Keelung
Bitter gourd stir-fried eggs, pork daikon soup, stinky tofu, gua bao, shrimp with asparagus, forty soup dumplings, a drunken chicken, gold and silver mantou with condensed milk. And several bottles of Taiwan Beer.
“Should we order more?” Brother Eight asks.
“I think we have enough,” says my father, a.k.a. Brother Seven. They are the only ones left; Brother Five died in France a few years ago.
I show Uncle Eight two photographs that I brought with me. In one, my mother, holding a young girl, is sitting between my uncle and a woman wearing glasses. In the other, my uncle is standing next to the woman with the glasses — just the two of them.
“This was in Keelung,” he says. “Where did you get these?”
“My mom kept a lot of old photos from Taiwan.”
He picks up the second photo. After turning it over, he pulls out his glasses to read the writing on the back, and laughs.
“Can I keep this one?” he asks me.
“Of course.”