Fashion Ecstasy: A Travel Vlog with a Soul

“Today, the disabled mother-daughter gang is hitting Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s … Dream Mall!” I am narrating for Fashion Ecstasy’s upcoming YouTube travel vlog. My mouth is moving, my brain is buffering, my soul is roasting me alive.

Because I— The 13-year-old runaway. The self-raised feral child. The “Canadian” with yellow skin and colonial delusion. The woman who made loneliness a personality and superiority a religion—am now stuttering in broken Mandarin en route to a Taiwanese mall.

“The… the… the size… the… the…”

I stutter because I am an alien in this country. My mom, the unpaid interpretation and subtitle service, cuts in: “You mean to say ‘the size of the mug?” And I am internally bowing to the universe like “Wow.” I judged a culture when I was linguistically bankrupt in it. Iconic. Embarrassing. Academically impressive in stupidity.

The Stroke that Shattered the Shield

My brain literally exploded, causing a hemorrhagic stroke, forcing me to deal with my emotional and physical vulnerabilities. I realized to what extent I had been suppressing my pain and the significance of embracing vulnerability for healing. I was in the ER screaming, “Give me morphine!” The girl who never cried over broken bones was begging like a building in collapse.

I was not strong. I was not special. I was just flesh and meat. And then— She came. My mom. After decades of silence, she walks in the ICU door like she never logged out. No interrogation. No resentment. Just— Presence.

Shopping for Connection at Dream Mall

In Kaohsiung. For her. “OH! There’s a Studio A!” I sprint like a broken iPhone that found religion. My mom replies, “You can just fix your laptop here.” The universe provides me a solution to the one thing holding me back from leaving Taipei: A legit place to fix my Apple products.

Suddenly, life makes sense. Not because of technology, but because somebody is genuinely thinking for me. We wander. I write about chaos. She talks about logic. “Look at all these mini-hot pot brands!” “That’s not a mug.” “Single-serve blender!!” There’s no structure to our conversation, yet warmth is present.

The Poetry of a $236 Chicken Combo

We descend into B1: The Food court. Everything is… healthy. Suspiciously healthy. “The only edible thing is chicken,” I point at Kyochon Chicken.

• “Do you need a bag?” – Yes.
• “The combo comes with soup?” – Yes.
• “$236 total, need a receipt?” – No.
• “Do you have NT $6 change?” – …I think so.

And suddenly— I feel like crying. Because this mundane dialogue feels like poetry. I used to think “home” was about class and aesthetics. Now I realize— Home is someone checking if you have $6 in change.

Kaohsiung: Fresh Seafood and Gentle Slaps of Reality

The seafood here is so fresh it feels like it’s rinsing my sins. The fruits are unreasonably large and offensively sweet. I bite into a papaya and realize I have been so lost. I chased “elsewhere” my entire life, while authenticity was sitting in a place I mocked.

My superiority complex was just insecurity in couture:

• “I don’t need family” = I’m afraid I’m unlovable.
• “I hate Taiwanese people” = I’m afraid of being judged.
• “I’m Canadian” = I’m running from myself.