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Taiwan Diaries 02

Thank you everyone for the kind words regarding my first Taiwan post. It’s been really lovely to go back through this archive of photos—even though it was emotionally one of the hardest periods of my life, I still feel a deep fondness for my time living there. I recently watched Vive L’amour (1994) for the first time thanks to my friends at Windup Cinema, and it made me extreeeemely nostalgic for Taiwan and was basically an (effective) advertisement for cigarettes.

Before we get back into the photos, a couple upcoming places you can see my work:

• I was honored to write a community perspectives piece in response to Jamie Ho’s work for Fellowship 26 at Silver Eye. The show opens Thursday, May 21st, 6-8PM and is up through August 8th. I’ve been a fan of Jamie’s work for a few years now and am stoked to be able to finally meet in person for the opening reception.

  

  Jamie Ho, Cross Contamination, 2025

• Plugging one last time that I’ll be singing for Tory Silver’s album release show at Brillobox on May 30th, 7PM til late! Shaping up to be a really funnnnn time with a slate of acts and I’d love to see you there :). Tickets here.

  

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In October, I took a day trip up to 龍洞 on the northern coast with two friends. I can’t quite remember how we got there, but I’m assuming by bus. I’d heard about it through some Taiwanese friends and had almost taken a detour there while making the Futuro House trip, but we didn’t quite have the time that day.

龍洞 is known for its cliff jumping, and when we arrived there were a number of people already there. There’s a spot to jump into the water or climb down via rope right on the coast, but the taller rock off of which to jump was a bit of a swim out.

I remember it being cloudy that day so the weather wasn’t ideal, but the temperature in Taiwan in October is still typically in the 80s.

I tried to do a quick cursory search just now to look up the cliff jumping height but couldn’t find anything definitive. It was quite tall, though—I remember being nervous and hesitating for a long time before jumping, despite not having a fear of heights. My friend Sabrina jumped after me and had scuba goggles strapped around her thigh, which shattered when she hit the water. Thankfully, she wasn’t cut up too much, but it prevented us from jumping a second time.