten hours in the award-winning airport in the middle of the night when all of the things that won the awards were closed.

This time, we spent almost 15 hours at the airport, starting at six in the morning when everything was closed. The advantage to being in a larger group was that the airline put us up in one of the airport hotels. The last thing they wanted was for any of us to leave the airport, not that we had any visas for Qatar. I was the only one in our group with a passport that could get me out of the airport without any extra paperwork. Since I only had 15 hours, and I am not wild about spending money in a country where being gay is a capital offense, I thought it best to stay with my group and take a break in that free hotel.

After dinner, we took an eight and a half hour flight to Johannesburg on a Boeing 777. Our 24 hour trip from Taipei took 44 hours.

Melrose Arch
We arrived in Johannesburg at four in the morning and were at our hotel before six. Another good thing about being in a larger group was that we could check into the hotel as soon as we got there. Solo travelers usually have to wait until the normal check in time, which is nowhere close to six in the morning. The Johannesburg Marriott Hotel Melrose Arch was a standard business hotel just like every Marriott I have ever seen anywhere in the world. For some reason, I assumed all of our hotels on this trip would be similar. They were not.

Melrose is a more upscale neighborhood of Johannesburg. The Melrose Arch is a new office/retail development that looks absolutely nothing like most of the city. It is how business leaders want Johannesburg to look and how community leaders know Johannesburg will never look. I do not and should not have a dog in this race, but if I had a vote, I would say the city should try to keep its traditional feel and not look like a pedestrian shopping mall. The entire Melrose Arch area reminded me of the outdoor pedestrian part of the Southpoint Mall in Durham, though only in appearance. Johannesburg feels nothing like North Carolina.

One of the first things I noticed about the Melrose Arch was the overt security presence. One thing we had been warned about before leaving Taiwan was the high crime rates in South Africa, especially Johannesburg. From what I could tell, it was all private security. That did nothing to make me feel safe. I know nothing about South African police training, but anywhere else I have ever been, private security companies do not generally hire the best of the best. In Jerusalem's Old City, you sometimes see armed soldiers. If you want safety, they are the way to go. Their training is some of the best in the world. Any job that pays the bills is something to be proud of, but mall cops are not going to take a bullet for you.

Not that we ever needed anything that extreme. Johannesburg was like New York or Los Angeles. There are some neighborhoods you might want to avoid at night and some you should probably stay out of altogether. Most of the city is perfectly safe for anyone not walking down the street waving large wads of cash. To the Taiwanese, none of that made any sense. You can walk any street in Taiwan at any time with the Hope Diamond in your gold crown and no one will look at you twice. Unless you are a foreigner. Then they will stare at you all day, without any violent intent. I never noticed anyone staring at us in South Africa. Then again, Johannesburg has the largest Chinese population in all of Africa, and people who look like me are nothing special.

We were two to a room in the hotel, which was not a problem at all since we spent most of our time either at work or visiting some tourist trap. I can barely remember what the room looked like. There was a lot of gray and beige. I suppose those are the fashionable colors right now. By South Africans standards, it was exceptionally dull and lacked the vibrant colors we saw all over the country.

The biggest disadvantage to traveling with a large group of Taiwanese is that they love guided tours. The larger the group, the better. When I go somewhere new, I want to wander around and get a little lost. The things I have accidentally stumbled across are far more interesting than anything some stranger booked in advance. When Taiwanese go somewhere, they want to shop, see the most popular sights in the travel guides, and eat at mostly Chinese restaurants that have been approved by previous Taiwanese tourists.

Since Johannesburg was our first stop on this African Tour, and I am a supervisor of sorts, I chose to stay with the group more than I wanted. In between rehearsals, shows, and all the driving back and forth, we piled into a charter bus when we had some time off and saw tiny slivers of Johannesburg that taught us almost nothing about the culture or its people.

Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens
We went to the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, which looked more like a park than a botanical garden. Apparently, they used to have a nursery, but it closed a few years ago. Its biggest selling point is a small waterfall that flows from a hill where some eagles live. I never saw any eagles, but we were in South Africa. Plenty of animals were right around the corner.

