"Things aren’t in their right place anymore."

On Little Burma in Taipei and campus controversies across Taiwan; plus, our trip to Xiluo and Huwei

We meet N., ebullient and smiling, on an abnormally hot and muggy day in May. In Taipei this usually means a major weather event is on the horizon, and indeed typhoon-level wind and rain will appear not long after, breaking the heat. But for now, everything moves slowly. Even the cockroaches, who tend to scurry away when they sense human presence,  are ambling in open sight, as if too tired to care about being exposed. 

N., however, is a ball of energy, moving with the frenetic pace of youth. Born and raised in Myanmar, N. is a junior at a liberal arts college in the American South, here in Taiwan to study Mandarin for a semester. He’s brought along a good friend of his, R., whom he met in college while she was on her own study abroad from Japan. In the U.S. she took as many gender studies classes as she could, in part because her university back in Tokyo offered none. While studying in the U.S., they traveled together to San Francisco. She’s since returned to Japan to continue her stu…