滷肉飯

A few days later, I found myself in Hong Kong, sitting in the waiting room for the train that would finally, and for the first time, take me into mainland China. It was a Friday afternoon in early April, a week after that evening at the KTV that my colleagues had organized in my honour. So many things had happened in that week that it already felt like a month had passed.

By sheer chance, Sandy had won a round-trip ticket to Hong Kong in a lottery a few months earlier. We decided to set off on the same day and meet in Macau, the first stop on my journey. From there, we would return to Hong Kong: she would fly back to Taipei, while I would continue inland. Initially, this wasn’t meant to be a leisure visit for me, but rather a necessary stop to apply for a visa to mainland China.

It is well known that the People’s Republic of China does not recognize Taiwan as an independent nation, instead claiming it as part of its territory. As a result, there is no Chinese embassy in Taiwan, and it is impossible for Taiwan residents to apply for a Chinese visa from there. Taiwanese citizens who wish to visit China for business, family, or tourism can obtain a special permit (different from the visas issued to citizens of other countries). This permit is a type of identification card that grants them unlimited entries into China for a period of five years, after which it must be renewed. The existence of this card, known in Chinese as 台胞证 (tai-bao-zheng), or “Taiwan Compatriot Certificate,” makes life much easier for the many Taiwanese who still have work or family ties with mainland China.

For foreign residents of Taiwan like me, however, the only option to obtain a visa for China is to travel to Hong Kong. Yet fortune worked in my favor this time, as 2024—the year of this journey—was when the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs experimentally allowed citizens of certain countries (including Italy) visa-free entry for stays of up to fifteen days. This was part of an effort by the government to encourage the return of international tourism, which had completely vanished during the pandemic. Freed from the need to apply for a visa, I ended up spending the entire week with Sandy, devoting our time fully to leisure and relaxation.

As I was saying, Sandy and I had agreed to meet first in Macau: it was my decision to start the journey there, as I had never visited the city before. We arrived on separate flights—alas, she was the only one who had won tickets in the lottery—just a few hours apart. I remember the morning of my departure from Taipei, which I spent alone in Sandy’s small apartment (she had already left), lying on the futon where I had slept the night before. I believe I also remember what I had for lunch that day: 卤肉饭 (lu-rou-fan), a classic dish in Taiwanese cuisine, which I chose to savour one last time before leaving the island.

It’s a relatively simple dish: pork belly, skin included, finely chopped and braised for hours in a sauce made of soy, sugar, and spices, served over a steaming bowl of white rice that perfectly absorbs the flavourful juices. Modest as it may be, this dish had become a source of sublime pleasure during my two years in Taiwan, a kind of antidote to the oppressive monotony of office life. I indulged in it every two or three days, and I had even discovered the ideal amount of chili oil to add to perfect its flavour. I became a stern critic of it, refusing to order it anywhere other than a select list of trusted restaurants—places I metaphorically described as the “constellations of braised pork.”

One of these was in my neighbourhood, and I often stopped there on my way home from work. It was the kind of place that might be called a trattoria in Italy, serving simple food in generous portions at reasonable prices. This particular eatery was frequented by taxi drivers and stayed open late into the night to cater to them at the end of their shifts. This made it one of the few places still serving food after 8:30 PM, and in the evenings, it tended to fill up quickly, with people often queuing at the entrance. To order, you’d write your selections on a notepad and hand the slip to the cashier. I always ordered the same three items: braised pork over rice, a soup made with ginger and fish belly, and an extra portion of braised pork belly served in large pieces without rice.

Orders were always called out loudly by the staff, but there were so many customers and such rapid turnover that chaos often ensued. Between people receiving the wrong orders, others waiting to pay, and yet more struggling to find a table, the front counter was a whirlwind of activity. I also recall a black cat—presumably owned by the restaurant—adding to the general hysteria as it darted frantically between tables, clearly terrified. I always made sure to enunciate my order clearly in that foreign language, horrified at the thought of having to retrieve it from the maelstrom if something went wrong.

But it’s often in places like these that the best food is found, and this was certainly true for the braised pork here—I never found another that matched it. On the day of my departure, however, I was already at Sandy’s place, in an entirely different part of the city, and couldn’t rely on my “constellations.” Driven by hunger, I stepped into the first restaurant I came across and ordered a bowl of my favorite dish. That final bowl, which I polished off rather quickly, would prove troublesome in the hours that followed. Perhaps it was my stomach, already grieving, or perhaps something had gone wrong in the pork’s storage, but I didn’t fully recover until the next day.

Toward evening, I took a taxi to the train station. As the driver navigated through traffic, I battled waves of nausea. At the airport, I noticed that there were very few passengers on my flight. I boarded quickly, almost forgetting that I was embarking on a two-month journey and that my time living in Taiwan was coming to an end. With my head resting against the window, I fell asleep shortly after takeoff, my half-closed eyes following the pale glow of streetlights along the Taoyuan coast as they receded into the distance. Farther out, the yellow lights of fishing boats flickered faintly, already so far away that they appeared frozen in the darkness of the ocean.

Upon landing in Macau, the nausea grew worse. A sharp, acrid taste rose up my throat, assaulting my nose and mouth. Despite the mild climate of the bay, chills ran down my arms and back. I was so out of sorts that I nearly left my passport on the seat of the plane; a flight attendant helped me retrieve it.

My first impression of Macau was peculiar. At the immigration office, I realized that the airport was one of the smallest I had ever been in: the halls were cramped, and the corridors as narrow as those of a provincial terminal. The interiors seemed untouched for at least twenty years. Nothing about the place suggested the luxury or grandeur often associated with the name Macau.

Outside, I climbed into a dusty taxi. The driver, a wiry man of barely thirty, surprised me by speaking only the most rudimentary Mandarin, heavily accented with Cantonese inflections. It was unclear whether I had truly arrived in China.

Once we were on the road, however, my impression shifted dramatically. Through the window, I watched the city’s nocturnal landscape while clutching my stomach with one hand. We were crossing the majestic Ponte da Amizade, which separates Taipa Island—home to the airport and casinos—from the isthmus where the old city lies. Before my eyes rose a veritable assembly of giants forged from steel and glass. Buildings of every architectural style and design materialized on the horizon, their profiles outlined by strips of neon lights that faded and then glowed anew in different hues. Symbols and stylized shapes blinked on some of their facades, followed by Chinese characters, as if these colossal structures had devised their own language to communicate.

My gaze wandered, awestruck, over the multitude of lights and forms. I felt a twinge of embarrassment for having underestimated Macau moments earlier. That splendor spoke of a wealth so overwhelming it inspired both awe and revulsion. Though each of those towers was undoubtedly occupied by humans, I thought, their collective presence hinted at something terrifyingly alien to life itself, something profoundly inhuman.

-End of the second post in the Notes to a Chinese trip series.