Chaos and Cosmic Order: The Year of the Dragon

Grace Loh Prasad | Longreads | February 8, 2024 | 10 minutes (2,700 words)

The cab delivers me to San Francisco International Airport just before 10:30 p.m. on the first Friday in February 2000, the eve of the Lunar New Year.

This is the first time I’ve gone to Taiwan for a major holiday rather than visiting my parents at Christmas or over the summer. It’s a special year, too, though not because of the arrival of the millennium. Y2K isn’t that big of a deal since it’s the year 4697 according to the lunar calendar. What’s exciting is that it’s the Year of the Dragon, the most powerful and auspicious of all the Chinese zodiac animals. Guardian of the East and the sunrise, the dragon is wise yet unpredictable, symbolizing the forces of chaos and cosmic order.

Taiwanese couples and families in a long line wait patiently behind the China Airlines counter to check in for the red-eye flight to Taipei. It’s the usual crowd of fleece-wrapped Berkeley engineers and Prada-toting Stanford grads returning home with a year’s worth of presents in overstuffed suitcases. I mostly blend in, but my luggage is minimal—a few changes of clothes in a small black duffel bag, and a laptop computer case doubling as a purse. It’s my second trip in two years; the more I go, the less I pack.

I nudge my bags forward, mentally rehearsing what to say. When I reach the counter, I hand over my passport and plane ticket. My heart beats faster, but I smile as though nothing’s wrong.

The China Airlines ticket agent looks at my ticket, then at me. I notice the gray hairs beginning to sprout around his temples and his slightly oily complexion. He’s a Taiwanese man in his mid-forties, speaking unaccented English, probably married with kids and an elderly mother-in-law at home, all three generations under one roof in Daly City or Hayward or San Jose. He looks at the ticket again, then his eyes meet mine. His face softens with a mixture of concern and pity, an I-hate-to-tell-you-this look. I strive to keep my face expressionless, even as I feel the adrenaline surging through my veins. I act as though I don’t know what he is about to tell me with a sigh of administrative regret. “I’m sorry, but . . . this ticket is for yesterday.”

---

As I was getting ready for bed the night before, I looked at my ticket to confirm the flight number and late-night departure time. It had been an exhausting week; I was struggling to finish several freelance writing assignments while also working four days a week as a communication consultant at a financial services firm. I didn’t have time to think about my trip until Friday, the day I was leaving. After a quick meeting in the morning, all I would have to do was send a few emails, tidy up the apartment, and pack for my week-long vacation. I was pleased that I wasn’t going to be rushing up until the very last minute, as I usually was.

“I’m sorry, but . . . this ticket is for yesterday.”

I took my passport out of the drawer and laid it on top of my plane ticket, which I hadn’t looked at since the day it had arrived in the mail. It said: China Airlines flight 003, departing San Francisco at 12:05 a.m. on Friday, February 4, arriving in Taipei at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, February 5.

My heart started pounding. How could I arrive early Saturday morning if the flight leaves Friday at midnight? It’s a fourteen-hour flight. Then it hit me: My flight actually leaves on Thursday night. Tonight!

I looked at the clock. It was 11:46 p.m., only minutes before takeoff. Even if I were packed and ready, the most reckless cabdriver would not be able to get me from the Marina District to SFO in time.

My first instinct was to call the airline to see if I could change my ticket. Then came a stampede of negative thoughts: What if they make me buy a new ticket? What if it costs a fortune? What if all the flights are sold out for Lunar New Year? What will I tell my parents?

I dialed the China Airlines toll-free reservation line and braced myself for an expensive remedy. After three rings I got a recorded message saying they were closed and would reopen at 6:00 a.m. Next, I tried the China Airlines desk at the airport, but there was no answer.

Though I was wide-eyed from the adrenaline, there was nothing else I could do until morning. I sent an apologetic email to my dad saying I’d missed my flight and would try to get on the next one. Then I finally went to bed.

At 6:00 a.m. on Friday morning, groggy but determined, I called China Airlines. I explained my dilemma and complained that the itinerary was not explicit enough about flights leaving after midnight. I booked a seat on the Friday night red-eye, and feigned a tone of indifference when asking how much it would cost to change my ticket. When the agent quoted me a price difference of $50 plus a $75 change fee—payable at check-in—I sighed with relief. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected.

I sent another email to my dad, saying, “Same time tomorrow . . . see you there.”

---

“. . . This ticket is for yesterday.”

