who was i a dick to and how?
Iām finding it a little hard to understand how people can suggest that the OP somehow deserved what happened to him and/or cannot feel sympathy for him based on his conduct on an online bulletin board.
Damn that was quick!!!
Everyone and in every way possibleā¦
As for how, why donāt you just go back over the last 15 pages of this thread and read some of the crap that youāve writtenā¦ Not my job to quote you dudeā¦
[quote]who was i a dick to and how?[/quote]Nahā¦ You havenāt been a dick to anyone in this thread. Certainly no worse than some people have been to you anywaysā¦ I think heās just tying to get you pumped while insincerely suggesting that you shut up. These posts always make me laugh. Much easier not to click on a thread than to ask a poster to shut it, IMO. Ignore that guy if you can take my advice.
Anywaysā¦ There is something to learn out of this for you, and I hope you figure it out. It doesnāt mean you deserved a beating, and it doesnāt mean that these wife-beaters arenāt in the wrong. But I think that when shit like this happens, thereās always a lesson to learn on a personal level and not only as far as pointing fingers at others.
marboulette
That is not what I am suggestingā¦ However, having watched the OPās general attitude towards posters like Mucha Man, yourself and others who were genuinely sympathetic to what happened to him, I am not surprised that the sympathy that he is clearly seeking is rapidly diminishingā¦
Clearly from what you have said you are also concerned at the online conduct of the OP.
One would think that when something as serious as this happens to a fellow foreigner that a site like this would be a rallying point where some kind of fund raising could have been organised to ensure the thugs that did this would get what their just desserts. A cause that I would have been a keen donor, and would be if the cause arises again. But no. What we get is the victim whinging, berating and belittling other posters coments, and generally being a prat.
I donāt post much, Toasty, but when I do I believe I have reason to. At the end of the day a dick, is a dick, is a dick. Irrespective of what may or may not have happened to themā¦
While my predilection for calling a spade a spade always wins out, I am genuinely suggesting that the OP takes a step away from this for a while. What he could have accomplished has long since been frittered away. Anyway, this is my last comment on the subjectā¦
Goodnight, againā¦
While my predilection for calling a spade a spade always wins out,[/quote]Says youā¦ 
Iāve been on the receiving end of your calls beforeā¦ and truthfully, I donāt give a shit.
[quote]I am genuinely suggesting that the OP takes a step away from this for a while. What he could have accomplished has long since been frittered away.[/quote]I think that if people were to not call him a dick and ask him to STFU for starters, maybe a decent conversation might help him understand better the Taiwanese way, and how to better deal with it. I donāt think that has been āaccomplishedā just yet. Maybe heās thinking about it. The guy was only here for a couple monthsā¦ People like you prefer to call the guy a dick. No one responds well to this and I donāt think itās fair to blame him for his conduct in this thread if heās dealing with such comments. Perhaps you should look at your own conduct in this thread. [quote] Anyway, this is my last comment on the subjectā¦[/quote]Excellent. A good night to you, too.
marboulette
That is not what I am suggestingā¦ However, having watched the OPās general attitude towards posters like Muzha Man, yourself and others who were genuinely sympathetic to what happened to him, I am not surprised that the sympathy that he is clearly seeking is rapidly diminishingā¦
Clearly from what you have said you are also concerned at the online conduct of the OP. [/quote]
My ability to feel āconcernā for OPās āwell-beingā or my āanger at the thugs that set uponā OP are not contingent on OP being well behaved on these fora. If there is any truth to what happened to OP, then it is a real tragedy. Nobody deserves the kind of violence he experienced. I donāt care how he comes across here. Itās been my experience that many fine people do not come across well in this strange internet genre.
Youāre aware that all he has done is write some posts on the net, right? I, personally, think heās free to write whatever he wants here. Heās doing nobody any harm at all. Some hardcore F.comers need to realize this ISNāT the real world. If youād be the sort to donate money for folks in such a predicament as OPās, why would harmless net venting change that?
