Tervort - Adventures in the Land of Singing Garbage Trucks: A Memoir of Life in Taiwan

Copyright 2011 Adam Tervort

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This ebook is licensed for your personalenjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away toother people. If you would like to share this book with anotherperson, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Ifyoure reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was notpurchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.comand purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard workof this author.

This book is dedicated to my wife Mei-yun. Thank youfor being so patient and encouraging me to tell my story.

Special thanks to my mother and father, Billand Terri Tervort, as well as Trever McKay and Jeanie Witcraft for their help in reading early drafts of this book andmaking excellent suggestions. I couldnt have done it without allof you!

Riding a bike in a typhoon is not really funanytime, but coming home from a day of typhoon biking and findingthe world's largest eight legged guest in your front room makes abad day worse. Imagine coming in, soaked to the skin, just wantingto eat a hot lunch, and seeing a giant spider lounging in themiddle of the floor. Thick, hairy legs, and a bad attitude. Itlooks like a tarantula, but dull green and aggressive. I hatespiders, especially ones that look like they can tear my legs off.Thoughts move at the speed of light when one contemplates an earlydeath, and I had visions of festering bites and gangrene in thesplit second before anyone spoke.

"Do you want to kill it, or should I?"

"I don't think I can move. I hate spiders.You kill it," I said.

As human advances, arachnid comes to life andbegins to dash right towards him. Spiders are supposed to be afraidof people, aren't they? This one never got the memo, I suppose. Itran right for him, kamikaze-like, with a look that to me said"conquer or die." His foot came up to step, came down, missed, andthen he started to fall. We were all going to die, he as the maincourse and I as the after-dinner snack. The foot came up again, andthis time it came down on the leaping spider. The foot came up, andthe spider kept moving. A news flash shot before my eyes,"Americans killed by immortal spider." After three more stomps thespider was just twitching, but still not dead. I couldn't believeit. At least I hadn't wet myself.

"Alright, it should be dead now. I killed it,you clean it up."

"No way, man, it's not dead yet. It's stillmoving. You clean it up," I said.

"If you want to get over your fear of spidersyou should clean it up with your bare hands."

"Not on your life." It only took ten minutesof watching the monster slowly stop twitching and half a roll oftoilet paper to bolster my courage enough to get me to trash itscrumpled body. In years since I have heard stories of people insimilar situations, killing a monster spider, and they send a legin a letter to prove it was real. I wish I would have thought ofit, but I didn't.

This was in my first month it Taiwan. I wassure I wouldn't survive the trip. The trip is into its eighth yearnow, and I haven't seen another monster spider yet. It's a goodthing-- if I ever see another one I'm out of here.

Everyone has a defining experience in theirlife. For some it comes in a moment and changes the rest of theirlife. Mine started as two years on the wrong side of the world andhas continued through most of my adult life.

I don't know why I ended up in Taiwan. Itwasn't really a choice, just fate. I was supposed to come here, andeverything worthwhile in my life has been the result. Spiders,snakes, typhoons, earthquakes, and taxes are serious hazards here,as are happiness, contentment, and fulfillment. I want to tell youabout my life in Taiwan, because in my story maybe you will seesome of yourself. It doesn't matter where you live, there is apurpose for your life, and when you find it you will discover thatall of the things you have gone through were for a reason, and youare the way you are today because your situation prepared you to bethis way.

Come with me; let me show you the fast life,the slow life, the natural and the concrete life, and everythingelse I've experienced here. I will never be the same again, and Ihope my changes will be useful for you as well.

I come from a normal family, or an abnormalone, depending on your perspective. My mother and father grew upacross the street from each other in northern Utah, a picture ofAnywhere, USA. My father, Bill, and my mother, Terri, didn't getmuch of a chance to enjoy being married before I came along just 10months after they said "I do." I suppose it must have been anunpleasant surprise to have a honeymoon baby, but if it was theynever let on.

My father is a teacher who works for the LDSChurch. Being Mormon is not really a popular thing in America,however mainstream the existence of the LDS Church has become inrecent years. Growing up in Utah I never really got a feel for howstrange it is to be a Mormon because everyone around me was Mormon,from my teachers and classmates to the kids I played with. Therewere a few people I knew that weren't members of the LDS Church,but they were a small minority. As a child it didn't seem specialthat my dad got home around the same time that I did, had the samedays off for vacation that I did, and was home with us for all ofwinter and summer vacation. It didn't seem strange that his job wasto teach religion classes to high school kids, and that he was ableto do this kind of job despite the fact that the Mormon Church hasno paid clergy. He isn't a minister, just a teacher.

It also didn't seem strange growing up with amother who was the consummate housewife. Not only does my mothercook extremely well, she also cut our hair (I had my firstbarbershop haircut in high school and wasn't very happy with thejob they did), made clothing for us (I never had a store-boughtHalloween costume), and seemed to be able to learn anything wewanted to learn well enough to teach it to us. I was reading atfour and was done with children's books at seven or eight.

My four brothers came along at irregularintervals during my childhood. Greg was born when I was three,Danny when I was eleven, Chris when I was 14, and Ben when I was19. I had a good childhood filled with brothers to play with, booksto read, good schools to attend, and most other things that amiddle-class American child gets. Normal in nearly everyrespect.

Religion always played a big role in ourfamily. My earliest memory is of standing up to share my testimonyin church when I was three years old. "Bearing a testimony" is kindof a unique Mormon thing, the first Sunday of every month the wholecongregation is invited to share their feelings from the pulpitduring the 70 minute worship service. As you can imagine, somecrazy things happen when the pulpit is turned loose like this. Idont remember exactly what I said, just the experience and thefeeling of facing a congregation at three years old.

The other big part of my young life wassports. Living in Utah means only one sport is important: Utah Jazzbasketball. OK, there are those who follow college football andcollege basketball, alumni of BYU and the U of U, but neither of myparents attended those universities so we didn't really have apassion for their teams, but we loved the Jazz.