#Taiwan���

[one-time-i-dreamt]

[usertoxicyaoi]

[petitworld]

Alishan National Forest, Taiwan by William Lai

[theleoisallinthemind]

by Zeng Wu for Vogue Taiwan

[foldingfittedsheets]

Truly, one of the greatest love language is someone agreeing to eat something atrocious for your benefit.

My first experience with this was in college. My friend Charlie invited me to a jazz club. One would think he’d learned his lesson. I thought nothing of this and agreed to a fun night with a guy friend. We arrived and I saw nothing romantic in the outing.

The menu at the club was very traditional date food- steak, oysters, romancey food. But still, I didn’t catch on. This food didn’t sound like what I wanted. In fact, what I wanted was a hummus plate. Charlie took this turn of events with a slight wince but ordered one for us.

The hummus plate arrived. Sitting politely on the corner of the garlic bomb was a spicy pepper. Laughing, I teasingly dared Charlie to eat it. You see, this kind of rough humor was common among buddies. I thought we were in Buddy Rules. But Charlie was operating under Date Rules; eating the pepper would be a romantic test of his bravery.

He bit the pepper.

His skin was almost as pale as mine and he went bright red instantly, tears stood in his eyes as sweat broke out across his whole body in protest. He barely managed to swallow as he began coughing, his body reflexively trying to spew forth the poison in his mouth.

I was doubled over with laughter and didn’t feel bad until a few days later when Brendan informed me it had been a date. I scoffed initially and only slowly realized Charlie had been intending it as a date. I repented the pepper and promptly dated Brendan in self defense.

Charlies act of romantic heroism went unappreciated but the spirit was there.

Many years later when I’d given up on boys I was dating my beloved wife. Together we took a trip to Taiwan. One of the wonderful things about new places is the food. I still dream about the food in Taiwan. Even the humblest train station cream puff was several orders of magnitude better than any I’ve ever had in the states.

But one place we went was like. Italian food as interpreted by Taiwanese cooks. Some of the combos were as bizarre to me as many Italians probably feel American Italian food is. Specifics escape me, but it felt like I was dreaming some of the menu at the time. At the end we decided to get a chocolate fondue, because why not. We were on vacation.

The liquid chocolate was served with all the things one would normally expect, strawberries, sweets, the usual chocolate accompaniments. And then we saw the tomatoes. Tomatoes and chocolate. We all stared at the tomatoes in horrified fascination.

Now, I hate tomatoes. I can stand a tomato sauce but raw tomatoes and I have nothing to talk about. So I knew that if I tried it I’d find it as repugnant as I’ve always found tomatoes. But I was haunted by the idea that someone who actually liked tomatoes would like tomatoes in chocolate.

My beloved loves tomatoes. And chocolate. I turned the biggest puppy dog eyes on them and begged to know if the combination was actually somehow delicious. My wife insisted that it would be heinous. Still, they speared a tomato sacrifice and coated it in chocolate, for me. For me, they ate it.

It was so wretched that their face collapsed into instant regret. But they didn’t spit it out. They knew I got sick if people spit out half chewed food. So they soldiered on and swallowed the cursed chocolate fruit.

Their devotion utterly delighted me, and even years later I adore that they suffered that tomato to reassure me that indeed, it was bad.

[rararaelui]

following the brazilian miku trend, with taiwanese indigenous amis tribe miku!

[fruitiermetrostation]

Taichung Metro Green Line

[uroko]

見晴懷古步道  / Jancing Historic Trail 

[fashionlandscapeblog]

Hyunji Shin photographed by Cho Gi-Seok for Vogue Taiwan March 2024

[retrogamingblog2]

Life size Alolan Exeggutor at the Taoyuan International Airport in Taiwan

[uniories]

Wave (2024)

[zegalba]

Hung Tung Lu: Untitled (2007)

[nnnnoooo007]

In a convenience store on a rainy day

[nagumoshoma]

WE BEST LOVE: NO.1 FOR YOU (2021) dir. ray jiang

[iskimxk]

Taiwanese Miku

[heretherebedork]

Their first morning after and the tenderest of snuggles and comfort.