A Life Lived Once
I’ve always been struggling with my identity.
I am many things to many people: father, son, cousin, nephew, brother, friend, teacher, and more.
I am sure many people question who they are from time to time. Your family, your friends, and your country will give you some answers, some context, some kind of way of understanding who you are and where you come from.
Who am I?
Where do I come from?
My questions arise from being a South African expat living permanently in Taiwan.
I’ve been living here in Taiwan since 2003. I first came here to teach English and save up some money for a house, a car, and a future back in South Africa. But after falling in love with my wife and with Taiwan, those plans changed dramatically. Now I have three kids and I am paying off a mortgage on a house I love living in, in a country I love living in.
I live in central Taiwan, in the city I first started working in 2003 (back when Yuanlin was only a township).
I invited my dad to join me in Taiwan in 2004, and he lived here for three years with me. I feel Taiwan had a healing effect on him (and me), and I saw him blossom into the best version of himself since my mom passed away in 2000. He had new friends. He smiled more. He enjoyed his life here. He loved helping others, and teaching English was an easy way for him to be helpful. He had an active social life and The Reader’s Cafe in Yuanlin Township was an all-night kind of place where he offered free English classes to his Taiwanese friends. I was sad to see him move back to South Africa after changing his Joining Family Visa into a Business Visa. He felt emotionally and financially stressed doing monthly visa runs to Hong Kong and to Bangkok.
When my dad (now 70) passed away on Saturday morning last year on December 16, I knew I had to go back to South Africa to get his ashes. I wanted to put him to rest in a place I knew he was at his happiest: right here in Taiwan.
Now I’ve got his ashes with me. And his old wedding ring.
I flew to South Africa on Saturday, February 24, and spent a good two weeks visiting as many family and friends as I could. I spent 2 days in Johannesburg, 2 days in Durban, 2 days in Port Elizabeth, 2 days in Wellington and Cape Town, and the last few days back in Durban before flying back to Taiwan on Friday, March 8.
In South Africa, I was overwhelmed with love, with kindness, and with stories about my parents. I connected with family and with friends I hadn’t seen in decades.
I was humbled by a country I thought didn’t want me any more.
South Africa is a beautiful country, and going back for two weeks helped rekindle my love of the country I was born in.
I don’t know exactly what it means to be a South African, because there are millions of South Africans living all over the world.
I just know that I am a South African.
Back in Taiwan, I had a busy week back at work. I have had many thoughts while taking time away from my regular Substack and Instagram posting schedule to think about my writing and what I want from this literary part of myself which I feel is the best part of me.
My dad left very few written words for me to remember him by. Instead, I stare at old photographs and remember the stories people told me about him. I was very close to my dad, and I tried my best to help him over the years. I often dream of him and my mom.
They lived their lives once, and only once.
Quintile 2 Plans
One of the challenges for me at the moment is transcribing the pages my dad wrote in his scribbling cursive style. I can only type a few pages at a time. It is exhausting work trying to decipher what he wrote. I often type [xxxxx] when I can’t read a word or guess what the word could be.
I can hear my dad’s voice in the scribbled words at times. I can hear how he struggled to express himself, how he often went off on tangents, always worried that people would lose interest in him if he stopped talking for a second.
His writing sounds exactly like him.
My dad loved talking. Saying a final goodbye to him after a chat was impossible. I remember almost always having to leave mid-sentence when chatting to him. He never knew how to end conversations.
I guess, neither did I.
My Plans for Quintile 2 of 2024 (15 March to 26 May)
Transcribe my dad’s words.
Compile and scan photographs of my dad for a Facebook Post.
Have a small service for my dad’s ashes.
Plan my next visit to South Africa with my family.
Work on my writing projects.
Update everyone on my progress.
Keep in contact with my friends and my family in South Africa.
Post to Substack and to Instagram when I can.