Funny. I havenāt met OP. Have you? Calling the guy a dick for his posts here seems uncalled for, but carry onā¦
I think hippo has a very good understanding of the local gang culture in TAiwan. It isnt a fair fight if it gets to be a fight. And most Chinese, even the thugs will do everything possible to de-escalate a situation because they KNOW that if it gets physical, it can be very violent and can involve a lot of people getting hurt.
The whole thing is to not let it go physical (nuclear as hippo calls it). Because then there is no bounds set at all. Allās fair in love and war as they say, and in this case look at the second part because war is what it will be
!!
I feel for the OP, its sad he got into the mess he got into and no, its not fair at all. And perhaps he wasnāt a jerk and didnāt do anything that you or I wouldnāt have done.
But hopefully he can learn to be more aware of the local scene as it were and watch out better for himself.
My buddy (American guy who I wont name here) somehow ended up getting the hair up on some local thugs who then kidnapped him. First they beat him up outside the bar and then they took him away in their car probably to beat him up some more in another location. But somehow being half drunk he was smart enough to realize he was in deep shit and he apologized to the thugs. Who then decided that they were wrong too to beat him up so badly so they decided to watch over him while he healed. First they took him to see a doc then they took him for a weeklong trip around the island (they were visiting other thugs around the island anyway). So he ended up with a week long tour courtesy of the thugs who he said treated him very well and was dropped off at his house exactly a week later. In the meantime he was totally out of contact and in fact totally at the mercy of the thugs who couldāve easily made him disappear.
Motto is. Donāt get in shit with the wrong people and if you do, apologize fast. Donāt worry bout your Ego, cuz your ASS is on the line here brother!!! Play it smart, forget about all that honor and all, the ass you save will be yours !!
Live to fuck another day should be your motto.
Steve,
Iām going to try to reply to your statements in a constructive manner. The situation you got yourself into was a cross-cultural disaster and you continue to only view it from your cultural viewpoint without even considering that the root cause of the problem was a severe misunderstanding of differences in cultural behavior by you and your assailants.
Were you expecting some kind of āhonorā? Were you expecting them to just leave it at the bar/nightclub because you left? Maybe in the west you can do that. Maybe in the west you can cede your few feet of bar space and walk away and that is understood as you backing off and not wanting to fight. But this is not the west. Standard operating procedure here is vengeance. You thought you ended the confrontation by backing down and leaving. From their viewpoint, the issue had not been resolved, vengeance had not been extracted and the issue of āfaceā had not been settled.
You are still operating on the belief that they were going to fight some king of āhonorā duel with you. Greater Chinese culture is different than western culture. You continue to make the assumption that they are the same. Is this a relativistic judgement? Is any comparison between two widely-different cultures anything more than a relativisitc judgement? You tried to impose your absolute interpretation of your culture in a foreign land with a foriegn culture. It didnāt work.
Again you missed the differences in culture. Chinese tend to go to bars/nightclubs as a group, not as individuals. These groups can contain both men and women. In fact, these groups are the basic social unit of younger Chinese. This basic group unit is significantly different than cliques formed by young westerners. Another difference is that the socially acceptable way to meet people is by introduction ā not by being approached by a stranger. This means that dating happens inside of the basic group and by way of introduction of members between groups. The dating inside a group in itself is problematic to outsiders because the shyness of Chinese men in approaching women means that a guy may take months or even years to ask out a woman who is already IN his group out on a date. This means that if, as an outsider, you hit on a woman inside a group, there may be one or more group members who already have had a long-simmering romantic interest in that woman and seeing you ājump the lineā and propositioning her is an extreme loss of āfaceā. Now, with that said, there is also a cohort of young Chinese women who are going to the nightclubs/bars to meet (western) men. But youāre going to have to figure out which ones are in a group (and are alone maybe because theyāre waiting for everyone else to show up) and which ones are looking for a westerner. The groups are there to have fun, in a sort of āgo to an amusement park and watch other peopleā way and the solos are there to hook up. This is very different from the west where nightclubs and bars are seen as solely places to hook up. I can easily see a situation where you applied your absolute cultural view that this was a pickup place to a group who was there to socialize with only each other and no one else.
