【About the Book】

 

This is a collection of letters between two Taiwanese women poets. Writing across borders—Yali in Taiwan and Yu-Hsuan in her nomadic life around the world—they engage in an email dialogue that reflects on a world reopening after lockdowns and the transformations that followed. Through their exchanges, they explore the condition of women in society, the formation of self-identity, and the pursuit of meaning in life.

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【Author’s Note】

 

After we ended our correspondence, Yali and I met in Taitung. My bare scalp had begun to sprout new hair. A button on Yali’s blouse had fallen off. Unfazed, she calmly opened her backpack, took out a pair of scissors and thread, and deftly sewed it back on. The citizen of the world is someone who carries absence like luggage—lightly, without complaint.

 

From early to late 2024, the hair on my head had grown down to my shoulders. In spring, I traveled to Italy and stayed in the village where Tarkovsky filmed Nostalghia. At night, a fog settled in. I rewatched Nostalghia, only to find the camera movements and editing now unbearably urgent. It struck me: what once felt slow in my youth only revealed my lack of nostalgia’s resonance. The urgency I now perceived came from a full understanding of how devastating the act of looking back can be. Open a window, hear the rain—any small break in reality becomes an entry point for memory to seep through. There’s no need to look back: the past is a blade, slicing forward with heartless precision. What we call "balance" is sometimes just learning to keep still while the blade cuts. With every slash, reality is shaved smoother. When I arrived at the monastery from the film’s final scene, I danced—a gift for Tarkovsky. Don’t ask what someone has lost. Ask instead: What did we once create together?

 

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【Selected Works】

 

Yali,

 

Every morning when I wake up, I sit and meditate. Then my mind drifts off—should I have one slice of peanut butter toast or two for breakfast? I sneak a glance at the blue sky and wonder whether I should write first or swim in the ocean while it's still warm? When my thoughts drift too far, I remind myself: don't chase. If a thought is a car, let it drive past. Don't run after the car. If a thought is a cat and I'm a dog, don't bark, don't chase the cat.

 

Don't chase any thoughts. When you stay by the roadside long enough, the cars and the cats grow fewer. Eventually, even the road disappears. Empty. And comfortable. My spiritual practice is simply to sit quietly, pour myself out, and make space to receive other things.

 

I've just arrived in Turkey to study Sufi whirling.

 

It's said that in the 13th century, the Sufi poet Rumi heard the rhythmic hammering of goldsmiths in the market and, overcome with joy, stretched out his arms and began to spin continuously. After whirling for 36 hours, he attained enlightenment. His followers adopted whirling as a ritual practice in Sufism, and it has been passed down to today.

 

Now, Sufi whirling is recognized as a part of world cultural heritage. I wasn't looking for professional dancers who perform this as a tourist spectacle. I wanted to learn from true Sufi practitioners who whirl as a form of daily meditation. After a long search, I finally found a discreet and humble Sufi gathering place in Istanbul.

 

Men and women gather separately, as women cannot sing or dance in front of men. When I first entered the women’s space, I was stunned. It felt like stepping into a spring garden. Though they wore headscarves and robes, their voices, expressions, and movements were vibrant and free—so unlike the reserved women I encountered in public. Here, they had reclaimed their natural vitality.

 

Some were sipping tea with five sugar cubes. Someone played the ney flute. Another brought me a tray of sweets. One tapped a daf drum, her fingers circling around a tear in the drum skin. One lifted her shirt to breastfeed, then stepped outside for a cigarette. A four-year-old girl, dressed in white, spun alone. A 15-year-old and a 35-year-old sat cross-legged practicing songs, reading lyrics off a phone. A line of elderly women knelt facing the wall in prayer. A 70-year-old grandmother rocked a cradle with her knees, teasing her pacifier-sucking grandson.

 

Each girl practiced at her own pace. I started from scratch alongside two eight-year-olds, each of us standing on a square board dusted with white powder. Arms crossed at the chest, fingers lightly resting on shoulders. Left foot rooted, right foot circling counterclockwise. It took me over ten minutes to find the right balance and pressure. Gradually, my clumsy, segmented moves became fluid circles. As I eased into the gentle dizziness, I began to enjoy the focused yet relaxed state of spinning.

 

While spinning, I listened to the noisy life of the gathering space around me. I was moved to tears, not by any mystical state reached through whirling, but by the garden’s aliveness. Each flower bloomed in its own rhythm, incorporating the surrounding order into its body. Their religious atmosphere was joyful, equal, and warm. In Rumi’s poems, God is not some exalted being to be worshipped and feared, but a source to love and pursue.

 

Rumi said, “Let the beauty we love be what we do.” He taught that poetry, music, and spinning could lead to divine union. But this union isn't esoteric—it's simply remembering that God isn't outside us. Seeking the source means discovering our own inner divinity and seeing that all beings are born with wings.

 

I first saw Sufi whirling in the film Chance or Coincidence twenty years ago. The whirling dervishes in the film held one palm upward to receive divine will, the other downward to transmit it to the world. They were focused, immersed, selfless—their bodies became vessels for the heavens and earth. That image struck me deeply. Back then, I had just begun writing poetry—or rather, I had just become aware that “real poetry isn't written by me.”

 

It's strange to say, but honest words can sometimes sound false. Yes, I can write, I can structure—but that's secondary. At the start of a poem, it never comes by will. It feels like something simmering in my life finally shakes the whole pot and gives off a scent. I have no idea who lit the fire. Where is the fire? What was put into me? Who stirred it? How did things catalyze? What suddenly made it move?

