To be honest, I don’t have much to say about cycling. Maybe if you gave it a novelized treatment? A little magic realism, perhaps?
I could rewrite this chapter like if it were “guerra del tiempo”, by Carpentier. Nah, fuck it, I don’t want.
Sorry to hijack the thread, but I provide pictures!
Is that not enough?
Are you not entertained?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, what is a meme worth?
Chapter IV*
I reduced speed and turned on the right blinker. Leaned slightly the 245 kg of mainly iron to the left, and then a sharp turn to the right, opening throttle just a bit. She’s tired, and I’m tired. No meaningful face from the guard. All the way down into the parking lot, the fork taking one after another all those annoying bumps, but she doesn’t complain. An exercise of balance through the waste yard of parked scooters and then the same ritual of central stand, gloves, helmet and one last pat. Lift and… nothing on the door.
There wasn’t any fine that night.
IV*: This stick and V means “four”. Most of Americans never watched any movie or read any book beyond the third episode, chapter or part. There are exceptions like Star Wars but that one created great confusion, so I add this note, hoping that after reading it a couple of times the American audience will pass from the title
Dude, seriously? We know our Roman numerals from watching the Super Bowl. Duh… You just don’t understand American culture. 
2 Likes
guess america is the rightful successor of the roman empire:p i’ve taken quite an interest in american football recently, so i’m googling for recent super bowl winners in certain years. needless to say, it’s a pain in the ass, not even wikipedia is your friend there. oh, the patriots won in CVXI, ahh no, it was CXVII,no wait…XCVXIIII!!!makes no sense, looks more like an ex nfl player’s censored words on tv after that CTE kicks in…
I don’t like you comment. I would temp it if I could.
I think I need to study Roman numbers again. It does follow some very logic rules, but …
Opinions are like Roman numerals…
@tempogain, give me temporary powers to temp posts and people and I promise I will vanish from Forumosa afterwards. Don’t think it too much!
Promises are like babies: easy to make, hard to deliver.
Chapter V
I won’t lie: I was kind of excited when I saw the letter from the “Taipei City Adjudication Office” last night. However, I didn’t want to bother anybody for getting a translation of the contents, so I left it over the table and went to jerk off on bed. No, wait, I didn’t masturbate yesterday. Damn, I knew I was forgetting something…
Today I had some time at work so I asked a Brit coworker to look for the meaning of those evil characters on the letter. Despite his efforts and he closing the eyes resembling a more Chinese looking, he couldn’t come up with a proper translation. He just didn’t understand it. So I had to ask my personal Taiwanese slave to just tell me whether or not I had won my last appeal.
After thinking a bit, her answer was the following: “they are moving your case to New Taipei City”. Well, that’s actually my transcription of what she told me. My coworker didn’t understand her either.
I wonder why I can sometimes understand “very well” Taiwanese people, especially considering that I can’t speak Chinese nor English.
See you in Chapter VI.
Chapter VI
I have ridden through dense clouds of smoke. I have crashed my bikes. I have been a few centimeters from a certain dead. I have seen how riders lay on the dirty ground bleeding like dying pigs.
And I have read George Bataille and his blasphemies. Man, that guy was disgusting.
I’ve appealed every fine I’ve been given in Taiwan simply to make them work for their salary, two times out of the five they were completely wrong and I had picture proof but…
The Kaohsiung traffic fine department couldnt care less what proof you provide, they will sit on it for a month than send a heavy government Chinese worded letter 3 or more pages long why you are wrong.
Btw I’d buy your book
In my case they said that I was wrong (I wasn’t) but that they wanted to be nice because I wasn’t aware of the regulation (actually I was leveraging some pictures I took of a policeman not doing his job the previous day to being fined for something related to what the policeman didn’t do… will explain it in another chapter). So I guess I can say I won.
I’m appealing a second time and I hope it will work out…
Chapter 6 is just way too short, man. There must be some happy medium between “wall of text” and “Reader’s Digest version.”