Back in January 1999, I was a college student who wanted to explore the world.
With my final year in college, before classes would begin in late January, a few days after the New Year, I traveled to Taipei, Taiwan.
While I didn’t stay that long in the country, I do have memories that will stay with me forever.
I remember before arriving to Taiwan International Airport, hearing the stern message from the air stewardess of those who try to enter the country with narcotics, could be executed. And remember, before leaving the country, being interviewed for awhile of why I was not staying longer in Taiwan.
As they though it suspicious, which I can understand, the main reason was that because my brother and I were supposed to be in Japan by that time.
Back then, we received standby tickets from a former family member who worked for an airline company, and we were supposed to leave the United States on January 3, 1999. We knew nothing about standby tickets but the fact that we had to wait until everyone boarded and if there were open seats, we could get on the flight.
It shouldn’t be a problem because there were two of us right? Well, we were wrong.
A massive snowstorm hit the Chicago area, so all flights from Chicago were being diverted to San Francisco International Airport. We stayed at the airport for hours and for two more days of trying, to no avail. There was one way to use our standby ticket to get to Japan. And that was purchasing tickets to another country.
And so, on January 5th, we left to the US to go to Taiwan. It was unplanned but we had a choice of using our standby tickets in London or Taiwan and we figured, Taiwan would be much closer to Japan.
I remember the building of Taiwan International Airport and at the time, smelling the strong fuel inside the airport. And also, how freezing it was in Taipei.
And I remember eating dinner at a restaurant and playing in the restaurant television was Channel A. At the time, it was a music video station that was MTV Asia after it left the STAR TV Network and operated out of Hong Kong.
At the time, Taiwan was heavily into Japanese pop culture and when we were there, Namie Amuro and Takuya Kimura were popular stars. And a mix of J-Pop, Canto/Mando Pop was what was shown on television.
But at that time, the one star I saw a lot of was Faye Wong. And that was pretty awesome because I love Faye Wong’s music.
But my biggest memory was Faye Wong’s music video for “Love Commandments”, “Red Bean” and “Face” that aired quite often.
But interesting enough, the song that was most popular for Faye Wong that year was “Eyes on Me” for the popular video game, “Final Fantasy VIII” which would be released as a single the following month in Japan alongside “Red Beans” (or in Japan, known as “Acacia Seeds”).
And an interesting trivia fact that “Eyes on Me” was the highest selling video game single in Japan at the time with over 500,000 copies sold and was the first song in video game history to win an award for “Song of the Year (Western Music)” at the 14th Annual Japan Gold Disc Awards.
I know the country that I went to back in 1999 has changed a lot since then… But overall, one of these days, I will need to head back to Taiwan for a more longer stay.
