Notes on the corners
of the world
At Taiwanese breakfast stalls, hot soy milk is given just enough vinegar to stop being a drink without becoming tofu. The bowl trembles with pickled vegetables, dried shrimp, scallions, and torn youtiao, held together by a texture that can easily slip out of balance.
In Penang, nasi kandar arrives as a plate of rice buried under several gravies, while its name refers not to an ingredient but to a shoulder pole. The pole has disappeared from the shops, but something of its weight remains on the plate.
The bitter melon floating in a Taiwanese soup may be pale, translucent, and smooth enough to resemble a piece of rendered fat or polished mineral. Its first taste is sharply bitter, while something gentler arrives only after the spoon has left your mouth.
At a Malaysian mamak, a cook can turn a small oiled ball of dough into a thin, layered disk with a few sharp slaps and throws. The finished bread looks almost empty on the plate, but it arrives with a whole set of motions, textures, and ways to eat it.
At Songshan’s departure gates, aircraft bound for Haneda, Gimpo, and Hongqiao sit among domestic flights, while the city continues around a runway in its middle. The airport occupies a rare piece of central Taipei—and keeps shaping the space above it.
On Jalan TAR, a faded green sign marks a shophouse where the first thing placed on a nasi kandar plate is not red sambal or yellow curry, but a thick black gravy. It spreads across the rice like tar, pulling the rest of the meal into its orbit.
On a walk through Taipei, the next drink shop often appears before the last one has left the frame—along office roads, beside MRT exits, and on residential corners. Students carry cups past delivery riders collecting more, while each storefront seems to feed the same daily traffic.
At a Taiwan breakfast counter, asking for soy milk can bring either a cold, sweet glass or a hot bowl of vinegar-curdled curds with fried dough, shrimp, and scallions. They share a name, but one behaves like a drink and the other like a soup.
Walking along Fuxing South Road without looking for a drink, I pass another small shop at nearly every turn—different colors on the signs, nearly identical spaces beneath them. At the next red light, clear cups appear in a surprising number of hands, lifted between buses, crossings, and errands.