Men may physically fight over women in some kind of pub-brawling display of āhonorā in the west. If two Chinese men physically fight over a woman, my bet is that one of them ends up dead or maimed so badly that he can no longer be a suitor. The need to save āfaceā after such an altercation inevitably leads to a maelstrom of revenge, retribution and unlimited violence. Any Chinese woman who eggs on a Chinese man to fight over her physically is a complete psychopath because the cost of two Chinese men fighting over a woman isnāt about āhonorā and a fist fight, itās about āfaceā which to many Chinese men is more important than life itself.
Itās very Chinese to have such an interpersonal confrontation at a nightclub/bar setled in this manner. They definitely were not worried about anyone intervening. With the exception of other white men or maybe some ABCs, no one was going to lift a finger or even call the police to help you out. Again, youāre assuming a western cultural stance where a good samaritan wouldāve helped you out. This is not the west.
Why are you still insisting that they have an āhonorā fight with you? You keep trying to force your western āhonorā code for settling interpersonal confrontation onto them. They outnumbered you 4-5 vs. 1. No matter how absolute your āhonorā code is to you, it has absolutely no effect on them.
Your statement doesnāt make sense in regards to an earlier statement you made,
I will not assume you are so socially inept that you donāt see even the western social cues for ābugger off, this woman is mine, not yoursā. Maybe you arenāt looking for a fight, but you are certainly inviting a fight.
Please bear with me. In the west you get predatory groups of young men who are looking for a fight. This exists to a much smaller degree in greater China. These groups donāt fight by the āhonorā code because they arenāt looking to resolve an interpersonal confrontation. Theyāre just looking to beat the shit out of someone. What Iām talking about is settling interpersonal confrontation. I donāt have the time to go back and quote the endless griping (by many people) about how the Chinese didnāt fight fair, didnāt fight honorably, you were ganged up on, they didnāt hit you in a fair/honorable/prescribed fashion, (eg.āthey werent tough they wree cowardsā), but it just goes on and on and on. You very clearly thought you were in an interpersonal confrontation and it would be settled in an āhonorableā way or there would be no griping about āhonorā or fairness or any other western cultural construct. You did not think you were going to get gang-banged (or else you wouldāve called the cops immediately and never left the relative safety of the bar where the staff would have had to save your ass to save their business) because you were applying your cultural understanding of how such a confrontation should be resolved and in the west it is through āhonorā.
My premise is that your assault was the end result of mixed cultural communications. You refuse to even consider this because you refuse to accept that Chinese culture can be different from the western culture you hold as an absolute. Of course their āactions literally make no senseā because you canāt see where you made social mistake after social mistake after social mistake in their culture because you see your cultural view as absolute and universal and that they should accord to your cultural view instead of their own significantly different view.
Is walking away a sign of backing down and not wanting to fight in the western āhonorā code? Absolutely. But you while you were following the rules of a western āhonorā duel, they were enacting vegeance for a Chinese loss of āfaceā.
Let me posit one possible way this nightmare transacted. You go to a bar. You think that everyone there is there to hook up. You proposition a girl. Unbeknownst to you, sheās part of a group who is there only to socialize within their own group. Maybe sheās waiting for other group members, but she looks single because thereās no guy with his arm around her. Even worse, in her group there is at least one guy who has romantic intentions on her, but due to cultural shyness itās going to take 3 years for him to make his āmoveā. Group members start trying to give you the āwave offā to leave the girl alone. You, who wonāt take the hint from a large, western male to leave a woman alone plow onwards because youāre fighter and have beaten men much larger than you. You may have even missed the āwave offsā because itās easy to mistake Chinese politeness as courtesy rather than communication. So shit begins to procede and you have a problem with a male member of the group. Again, the Chinese guy is negotiating āfaceā, which you are probably misreading as politeness which you also misinterpret as weakness since youāre used to going to fisticuffs with big men because you have a right to talk to anyone you please. At some point you realize thereās four or five of them and you decide to de-escalate the situation by leaving. You think because you havenāt had a mano-a-mano with just the single guy, everything is cool and theyāre going to let it drop. Because, after all, at home, if there was a problem you wouldāve just had your āhonorā duel with the big guy, beat him and solved the problem. Heck, youāre even being nice by backing down and saving the guy a beat down. But this aināt home. Turning your back and walking out on a negotiation of āfaceā is tantamount to telling the Chinese guy āNot only can I, as a complete foreigner, come to your country and your favoriate bar to fuck your woman, youāre also so far beneath me you arenāt even worth the time to argue with.ā The Chinese guys follow you out of the bar, get to a place where thereās no electronic surveilance and go to town on you.