I look at the ticket agent, trying my best to maintain a calm, confident exterior.
“I know. I thought it was leaving tonight because the itinerary didn’t make it clear that it was Thursday night. It’s confusing.” I smile innocently, as though it’s really their mistake, not mine. “Anyway, I made a reservation for tonight’s flight.” I don’t say anything about my utter panic the night before, my fear of having to tell my parents that I couldn’t come, or my desperation to get onto the Friday night flight.

“Okay. Let’s see.” The ticket agent lowers his eyes to the computer screen, trying to spare me the bad karma of missing Lunar New Year with my relatives. A few keystrokes later, he locates my reservation and prints out my boarding pass. After the standard speech about having control of my luggage at all times, he hands my papers back to me. He doesn’t ask me to pay the $50 price difference or the $75 change fee—and I don’t bring it up. I walk away relieved and amazed that I got off so easy. As I head toward the departure gate with my bulging carry-on bags, I muse that the Chinese gods of fortune must be on my side.

---

It’s 6:00 a.m. on Sunday when my plane touches down in Taipei, on the second day of Lunar New Year. The ink-dark sky and stillness of the predawn landscape contrast with the fluorescent glow and faint buzz of activity in the international terminal of Chiang Kai-shek International Airport. My mouth is dry from the long flight, and I’m dying to brush my teeth to get rid of the stale taste. Searching my purse in the ladies’ room, I realize I’ve forgotten to bring toothpaste and will have to wait until I get to my parents’ place, a half-hour away.

The immigration hall is just as I remember it—cold and sterile with high ceilings and yellowish lighting. I’m surprised that the room isn’t brightened with decorations since I know every other public space in Taiwan will be festooned with greetings on red banners, bundles of paper firecrackers, potted kumquat trees, and lucky images of coins and fish to signify wealth and abundance in the new year.

I expect the airport employees to be in good spirits, having just received their annual bonuses. After surrendering my passport and customs declaration to the immigration clerk, a petite woman with a severe haircut and no makeup, she says something in Mandarin that I don’t understand.

“I’m sorry, can you say that in English?”

“Your passport is expired,” she says, exhaling sharply. “Do you have another one?” She hands the offending document back to me.

What if all the flights are sold out for Lunar New Year? What will I tell my parents?

My cheeks grow hot as her words sink in. I fumble for an explanation.

“No . . . I mean yes . . . but I didn’t bring it with me.” I rummage around in my purse to be sure. “I must have left my current passport at home.”

I contemplate the dark blue booklet with the gold embossed eagle. On the outside it looks identical to my current passport, which is why I didn’t think twice when I put it into my purse the night before. But as soon as I open it and catch a glimpse of my 10th grade photo—an earlier me with spiky hair and too much makeup—I know she’s right. The page is stamped “EXPIRED” in big red capital letters.

“Do you have any other form of identification?”

“No.” I don’t want to show my battered old California driver’s license because that’s expired too.

“Are you a Taiwanese citizen?”

“I was born here, but I was two years old when my family moved to the U.S. So I guess not.”

“How did you get here with an expired passport?” She eyes me as though I’m guilty of doing something very bad.

“I checked in at the China Airlines counter in San Francisco, and they didn’t say anything, so I didn’t know there was a problem. If they had told me my passport was expired, I could have gone home and gotten the correct one. But they didn’t, so now I’m here.”

“We can’t let you in,” she says matter-of-factly.

“But what am I supposed to do? The airline made a mistake. I made a mistake, but I didn’t know it, and now it’s out of my control.” My voice begins to crack. What are they going to do with me? What am I going to tell my parents?

“Stand over there.” She points to a desk at the far end of the line of immigration checkpoints. I pick up my bags and walk to the desk where a man in his fifties with a military buzz cut and wire-rimmed glasses addresses me in Mandarin. I ask whether he speaks English.

He continues in Mandarin. “What’s the matter? You don’t speak Mandarin?” He shoots me a look of disapproval before saying, in English, “What is the problem?” I explain my situation as calmly as I can.

He looks down at me through his glasses. “This is very serious, you know. The airline will be fined $1,000 US dollars. Do you have any Taiwanese identification?”

“No, but I visited Taiwan a year and a half ago with my current passport. Isn’t there some sort of computer record of my entry and paperwork?

“We don’t keep those records.”

“So what can I do?”

“Unless you can prove your identity, we will have to send you back to the United States.”

I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve just spent fourteen hours getting here, and I only have one week of vacation. It’s Lunar New Year, and my relatives are all expecting me. I can’t possibly fly back now—or survive the loss of face.