We went to the Old Kromdraai Gold Mine, one of the mines during South Africa's gold rush that put Johannesburg on the map. They still call Johannesburg the City of Gold, but only on brochures. No one actually called it that in person. While the history is important to South Africans, no one in our group was especially impressed by rusty old mine carts and the dirt entrance of a tunnel.

We took a walking tour of Sophiatown, a cultural and artistic haven at the beginning of the 20th century, much like Montmartre in Paris or Dashijie in Shanghai. At the time, artists of all races and backgrounds could mingle, drink too much, and discuss all the vast intricacies of life. Unfortunately, most of the original buildings were bulldozed when it became a white neighborhood and the black population was violently relocated to the Soweto township.

One of the better guided tours was the Alexandra bicycle tour. We rode bicycles around the Alexandra township, which is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Johannesburg and borders Sandton, one of the richest. There was a bit of a history lesson, but our guide mostly ignored the poverty around us and the fact that what we paid to ride bicycles could have bought books for a few families.

Soweto
The best and worst guided tour we took in Johannesburg was in Soweto. With a population of over one million people in two hundred square kilometers, it is by far the largest township in South Africa. The tour covered a small area while the tour guide tried to cram a lot of history into a short presentation. Most of my Taiwanese colleagues were completely unaware of South Africa's history. Apartheid was never something they studied in school, but it was a word they heard a lot in South Africa.

Our tour guide told us that Soweto was essentially a ghetto for black people, many of whom were evicted from their homes and forced to live in the township. They could only legally leave when going to work in the mines or other parts of Johannesburg. Someone in our group asked how the white people could control the black population that outnumbered them six to one. The convoluted answer was a long history of colonization and oppression by my ancestors. By the time Apartheid was the law of the land, the black majority was used to being treated like criminals. As the only white person on the bus, I did what my people have always done. I oversimplified a complicated situation for my Taiwanese colleagues and told them the whites had all the money.

As the only person on our tour group who knew anything about the history of South Africa, albeit not nearly enough, I was not at all surprised by anything our tour guide told us in Soweto. What surprised me were the living conditions. I expected a Hooverville of tin shacks with dirt floors, which do indeed exist. I thought Soweto would look more like Alexandra. But there were also plenty of paved roads, wood framed houses with tile roofs, lots of garages for all the cars, and ample electricity and indoor plumbing. At least in the daytime. Nelson Mandela's house is a small but sturdy brick and mortar building.

When I saw a tour group of white people strolling through the township, I wondered if their tour guide was showing them the real Soweto or the tourist version we were seeing. I never felt guilty while I was with Taiwanese people who had nothing to do with Apartheid. Had they lived in South Africa at the time, they would have been classified as Coloured, which sounds terrible where I come from and was even worse in 20th century South Africa. I could not help but look disapprovingly at the white tourists who were treating this home to a million people as some kind of tourist attraction, even though I was doing the same thing. My internal defense was that I never wanted to go there. I wanted to explore Johannesburg's vibrant present, not learn even more about its appalling past. When I go to Hiroshima, I visit the Peace Park, but I spend most of my time in the mix of near future and distant past.

In Johannesburg's present, we ate a great deal of food. That is unavoidable if you travel with a large group of Taiwanese. If they love anything more than shopping during their travels, it is easting. The food in South Africa was something I was not looking forward to at all. Most of the time, in my daily life, I can ignore the fact that I have no sense of smell and cannot taste flavors. When I go somewhere I have never been, especially somewhere as famous for its cuisine as South Africa, that reality hits me in the face at every meal. Had I been able to taste anything, I probably would have eaten like a Taiwanese.

Most of my colleagues wanted to try the local Chinese food. There was a basic, all over the place “Chinese” restaurant near the hotel. None of their dishes were familiar and no one was impressed. It never stood a chance anyway because it was not in the travel guides. Not the most adventurous people in the world, my traveling companions were really only interested in eating pre-approved food.

Oriental Plaza
Luckily for them, not so much for me, Johannesburg has more than a few shopping malls. They reminded me of every shopping mall everywhere in the world, except for the metal detectors at the door and private security guards checking bags before anyone could get in. The one mall I might remember in years to come was the Oriental Plaza, just down the M1 from our hotel. I thought the name was interesting because where I come from, it would be seen as insulting to the Chinese. The Chinese shoppers I was with could not have cared less. They were there for deals. Unlike most malls, shoppers could haggle on prices at the Oriental Plaza. Taiwanese love to haggle, even though prices are set at all malls in Taiwan. As for a taste of the Orient, nothing in the mall reminded anyone of home. They were mostly disappointed that it was run down and looked like it had seen better days.