Is this what happened? I donāt know. I wasnāt there. But I think something similar to this played out in one form or another.
Maybe you can sell your story to some kind of tabloid?
Well done, Hippo. Itās too bad the OP was maimed for cultural insensitivity/Western arrogance, but āWhy would you do in Hsinchu what you would not do in South Shields?ā
IMO the OP should think about writing fiction, as many other PhDs in history do for survival. The OP is skillful at factitious reconstructions, which is a sine qua non for oneās first fiction manuscript.
I can only think itās one of three things:
- Hippo is being paid per word.
- He suffers from an autistic spectrum disorder.
- Davey Attenboroughās between jobs.
:s
[quote=āgangster recyclerā]I can only think itās one of three things:
- Hippo is being paid per word.
- He suffers from an autistic spectrum disorder.
- Davey Attenboroughās between jobs.
:s[/quote]
Ganster,
Iām between consulting gigs, sick as crap, and therefore have lots and lots of time on my hands. I guess I could try to get my packing done or do that research on a technical system Iāve been meaning to do for the last 3 months, but this is much more interesting and I think I might be able to offer enough advice to keep someone from getting stomped in the future.
Also, this is a complicated cross-cultural problem. My preference is for Occamās Razor-like solutions ā āAll other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.ā But when dealing with two such radically different cultures, summing this whole unfortunate event down to āloud-mouthed, brawly-Brit looking for a fuck-toy in Taiwan gets ass stomped by four Chinese guysā doesnāt do anything but perpetuate the ignorance and just makes it more likely another āloud-mouthed, brawly-Brit looking for a fuck-toy in Taiwan gets ass stomped by four Chinese guysā.
The whole cultural thing is really interesting to me because Iāve found that most of my consulting has little to do with the technical aspects of project management. Instead, it has more to do with smoothing out the problems caused by two completetly different cultures completely misunderstanding expectations, responsibilities and obligations. The pay sucks, but the benefits and experiences are incredible. And since I like to write, when this is all done, I might write a novel, but I donāt think anyone in the west would believe the some of the stuff Iāve witnessed.
cheers,
Hippo
I did some checcking with patrons that were in the Fāing Pig that night. Two Westerners and two Taiwanes friends confirm that the OP was out of line but got WAY! more than he deserved. Cops simply didnāt know who to arrest. All of them should have been. Anyway, barroom justice is difficult to balance what with alcohol and emotions. My observation of avoiding this place is still valid. To the OP, I hope that you are recovering well and remember that some lessons are hard learned. My condolences and a speedy recovery to you. Taiwan is a great place to be. Just be careful.
they didnt know who to arrest?
i had 3 broken bones and 32 stitches. no one else was injured.
do they usually have this much trouble deciding?
[quote=āsteveknlp2ā]they didnt know who to arrest?
I had 3 broken bones and 32 stitches. no one else was injured.
do they usually have this much trouble deciding?[/quote]
Are all this questions rhetorical or is this thread going somewhere by asking them?
I think you should ask the cops yourself. I donāt think they are on Formumosa. You can also complain to the Ministry of Interior.
service.moi.gov.tw/ecss/bin/eng001q1.asp
Aw, cāmon guys. The lad has had hid bones broken. There are very few things in life that warrant that, and being a dick in a bar certainly isnāt one of them. Heās venting because heās justifiably angry and upset.
