In Continuum.

*

There are two things you don't want to be waking up to on a typical weekend morning. One would be the voice of my father yelling into the phone, which is how he usually talks for some reason. Two would be my sister blasting loud Japanese boy band music over her laptop in the dining room. It was ten minutes to nine thirty, a full half an hour before I was supposed to wake up. The door was left opened, and the sound poured into my room and intruded my peaceful slumber. I woke up and groaned, my head throbbed from the sleepless Saturday night before, and asked my father to lower his volume as he came into my room. I buried my face in my palms for a minute and thought about what we had ahead of us: a trip down to the countryside, and then a visit to the relatives in the mountains. It'd involve  lot of meeting with people I haven't seen in a long time, and I didn't exactly know what to expect. My family friends live in the South, about an hour's drive from where I live, deep in the countryside amidst endless fields of farms and plantations. The other, my father's only sister, lives in a high class estate in the mountains, a place that I have been to once a long time ago. So I ran a handful of icy cold water into my face to wake myself up, and I was ready to get ready. 

I remember waking up early just to go to their place in the countryside, only because we grew up with them over the years. My parents and their parents have been friends ever since I was a year old, and we've been paying them a visit for the longest time every time we returned until a few years ago when, well, we grew up and older. I suppose that is what happens at times, you find less and less reasons to reconnect with your past, to see the people that you grew up with back home. Suddenly, it was less of a priority when I came back home to Taiwan. It became the food and the shopping, the dog and the doing nothing. Childhood friends hardly came across my mind for a good five years or so, and meeting them now just made a whole lot of sense. My father drove down the highway with my mother at the front, and the whole family drove through familiar roads and narrow alleys, off the main road and into small country road until we reached a row of industrial warehouses to our right. Our family friend deals with a lot of engine oils, and he is an expert in car repairing for the most part. We were at their office when we arrived, a warehouse with a small corner designated to be the office space. They met us at the front as we got out of the car, and they looked just the same as they looked the last time we left them. 

We talked, and we talked some more. The country air was fresh and chilly to my skin, as I stood on a mount in the middle of the field and looked out into the distance. Wild flowers grew about my feet, along the drain that was choked with pebbles, and farmers far off bent their backs and tended to their crops. Rows and rows of crops lined the fields on one side, while my side of the land was left to grow freely and on their own, like a democratic society amidst a series of totalitarian states, and it wasn't difficult to imagine the plants as being unwilling citizens, all dressed in the same color and providing what they could to the betterment of the farms. Anyway, my sister and I took pictures of the flowers, ran around the field and avoided dried piles of dog dung, and threw pebbles into the drains. It was just like how things were when we were both much younger, when we used to visit this place in the summer and the winter, when we would dig holes in the ground and make traps for ourselves. It was fun, when we built our wooden houses with wooden poles and straw, and we'd make ourselves comfortable underneath a makeshift roof and eat snacks. Now that we were back in the same countryside, there was a strange sense of nostalgia creeping up my skin, like a deja vu. "I've been here before", I said, and smiled. 

We got to a restaurant that we've been to before, ordered the same food that we have ordered before, everything was just the same as before. It was just a little emptier, with the seats less taken, and we talked about how we were still being carried in the arms of our parents when we first went to that restaurant. Then we all grew older, we are at the table by ourselves, and who knows how it is going to be like the next time we decide to go there. Perhaps, I'd be pushing my parents in instead, though I do not wish for that to happen at all. It just kinda shows the whole idea of time, the way everything passes by if you don't think about it. When you do have the time to think about it over tea, everything has changed so fast that you can't help by feel somewhat saddened by the whole situation. Anyway, we moved out of the restaurant and went back to the little warehouse next to the farm, where I followed them into the fields to pluck turnip out of the grounds. "Look at the taller ones," he said with a cigarette hanging from between his lips. "They are ready". We jumped from row to row, and my shoes sank into the soil as I jumped. He started pulling them out of the ground, threw them to me while I removed the roots with a cutter. Like that, we collected three bags full of fat and fresh turnips from the ground, and we packed them to the back of our cars to be brought home. Yeah, it's one of those things, you really don't get in Singapore.

