Kaohsiung faces the strait, and cranes crisscross the mostly blue skies with paint-coated metal bars. Boats, ships, ferries, and the occasional coast guard patrol rip through the waters that have been the site of much staring down between will, fate, and destiny. Since the late seventeen hundreds, many from the eastern seaboard have made the journey across rough seas and dire straits. Some have come from Fujian, yet others from many other places on the long shore and the deep

Just as I land in Taipei, a friend from college arrives in Kaohsiung. On the first weekend out of Quarantine, I travel to meet her. Taipei Main Station is a maze of concrete tunnels and metal tracks, underground platforms, and a multistory depot with gates for arrivals and departures, housing the MRT, the bus stop, the local railway station, as well as the High-Speed Rail. Used to the meanderingly long journeys of the Indian Railways, prone to such delays where arrival become