Further east is China Town, several blocks of restaurants and shops that did not look the least bit Chinese. But there were Chinese signs all over the place, which I found strangely comforting, and most of the shops were owned and operated by Chinese immigrants. My colleagues loved it because they could speak to people in their language and eat food that was far more authentic than any of the upscale “Chinese” restaurants in town.

There were plenty of extremes in Johannesburg. We went to the poorest neighborhoods and some of the richest. We drove past car dealerships selling Maseratis and young men standing on the side of the road selling cell phone cases and plastic toys. There are roadside stalls selling fruit in Taiwan, but usually in rural areas. The most you will see in the city is someone selling flowers. In Johannesburg, larger than any city in Taiwan, you can buy anything at a stop light. Which are called robots, for some reason.

We also did some work here and there, but Johannesburg was more about adjusting and adapting. The work was nothing new. The audiences were, and they seemed to enjoy a look into a culture very different from theirs. Johannesburg will always be my gateway into Africa, which is probably not the best position to be in. I vividly remember my first visit to Tokyo, but the Ginza was sensory overload. There was too much to take in all at once. I get the feeling Johannesburg will feel the same way a few years down the road.

Johannesburg

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I took thousands of photographs in South Africa. It is going to take a while to sort through them all. But since I will be describing some photogenic places, it feels wrong to not show any pictures. I will use placeholder photographs until I can replace them with my own, and give credit to the photographers when I know who they are.

African Tour

My dance company is going on tour in Africa. That is something I never really expected to say, but always wanted to. That is also an incredibly vague thing to say, like “Let's eat Asian food”. Africa is an enormous continent with at least 54 countries, thousands of different cultures, more than one thousand languages, and hundreds of religions. I will see almost none of it. We are scheduled to perform in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, Nairobi, Mombasa, and Dar es Salaam. Three countries out of 54, in the far east and deep south. Calling it an African tour sounds disingenuous, like when rock stars go on a “world tour” to the United States, a few cities in Western Europe, and Tokyo.

The people planning this tour have been planning it for years. It would have happened earlier if not for a plague that killed some travel plans in North America and Europe. Fortunately, this was the one plague that was relatively kind to Africa. The total deaths in Kenya are about the same as Idaho. It barely touched Tanzania at all.

We leave on Tuesday. Despite how much I enjoy going to other places, especially places I have never been, and despite how much I have wanted to see bits of Africa for a long time, I am not looking forward to Tuesday. We have a four hour flight from Taipei to Bangkok, which is not so bad. But then we get on a different airline and fly Bangkok to Doha for seven hours. Extra airlines means extra people handling your luggage. The more it changes hands, the more likely it will get lost. We are bringing costumes, sets, and props. Losing those would ruin the entire trip. From Doha, we have an eight and a half hour flight to Johannesburg. Getting from here to there should take a little over 24 hours. After a night off, we get to work.

The tour ends in Dar es Salaam, but we have to fly back to Nairobi, from which we will fly five and a half hours to Doha, six and a half hours to Bangkok, and three and a half hours to Taipei. It is practically the same route back, except we arrive on the continent in Johannesburg and depart from Nairobi. Despite all the different airports in different countries, my only real concern is that I have an Israeli work visa in my passport and I have to fly through Qatar. They are not exactly best friends, though Qatar has less of a death to Israel stance than some of its neighbors.

According to the schedule, we will have some free time in Cape Town. I need to figure out if there is enough time to visit Kruger National Park. It is on the opposite side of the country from Cape Town, but it is one of the top places on my list. We will not have nearly as much free time in Johannesburg or Durban, which are much closer. Dar es Salaam is right next to Zanzibar, which I would love to go to, but there is probably not enough time. The trickiest part will be trying to extend my stay and hitting a national park or two in Kenya while everyone else flies home. If at all possible, I would really like to see the Serengeti in Tanzania, which is not unrealistically far from Nairobi. Cape Town to Kruger is more of a pipe dream than Nairobi to the Serengeti.

