I am heading back to Taiwan for my bi-annual obligatory "check-in" with my family. This is such that my relatives can take a look at me, pat my head, and gasp at how much I've grown (sides-ways during the more recent years ). I will be doing a lot of polite smiling, listening, nodding and "title calling" (saying the word "Aunt" to my aunts, "Uncle" to my uncles, etc.). Inevitably, I shall discover new members of my family. I estimate that I am related to just about everyone within a five block radius of my old home town. I will be told that I should become an English teacher and get rich doing that. I will be laughed at for my "ABC" ways.

Taiwan is as foreign as South Africa is to me. I am as much a tourist in Taipei as I am a stranger in Johannesburg.

Home.

Here I come!

There is much eating to be done.