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Buttercup wrote: [quote]Aw, cāmon guys. The lad has had hid bones broken. There are very few things in life that warrant that, and being a dick in a bar certainly isnāt one of them. Heās venting because heās justifiably angry and upset.[/quote]
Exactly! Iām disappointed with the responses in this thread. If being a dick - especially being a dick in a pub - was justification for a serious beating, then most of forumosa would be walking around on crutches.
Thereās a lot of defensiveness on forumosa, and I think we know why.
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I think it has been said many times that he got far more than he deserved. Cops here arrest the guilty. In this case, ask around, they were ALL guilty. I mean the OP no offense and I think that has been made clear in a previous post. But, in a bar, especially one with a dubious reputation, there will be problems. Enough said.
āThe situation you got yourself into was a cross-cultural disaster and you continue to only view it from your cultural viewpoint without even considering that the root cause of the problem was a severe misunderstanding of differences in cultural behavior by you and your assailants.ā
I do CONSIDER it. I just donāt think its valid.
"Were you expecting some kind of āhonorā?
No I was walking/running away from 4-5 people. I have done things like that in the past in the UK (my mates and I once got set uipon by 20-30 nazis) and managed to get away mainly because I still had my glasses on, and genuinely with no racist intention, its easier for me to recognise which english people are following me and which arent, even if i hadnt lost my glasses.
"Were you expecting them to just leave it at the bar/nightclub because you left? "
I dont really no or care, I was runnig away from a gang.
"Maybe in the west you can do that. Maybe in the west you can cede your few feet of bar space and walk away and that is understood as you backing off and not wanting to fight. "
The nazis threw my friend bodily, head first, through a shop window. I managed to get away.
āBut this is not the west. Standard operating procedure here is vengeance. You thought you ended the confrontation by backing down and leaving. From their viewpoint, the issue had not been resolved, vengeance had not been extracted and the issue of āfaceā had not been settled.ā
Im sure the nazis had some equivalent moral reasoning. Nazis (of all nationalities) usually justify their actions in the noblest overtones. Indeed, Hitler claimed to be ādefendingā Europe from Jewery. Nazism is still pretty fucked up though.
"You are still operating on the belief that they were going to fight some king of āhonorā duel with you. "
No I am not.
" You tried to impose your absolute interpretation of your culture in a foreign land with a foreign culture. It didnāt work."
No I didnāt.
"Chinese tend to go to bars/nightclubs as a group, not as individuals. "
So do english people
āThese groups can contain both men and women.ā
often english groups do.
" you ājump the lineā and propositioning her is an extreme loss of āfaceā."
I didnt proposition anyone. I talked to a girl about how she was at college and had visited london. that was about the sum total of what we discussed in 15 minutes or so.
" I can easily see a situation where you applied your absolute cultural view that this was a pickup place "
i didnt go to pick any one up. i thought it was a student bar.
āmy bet is that one of them ends up dead or maimed so badly that he can no longer be a suitor.ā
well thankfully, they didnt cut my cock off. or my arm. and like i said, they only glassed me in the back of the head, because on an individual level they were psychologiocally afraid of getting close enough to touch me in case i hurt them.
and i fucked another taiwanese girl the next week, so im still in working order.
āI will not assume you are so socially inept that you donāt see even the western social cues for ābugger off, this woman is mine, not yoursā. Maybe you arenāt looking for a fight, but you are certainly inviting a fight.ā
Women arent personal property, in the west or the east. And Iām sure, in the east as in the west, women often lead people on, and have full sexual relations unbeknownst or unwillingly tolerated by another man. People are and should be free, to have sex with whom ever they want. Kicking peoples asses over the āpossessionā of another person is neanderthal, childish, and just plain fucking stupid, not to mention highly dangerous.
"Please bear with me. In the west you get predatory groups of young men who are looking for a fight. This exists to a much smaller degree in greater China. These groups donāt fight by the āhonorā code because they arenāt looking to resolve an interpersonal confrontation. Theyāre just looking to beat the shit out of someone. "
I think that pretty much perfeclty describes the group who beat me up.
