The last time Vicente had been to Taoyuan Airport, he had been three years old.
He remembered passing by stores packed with souvenirs — magnets, tote bags and purses galore. What was clearest in his memory, as though the very scene was a video forever downloaded in his mind, was his mother tugging a figure of the 101 Tower out of his hand and firmly placing it back on the shelf. "We'll see the actual tower soon," she'd said.
And now, pushing carts piled upon with suitcases through the airport, Vicente wished so badly to run, once again, to the souvenir stores and buy a little piece of Taipei to slip into his pocket, to pull out whenever he felt nostalgic at Arlingdale and wanted to be reminded of his old (though also temporary) home.
But he barely had any pocket money left for overpriced airport trinkets. Instead, Vicente resorted to staring longingly at tourists strolling past him and out of the airport, speaking to each other rapidly in their native languages. He heard a young couple jabbering to each other in English, discussing just where to go for lunch, and shuddered. Even after two too-fast weeks of fervently working on his English, poring over textbooks that he was meant to study in his next year of school in Taipei, he was far from fluent.
They dropped off their suitcases, and watched them disappear on conveyor belts, before heading to immigration. When the immigration officer who looked over his identification documents asked for his name, Vicente replied, as loudly and clearly as he could, "my name is Wang Jia-Lin."
He still had that blunt Cantonese accent that simply refused to go away, and Vicente was sure that he'd pronounced something incorrectly, but he didn't care — it was probably going to be the last time he'd be speaking in Mandarin.
As they left the booth, Vicente called out, "thank you, and have a good day!"
He did feel very silly, shouting out unnecessary things to strangers, but it felt good, too, to make the best of his last moments in Taipei. While his mother wasn't looking, Vicente ran over to a brochure stand and took a few booklets, stuffing them into his bag.
Later on, as they were boarding the airplane, Vicente saw Ling gazing around at the overhead carriers and seats, eyes wide with surprise. "Vic, Vic," she clamoured, tugging on his shirt-sleeve, "where are we sitting? Do we have seats, or do we have to stand up?"
Lifting up his ticket, Vicente pointed to his seat number. "See this number? That's where we're sitting. What does your ticket read?"
Ling glanced at her ticket, then the 42B boldly printed on it. Without another word, she ran off to her seat, plopping down and staring at her surroundings. "Look at all this stuff!" She unwrapped the blanket and threw it over her, then peered excitedly at the pocket of magazines in front of her. "Do we get to take them away?"
Vicente took his seat next to Ling, placing his bag under his chair and buckling his seatbelt. "I don't think we can," he replied, "how about we ask Yao?"
"Okay!" Ling clambered over Vicente, stepping on her seat (and his hand) in the process, and shouted across the aisle, "Yao, can we take all this away?"
A few people glared at her. Vicente, while nursing his bruised fingers, couldn't help laughing.
Yao looked up from his brand-new cell phone and answered, in a far quieter voice, "I'm afraid not." He shifted the pillow behind his back. "But since our flight is fourteen hours long, we can enjoy them for a while."
"Fourteen hours?" She looked out the window, stepping on her seat for the second time. "But how will we go to the bathroom? Or eat?"
"People will bring us food later on," Vicente explained, "and if you need to go to the bathroom, Mother will take you there." He glanced over at his parents, two aisles away and deep in conversation. "Or, uh, Leon can."
Leon waved from his spot next to Yao. He was nose-deep in an English book.
The speakers on the ceilings crackled. "Cabin crew, prepare for takeoff."
The "seatbelts on" light above them turned on.
"We have to buckle our seatbelts now," Yao said to Leon, who dog-eared his book and closed it. Vicente nudged his younger sister and she followed suit, fiddling with the seatbelt a few times before clicking it in place.
A few moments later, the airplane began to move. Ling squeaked in surprise and stared out the window again, where the airport was beginning to blur past their vision. When the airplane lifted off the ground, she squealed, again earning a few glares from the other passengers. "Vic, we're flying!"