Whatever happens, I predict this will be an exceptional trip. We are cramming far too many places into far too short a time, so who knows how much I will really learn about anything, but it should be a unique experience. If nothing else, I should discover which places I need to go back to off the clock.

Junior Assistant Adjunct Professor Hailey

I just started a new job. It is part time and will never be full time, at least as long as my career holds out. You never know. A few years ago, my dancing career took a nosedive and I wondered what would happen. I had pretty much nothing to fall back on. I can always pick up gigs as a musician, but that never paid the bills. I used to do a lot of musical theater when I was younger. I doubt that pays as much today as it used to. And there is little to no demand for a coloratura mezzo-soprano who knows all the biggest show tunes around here. It kind of amazes me that I live in a time and place where dancers easily earn more than musicians.

I have been very slowly building up my academic CV. I am not at all qualified to be a professor anywhere in the world, but I have some experience as a substitute teacher of sorts at two or three different universities. When one of them offered me a low level, part time gig, I jumped at it.

My roommate and sister from another mister, Lily, is working on a master's degree at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages. Through her, I met a professor who taught a dialectology class, among others. After substituting for her a few times, and more importantly, after she wanted to drop the class, I threw my hat in the ring. I have no doubt there were other, more qualified applicants for the position. What I had on my side was the recommendation of a tenured professor and the approval of several students. That those students had already taken the class and would no longer be my students seems to be irrelevant. One of the worst things about Wenzao, in my opinion, is that they put entirely too much stock into what their students want. That helped me get the job, so maybe I should like it, but it seems to me that the students should never be in charge of any school. They are the customers who pay to keep the lights on, but keeping them happy has to be one of the slipperiest of slopes. And the customer is rarely right.

As of August, I am a lecturer for the Department of Translation and Interpreting, College of International Culture, Education, and Foreign Affairs. That looks great on my CV, but it is a part time job and I only teach one class. Next semester, I will only teach one class. Next year, who knows. I could be invited to go away. Or asked to teach a single class again. In Taiwan, lecturer is about as low as you can get on the ladder and still be allowed to teach a class. In the United States, I might be called an assistant professor, though I am not at all qualified to be an assistant professor here. During my first semester in Minnesota, we used to call all the teachers professor, even if they were graduate students who were little more than teaching assistants.

As of September, students in this dialectology class went from being taught by a full professor to a part time lecturer. I would see that as a serious step down if I were them. This is not a general education class that students take to get an easy A. Almost everyone in the class needs it for their major, though I was surprised by how many different majors are involved. No one has complained about their new teacher, as far as I know. Then again, no grades have been posted yet.

The hardest part about teaching this class, so far, has nothing to do with the actual teaching. Standing in front of a group of mostly young people whose minds are sponges and want to soak up my wisdom, or at least the wisdom of the textbook, is easy. I like having a captive audience. It is all the paperwork that sucks any inch of glamor out of the job. Substituting for someone else is much easier. They did all the paperwork. All I had to do was teach the class.

When my sister used to teach at a cram school in Hong Kong, it took her maybe five or ten minutes to write up her lesson plans. At Wenzao, I spent about a month preparing, as well as a few extra hours the night before each class. The big difference between our experiences, other than one was after school tutoring for children and one is a university class, is that her school pretty much left her to her own devices. My school wants to know every move I am going to make, and they are watching me closely. I assume that if I do not screw this up, they might relax a little next semester. Or they might never really trust me. I am a foreigner who works part time. You never know.

Clear Water Bay 2022

We just had our annual summer trip to Clear Water Bay. By we, I mean Lily and me. Kevin did not go this year. It is his boss who owns the big house. Theoretically, he is the one who is house sitting while the boss is on vacation. But the boss knows about Lily and me, and does not seem to mind that we go to his house just as much as Kevin, if not more.

Going to Clear Water Bay is harder than ever. When we lived in Yau Ma Tei, it was an easy MTR ride on a few different lines and a quick taxi or hike to the big house. From Kaohsiung, it is a quick MRT ride from our apartment to the gaotie, a two hour train from Kaohsiung to Taoyuan, a two hour flight from Taipei to Hong Kong, a thirty minute Airport Express ride, two MTR lines, and a quick taxi to the house. There are also 90 minute flights from Kaohsiung to Hong Kong, but Taipei has far more flights and last minute availabilities. Maybe next time we should fly from Kaohsiung and save a couple of hours.