"You did not think you were going to get gang-banged (or else you wouldāve called the cops immediately and never left the relative safety of the bar where the staff would have had to save your ass to save their business) "
Just after getting hit in the back of the head, I stood at the door sometime hoping some staff might intervene, people continued trying to hit me with a bottle, and the staff froced everyone outside.
"My premise is that your assault was the end result of mixed cultural communications. You refuse to even consider this because you refuse to accept that Chinese culture can be different from the western culture you hold as an absolute. "
No I just think ācultureā is irrelevant. Individuals CHOSE how to behave. The guy whose friend got stabebd and burnt alive in south shields - those individuals CHOSE to do that, because most people in south shields CHOOSE not to do that. That doesnt mean Iām going to sit here and bang on about how his friend shouldnāt have spoken to some girl, or that he should have educated himself in what it means to be āhardā to a northern english man - i would just condemn outright the people who attacked him, as utter, utter fucking cunts.
āOf course their āactions literally make no senseā because you canāt see where you made social mistake after social mistake after social mistake in their culture because you see your cultural view as absolute and universal and that they should accord to your cultural view instead of their own significantly different view.ā
So talking to a girl is a āscoial mistakeā, not knowing some chinese is a āsocial mistakeā WALKING AWAY is a āsocial mistakeā ā¦ Again I donāt see what youāre offering beyond the āif you talk to chinese girls in public expect to be beaten upā argument.
"Is walking away a sign of backing down and not wanting to fight in the western āhonorā code? Absolutely. But you while you were following the rules of a western āhonorā duel, "
NO I WASNāT. I was following the rules of how to get away from a fight, with any number of people, in any culture in the world by physically moving away from the area. Iām really beginning to understand why they had to nuke the japs now.
"Let me posit one possible way this nightmare transacted. "
Ok.
"You go to a bar. "
Yes
"You think that everyone there is there to hook up. "
No.
āYou proposition a girl.ā
Nope
" Unbeknownst to you, sheās part of a group who is there only to socialize within their own group. "
It certainly didnāt look like it, though I concede the point.
"Maybe sheās waiting for other group members,
Maybe
" Even worse, in her group there is at least one guy who has romantic intentions on her, but due to cultural shyness itās going to take 3 years for him to make his āmoveā. "
I have no idea. Who a girl fucks is up to the girl, not a group of guys.
āGroup members start trying to give you the āwave offā to leave the girl alone.ā
Nope. I spoke to the girl for 15 minutes or so. only later, when she was nowhere to be seen, were a couple of guys pushing and shoving me. Thatās why I have no idea if it had anything to do with the girl.
āYou, who wonāt take the hint from a large, western male to leave a woman alone plow onwards because youāre fighter and have beaten men much larger than you.ā
The girl is no where to be seen. Theyre banging on in chinese so I havent got a fucking clue what theyre on about and decide to leave.
"So shit begins to procede and you have a problem with a male member of the group. "
No there was at least a couple of people in my face pushing me so i leave
" At some point you realize thereās four or five of them and you decide to de-escalate the situation by leaving. "
Only outisde did their numbers grow to 4-5, and I was really fucking confused at this point
āBecause, after all, at home, if there was a problem you wouldāve just had your āhonorā duel with the big guy, beat him and solved the problem.ā
No. See above with the nazis.
"Turning your back and walking out on a negotiation of āfaceā is tantamount to telling the Chinese guy āNot only can I, as a complete foreigner, come to your country and your favoriate bar to fuck your woman, youāre also so far beneath me you arenāt even worth the time to argue with.ā "
I didnt fuck anyone.
āThe Chinese guys follow you out of the bar, get to a place where thereās no electronic surveilance .ā
apparenltly the police thought there was.
āIs this what happened? I donāt know. I wasnāt there. But I think something similar to this played out in one form or another.ā
Not really much like what you say at all. Except for earlier on, when you sais a group walking around, looking for someone to beat the shit out of fopr no reason. Even those guys, Iām sure, find some kind of āreaonsā - being a foreigner, looking at ātheir birdā or whatever.
āMaybe you can sell your story to some kind of tabloid?ā
thats what im hoping for.
Im gonna use the money to go back to taiwan and fuck hundreds of their whores.