The Night Market

My last evening in Taiwan, my father wanted to show me Shilin Night Market. We rode the subway, transferring at Taipei Main Station for the northbound red line. Saturday night, the market was jammed with people strolling up and down the arteries of the main thoroughfare. Baba and I dragged along with the crowd, pausing here and there to browse the wares. We'd made up from the fight in the car driving down Yangmingshan yesterday, at least for now. He'd promised to rethink the new university contract and seriously consider coming back to the States for good.

The air was saturated by the scent of grilled meat, custard pudding and red bean pies, propane fumes and human sweat. Deep house music pumped out of every other storefront speaker, as vendors shouted into megaphones pointed at the passing hordes: Two-for-one ladies cotton underwear! Genuine leather sandals for men! Motorola flip phones unlocked here! DVDs! CDs! Come take a look!

At the food section in the back of the market, Baba stood in line to order us bowls of oyster vermicelli while I staked out seats at the communal tables set up in the center of the stalls. We dipped into the noodles. The oysters floated on top, fat and glistening like polished jewels.

"Listen, mei. There's one more person who wanted to see you before you leave," Baba said, between bites.

I asked if it was another relative. If Baba sensed my irritation, he didn't show it.

Before this trip, I hadn't seen my father in two and a half years, since he took this job. In the last week-my spring break-I'd barely spent any time with him alone. Every day, another banquet dinner with dozens of cousins, uncles and aunties, family friends who asked if I remembered them from the last time I visited the island, when I was just a kid.

"You can call him Uncle Lee," he said. One of his college buddies, my father explained. For a second, he looked like he had more to add. "He's been a good friend to me," he said finally.

"That's him over there now." Baba lifted a hand and waved.

The man waved back and made his way to our table. He moved with the compressed energy of a wrestler, his chin slightly down, arms swinging deliberately, as if ready to grapple at a moment's notice. Lee wore a red tank top with a cartoon duck printed on the chest, the hem tucked into a pair of tight black jeans, an FOB outfit that would've caught stares back home, but here he looked cool, I thought.

"My baby daughter," Baba said.

"Uncle Lee," I said in Mandarin. "Pleased to meet you."

"Sit down, sit down!" He offered his hand to me, and I shook it. "A big lady, tall like Old Shen here."

"She takes after her mother more than me-"

"I should hope so, with your teeth," said Lee, and they both laughed. He extracted a blue handkerchief from the nylon fanny pack around his waist and wiped down his face, which gleamed with sweat. "Much hotter here than LA, right? And it's only March." He gestured toward the empty Styrofoam bowls on the table. "You like Taiwanese food? Even the broiled intestines in the vermicelli?"

"My daughter eats very well."

"Wah! Like you, then." Lee jabbed a finger into my father's side.

"Uncle Lee, have you eaten yet?"

Lee smiled. "She's quite mature. Good manners." He glanced at my father approvingly. "All foreign-born girls not this way. Sometimes you hear stories about overseas children."

I felt my cheeks...