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From Vanity to Vitality: What Two Chestnuts Taught Me About Self-Acceptance
Discovering the Real Taiwan and the Myth of Free Kindness
I am Taiwanese by birth, but grew up abroad; traveled across continents to gather countries like how today some people gather Pokémon cards. Yet somehow, the first time I ever see actual chestnuts is when I step onto the land of my ancestors: Taiwan. The homeland, the motherland, the place where people casually sell roasted chestnuts cooked live on the street, while I am standing there like Christopher Columbus discovering America: “Wait,” I remember thinking. “The squirrel food is real?”
That was an eye-opening cultural experience for me as it brought into sharp contrast the cartoon versions of characters from my childhood to actually getting to eat chestnuts in Taiwan. But go all the way around the world just to see one? Life is strange. The really bizarre thing about it all is even after going to Taiwan during elementary school days, I still don’t eat chestnuts. Because during those years, I am in a passionate relationship. With myself. I am obsessed. Hopelessly, Shamelessly, Violently. It is the moment I realize that my obsession with my own face reflects my desire for self-acceptance and shapes my self-awareness.
Every afternoon after school, I march directly into a photo-sticker shop. Not to socialize, not to study, not to develop useful life skills. No. I am there to take pictures of the most important celebrity in Taiwan: Me. Hundreds of dollars disappear daily. Entire forests sacrifice themselves to print photographs of my face. If archaeologists ever excavate my bedroom from that era, they will conclude I belonged to a narcissistic fertility cult.
One day, the owner of the photo-stik hands me a bag of roasted chestnuts: My first taste of chestnuts. I feel touched, deeply touched. I practically want to nominate her for sainthood.
I run home and tell my mother, “Mom! The owner bought me chestnuts!” My mother smiles, “What a generous person.” A beautiful moment, A wholesome moment, A mother-daughter moment. I then casually let her know that I spend hundreds of dollars in that same store every single day. Her face is changing as fast as the price of cryptocurrency: She stops, calculates, Recalculates. “Forget about it. You’ve been scammed,” she says. And in that moment, my fairy tale comes to an end. It is through this theme of small kindnesses, such as giving me chestnuts, that I come to understand the nature of man and myself.
Years later, when I am a struggling street vendor hauling merchandise across Taiwan while running on approximately three calories and blind optimism, another “kind” stranger enters my life: A taxi driver. He gives me a bag of water chestnuts. I am touched again, because apparently, my love language is free carbohydrates handed to me by strangers. I think: “Wow. Humanity is beautiful. People are kind. The world is healing.” Do you believe small acts of kindness can truly change our view of humanity?
The True Cost of Generosity and the Search for Protein
Years later, after years of my mother’s financial detective work infecting my brain, I suddenly remember that particular taxi ride cost over seven hundred dollars. A route that normally costs less than $400. I stare into space. Slowly, quietly, like a computer processing corrupted files. Wait. Was I paying for the water chestnuts? Was I financing my own surprise gift? Wasn’t I essentially buying produce through some form of illegal intermediary?
As one gets older, such realizations become more frequent. That which I thought was free isn’t; That which I considered valuable isn’t; That which I believed to be love is sometimes just marketing; Did I end up paying for produce through an unlicensed distributor? The older I get, the more I understand how true such instances are: What I think is free is not free; What I think is valuable is not valuable; What I think is love can often be marketing; And what I thought was generosity did sometimes have a receipt attached to it.
Such thoughts lead us to where we are today, to a small pack sitting calmly in the fridge: “Organic chestnuts.” I spot it amid vegetables and leftovers, but quite poorly, like a movie star with sun glasses indoors. I grab the packet. Instantly, nostalgia strikes at my back. But not the kind of nostalgia that strikes through a Hollywood movie. The kind of nostalgia that comes in through a sensation through touch, through memories of something that used to happen to us.
As I hold the packet and read its nutrition chart, I immediately understand a truth that will scare my teenage self: The very first thing that I am after is not taste, not sweetness, not happiness. It is protein. Protein. I am officially old. The transformation is complete. Teenage Tanya spends hundreds of dollars taking selfies. Adult Tanya gets excited about one gram of protein. If this isn’t character development, I don’t know what is.
Real Growth: The Difference Between Two Chestnuts
I tear open the package. A soft scent escapes: Gentle, Earthy, Quiet, unlike roasted chestnuts commonly sold in Taiwan, which burst into a room like a drunk uncle at Lunar New Year. The roasted street version is loud, Confident, and charismatic. It demands attention. This one doesn’t. This one whispers. The chestnut sits in my palm: Small, Wrinkled, Unimpressive. Like me, after forty-five countries, one stroke, and several hundred terrible life decisions, I feel proud of my resilience and growth.
I put one into my mouth. The texture arrives first: Soft, Dense, Tender, Almost creamy. It crumbles gently against my tongue: Not dramatic, not explosive. Just calm, Comfortably calm, Like a warm blanket, Like an old friend. The more I realize that peace and excitement are not the same, the more I feel grateful for the quiet moments that nourish my soul.
The flavour unfolds slowly. A natural sweetness: Delicate, Nutty, Earthy. There is no carnival here, no fireworks, no sugar-coated seduction. This chestnut is not trying to impress me. It doesn’t need to. It knows who it is. And strangely enough, I envy that. Because I spend much of my younger years trying to be louder, Prettier, more impressive, more extraordinary, like Taiwanese roasted chenuts: Sweet, Flashy, Attention-grabbing.
But now? Now I understand the value of quiet things, The value of things that nourish instead of perform, The value of protein, The value of health, The value of waking up without pain, The value of a body that still carries me forward despite everything I have put it through: Stroke, Starvation, Stress, Heartbreak, Poverty, Bad decisions, Questionable men, Even more questionable fashion choices. Yet somehow this body remains: Still fighting, Still healing, Still carrying me.
A Lifetime Between Two Taste Tests
As I devour another chestnut, it dawns on me that whereas the first chestnut of my life was linked with vanity, selfies, appearances, admiration, this particular one is linked with survival, sustenance, healing, gratitude. Not gratitude for strangers who may or may not be charging me in some secret way for my gifts, but gratitude for my body, the body I criticize for years on end, the body that does not give up, the body that outlives me.
It is a near-poetic irony that when I was younger, I was concerned with who was giving me the chestnut. And now I am wondering about what does the chestnut give me? Fiber, energy, protein, comfort. A small act of goodness by Mother Nature. Nothing extra charged, no hidden taxi costs, no emotional blackmail, no photo sticker membership club. Just a chestnut and in some way it is more generous than anything else.
I eat one more, another one. The bag starts to empty. Outside the world goes on with its regular show: people continue to chase beauty, validation and completion. I know because I was one of them. Perhaps I still am. But now I am standing in front of my refrigerator, eating an organic chestnut and studying its nutrition information as if it were holy scripture.
And the truth is? It feels like growth. No glittery growth, no insta-worthy growth, no Hollywood growth. Real growth, which comes out of mistakes, scams, heartache, illness and survival. The chestnut dissolves slowly on my tongue: sweet, gentle, Gentle, Unassuming Like wisdom.
The first chestnut of my life teaches me how easily I can be flattered. The second teaches me how deeply I can be nourished. And between those two chestnuts exists an entire lifetime.
