Typhoon Nari

Memories, of that, hard-hitting typhoon, from awhile ago, translated…

That disturbing, unwelcoming typhoon arrived at around Mid-Autumn Festival this year, making Taiwan get draped under the pressures of its attack. And because of how far away some people are from the hardest hitting parts of Taiwan, most of the citizens just, carried on, as they normally would, and only paid the slightest attention to the news alerts. By, fifteen years ago, another typhoon, had caused the city of Taipei to be completely submerged in water, causing the capital city to become, totally, paralyzed, but, nobody seemed to remember it.

A friend on September 17^th, wrote a passage on Facebook, recalling that day that happened, the pressures from outside and the stresses from within himself, that he’d, moved into a hotel, and started writing, his sense of helplessness, in the experience. And because of his post, it’d made me recalled, my only, Typhoon Nari too.

the actual photo from Typhoon Nari back in 2001

The typhoon arrived on the sixteenth, it was, a day of raging winds and pouring rains, I’d stayed at home all day long, couldn’t even open my front door. Turned on the television, I’d learned that Keelung Road, and Zhongxiao E. Road, the high priced region had become, completely, flooded—and I lived next to the higher platforms right by Keelung Road—at which time, I’d tilted my head out my windows, and examined the streets down below, thinking to myself: this, is no simply flooding caused by the typhoon.

The water level getting up to the third, fourth floors, kept replaying over and over again on television, beneath the grayed out skies, and the endless water flooding over the streets, there are just, those barely working, still fighting traffic lights, blinking on and off, with those rescuers in their bright orange outfits, rowing out on those orange rubber boats, showed their lonely selves in this, dark gray world. If there’s an end of days, would it, look like this? I keep on asking myself this question.

But, the real catastrophe is yet to come. A few days later, after the water finally receded, and I’d finally, made it into the office, entering it, I’d learned, what HELL was really about; back then, my office was located close to the Songshan Train Station, right next to the waste water plant, and so, during those days when the typhoons attacked, the rain, with the water that accumulated, with the trash that flowed, along with an assortment of waste water, sewage, filled up the entire area; and, if the water level rose to two, three stories high, then, the basement must’ve been, filled up with the mud and the muck. As I’d entered, the pavement was still, wet, and, on the visible areas, there were, black colored mud smeared, layered on top. Compared to my put-off workload, cleaning up after the typhoons, is the most pressing thing for me right now.

and this, is how the train station platforms looked, photo from online…

I’d rolled up my sleeves with my coworkers, worked hard, to clean everything up. Before I’d cleaned, I’d first, given commends, to the over a hundred volumes of books I’d had, there were, many book sets, I’d, spent a ton of money on. And the newspaper clippings that took me forever to keep, is now, completely, dampened, and wreaked of a rancid smell too. The books that were lost, I can buy again, but I can’t, get my newspaper clipping book again, so, I’d kept it, it’s just, that as I’d taken it out again today, it still, wreaked of that rancid smell.

This smell stayed, inside of my mind too. Back then, what I can’t put up with the most, was not the laboring, but the smells. I can’t describe in words, just how bad it’d, smelled, just recalled, that for every ten minutes worth of cleaning, I’d needed to, climb up to the roof, to get some fresh air, and even so, I still couldn’t, manage to, get that nausea that’s tucked inside, so tightly, within and between my sensory memories. In the end, I’d needed to, bum a cigarette from a coworker, to finally, chase that smell out of me. This was, the very first time I’d, smoked, and for the longest time too.

Many years later, I’d gone to the areas hit by Typhoon Morakot to help out, to help clean up the debris, and the moment I’d set foot into the area, that familiar scene came back up, from my memories. I’d finally understood, how to describe this scent, it’s, the scent, of a huge, disaster.

So, this, is your experience in how a typhoon had impacted your daily routines, and, the typhoons here, are harder and harder hitting now, and, each and every single time, the current one will be stronger than the last, and yet, you still had to, buck up, and clean up after the huge mess left behind by these natural disasters, because we can’t let these bad disasters, beat us down, we must, pick up our own lives, and keep going!