The Island That Keeps Seeing Me Change

I began traveling in 2012, in my early-20s, when adulthood seemed less like a destination than an unpleasant country I had been forced to enter without a passport. I was learning the usual things: how to earn a living, how to disappoint people, how to keep certain truths to myself. Taiwan was my first real escape back in 2016, though I would not have called it that at the time. I arrived carrying more questions than luggage, stepping into Taipei's busy streets, where scooters crowded the intersections, and the smell of pepper buns, soy milk, and frying scallion pancakes drifted from the breakfast stalls. I wanted to see the world, but somewhere beneath that ambition was a more uncomfortable desire: to find out who I was when nobody I knew was watching. I was afraid of disappointing the people closest to me, and perhaps even more afraid of what might happen if I stopped trying to please them. Taiwan did not resolve any of this. It merely gave me somewhere to think about it.

I returned, as travelers do when a place has lodged itself in the mind. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with my mother, and once on my own, which is a useful way of discovering how much of your personality is simply the company you keep. Each visit brought a different arrangement of people, weather, meals, and moods. Taiwan remained largely indifferent to my personal development. The scooters still snarled through Taipei's narrow streets, the night markets still glowed beneath their tangle of signs, and the vendors at Shilin and Raohe continued serving oyster omelets, pepper buns, and bowls of beef noodle soup to hungry crowds. In Jiufen, red lanterns hung above steep stairways, and the mountain mist moved through the old streets like something with its own itinerary. Along the coast, the Pacific kept crashing against the rocks, indifferent to anyone's plans. But I had changed. The same streets that once seemed exotic became familiar, and the familiar began to reveal things I had missed. I was no longer looking at Taiwan in quite the same way, which is one of the small advantages of growing older.

There is a quality to Taiwan that I have never quite been able to explain. It does not demand admiration. It does not insist on being profound. It gets on with things. Perhaps that is why I have come to appreciate it more with every visit. When I was younger, I wanted the spectacle, the unfamiliar, the photograph that proved I had been somewhere. Now I find myself interested in smaller things: a bowl of beef noodle soup eaten slowly in a crowded shop, the clatter of a local train pulling away from Ruifang, the sight of old men playing mahjong beneath the awnings while the afternoon rain falls over Taipei. I like the convenience stores glowing at midnight, the small neighborhood temples tucked between apartment buildings, the smell of incense mixing with exhaust fumes. Travel, I have come to suspect, is less about collecting places than about learning to pay attention. Taiwan has become a place where I can do that, where the ordinary has gradually acquired a meaning it did not have before. It has watched me grow older without making a fuss about it.

This latest trip, however, belonged as much to the people I traveled with as to the island itself. My work colleagues, who have become friends in the way that sometimes happens when you spend enough time together in a profession that leaves little room for ordinary lives, brought their own particular brand of chaos. There were night markets, endless laughter, inside jokes that would be incomprehensible to anyone outside our little traveling company, and the usual arguments about where to eat next. We wandered through crowded streets beneath the neon signs, ordered food we couldn't pronounce properly, and took photographs as if the night would last forever. Somewhere between the last train, the endless snacks, and the jokes that became funnier with every retelling, I realized how fortunate I was to be there with them. It was a pleasure to see people I knew from the workplace become something else entirely, freed from rosters, responsibilities, and the seriousness of keeping aircraft moving safely through the sky. For a few days, we were simply people on holiday, eating too much, walking too far, and laughing at things that probably weren't that funny. I had come to Taiwan expecting another chapter in a familiar story. I hadn't expected to enjoy the company quite so much.

Now comes the inevitable business of leaving. The bags are packed, the photographs are taken, and everyone begins making jokes about how soon we can do this again. I know the routine. Airports are full of people pretending that departure is just another logistical exercise, when sometimes it feels more like being asked to abandon a small, temporary life. What I will miss is not simply Taiwan, which will remain where it is, carrying on with its scooters, trains, temples, and night markets. I will miss this particular version of Taiwan, the one made by the people who were here with me. The late-night walks, the crowded tables, the ridiculous conversations, and the feeling that for a few days, our lives had been rearranged into something uncomplicated and joyful. The laughter will become an anecdote, the photographs will acquire the dull permanence of memory, and eventually we will return to our separate routines, where the next trip will seem impossibly far away.

Maybe that is why I keep returning to Taiwan. It has become a sort of measuring post, a place where I can look back at the person I was and see, with some surprise, the person I have become. The first time I came here, I was trying to find the courage to be myself. Now I return with friends, with my mother, or alone, and discover that there are still things worth learning about the life I have made. This time, I leave grateful for the island, but even more grateful for the people who made it memorable. Taiwan will be here when I return. The people, the circumstances, the particular arrangement of laughter and time, may not be. And perhaps that is the real lesson of travel: you can return to a place as often as you like, but you can never quite return to the moment that made you love it.