ACT 4/SCENE 212: TAIPEI 101

The sight of Taipei’s buildings - compressed upon one another and held together by cables and wires like so many stacked Bekins boxes,  bejeweled in equal proportions by cold fluorescent neon and characters from a 5,000 year old language - would have likely seemed more startling to me had I not already formed such a precise picture of the city from the fragmented jigsaw pieces of 20-year old memories and scenes from assorted art films. Sitting in the taxi’s front passenger seat as we drove into the city on a playfully damp Thursday night, my head felt as if it were connected to a particularly promiscuous swivel, my eyes repeatedly panning left to right, right to left, up and down in order to take in the sight of this city I’ve come to fancy - quite irrationally - through the wholly vicarious avenues of cinema and second hand stories. 

My weird affinity with this city that, until tonight, I hadn’t stepped foot in since I was a  slightly buck toothed, blue blazer sporting rug rat has less to do, I think, with tangible peculiarities than romantic imaginings. Sure I have people of Taiwanese origin firmly integrated into my life’s narrative and yes, my favorite movie of the past ten years was a sprawling, multi-generational epic about a Taiwanese family; but surely those can’t be the only reasons right?

Looking out of the corner window of this thoroughly modern hotel room - marble floors, a medium density pillow top mattress and in-room wifi access being, afterall, the key indicators of modernity in accomodation ammenities - with the sight of the Taipei 101 skyscraper towering well past my viewpoint over the city’s lesser giants, office lights aglow, cabs and mopeds navigating around one another in clusters like so many magnetic balls, it suddenly hits me like a 7-10 split. I realize just what it is about Taipei that makes me feel so welcome... so at home. It is, at the risk of sounding indiscriminate, what I adore so much about and makes me feel equally at home in Hong Kong, Manhattan and San Francisco. City life. That which does not cease at midnight. The overwhelming, undeniable and ever-constant presence of the one thing I find most inspiring: possibility.  Only now, instead of watching it on a movie screen or hearing about it from friends and loved ones, it is before me. Now, I stand at its very center; the cross section of what I know and what I’ve yet to learn. 

Ken Cheng

Taipei, Taiwan 

ACT 4/SCENE 211: SUPERHUMAN

The act of travelling with friends internationally requires a certain amount of collective hubris greater than the sum arrogance of its parts; a strong-willed determination among all party members to stretch beyond lengths unreached in the coarse banality of the everyday. It is the kind of assured belief in a group’s shared superhumanity - and a sense that we are impervious here (where ever “here” happens to be) to that which would shackle our prowess among the Kryptonite-laced skyscrapers of there, our home cities - that provides a group with the vague purpose needed to accomplish untold heights of turpitude, heights limited only by the individual olbigations and moral anchors we willingly travel with like so many pieces of carry-on luggage.

How else but with the kind of empowering - perhaps delusional - mental fortitude would five friends, for example, withstand 16 hours of cross-oceanic flight bookended by hours of assorted airport dillydallying and MRT commutes in order to partake in revelry powered by good friendship, social interaction and numerous glasses of blended caramel rocket-fuel flavored Johnnie and Cokes over what would amount to a dizzying, 14-hour layover in one of the most restlessly dynamic cities on the surface of this earth? For surely if there was a city designed to overwhelm the senses of sight and sound; to test the limits of one’s celebratory stamina with its infinite array of neon-colored appeals of consumption and urban spread, it would be Hong Kong.

This would, of course, be followed by an inevitable hobbling of exhausted bodies and battered brain cells back to Hong Kong International in order to catch an early morning flight to Singapore -- where another long night that would certainly appeal to Bacchus himself, surely awaited. And that was merely the first 40 hours. And in cases such as this, as I said, hubris is not a bad thing. For without it, the sheer scale of flying between four international destinations and enjoying ungodly merriment within a 40-hour window might seem downright herculean. With it? Aided by rays from a yellow sun, the mutantagenic effects of the “X” gene and the radioactive after effects of an arachnid bite? The task seems not only doable, but dare I say easy.

Ken Cheng

Clarke Quay, Singapore

ACT 4/SCENE 210: A LETTER TO READERS

Dear Reader,

Happy new year! I’d like to, first and foremost, thank you for devoting a minute or two of your Internet itinerary to stop by today and read, peruse or even mock my blog. In a world of infinite destinations, I am glad to have as many (or as few) readers as I do. Your viewership is not taken for granted, believe me.

I have to say that writing and maintaining this blog - as indulgent and self-edifying as it is - often feels like a weekly exercise at mumbling into the wind. This is why the instances in which I draw a tangible response - be it a comment from a friend or an e-mail from a complete stranger - seem so supremely satisfying; even when the responses (like THESE) are left with the intention of telling me what an idiot I am. That said: I’m trying to figure out what the over-arching purpose and theme of Can I Have A Word? will be in 2010. We’re only two weeks in and already, events and circumstance seem to be swirling around me at a break-neck pace. All good things, I should point out vaguely. At least for now.

One of the things I CAN talk about is our upcoming short film! Along with a terrific young cinematographer, incredibly energetic young producer and knockout of an associate producer, we’ve officially kickstarted pre-production on the first short film I’ll have written and directed since college. Our project - currently titled “ONLY YOU” - is a quiet little story about broken hearts, new roommates and the way those things often intertwine in ways we don’t expect. And there’ll be music! Maybe even dancing? You’ll have to wait and see.

I’d like to keep you guys posted on our progress and whatnot, so I’m thinking of starting a production blog where you’ll be able to get updates, see photos and other fun behind-the-scenes stuff. Question for you guys though: would your rather see these items here at Can I Have A Word? or on a blog dedicated solely to the project? I’m inclined to do the latter but don’t know whether it’d even be worth it from your - the viewer’s - standpoint. Feel free to let me know what you think... suggestions are welcome.

I’ll have more updates in the weeks ahead but it suffices to say that I am excited, antsy, nervous, terrified and resolute all at once about what’s ahead. But make no mistake, what’s ahead should be equally excited, antsy, nervous and terrified about me as well. Whatever happens, I hope you guys will come back to read all about the excitement, nervousness, terror and resolution to come. Or even mock it... if only for a minute or two.

Sincerely,

Ken Cheng

Los Angeles, CA