The oddest foreigner you've met here -- share your story

Whoah folks. Careful with the “Reply” button in this thread. There are sleeping entities here that we of fallen later days may not be able to handle …

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Yeah, I figured the guy might be full of crap. If he wrote about one or two people, it’d be one thing. But how does he personally know (or knew) over a dozen head-cases?

I knew most of those people since I was in Formosa I and II the same time as mwalimu. The descriptions are pretty accurate.

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Yikes. Are they all gone now, or…?

AFAIK all the hard-core ones are. Funnily enough Steve was the first guy I met in Taiwan. He was harmless enough but terrible hygiene. He used to ask me the use of my Twinings tea-bag after I’d finished with it. Chris might still be around, he shouldn’t be on the list, bright guy very knowledgeable on Taiwan. Jerry was ex-NASA.

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Too much red cordial?

Funny how this one has been let run…Its also got terribly boring compared to the original thread when people could really put electronic pen to paper.

That Dave guy sure could paint a picture !

I miss Deuce Dropper. Lots of folks have left us or moved on.

Guy

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You’re all a bunch of poofters!

I know one person mentioned way, way above (the priest), and am happy to report that he’s fine. He has a small parish church. I must have run into at least one of the buskers in one of the underpasses. I stayed for a few months at TIYAC (this was 30 years ago) and remember a few dissolute characters from there (anybody remember Roman, the Ukrainian-American from Chicago?), along with many fairly normal language students and the like. I only heard of places like DV8 and Buffalo Town, since I don’t drink and can’t dance.

I also stayed for a few months at a hostel near the train station, whose name (if it even had one) I can’t remember–this was circa 1990. One of its denizens was an American with severe mental problems, who had just spent some time teaching English in Korea. When I met him, he had somehow lost all his money (perhaps by giving it away?), then discovered that he could beg on the street and get junior high school girls to give him their lunch money. I was delegated to contact the AIT, which turned out to have already made arrangements to bring him home. There was a French woman at the same hostel who seemed okay, but snapped one day (she seemed mad at everybody) and then just disappeared.

…just disappeared.

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Seriously though. If you want to meet colorful characters, seems hostels are the place to go.

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Foreigners in Taipei wearing big baggy yoga style pants and dressing like wannabe dropouts here similar to the ones roaming backpacker havens in SE Asia always seem weird to me because it’s Taipei.

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On the very rare occasion I see a backpacker here, I always think, “er…isnt that a SE Asian thing? This is Taiwan.” to me, backpackers look completely out of place here, except maybe Kenting. That is its own bubble.

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Um … you do know that most “backpackers” look quite normal, right? Sure there’s a few with the dreadlocks and the baggy pants and so on, but, well, most backpackers also consider them a little bit weird. Me at work: shirt, slacks, dress shoes, smaller backpack for computer and books. Me backpacking: shirt, shorts, hiking shoes or sandals, bigger backpack for carrying stuff.

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I had a guy walk up to me a few years ago on a Saturday afternoon at Taiwan beer factory and asked me where I got my girl? I almost freagin exploded and hit him but he was a bit older than me so I paused and asked him what was he talking about. This is my girlfriend.

He said he heard that it’s easy get girls in Thailand. I said we are in Taiwan not Thailand. He was shocked. That was his first day in town.

Luckily she didn’t hear him or he would have met the wrath of a Taiwan girl.

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Do most “backpackers” seen in Taiwan look “quite normal”? @discobot fortune

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I wasn’t talking about their hair.
Anyone walking around the city wearing a completely loaded hiking pack, boots, and carrying a Lonely Planet Guide, looks very out of place to me.

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@discobot display help