“Can I talk to my parents? They’re waiting for me in the arrival hall.”

“You can’t go outside this area.”

“But they need to know what’s going on. Can you send someone to talk to them?” I know my parents woke up before dawn to meet me here, as they always do. I picture them standing in the waiting area behind the glass barrier, craning their necks to see the arriving passengers emerging through the double doors.

“Follow this man. He’ll take you to the transit lounge while we figure out what to do with you.” They speak to each other in Mandarin. I grab my bags and follow. The young man, a China Airlines employee, addresses me in Mandarin first, then in English. On hearing my predicament, he asks whether my passport can be sent from the States. It’s a reasonable suggestion, but there’s only one problem: nobody has keys to my apartment.

“Oh,” he says. “You have no family there?” He must find it hard to believe that a Taiwanese woman could live alone in another country without at least one family member, in-law, or family friend nearby. My older brother, Ted, lives in Thailand, and although I have a few cousins in the States, I rarely see them.

I consider sending my keys on the next flight to SFO, but I soon realize this isn’t the best option: even if a flight left right away, it would take a minimum of twenty-four hours to get to California and back, and I’d have to get someone to collect the keys, go to my apartment, locate my passport, then redeliver the passport to the airline. Who was going to do this for me?

“Can you find my parents in the arrival hall and tell them I’ve been delayed?”

“I’ll look for them. Please write down your father’s name.”

He gives me a pen and a piece of paper. I write my father’s name in English: I-Jin Loh. Underneath, I start to write in Chinese characters. There are fifteen strokes in the character “loh,” an uncommon surname that translates literally as “camel.” I pause, trying to remember how to write the characters for my father’s first name. My hand twitches, anticipating out of habit the two characters for my first name, which I’ve written hundreds of times. The young man looks at me expectantly, his hand outstretched. I feel my cheeks redden as I realize that I don’t know how to write my father’s name. Instead, I write down an approximation—two Chinese characters that I believe are phonetically similar.

I hand the paper back to the young man. “This is what his name sounds like in Taiwanese, but I don’t know how to say it in Mandarin. These aren’t the correct characters, but the sound is close.”

“He has white hair,” I add, just in case. My face burns. Even though I took Taiwanese lessons during my last trip to Taiwan, I can’t even write something as simple as my father’s name. Since my relatives all speak Taiwanese with each other, I don’t know how my father’s name is pronounced in Mandarin, the official language of business and government. The language barrier shuts me out, making me no better than a foreigner. A failure.

Fifteen minutes later, the young man returns. He says he made an announcement on the PA system, but no one responded. I plead with him to try again. In the meantime, I’ve located one of my dad’s business cards with his name written in Chinese. I show it to him, and he chuckles.

“That’s really different,” he says. A half hour later, the young man tells me he’s found my parents. He noticed a dignified man with white hair, accompanied by his wife.

“Can I talk to them?”

“You cannot leave this area. But I gave them the phone number in here, so they can call you.”

A few minutes later, my dad calls the transit lounge. The clerk behind the desk hands me the phone.

“Gracie? Are you okay? What happened?” He sounds concerned but not panicked. As I tell my dad the situation, my grown-up composure seeps away. Though comforted by their presence, I’m also embarrassed by the implication that I need to be rescued. We hang up when the young man says they’ll allow us to meet “across a bar.”

He takes me down a long hallway to a Staff Only door, a shortcut to the arrival hall. My dad is wearing a blazer and plaid scarf, and my mom is dressed in a knee-length black coat and a red scarf. Her eyes are red and swollen. We talk for a few minutes, under supervision, in a small area sealed off by metal barriers. Though we aren’t separated by glass, it feels as humiliating as a prison visit. Hi Mom, hi Dad, this is your successful, responsible, thirty-one-year-old daughter who can take care of herself. Even though my parents are calm and understanding, I fight back tears. Before we part, my dad hands me some phone cards to call the U.S. He says they’ll wait for me while I try to find a solution.

The young man points me to the pay phones. I sigh and wonder who to call. It’s like being locked out of my apartment, only this time I’ve managed to lock myself out of an entire country.

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Grace Loh Prasad writes essays and nonfiction about memory, language and loss, and her constantly shifting relationship to home and belonging. Her writing has appeared in Catapult, Ninth Letter, Jellyfish Review, Memoir Mixtapes and elsewhere. Her memoir-in-essays entitled The Translator’s Daughter will be released in March, 2024.