Since Lily is not a citizen, she is subject to all the arbitrary changes to entry rules and regulations. As a Canadian, she never needs a visa to go to Hong Kong, but now that China is changing their plague policy every week, we had to plan this trip more carefully than usual. We had to book the flight online, which we would have done anyway. They currently have a quota system for foreigners, so there was an extra application step for her. Apparently, I can just waltz into Taoyuan and buy a plane ticket to Hong Kong. She cannot.

She had to get a PCR test two days before the flight. That is very easy around here. Her school is an authorized testing site, so she simply made an appointment, showed up, got a stick rammed up her nose, and waited for the result. A positive test would have killed the entire trip, long after the tickets could be refunded. Fortunately, we live in a place where almost everyone always tests negative.

We both had to scan health declarations on our phones, but that was both easy and completely pointless. Anyone could lie about that. It was like walking through the 'nothing to declare' line at airport customs no matter what you have in your luggage.

From Hong Kong Airport, it was business as usual. Except we took a taxi to the big house. The Airport Express to Hong Kong Station is usually a little faster than a car, depending on traffic, but a taxi from the airport to the house was much faster than the Airport Express/MTR combo would have been. The funny thing is that I almost never took taxis the first few years I lived in Hong Kong. Now, I seem to take them from the airport all the time. It probably makes a difference that I used to live close to the Airport Express Kowloon Station. Going to Clear Water Bay or the Ma On Shan apartment is much slower by train.

Another funny thing is that we have an apartment in Hong Kong, yet we stayed at some guy's house. But one of the main points of this trip was to stay at that house. The Ma On Shan apartment has swimming pools, but they are open to everyone who lives in the complex. The Clear Water Bay swimming pool is completely private. Swimming is one of the best reasons to go to Hong Kong, as far as I am concerned. Rain or shine, I had every intention to hit that pool every day.

We used to throw parties at the big house. I think we must be getting older. Not a single person besides Lily and me set foot on the property the entire time we were there. We saw plenty of friends, but always somewhere else. I have no real explanation for this. I definitely wanted to hog that swimming pool all to myself, but I have no idea why Lily never invited anyone over. I think we are both starting to recognize how strange it is that we even stay at that house at all. Now that we are homeowners ourselves, letting in people who are complete strangers to the big house owner feels different.

For Lily, this was a summer trip during her school vacation. For me, it was a summer trip and a quiet place to work on some paperwork I had to do for a new job. She certainly spent some time in that swimming pool, but not nearly as much as I did. To her, swimming every day is excessive. Just as shopping is to me. For whatever reason, she prefers the shopping options in Hong Kong. I think they are pretty much the same as what we have in Kaohsiung, and if not, Taipei is close enough. Since this was the only thing we disagreed on during this trip, the solution was simple. Whenever she went shopping, I jumped into the pool.

We also had some business to attend to. Our Kai Tak apartment is still being built, but one of the inspection deadlines was coming up. At least one of us was going to have to go to Hong Kong whether Kevin's boss took a vacation or not. We simply timed it so we could do both. Lily and I agreed that the apartment is looking good, but what do we know. Neither of us has any construction experience. We will not really know that all is well until everything is done. That will have to wait for a future trip. Hopefully, no one gets a stick up the nose.

One night in the hot tub on the pool deck under the stars, Lily casually wondered if the house owner had any hidden cameras anywhere. In eleven years of staying at the big house, that never occurred to me. As soon as she said it, I thought about what he might have seen in those eleven years. During this conversation, Lily and I were completely nude, of course, but no camera on the pool deck would ever be able to see under the hot tub bubbles. However, it would see everything that happened on that deck, some of which I would never want to see posted online.

Most of the nudity at the big house was probably out on the pool deck, but it seems more likely that if the owner had any hidden cameras, they would be indoors. There are no valuables outdoors, unless someone knows hot to pocket a swimming pool. There was plenty of nudity indoors as well. I am pretty sure Lily and Kevin have had sex in just about every room of that house. I may have had an inappropriate relation or two in that house, mostly in my room, and maybe in the kitchen once or twice. This is why we think the owner most likely does not have any cameras. If he saw videos of Kevin getting it on in his house, we have to assume he would have said something, or at least looked at Kevin differently.

