“Life sucks,” we agreed and sighed, longing for an answer to life’s absurdity. I was walking home with my roommate Yayoi on a breezy winter evening in Taipei.
I remember our awkward Airbnb introduction followed by a night of eerie silence in our 3-bedroom apartment—so quiet that even my slow breathing felt like an intrusion. It was a stark contrast to Tainan, where people laughed, chatted, and gathered for hot pots. Taipei instantly seemed much more aloof compared to my cozy nights down south.
Strangely enough, the quietness grew on me. Yayoi is a translator who worked long hours on her laptop, and another roommate was barely home. I had to work late nights as well, and I was always working in bed instead of sitting properly at a desk, but through my window, I could tell if Yayoi was still working. I found comfort in seeing the warm glow from the lamp, knowing that someone was just a doorstep away.
In the morning, or rather, at noon, I often strolled through the empty streets in Shida to look for food. Many of the stores would still be preparing for the day’s business or just opening their doors. Shida Night Market used to attract many food lovers and tourists alike, but through a neighborhood restructuring, Shida became more of a peaceful residential area. The convenience was kept intact, though, with a variety of restaurants, convenience stores, clothing retailers, and hair salons. It’s everything I loved about Taipei in one place, minus the crowds.
Since 2018 struck, my quarter-life crisis has definitely crept up on me. But the Taipei’s slow-paced living was a saving grace for my looming depression. I lingered in bookstores and coffee shops to pass time and think about where my life was heading. Physically, there wasn’t much to worry about besides my clothes being eternally damp from the never-ending rain. I walked a lot slower and spent a lot of time just breathing in the atmosphere.
I came across so much creativity and personality in the city: local coffee shops run by quirky owners; street markets that had different stalls every day; an independent bookstore owned by a rambling old man; antique stores that were filled with literal trash, etc. All these little corners of life gave me yet another vision of what my future could be, or should be. I’ve been living a rather comfortable lifestyle, but why couldn’t I look as happy as the little old man who sat in the same chair every day?
In Taiwan, 小確幸 (“a small but certain happiness”) is a prevalent life philosophy, especially among millennials. It’s a term popularized by Haruki Murakami in his novel Afternoon in the Islets of Langerhans, where he wrote: “without this kind of small yet certain happiness, life is but a desert in drought.”
小確幸 can be anything found in mundanity: an iced coffee on a hot day, a butter-filled pineapple bun at 2 pm, Yayoi’s lamp lighting up my window at 3 am. The lesson of a small but certain happiness was a souvenir from my stay in Taiwan. It’s a steady flow of minor contentment, hard to be felt after leaving the environment that breeds it, yet ought to be practiced regardless.
On one of my last nights in Taipei, I was walking home with Yayoi, just chatting about random things as usual. We had spent a late afternoon in an artist-owned coffee shop and shared a meal at a Thai restaurant next door.
Having been a pessimistic person lately, I complained about how dreadful it was to live life on a daily basis. How we worked our asses off for the sake of nothingness. How meaningless chores consumed most of our energy. And I said it all in a rather flat tone as if I was just reiterating a common fact.
Instead of giving me pep talks, Yayoi just casually agreed and said: 對啊 生活真的很麻煩 / “Yeah, life is really annoying.” We shared a long sigh, a brief pause, and at last, a giggle of relief. What a petty complaint about the pettiness of life. What an irony that we found a fleeting second of joy in lamenting the dreadfulness of it.
Perhaps that was it — at the very end of an unanswerable question of life only comes a resigned laugh. Then, we simply move on and live the questions without attempting to answer them again.
