Hú lăo dà and I had instant rapport the first time we met, up in Líshān ([Chinese] Pear Mountain) in July 1975 in the hills of central Taiwan. We didn’t have to communicate aloud most of the time, as we’d be thinking the same thoughts, so we just needed to make eye contact to confirm we were on the wavelength about the same thing.
When I went back for a visit in 1979, he and I had arranged to meet up one evening, having our own things to do during the day. As soon as we saw each other in the evening, we both said, simultaneously, “I have a present for you!” Since we couldn’t decide who should be presenting to whom first, we thought we’d do it at the same time. So, one two three, we whipped out our respective presents for each other.
I’d bought him a brass ashtray, which was in the shape of a foot, with the toes dipping down as grooves for resting the cigarettes. What had made me buy it for him was the fact that it was extra large (he wore size 12 shoes, being 6’ 3”), and it had an extra long second toe, a feature he and his siblings shared, taking after their mother. I’m the opposite, being the only one in my family with the extra long second toe.
What he had bought for me was also a brass ashtray, the exact replica of the one I’d bought for him, except that it was extra small (I wear size 3 shoes, being 5’ 1”)—one of the two deciding factors in his purchasing it, the other being it had an extra long second toe.
So we’d both gone our own ways during the day, but come across the same brass ashtray, albeit in different shops in different parts of Taipei, and immediately thought of each other. And bought them for each other for exactly the same reasons.
(Taipei, 1979)
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