I’m back living in the suburbs. My first decade in Taiwan, I lived exclusively in the Yungho (永和) or Chungho (中和) areas of Greater Taipei. I loved it, but when I married, I moved into Taipei. I’ve moved back. We got a new place in Chungho, not far from Yungho. Google maps says the living room is in Chungho, and the bedroom is in Yungho. That’s one of the hardest things to get used to about Yung/Chungho. The way the two districts interweave. It’s confusing.
The dilemma is amplified by the Taiwanese convention of every city, town, and district using the same street names, a real problem in densely pack and intertwined Yung/Chungho. You can very easily be riding down a certain street, look up and find yourself crossing the street you thought you were on. Unbeknownst to yourself, at some point the name of the street you were on changed, then you drove out of Yungho, entered Chungho, thus allowing you to traverse time and space to intersect with the road you were on. The space-time continuum is more plastic outside Taipei, or possibly it’s the twisty circular nature of the roads. Yung/Chungho is particularly cruel on visitors because the amorphous nature of their boundaries make it easy to cross, unawares, back and forth.
I spent my first decade in Taiwan muddled and befuddled on the roadways across the bridge. If you’ve navigated New Taipei and arrived at your destination only to find you’re in the entirely wrong city, you’re not alone. It’s not just a stupid foreigner thing. A Taiwanese person created a rhyme to help:
繞口令—–中永和的路名
永和有永和路，中和也有永和路， 中和有中和路，永和也有中和路；
中和的中和路有接永和的中和路， 永和的永和路沒接中和的永和路；
永和的中和路有接永和的永和路，中和的永和路沒接中和的中和路。
永和有中正路，中和也有中正路，永和的中正路用景平路接中和的中正路；
永和有中山路，中和也有中山路， 永和的中山路直接接上了中和的中山路。
永和的中正路接上了永和的中山路，中和的中正路卻不接中和的中山路。
中正橋下來不是中正路，但永和有中正路；
秀朗橋下來也不是秀朗路，但永和也有秀朗路。
永福橋下來不是永福路，永和沒有永福路；
福和橋下來也不是福和路，但福和路接的卻是永福橋。