Charlize Week 5: Land of the Free?
Having grown up in Fremont for most of my life (the two years in New York don’t count as little infant me does not remember anything), I’m definitely fond of the neighborhood I’ve grown up in over the years. However, some of my most cherished memories that I always find myself replaying in my mind have been made abroad.
During my trip to Taiwan, I decided to meet with my friend who was also in the capital at the time—the far corner of Taipei City had a newly opened Lalaport Mall and we were eager to check it out. I was able to hop on the Taipei Metro, passing through a total of sixteen stations, before finally reaching my destination at the westernmost station. The new mall was ridiculously underwhelming, with a diabolical amount of overpriced luxury brands. We then headed over to another large shopping center that was more… suitable for us middle class people after going through another nine stations. Dinner at a lovely toilet-themed restaurant was eleven stations away at the Shilin Night Market, located in a northern district of Taipei. When it came time to part ways, I was maybe a little scared. Scratch that, being alone at night was terrifying to say the least. But the metro had a car specifically for families and pregnant mothers, so after ten stations, I was safely back at the station where I had begun my journey. And the best part? My trip around the capital, spanning fourty-six metro stations, had cost me less than $5 USD.
Comparing that to my experience here…
Living in a suburban neighborhood without a license feels like I’m locking myself in my room; I don’t want to burden my parents every time I have a desire to frolic. Highway congestion is the bane of my existence—there’s no need for all these cars to be staring at me with their glaring taillights. As for public transportation, everyone knows about the questionable people on BART and the horror stories that have taken place on its train cars.
Even if I could take the BART, where would I go? It’s not exactly safe for someone my age to be wandering about. My mother is already hesitant in letting me walk around the neighborhood; there was this one time when my friend and I were trying to get from one bus stop to another when a random guy started unintelligibly yelling at us out of nowhere. Fun times!
I’ll have to thank my mom for letting me wander around Taipei, because I definitely wouldn’t have been able to experience such a sense of fulfillment. But she trusted the people and the environment she grew up in, as well as my friend and I to take care of ourselves. Even though the Bay Area has a decent public transportation system, the potential dangers of actually using the transit lines or just walking around my neighborhood means I’ll probably never experience that exhilarating freedom here—the sheer joy from knowing that anywhere I want to go is within reach, just a few stations away.
As a country heavily built off of the automobile and oil industry, I’ve learned over time to temper my expectations when it comes to having a reliable public transportation system in America. It seems like the rest of the world has major subway systems that are efficient and timely—major cities in Europe and Asia certainly have that down. I once saw a proposal on Instagram of what BART would look like if it extended around the entire Bay Area and was actually accessible (gasp!) and my mouth quite literally watered. But I’d like to think I’m hopeful about the future. As the world (and America, very, very. Very begrudgingly) acknowledges that oil and fossil fuels are ultimately unsustainable, maybe there’ll be a change? In the coming decades? Maybe? My fingers are crossed.
ReplyDeleteHi Charlize! Your experience of spending the day in Taipei City all alone sounds like a literal dream, as I have always wanted to visit Taiwan, but on a broader scale, I have always dreamed of that intoxicating feeling of freedom that comes with wandering through a new city all on my own. I have not had this experience yet for a wide variety of reasons—the two biggest probably being that I am very directionally challenged, and that my parents, who are very overprotective, are well aware of this fact and do not trust me not to get lost in the maze of an unfamiliar environment. Anyway, I am content knowing that my time will come eventually.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I completely relate to not having your driver’s license and feeling isolated as a result. It feels like the amount of traffic in the Bay Area has gotten significantly worse after the COVID-19 pandemic, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to bring it back down. I think that the traffic situation is especially bad in Fremont, as I’ve noticed that it appears to calm down ever so slightly the second I leave Fremont. I understand your skepticism about the BART system, because it is definitely a bit questionable, especially during the later hours of the day. My solution? Taking advantage of my older brother and his driver’s license (he offers, and naturally, I am more than happy to accept).
Hi Charlize! Taipei sounds like such a fun vacation place to go shopping and exploring. Based on your experience, transportation sounds really nice and I heard the food is amazing! I’ve been begging my parents to go to different countries in Asia, and I’ve been successful in convincing them to go to Japan this summer. What did you do at Taipei, and do you recommend any foods to try?
ReplyDeleteIt’s honestly such a shock to see America’s transportation system compared to Japan and Taiwan... especially since history taught us that America was the literal image of industrialization. We would expect some efforts to be made into the sanitization of public transport, but then again tenements and cholera back then explained the government’s care for the people. Even in the most urban area of Taiwan, it’s all clean compared to here, where we aren’t even in the big cities like Los Angeles or San Francisco? We really are circling back to older times, only dreaming to have such a clean space in public. I can definitely understand why your parents are hesitant on letting you go on the BART not only because of the weird people and unsanitary conditions, but also the putrid smells of vomit and smoke from cigarettes. My mom even told me that Vietnam has recently started using a metro system, and needless to say, she would choose Vietnam’s busted metro over our BART any day.