But if there are cameras, they saw multiple parties, including more than a few on Moon Cake Day. The boss goes on vacation during that holiday more than any other. I think I would be more embarrassed by the parties than swimming naked. In my mind, it is perfectly natural to swim naked. I will wear a bathing suit if I absolutely have to, but would rather not. Hosting a party at someone's house while they are away sounds more irresponsible to me. For dramatic action, the only video I would want to see was when I tore a deltoid ligament out on the pool deck ten years ago. That was not fun at the time, but I would not mind watching it now. But I sure as hell don't want it posted online.

Elevation Consternation

One of my building's elevators was offline for the weekend. There was some kind of maintenance issue that required people in jumpsuits coming out and making a racket for two solid days. The weekend was chosen based on the assumption that more people needed to get to work during the week. While probably true, I usually work weekends. That sort of thing might be a first world problem, but it was a bit of an inconvenience.

My building has multiple elevators. You can only get to your apartment from one. Each elevator only serves two apartments on each floor. Most of the time, that works well. The elevators are never crowded because only the people directly above or below you should be on your elevator. I also like the fact that I only have one neighbor on my floor, and that our apartments are separated by the elevator shaft/stairwell. We share no walls and rarely see each other. This is the ideal setup to have good neighbors. There are other apartments on the floor, but their walls do not touch my walls and there is no way to get from my apartment to theirs without taking my elevator down and taking theirs up.

The downside is that if the elevator is broken, which has never happened, or is being repaired, the stairs are our only option. I live on the 21st floor. From the basement parking, that is 22 floors to walk up. I like to exercise, but there are limits. Imagine carrying your Costco boxes up 22 floors. Fortunately, we were warned ahead of time that the elevator would be out of commission. My 45 pound cases of water could wait another day. Unfortunately, my neighbor is at least 80 years old. She was away visiting relatives when the elevator went offline. Getting down was easy. The elevator worked when she left. Getting her back was going to take a little more effort.

When I arrived on the scene, my neighbor was asking the doorman how she was supposed to get upstairs without an elevator. It was a good question. I was prepared for the hike. She was not. The doorman suggested waiting until the elevator was scheduled to be back in operation. That would have required spending the night elsewhere, and she was already coming back from an overnight trip. As an advanced citizen, she is a little set in her ways. Even convincing her to spend the night in a hotel would have required someone going up to her apartment to grab a few things, which most likely would have included some unmentionables that she would never want anyone to touch. Someone also would have to pay for it, because she never would have. She considered the building responsible for her predicament, despite their written warnings about the elevator closing. I have only known my neighbor to be a sweet little old lady. Like a lot of people set in their ways, she often ignores written warnings about something being different. Someone would also have to drive her to the hotel because she does not drive. Everyone over 65 has to take the driving test over again, so most older people simply stop driving.

In the end, we decided to just carry her upstairs. And by we, I mean two of the building's maintenance staff. She refused to be carried, what with all the touching of her private person, until I suggested she sit in a chair and we (they) carry the chair. While people she only vaguely recognized carried her up 21 floors, I carried her luggage. The good news for me was that she travels light. I have no idea what she had in her carry-on bag. It felt like a pillow and sounded like her hat collection.

Two relatively young men carrying a little old lady up the stairs might sound like an easy job, but that stairway was not really designed for people to walk side by side while lifting someone in a chair. They had to walk single file and make sure not to hit her head. She was convinced they were going to drop her every step of the way. I walked behind them, more for her peace of mind than for my convenience. That let me move at a leisurely pace.

Eventually, we were all at her front door. She offered to pay the young men who carried her, but they are not allowed to accept gratuities. Also, this is a culture that respects the elderly. They never thought twice about helping a little old lady get home. I did far less, and I had to walk up those stairs to get to my own apartment. She never offered to pay me. I am absolutely allowed to accept gratuities. As my neighbor, she offered me the first batch of cookies she made the next day. My roommates are not fans of hard, sugarless Taiwanese cookies, and consider hers inedible. I can eat pretty much anything. My legs and my teeth got a pretty good workout.

