“The only guys who can wear Hawaiian shirts are gay guys and big fat party guys.”
– Homer Simpson
It’s nice to notice that not all the real characters here are creepy. Jiddani seems like a harmless nerd. Reminds me of a dude I used to go to school with who has Asperger’s disease, though I’m not sure I know what that is exactly.
I’ve met him. Nice person and a computer genius.
As the hostel memories start flowing, the freaks come out…
Formosa Superstars:
Steve from the West Coast. A quintessential nerd, about 40 years old, and a world class creep. His M.O. was to hang around McDonald’s chatting up high school girls. “Excuse me Miss, can you help me with my Chinese…”, kinda shite. He always wore the same unlaundered clothes, had terrible hygiene, and wore a ratty pair of shoes, split at the souls with his purple sock clad feet poking out the sides. He had involuntary ticks, and to see him at work, when he was in heat, at McD’s was a nightmare. The poor shao-jie victim squirming in her seat, too embarrassed to tell him to sod off. At night he would indiscretely masturabate, in a room shared with 7 other people.
Juice, from Bostson. Juice was a black guy who slowly unraveled on us. In the begning he was just moderately odd, but by the end, when the police came and carted him out of the hostel, he was obviously headed for disaster. The last two weeks of his stay he took to bringing the worst kind of Buffalo Town skanks home and boneing them in his bunk ( he had 3 room mates in a tiny room with no wondows). Anyone who has lived in the hostels knows that the rule of thumb was to use a love hotel, an MTV., or whatever. On the night before he was evicted, a mate of his called him while he was infalgrante delecto with one of the deaf girls that hung aroung B.T… He came out into the crowded living room to answer his call with only a wash cloth wrapped half around his ass and over his boner. I think he moved down to the Taipei Hostel and not long after was busted trying to sell ice to an undercover cop. Got 7 years hard, out in Taoyuan for that.
Chris from Hawaii. A rasputin looking guy with coke bottle glasses. He once told me that his biggest life accomplishment, to date, was the 5 weeks he spent living as a nude recluse-hermit in a cave on the Big Island.
Then there was this broken down alkie Englishman, whose name escapes me. He’d pass out in the same chair almost everynight, after drinking himself senseless, and wake up in the morning wrapped in toilet paper, or sporting lipstick and dangling earrings. He hated everyone. In the end, when he finally pulled out of Taipei, he cursed us soundly and bragged how he was on his way to score a couple of 12 year olds in the Philipines - gender not specified.
Jerry from Frisco. Grew up on Alcatraz where his dad was a screw. He lived at the Formosa for about 5 years (must have been that early affinity for prison life), and each and every night he’d be up to the wee hours drinking his regular 6 big bottles of Taiwan pijo. He was prone to hurling bric-a-brac at people when one of the endless ridiculous arguments he’d get into got out of hand.
John from the States. He had a bad case of bi-polar disorder that was eratically medicated. Like most people with the disease he was a bit too intense when he was up, and when he was on the down beat - unsufferably maudalin. He was big into frottering and knew all the prime buses to ride to maximize close contact with school girls heading to and from school.
And there were heaps of people that weren’t screwballs, but were colorful characters, none-the-less…
Ed, the classic '60’s hippie that left his job working in a factory attaching spinners to the top of beanies, to teach kindergarten in Taipei. He was a great guy, with the best stories. He told me of the year that he dropped acid each and every day - just to see what it would do to him, and about the time, when he was unemployed and living with his grandma, that he decided to watch T.V. 12 hours a day, 7 days a week for 6 months, so that he could gain a better insight into what it means to be an American.
Taylor from L.A. She was the 19 year old, freerange child of a couple of hippies. She had been educated in all kinds of alternative schools, and was really sharp. Tall and shapely, she got into hostessing at Piano Bars on Lin-Sen, as did quite a few of the girls at the hostel in those days. Eventually, when offered enough money, she slept with one of the customers, making the leap from drinking compaion to hooker. She did 10 tricks after that, saved every dime, and left Taiwan after only a couple of weeks of horizontal employment, never to return, with a US$7,000 travel kitty.
Jaycee, from Nevada also became a prostitute. He worked for a pimp who sold betel nut down the street from the Hostel. He had quite a few odd experiences as a midnight cowboy, including several scenes invloving shagging the Mrs. whilst hubby wanked in the shadows. In the end he happened on a couple of very rich female clients who showered him with gifts and money, and helped him escape the life of hustling for the bin-lang pimp, for the life of a… kept man.
Paul from Glasgee, had a unique angle during his years in Asia. He reckoned that while all the other western blokes where getting lost in “yellow fever” chasing after local girls, he would concentrate his affections on the sea of neglected western womanhood. He only dated white women, and he always had a date. Then one day, he bedded down with a fellow Britt after some rave on Lamu, and in the morning when he woke up, she’d split and written in lipstick, on the mirror, “Welcome to the Wonderful World of AIDS.” He returned to Taiwan soon after, and spent the rest of his time there shitting himself about his status. He went home to sort it out.
British Gavin made his living as a smuggler, mostly of gold - up his bum - to Nepal, before becoming a kindergarten teacher in Sanchung, and working for the DPP.
Boston Thos, collected all kinds of bizarre street salvagings like a pack rat with o.c.d., and brushed his teeth with bleach. Thos was a tosser, if you ask me.