He couldn't help feeling thrilled, too, as the airplane soared into the clouds and propelled into the sky. Night was falling, and the sunset looked even more stunning above the ground. The clouds were bathed in pink-and-yellow light, reminding Vicente of brightly-coloured cotton candy.
Soon, the "seatbelts on" light switched off, and flight attendants began to wheel trolleys down the aisle, offering passengers drinks. Vicente accepted two cups of water from a beaming attendant and handed one to Ling, who grabbed it so excitedly that she nearly spilled it.
At the aisle next to them, Leon took a cup of soda before Yao could stop him, sticking his tongue out at his oldest brother before taking a big gulp from it.
Vicente decided to poke at the little screen in front of him and busied himself with a game of online chess. Five rounds passed, one of which was interrupted by Ling jumping over him to visit Yao and Leon, before he heard the sound of trolleys being pushed down the aisle again.
He helped Ling unfold the little table that would hold her dinner, then pulled out his own just as trays of food were placed in front of them. The meal was familiar — a small scoop of steamed rice along with what appeared to be stewed vegetables and a chunk of pork. Vicente tapped Ling's shoulder when she reached for the cup that held their dessert first. "Let's have that later."
In the middle of their meal, while he was half-heartedly pushing the mushy vegetables around the plate, Vicente heard Ling complain, "this is gross."
Yao cleared his throat pointedly, so loud that he was heard from three seats away. Forcing down another spoonful of tepid rice, Vicente silently agreed with Ling.
Vicente was finishing up his mediocre dinner when his younger brother leaned across the aisle and poked him in the arm. "Vic, can I have your dessert?" He asked in English.
Taken aback by the question and wondering whether or not to sacrifice what seemed to be the only redeemable part of his meal to Leon, Vicente answered, "you can have half."
Leon seemed satisfied with his answer, and reached for the little cup and took half of Vicente's mango pudding. Vicente tucked into what was left of his overly-sweet pudding, relieved that it tasted at least a little better than his dinner.
Ling yawned next to him, abandoning her half-finished dinner and leaning back into her seat. "I'm sleepy."
He picked up her tray of food and placed it over his, waiting for a flight attendant to pass. "I'll turn off the lights for you."
Hugging her pillow to her chest, Ling burrowed under her blanket. Vicente handed their trays to a flight attendant and closed up his little table, then unfolded his blanket and decided that it'd be better if he were to sleep, too. He closed his eyes and let the gentle rocking of the plane lull him to sleep.
When he woke up, Vicente checked the television screen and found out that there was barely an hour left before they were to land - he'd slept for nearly twelve hours. Next to him, Ling was still deep in slumber, half-falling off her chair and her blanket on the floor. Across the aisle, he could see Leon, reading his book again, and Yao, who was watching a movie.
It wasn't long before he heard the overhead speakers crackle again. "Cabin crew, prepare for landing."
He stared out the window, watching the airplane dip lower, lower, lower, watched the ground became closer and closer, until he could make out every little building and road. Then the airplane hit the runway with a dull thud, and that was it. They were officially away from Taipei, halfway across the world and at a new home.
"Cabin crew, we have arrived."
…
Everything about the airport was different.
The signs were all in English, for one, and Vicente couldn't understand half of them. It seemed that not even his two-week-long crash-course in English had prepared him for their move, and that was evident when they went through immigration. His answers were all quiet and stuttered, and the immigration officer smiling reassuringly at him as he passed by only succeeded in making him feel worse.
They were to take a bus from the airport to Arlingdale. Vicente dropped unfamiliar-looking coins into the driver's hands and stared out the window as they left the airport. The street signs were all leading to places like Willow Avenue or Dayston, places that sounded as foreign and strange as Arlingdale.
When the family arrived at Arlingdale, and they all went up to their new apartment, Vicente found himself staring around at the spotless white walls, the unadorned wooden floor, the bizarreness of it all. There he was, an eight-year-old boy in his fourth home since birth, in who-knows-where, about to start a new life again.