A lot has changed, yet at the same time, a lot hasn’t. I know that probably doesn’t quite make any sense, but that was exactly what I felt, walking through this place where I was once a different me, a me who was a lot more carefree.
On what used to be an empty land, now stands a strange few-storey high, pristine white and modern-looking building still half-built right beside the dirt-filled labyrinth of alleys and abandoned one-storey houses—one of which I lived in for two months—that I was told, used to house soldiers. Where I once chanced upon a TV production team, got barked at by large stray dogs, and saw history and culture, now sits cranes and power shovels destroying history and scooping it out of the way; where silence once hung in the air, now lies machines that cause rings in my ear drums.
But at the same time, where I once spent a Christmas Eve and received a bottle of shampoo as a gift, still stands the same church, but in brighter and cleaner coats of paint; where I once saw a lady carry a black piglet while buying a cup of bubble tea, still exists the same bubble tea shop; and where I had my first bowl of Hsinchu vermicelli and gong wan (pork ball/貢丸), is still the same franchise going strong.
A lot of places where I had made memories are still the same and I guess it’s probably me that has changed the most.
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