 

I feel like an outsider to my own life. I just happen to be there to help it be born.

 

The moment a poem arrives is complex yet simple, prolonged yet instantaneous. I don't know its mechanism or logic. So when I first saw Sufi whirling in film, it mirrored the state I'm in when writing: I'm simply a container, something flows into me, and I pass it on.

 

I don't seek poems actively, nor wait passively for inspiration. I try to live in a state of receptive vitality. I allow everything to flow in, collect the unknown, but I don't assign places or names to it. I let it mingle, play, and quarrel with other things in my life.

 

Quarrels are self-attacks. Everything I've learned often slips out too easily. I still chase cars and cats, relying on each morning's meditation to cleanse my mind. My winding journey is simply an attempt to return to nothingness. Kafka once said: “The true path is not on a tightrope stretched high, but a rope close to the ground. It is more likely to trip you than to walk on.”

 

Yesterday, I saw a video installation at the Istanbul Modern Art Museum. A Turkish female artist explored identity through clothes, treating each outfit as a role. She walked through a colorful jungle of clothes, freely choosing what to wear. As she took on more identities, the layers thickened until she became a monstrous figure. Worse, she could no longer remove those layers. The once-freely worn identities had bound her. She lost both freedom of movement and freedom from restraint.

 

Not even human.

 

Those words reminded me of the Sufi women. Why could they regain vitality only away from the male gaze? Turkey's women's rights movement has surged in recent years. Marches cry out, “I don't want to die,” because at least one woman is murdered daily by a partner, ex-husband, or stranger. Domestic violence has soared under pandemic lockdowns. Under “honor killing” traditions, men are justified in punishing women who “dishonor the family.” Courts often reduce sentences, saying the man was “provoked unfairly.”

 

Ropes not only trip; they strangle. What dishonors womanhood? When a Turkish actress won Best Actress at Cannes, she said she didn't have to imagine her character's hardship—being a woman in Turkey meant living it from birth. Immediately, the ruling party denounced her as a traitor, a slave to the West.

 

I recently stayed up to watch Turkey's women's volleyball team win the European championship. As they clinched victory, fireworks erupted across my quiet neighborhood. Each isolated household burst into cheers like linked sparklers. Yet the government and media chose instead to attack two key players for being lesbian, condemning them for “betraying Turkish values.” One player responded, “I'm too high up for your voice to reach me.”

 

In a country where the president says gender equality “defies nature,” working women are “flawed,” and feminists “don't understand motherhood,” these women defy oppression to forge new identities. They stand as beacons of empowerment—isolated and at risk. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk has been charged multiple times for “insulting the nation.” His novel Nights of Plague explores the rise of authoritarianism through the lens of a fictional pandemic. Upon its release, he was accused of insulting the national founder and flag, and inciting hatred. Pamuk says that in Turkey, it's dishonest—even immoral—not to talk politics. Asked what writers can do as authoritarianism rises worldwide, he replied: “First, survive. Don't rush to prison. Then, write.”

 

Taiwan was once lonely and dangerous too. It took generations of protest and truth-telling to earn today’s democracy. You said your homeland gives you strength and drives your change. You often feel everything you do is out of love for it. I'd never fully understood that emotion—until last month, when I suddenly felt: if I stay silent, Taiwan sinks.

 

At a democratic education conference in Bulgaria, I was assigned to film a workshop on “Policy Demands in Education Reform.” I planned to sunbathe in the pines but instead stood behind a camera, checking angles, focus, and batteries. Then the host asked each country’s delegate to present on their education policies and challenges. In my mind, I prepared to talk about Taiwan’s 2014 experimental education laws and this year's amendment offering self-learning subsidies to underprivileged students. But I didn’t know many key terms in English. Nervously, I pulled out my dictionary.

 

Just then, the Italian on my left finished. It should have been my turn, but the Czech on my right began speaking. I'd been mistaken for staff and skipped. Relieved, I relaxed—then realized: No. I'm the only Taiwanese here. If I don't speak, no one will learn about Taiwan. Then Taiwan becomes a blank. It might as well not exist.

 

For the first time, I felt my identity and Taiwan's were inseparable. Every word I say builds others' understanding of my homeland. If it were just for myself, I wasn’t ready, didn’t want to speak unprepared. But this wasn’t about me. My mission was to let the world see Taiwan. So before the Romanian could start, I raised my hand and said: “I'm from Taiwan. My country...”

 

I realized then: not only does Taiwan carry my wandering, I too am a vessel that can carry Taiwan—so she may remain in the hearts of strangers. For the first time, saying “love Taiwan” felt not awkward, but like a long-awaited reunion.

 

Best wishes,

Yu-Hsuan

 

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【Review & Reflection】

 

“This book collects a series of letters exchanged between two authors across continents and moments in time—at times separated by vast oceans, at times within reach of one another. Though living in foreign lands and navigating cultural and geographic boundaries, they connect through their shared roots in Taiwan. Through their continuous reflections, questions, and moments of awe, we cannot help but ask: are borders truly impenetrable? Perhaps a single sincere gesture is enough to begin dissolving them. The word Aspiration may at first suggest an intimate longing between two individuals, yet it actually evokes the island that nurtured them—its passionate spirit and deep emotional connection to the world. This is not merely a dialogue between two writers; it is also a quiet yet resonant conversation between Taiwan and the vast world beyond.”

 

—Bleu & Book