I doubt any formal complaints were ever filed, but my neighbor complained plenty when she came home and discovered the closed elevator. I don't remember the exact time the notice about maintenance was posted. I seem to recall having ample warning. It was a minor inconvenience that I knew about ahead of time. The building's management probably also thought we had sufficient warning.

There is currently a notice about upcoming four-hour maintenance on the elevator. In six months.

Section 259, Subdivision 2

When your parents die, you tend to talk about it. A lot. I never expected that. We stopped talking to each other when I was 16. The more years that passed, the less I thought about them. When they died, I thought I would think about them a little and then move on. But quite a lot happened after their accident that forced me to think about them more now than I ever did while they were alive. All of their paperwork saw the light of day, revealing their deepest secrets. I learned that my grandfather left me his house when he died in 2006. If my real estate agent can sell it for the asking price, I will have a nice little nest egg, at least by today's standards. I have no intention of retiring in the next thirty years, and who knows how much anything will cost in the 2050s.

Then I was told that I was still on my father's life insurance policy. When that check eventually comes in, it will be nowhere near as much as the house. But it is free money. There are no taxes, fees, or commissions, and I will never have to pay anyone to install a kitchen sink in the life insurance.

In one final act of selfishness that backfired horribly against them, my parents accidentally gave me the greatest gift of all. And the biggest surprise. The life insurance was a tiny surprise. I never knew about it, though had I ever bothered to think about it, being on my father's life insurance policy almost makes sense. My grandfather's house came completely out of nowhere, but I always knew the house existed. I spent a lot of time there when I was younger. I simply thought my parents sold if off after he died. The biggest shock in all of this, and the one I never would have seen coming a million miles away, was that I was adopted.

This raises a great many questions.

Why did no one ever tell me? How did no one ever tell me? Maybe my parents were planning on telling me when I got older, but we had our falling out before it ever came up. In all those arguments, how did they never blurt out that I was adopted? Or maybe they did and I dismissed it as a heat of the moment interjection. Maybe at some point I said, “I wish I was adopted” and they said, “You were.” I would have never taken that literally. Call me old fashioned, but I think telling your child that she is adopted requires a sit down conversation. I have to consider the possibility that they were never planning on telling me.

Who are my biological parents? Or were. They could be dead by now, too. Why did they give me up? There could be a million reasons, most of which I would probably understand. But I still want to know. More curiously, why did the people I have always called my parents want to adopt me? They were never all that excited to have me around, and I always assumed I was an accident they had to live with because of their religious beliefs. But if I was adopted, that means they went out and acquired me on purpose, filling out multiple government forms in the process. That pretty much goes against everything I know about our relationship. Was my brother also adopted, and does he know? I suppose if he was, he would have also been told by now. But does he know that I was adopted? If so, did he always know? I have to doubt it. He never would have been able to keep that secret when we were younger.

This brings up the hardest question. Did my grandfather know? He almost had to. I can't see too many scenarios where your child adopts a child and you never know about it. If my grandfather knew, why did he never tell me? Maybe he was waiting until I was 18, but I think you should tell children long before then. He must have had his reasons, but what were they?

Most people are probably told about their adoption when they are still children. Or at least they should be. The most common issues adopted children likely face are feelings of rejection, not fitting in, and maybe being treated differently/not accepted by extended family. The people I always thought were my biological parents rejected me a long time ago, so learning that a previous set of parents rejected me even earlier is having no noticeable impact on my psyche. I survived, and was eventually relieved, when my parents disowned me. It turned out to be a great thing. Maybe losing the biological parents was also for the best. At this point, I have no information to make any kind of determination.

I never felt like I did not fit in, but that was more because of my grandparents than anyone else. They always treated me as if I was their granddaughter. There were never any issues in the neighborhood or at school from being adopted because no one seemed to know. Everyone probably assumed I was my parents' biological child. Anyone who may have known did an excellent job at keeping it secret.

