Taiwan Rock Band

Dante had first met Jade in Taiwan in 1981. He was playing keyboards for a soft rock band that was performing at her college. Jade followed the band members out of the auditorium after the concert. The group was headed towards a noodle shop for an interview with a reporter from the college paper. The band members tended to behave like spoiled rock stars. They ignored Jade as she followed behind the group trying to chat. Dante felt bad for her. She had bigger than average bosoms on her slender frame. Those are the things that caused him to remember her a year later when they met at a Christmas party.

Dante wasn’t much of a keyboard player. The band, a fairly popular group called The Travelers, was looking for a white member to spice up their image. The lead singer had approached Dante late one night at a night market and asked him if he could play any instruments.

The group had a weekly gig at Idea House, a club in a trendy part of Taipei. The pay was decent. Dante got paid for a few TV appearances and concerts around the island, as well.

Taipei in the 1980s was the kind of place that white people, even untalented, unattractive ones, could get work in movies and advertisements. Many of the locals tended to be a fauning and obsequious towards their foreign `guests’. As a result, whites who had the inclination could walk around the island feeling more special than their abilities and accomplishments warranted.

Caught in the Rain

Dante pondered this existential challenge as he walked with Buddha Flower. How could nothing and something be the same thing? What did that mean in terms of how a person should behave? How could a whole religion be built around the idea that nothing is real?

As frequently happened in Taiwan in the summer, a thunder storm moved in suddenly and drenched Buddha Flower and Dante as they were walking back from the temple. They decided to lay down on the grass to dry off. Dante saw Buddha Flower’s slender torso and shallow-cupped bra through her wet cotton blouse which stuck to her, wet and transparent. The bra had flowers on it.

Suffering comes from desire. That was another Buddhist doctrine that Dante had learned. He couldn’t really refute that one. Dante wondered about Buddha Flower’s desires and if she had them like he did.

“I’m a mess,” she said.

“You look fine,” Dante replied. He thought about touching her skin . It looked cool and smooth with water beads sparkling as the sun beams broke through the clouds.

Jade was easier to touch than Buddha Flower

Don’t Marry Her

Dante swore to himself when he left Taiwan that he wouldn’t marry Jade. He remembered the exact moment that he vowed to himself not to marry her. She was bent over in his apartment sweeping the floor. At that moment, Dante was saw a crudeness in her, something that wouldn’t age well, he thought. He promised himself silently, that he wouldn’t marry her. Afterall, she didn’t ever seem to understand who he really was. She didn’t see his deeper side, he thought. She had some notion of what boys are like and just expected him to act that way. These pleads to himself were unheaded. They did marry.

As hospitable and interesting as Taiwan had been to him, the charm started to fade after 2 years. Dante started to feel a strong sense of alienation to the place and the people. He realized how American he was and thought of all the things he liked about America. Taipei seemed stagnant and shallow. The sense of humor was different. The street life that once thrilled him now just seemed predictable.

I better head back to the States and start a life there before it’s too late, Dante thought. Jade was upset by this plan

Marriage Dies

“Chinese don’t divorce.” Dante heard this from Jade and her relatives. Was divorce a tragic mistake? He knew many examples of okay divorce. His own parents included.

According to his understanding of Buddhism, it was his attachment to his ego that would cause him to end a marriage. The bad things he saw in Jade were just a reflection of what was inside himself. If he was at a higher state of enlightenment, he would look at Jade and everyone else with compassion because of the understanding that this whole reality he had constructed in his mind was empty. Emptiness is form. Form is emptiness. There is no such thing as good and bad. No such thing as a good wife or a bad wife. His monkey brain was deceiving him into believing that something could be gained from divorce just as it had deceived him by making him think that he should covet certain things in his marriage.

In Taiwan he had imagined himself to be so desirable. A rock star. An emblem of western licentiousness titillating the natives, stoking their desires. Any of those girls would be lucky to have him, Dante thought. Maybe self-deception was the root of his problems.

Regardless of what it said about Dante and his state of spiritual development, he got the divorce.