When Morning Offers Too Many Choices
I walk through Yancheng District in Kaohsiung before the sun climbs too far.
This area near the port wakes early.
People heading to the market.
Others trying to put something in their stomach before work.
Scooters starting up, one after another.
There is an open breakfast shop facing the street.
No walls.
Just a roof, metal sheets, and a counter.
There are seats inside, but the layout assumes takeaway first.
It feels less like coming to eat breakfast,
and more like merging into the morning’s flow.
Learning the Order of Things
The exchanges here are surprisingly short.
You only need a few items, in roughly this order.
Eat here or take away.
How to have your soy milk
hot or cold,
full sugar, half sugar, or none.
One or two dishes.
The menu looks large, but the structure is simple.
Even people who seem to hesitate rarely step outside this frame.
Starting with Soy Milk
Next to the counter, soy milk options are listed.
Here, soy milk is not just a drink.
It is the starting point of the morning.
Cold soy milk.
Sweet and cold, used to wake the head quickly.
Hot soy milk.
The most straightforward form, taken with steam.
Savory soy milk.
Half-set soy milk eaten as a dish.
Black tea with soy milk.
A drink that decides the day’s direction through sweetness.
Rice milk.
Thicker than soy milk, chosen for fullness.
Sweetness is specified as well.
Full, half, or none.
It sounds deliberate, but in practice it is almost reflex.
Then the Food
Standing in front of the griddle, flour-based items fill the view.
Menus are pasted on the wall behind.
Egg pancake.
The baseline.
A place to retreat when unsure.
Clay oven bread.
Layers of wheat to chew through.
Scallion pancake.
Oil and scallion pushing forward.
Steamed buns.
The quietest carbohydrates.
Xiaolongbao.
Light steamed items adjusted for morning use.
Radish cake.
A white block where browning decides everything.
Rice rolls wrapped to go.
A completed form meant for walking.
Sandwiches and burgers.
Western food, reinterpreted.
Fried dough sticks.
Something that accepts everything.
Looking Around the Room
While waiting, my eyes move naturally around the shop.
There is almost no decoration.
Faded menus on the wall.
Oil marks on the griddle.
Stacks of paper cups.
A fan turning, paper napkins barely moving.
The seating is loose.
Sharing tables is assumed, and no one minds.
There is little conversation.
Only sound.
The griddle sizzling.
Fried dough being torn apart.
Soy milk being poured.
At the next table, someone dips fried dough into savory soy milk.
They lower one end slowly,
wait for it to soak,
then bring it to their mouth.
The movement is practiced and efficient.
Further inside, a pair eats clay oven bread filled with fried dough.
Carbohydrate wrapped in carbohydrate.
No hesitation.
Someone else has a rice roll and cold soy milk.
A one-handed setup.
Clearly meant to leave right after eating.
No one is looking for a correct answer.
Everyone is simply replaying a familiar order, in a familiar sequence.
Hesitating, Then Returning to the Usual
As my turn approaches, I think briefly.
Maybe hot soy milk today.
Savory soy milk with fried dough crosses my mind.
But once I stand at the counter, thinking shortens.
There are many choices,
yet what comes out of my mouth is predictable.
Half-sugar cold soy milk.
And an egg pancake.
I point with my finger.
Words are minimal.
The woman looks at me once, then turns back to the griddle.
Whether it was understood is unclear until the food arrives.
Come to think of it,
I probably tell myself every time that I will choose something different.
And every time, I end up ordering the same thing.
At breakfast shops,
even hesitation feels like part of the routine.
Taking the Food, Sitting Down
A number is called.
I receive a paper cup and a paper-wrapped pancake.
Eating here, but hardly different from takeaway.
I sit where there is space.
In front of me, scooters flow along the street.
Each change of the traffic light rearranges the layers of sound.
I take a sip of soy milk.
Sweet.
Sweeter than I imagined for half sugar.
This might be full sugar.
I think that for a moment,
then take another sip.
Cold, sweet, and clarifying.
That is fine.
Some mornings are like this.
I bite into the egg pancake.
The usual taste of egg and batter.
Not special, but not wrong.
By the time I fold the paper and finish the last sip,
new customers are already standing at the counter.
The flow of the breakfast shop does not stop.
When I stand up,
the place I occupied has already become someone else’s morning.
