Funeral for Yesterday’s Self
20230402 14:00-17:47
Last night, I took a photo of myself before bed. I printed it out in black and white and placed it in a solid wood frame. Holding this funeral portrait of my “deceased self”, I walked through Shuanglian, Zhongshan, Dadaocheng, and Taipei Main Station in a farewell ritual to yesterday, or to every version of myself before today.
Near Exit 1 of Shuanglian Station, a row of elderly people sat resting and watching me. One grandma asked, “Is that you?” I said yes. She asked why I was doing this — she had thought the photo was of my sister. She found it a bit ominous, and as I walked closer, she seemed afraid.
A grandpa in a cap smiled as he looked at me. I slowly went and walked a few steps with him. I asked, “What do you think this is?” He replied, “It’s beautiful.” He added that he didn’t feel it had anything to do with death at all.
A grandma resting in the shade asked if the photo was of my mother. She thought I was searching for a missing person. She told me her son had passed away. Once, she told her grandson, “Your dad went to heaven for coffee,” to which he replied, “There’s no coffee in heaven, only rain!” With tears in her eyes, she said she had fallen for the fifth time recently and that each day, she wondered if leaving this world sooner would be easier. She told me she was 88. She asked if my grandmother was still alive, and I told her she passed away earlier this year. In the end, we exchanged names. I gave her the childhood nickname my grandparents used for me. Her name was Pearl.
On the way to Dadaocheng, a man smoking outside a tea shop told me, “This could have many explanations, but none of them feel like they fit you.” He asked if it was an artwork, and said he thought it was pretty good. He turned out to be the shop owner.
On the crowded Dihua Street, the puzzled and even disgusted looks intensified. Three girls, elementary to middle school age, peeked and pointed at me from under an awning. When we made eye contact, they quickly ducked back. I walked over and asked what they thought. The youngest said, “Weird and scary.” The middle one replied, “I don’t know, you seem like you want people to look at you.” The tallest girl, wearing glasses, said she couldn’t think of anything and continued eating her lollipop.
An elderly woman bumped into me as she crossed through the crowd. She looked at the photo, then back at me twice, before saying, “Ah! What are you doing here?” — as if asking, Weren’t you dead? How are you standing here? She pulled me aside and said, “A girl shouldn’t do this!” Surprised, I asked why not. She only repeated, “Just don’t!” In Taiwanese, I told her, “The me from last night has already died. Today is a new me.” She said she understood, but insisted that older people would find it frightening, so I shouldn’t do it. She told me she had lived in Dadaocheng for fifty years before moving with her children to Daan. She preferred Dadaocheng for all the little general stores. Before leaving, she pressed a sports drink into my hands.
Outside Taipei Main Station, a middle-aged man and I brushed past each other and turned back at the same time. He said, “Isn’t that you?” We chatted for fifteen minutes. I asked, “Would you want to say goodbye to yesterday’s self?” He replied, “These days, I’m just waiting for 4:30pm every day to pick up a free meal.” He was 55, once a career soldier, but now homeless for years. Last year, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He takes on manual labor gigs and helps other unhoused people when he can. He told me I could find him at a certain internet café in Banqiao, locker number one. He ended by saying, “I wish I could say goodbye to yesterday, but I can’t.” I cried. After we parted, I hurried past the line of homeless people, feeling deeply ashamed. I had the choice to say goodbye to yesterday’s life, but some people don’t. For them, tomorrow will be the same as today, only 4:30pm remains.
Walking to the end of the pedestrian overpass, sunlight fell on me. I turned to face the people crossing and decided to stand there for a while.
An elderly man coming up the left-hand staircase looked at me, formed a heart shape with both hands, nodded, and went on his way.
A young woman walked towards me. After we made eye contact, it seemed like she was going to keep walking down the stairs, but she turned back unexpectedly. She said it looked like I was protesting for a wrongfully deceased loved one. She wouldn’t want to say goodbye to any of her past selves, because they were all still her. I shared my recent conversation with the homeless man and how I felt afterwards. She joked that she, too, felt like a homeless person just now. She had come up from Kaohsiung, was nearly out of money, and didn’t know where she’d sleep tonight. I told her she could crash on my couch if needed. After we exchanged contact info, she left, then came back a moment later to take a photo of me.
Two college-aged guys stood in the middle of the bridge about ten steps away. One with glasses called out, “Hey! What are you doing?” I asked, “Who do you think this looks like?” He said, “You!” I replied, “It's me from yesterday.” He went, “Oh cool! Bye!” As they walked down the stairs, the other asked, “So what was she doing?” The glasses guy answered, “I guess today she’ll be a brand new self?”
On the way back to Zhongshan, I passed a bus stop. A middle-aged man peered at me from behind a utility pole, then shifted to the right side to look again, giving me a startled look. He said, “I get it. You’ve decided to say goodbye to the past and start over, right?” I said that was one possibility. He said he was proud of every version of himself because he had always lived earnestly.
My helper lost track of me after I left Zhongshan. Maybe that was for the best. I started murmuring to myself a lot more after.
I had assumed no one would talk to me. After all, this kind of behavior is considered taboo in Taiwan. As I walked under the sun, I remembered how urns and memorial portraits are always shielded with black umbrellas, not exposed to light. So I deliberately stayed in the sun, hoping my spirit would disperse and scatter to every corner of Taipei.
Special thanks to Chlovis and Yi-Zhen for helping with documentation.