I never had any issues with extended family because I never really knew most of my parents' relatives. I grew up with a brother, mother, father, and one set of grandparents. We were never a large family. My mother was an only child and her parents died before I was born. Her parents had siblings who lived in other parts of the country, so I rarely ever saw them or their families. My father had two sisters. They had a falling out over religious issues several decades ago. Things were rocky between my father and his parents for a while, but they patched all that up before I was old enough to know what was going on. My grandfather's family was mostly old and dead by the time I could get to know them. My grandmother's family came from old money “back east” and mostly had a problem with her marrying a jazz musician. Essentially, most of my extended family never had the opportunity to reject me because they had all rejected each other far sooner. The more you know about these people, the easier it is to understand how easily my parents disowned me. That family boat was rocking long before I started making waves.

How could I possibly be adopted when I have my birth certificate, which clearly lists my parents as the parents. Here is the funny part, and something I never knew about until I started down this rabbit hole: Once you are adopted, the state changes your birth certificate. The official government record that documents who you are and where you came from is falsified. And it is all completely legal. It has been standard operating procedure for over a century. Not only do they replace your birth certificate, they make it amazingly difficult to get a copy of the real thing. The best you can do is jump through a lot of hoops to maybe get pieces of information. Naturally, you have to pay the government for the privilege.

So what happens now? I was adopted in the United States, which never makes anything easier. Most countries have one set of laws. Realistically, one set for the rich and one set for the poor. In the United States, each individual state has its own laws. To get any information, I have to go through the state of Minnesota, rather than any federal database. In Minnesota, I can request any and all information about my original birth certificate. Within six months of that request, whichever government bureaucrat is assigned the case will “make every effort” to contact whoever is on the birth certificate.

This is where it gets tricky. The state has to respect the privacy of everyone who gave up a child for adoption. At the same time, they are usually the only way for anyone to find out who their biological parents are. They contact the parents or parent, if possible, and tell them the other shoe has finally dropped. Anyone who gives up a child has to know this is coming sooner or later. The parents then have 30 days to (1) tell the government to not disclose their information under any circumstances, (2) tell the government to go ahead and disclose whatever they want, whenever they want, or (3) ignore the state agency's request.

The biological parents also have the option to change their mind at any time, assuming no information has yet been disclosed. If they tell the state they want to remain private and the state tells me tough luck, the parents can fill out a new form days or decades later telling the state to go ahead and give me their information. At that point, the state has 31 days to inform me.

If the state fails to locate the biological parents within six months of my initial request for information, there are two options. (1) If either parent listed on the original birth certificate has ever filed, at any point in time, the correct form telling the government to never disclose their information, then the state cannot tell me anything. Unless the parent files a new form to revoke the first form, or a court orders the birth certificate unsealed. (2) If neither parent has ever filed the nondisclosure form, I can petition the court for the information, which the court can either (a) reject, (b) release partial information, or (c) release all of the information if the court decides it is in “the best interests of all known persons involved”.

If I am allowed to learn anything, by either court order or all the appropriate forms getting filed properly, the state has 31 days after the last parent was notified to give me any information. If, after being notified by the state, only one parent consents to releasing any information, then I would only be told about that one parent. I think that would be infinitely better than nothing. Even if I could only talk to one of them, odds are they would tell me more about the other than the government ever could.

If either parent is dead and filled out the form allowing me to have their information, the state has 31 days to give it to me. If they are dead and filled out the form forbidding me to have their information, I can petition the court, where a judge plays that “best interests of all known persons involved” game. My first thought was that, if dead, why not tell me who they were? How would it hurt them? But then I remembered that money and power are of the utmost importance in American courts. If my biological parents turn out to be Rockefellers, there are a few billion reasons to keep me in the dark. Those are not the type of people who enjoy sharing their inheritance.

Unfortunately, there is no government form that says I just want the information and have no intention of invading anyone else's territory. If, in the highly unlikely event that my biological parents were indeed rich and powerful, there would be no way for me to let anyone know that I do not want anything other than information. My point of view is that if you grew up in that family and you had to put up with all their bullshit, you have more right to their stuff than I do. In the far more likely scenario that my parents are anonymous everyday slobs, I still only want information. Family dynamics are a precarious thing. I have no desire to make even more waves. I am more than open to getting to know any potential relatives I might have, but I understand completely if they are less curious. Whoever these people are, I am not part of their family. I am simply the result of some man ejaculating into some woman. At the very least, I just want to know who owns the womb whence I sprang forth.