The MRT Map I Could Not Read
Four years away and I got off at the wrong station in the city I grew up in. That turned out to be the useful part.
An opening that is slightly embarrassing on purpose. Getting lost at home is the kind of detail a writer edits out, and it is the reason this piece is worth reading rather than the reason it is not.
The second paragraph explains what had actually changed — three new stations and a renamed line — and what had not, which is the more interesting half.Source: From dataTaipei Metro published fare table
What a local stops seeing
The middle section makes the general point that the whole department rests on: familiarity is a form of blindness, and the only reliable cure for it is absence.
A paragraph comparing this to somewhere the writer has not lived, marked as research rather than experience, because the comparison is useful and the distinction is not optional.Source: Haven't been
I had not forgotten the city. I had stopped looking at it.
The close offers the reader the transferable version: a way to do this to their own city without having to leave it for four years. It probably does not work as well. The piece says so.
If this changed something for you, tell me. I read every one, and I answer.