And on and on…
The Drone…Taipei Hostel, 1986. You had to hear this guy to believe it. Ended up flipping out and last seen sweeping floors in Chungking Mansions. And Space was pretty weird (but cool) too. Fun to watch him do “The Dying Cockroach”.
These are fantastic stories. Best thread in ages.
mwalimu - I don’t quite believe the lipsticked ‘welcome to the aids club’ story. I’ve heard numerous variations on that theme. It really deserves to be an urban legend, BUT, maybe she just did it for a sick laugh, having heard the legend herself.
Talking about buskers and hostels, has anyone ever met PK and Sam? They are a British couple who were staying at the long-since-gone Amigo’s hostel on ChiLin road in 1993?
Nice people. They were hippies who would busk in Taiwan until they had enough money to travel. They must be in their forties now.
Maybe not that weird, but we still speak with deep feeling of the American woman who “apartment-sat” for my flatmate and I one summer. Seemed quite normal when she moved in…then we left Taiwan.
When we returned, we were greeted by missing items (“Oh, yeah…I forgot…I borrowed your motorcycle helmet and someone stole it. Sorry.”), a large burn mark on the wall of the yangtai (guess someone overloaded the dryer or something…but we’d never managed to actually set the place on fire with it) and the comment, “Oh, yeah…I think your cat might be dead.”
Might be dead? I never quite understood that one. (It was dead, BTW. Nice going. I don’t want to think about how it might have happened 
)
hmm…not mentioning names but there’s one person mentioned above who is now a reporter for the china post…
oh and what is “frottering”?
Isn’t frottering touchy-feely behaviour of a sexual nature? Like those Japanese guys who pay to go and stand in set up packed train cabs, and get to feel up all these women?
I remember growing up at a time when people only spoke of blow-jobs and muff-dives, fingerings and hand-jobs. It’s too complicated now. (reaches for cane, shuffles off to write letters of complaint about noise and sidewalks)
“Oh, yeah…I think your cat might be dead.”
:s
Did she really say “oh, yeah”? geez. by the way…
Here’s a pretty good definition of frotterism:http://www.umkc.edu/sites/hsw/issues/frott.html
They describe the condition as rare, obviously they have never been to Japan, where it’s a national pass time at rush hour.
And, Spack, you’re right - Paul from Glasgow’s “Welcome to the Wonderful World of Aids” story does sound urban legendish, but the way he told it, and the way he sat around worrying about where he could get a reliable AIDS test (circa 1989), made me think that this actually happened to him.
I swear. It’s become one of our favorite quotes. I was rather surprised to find it just dead, not boiling in some pot on the stove or something… 
I think it is an urban legend. I am pretty sure I heard that before I went to Taiwan in the early 90s.
However, I did hear a story around 95 or 96 in Taiwan, about a couple who were Westerners and swingers, who regularly scored at one of the popular taipei clubs at the time. The story claimed both came down with “full blown” aids, and had to return to their home countries to get treatment. I think one or both of them might have been French, as I recall.
Of course, this seemed pretty unusual … but my source, an American in his late 30s, claimed he knew someone who knew them personally. This ring a bell for anyone?
Anyone remember the lanky American called David, lived near Tai\chung, worked for the DPP’s (then illegal) cable station as a cameraman? Rode a motorcycle with a busted headlight for about 4 years, pissed most of the time. Looked a bit like Bowie on a bad day…
Another crazy one in Tai\chung. Had the bad twitches, would try too hard to hit on girls at parties and then run off down the street howling in anguish when it didn’t work out…
The French gigolo that couldn’t be bothered to park his motorcycle, so just rode it straight into the 7-11 to pick up beer on the way home…
This thread is great.
How could I forget? I had some roommates once who were above waiting for the garbage truck at the right time. Their solution? Wait until the wee hours and just throw the garbage in someone’s first-floor flat yard.
I had a classmate from college that dealt drugs to get through school and would come to class drugged up out of his mind. He later came to Taiwan and got a job with a big retail organization here. He would openly brag about how he would pick up girls at 99–by putting the rape drug in their drinks. Did I mention he was also married? I watched in horror as he was featured in many pictorials in a certain foreign chamber’s magazine as well as other media as a really with-it, up and coming young executive, then he just mysteriously disappeared.
Does anyone remember Jackie? The wacky redhead who used to be a model and go to Tops? A lot of fun, but out there.
And Alien–remember the lady we’d call “the ugly lady”?
ooh ooh…could the ugly lady be the lady we called the lizard lady? was known to haunt tops in search of anything with a pulse? (i know i swore off this thread but anything involving tops is so ancient history it’s public domain)
I hope we’re not libeling anyone on this thread. It’s sort of in poor taste to give full names. Nicknames may be alright.
Flicka,
I do remember the ugly lady, but I always felt sorry for her. She was here for years. There was an ugly man, too, that The Bear remembers.
But they weren’t odd, just ugly. Too bad everyone can’t be as ravishing as you and I, Flicka! :s
Sandman and I spent Saturday reminiscing about old weirdos. This whole thread may be unhealthy, really. I mean, since we’re all still here, aren’t we the big sad losers instead of those mentioned?
Come now… just coz you are leaving doesnt mean you can call the old timers sad losers. Aint nothing wrong with staying in Taiwan… some people have reasons other than $.
Yeah, and what about us happy loosers?
We are the mental badasses of the world… still have our wits after all these years here—hopefully 
Only sporadically… :s