For one month now I have been living in Taiwan without a skateboard. It has been a bit like living without an arm, or big toe, or any other useful appendage. Now I don't mean to demean amputees or anything, but anyone who has a love for skateboarding can understand that a month away from the board can feel hopeless.
Everyday I walk down the three marble steps of my apartment building and think: "Good God look at all the fucking marble in this city." It's like every quarry that ever found a chunk of marble immediately sent it to Taiwan to be used as a bench or staircase or ledge. It's absolutely beautiful to the skaters eye and I'm sure some other people like it too. Taipei is literally sheathed in the stuff, you cannot go twenty feet without running into a perfect ledge. So, as you can imagine, I have been walking around in a constant state of skate-mode while taking in these sights.
In my city of Sansia, there is an incredible amount of construction going on. It's a little bewildering at first, because old Sansia is exactly what you think traditional Asian cities would look like, but new Sansia, which is only a handful of years old, is springing up with high rises everywhere you look. What is out front of these buildings is what really matters though.
Beautiful curved banks, black marble ledges with square edges, slate sidewalks smooth as a baby's ass and not a single skater in sight. I feel like I've stumbled onto a secret so beautiful that I have a difficult time revealing to the world that it even exists. But I will, for skateboarding's sake.
It has been hell wandering through Taipei without a skateboard. Finally, yesterday, my package arrived which has my trucks and all I needed was a board. Fortunately for me, I'd run into another westerner at an MRT (subway) station a couple weeks ago who was holding a brand new Girl board. I immediately ran over to him and asked him where he got the board. "A tiny little shop called 'Jimi' off the blue line," was his reply. He gave me some brief directions and left to go bowling with some friends.
Three weeks later, armed with shoddy directions on a scrap of paper, that was nearly destroyed during a run-in with the ocean, I headed out this morning in search of a skateshop called "Jimi." My directions were feeble, and my Chinese skills even feebler. But after an hour of searching from the Subway exit I was able to stumble onto my own holy grail. A skateshop in Taipei.
I shuffled in the front door soaked from the rain, weary from my search, and smiling idiotically at the thought of actually having found the place. In my month here in Taiwan I have not felt more at home than the moment I stepped into this skateshop.
There was a T.V. in the corner playing a 411 video which I recognized and Danny Barley's face was staring back at me. Decks lined the wall on either side and a row of shoes could be seen in the next room. I stood for a moment, taken aback at the beauty of the scene. After picking out a deck, I rummaged through my backpack to pull out my trucks which had just been sent in the mail the day before. I could hardly stand the anticipation as the board came to life. First the plastic was peeled off, then the grip tape applied with all the due care of this process. Then the trucks were attached and the bolts tightened. Then a quick rub down with the spare grip tape to get that extra grippyness taken care of and it was finally complete. I couldn't help myself, I set it down gently on the concrete floor and popped a heelflip that will not be forgotten. It was the first time I'd stepped on a board in a foreign country and with a month's absence but, I still had it. The crisp snap of the tail, the quick whirring of wheels as the board spun around on itself and the confident thud of all four wheels landing back on the pavement, is something that I missed dearly.
After making my purchase I could not help but shuffle around for a little while, not wanting to leave. I made a skate-date with the shop worker who'd set up my board for 3 o'clock tomorrow at a place called Ximen, pronounced she-men, which sounds dangerously close to semen and has been known to make me laugh when said by Taiwanese people. Then a quick handshake and I bid my farewell.
I strode out the front door, my shoulders back and my head held high, with the look of someone who'd just found their own home away from home. Nothing could get to me now, not even the rain.
When I got home to my apartment building, I immediately went down to the parking garage beneath, to skate around. I cannot explain the bliss of pushing around a brand new board in a brand new country without a care in the world. I think I scared the shit out of a little kid who was on his way to dump some garbage but, other than that, it was just me and the asphalt, doing our dance.
