Under the Banyan Tree

With clothes and books and papers strewn around my bedroom and across the open suitcases on my family room couch, I prepared to return to Taiwan last month. As I made piles of 'yes, take,' and 'absolutely not,' I braced myself for the thing I remembered about the country even more clearly than the ecstasy produced only by a claw machine win, the beautifully joyful taste of pomegranate green tea, and the gregarious people whose complex language with its complex tones I still didn't understand. I'm talking about the heat. The oppressive, humidity fueled heat. I know nature's joke on my pores is in part what allows for the island's lush landscape that I fell in love with last summer, but still I despised it.  So I packed -- masterfully, I thought -- only light cotton skirts, short-sleeved shirts and three pairs of the prettiest flip flops I owned. I added one pair of new running shoes in case I ever got up early enough to beat the heat to the track, an