I liked that part of morning, going through rows of spices they planted for themselves was nice. They even had a bush full of strawberries, and we plucked them off despite the fact that I find strawberries to be unsettling. I also took a walk around the warehouse, and found that they have preserved a lot of things from the past, things that they have brought over from the previous house that I used to visit when I was a child. There was a mini dirty bike that I used to ride when I was a child, up and down their driveway and up pass the pig sty. Then there was the Mickey Mouse clock, the wooden statue of the Buddha that used to smile upon us in the living room, and then there was the giant grandfather's clock that they have carried over. It was the same one that we tempered with when we were younger, when we'd adjust the time just to make time pass by a little slower. My aunt would be the evil one, hurrying us to go home when we didn't want to. So she'd give us ultimatums, have us decide what time we have to go home and stuff like that. We'd ask for ten more minutes, five more minutes, until eleven thirty, whatever. Then we'd try to adjust the hands of the clock, just to trick my aunt to believe that we have more time. Of course, we also forgot that the adults had watches on their wrists as well. 

We left that place with a drizzle falling on the windscreen. The road led us to my grandmother's house, and I slept on the way there for the most part. She emerged at the front door with the help of my mom, taking careful steps one at a time with a cane in her hands. Ninety-four years of age, still going strong, though a lot slower than before. She needs a cane to walk now, and my father's car is too high for her to get into without any troubles. I held the door open for her, smiling while she got in with the help of my mom. She looks  lot older now, and age has finally caught up with her. She sat at the front of the car for the rest of the trip, and my father kept trying to entertain her by making a fool out of himself. We reached the relative's place after a ten minute drive up the side of a mountain, and it was almost reaching into the clouds as they hung low around the peak. The rest of Taipei spread out at the foot of the hill and away into the distance, and we drove around a giant lake to get to their place. The estate felt like some Japanese estate, the kind where important people would stay. Residences minded their own businesses, making dinners and watching television. We could hear only our own footsteps though, and it echoes down the road as I threw pebbles into the lake. 

Dinner was being served, and the entire family sat around and ate the most food I have seen in a long time. My cousin poured me wine in a tall glass, and he just kept on going for the rest of the night until my vision became a little woozy. It was particularly different for my parents because my parents have never seen me drink before. My father wanted to test how much liquor I could hold, which was why he kept asking for more to be poured into my glass. My mother just kept asking him to control himself, but I felt she kind of wanted to know how much I could take as well. A few drinks later, I felt a little strange in my head, and I couldn't tell near objects from the ones that were far away any longer. So I positioned myself in the living room to watch the kid play with his toys, with the race cars going round and round the plastic tracks. I never liked those plastic tracks when I was a child, I didn't like how I had so little control over the cars. They just went round and round around the same track, and I would have hated that as a Christmas present. But there he was, going through his toys and showing the adults what he could do, reminded me somewhat of, well, myself. 

*

My mother explained to me about the song my grandmother just sang. It was about tea leaf farmers and what they go through in a day, from the moment they wake up till the moment they fall asleep. One verse went on to another, then another, then another, with a short pause halfway through for her to cough. When she was done, even my father applauded despite the fact that he was supposed to keep his hands on the wheels. He was drunk after all, but the rest of us were genuinely impressed by the old lady's feat. It felt somewhat like a moment of time travel, back to a time when she first learned that song. I'm sure she still remembers who taught it to her, or where she heard it from. For a few minutes there, she reconnected with her past - like she was there. It's kinda like me today, going through all the events and seeing some of the things from the past, and coming in contact all over again. I had a great day reconnecting with my past, getting in touch with people I have yet to meet in a long time, go to places that I haven't been to in a while. It was a fruitful visit, I must say, and I don't think I can ask for more on this trip back home.