I think so, i remember reading about it in the papers. Must have been 15 years ago at least. There was a similar case victimizing a taiwanese kid on the dazhi bridge some time after, I always wondered if they were connected.
I think so, i remember reading about it in the papers. Must have been 15 years ago at least. [/quote]
Yes, at least 15 years ago. I was teaching close to Taida at the time, and it was a very hot topic of conversation in the teachers’ room for a while. Word was that the bloke had raped a young Taiwanese woman, so some guys close to her decided that, since it would be a waste of time reporting it to the police, they’d take the law into their own hands and make sure he would never be able to do the same to anyone else.
Now that’s ironic, considering the topic of this thread.
The Tai-Da castration was either 1990 or 1992. I heard he was married, and had several girlfriends at the same time, and it was them who hired gangsters to do it. But your version could well be right.
Well, no. These groups only represent big businesses, not your average foreigner (even if they are of the right nationality). And even if they become concerned as well, we are speaking of a systematic lack of professionalism and rule of law. How much influence could these industry groups possibly have?
In other times and contexts, the response by other foreigners would be to kill other gangsters in revenge–say, on a ten-to-one basis, with possibly a cop or two thrown in for good measure. Then they’d start taking an interest.
I remember hearing stories like that too, I also wondered how likely they were to be true and how possible it was he was just a poor schmuck who ran into a psycho, if so probably getting a “you must have…” attitude from the cops.
Hmmm…I was there starting in 1991. I don’t remember anything about castration.
Much safer back then then it is today.
I remember the castration story quite well. It was 1991 and I was teaching in Taipei at the time. The story ran in the English newspapers and caused a lot of commotion in the teaching community, particularly among the men. I remember it well because a married student at that time had taken an unusually strong interest in me. Her husband owned a construction business and I was getting a little nervous about her romantic overtures, concerned that she might do something crazy. After reading the castration story, I moved south to work in a school where a British friend was working. I told the married student that I was moving back to the States. Ran into her a few years later, but she had attached herself to another foreigner by then.
You forgot about the foreign tech writer at Mitac who was stabbed by some drunk girls after he complained about their party noise. And the British hairdresser who was mowed down in an alley in the late 80s.
Shit happens. There are wierdos everywhere. One has to be on the look out every second no matter where you are I guess.
Yep, even out on a date floating around Bitan, you can get the weirdest messages from a jealous rival or an overlyprotective father.
Actually in Taiwan you don’t, unless you include the crazy drivers in your statement. The few stories we heard (and which stretch over tens of years) hardly prove that foreigners need to be extra cautious. Shit can happen anywhere, but Taiwan is definetely not a place where you have to look constantly over your shoulder.
Yes generally true. But never hurts to pay attention to whats going on around ya, especially in view the TRAFFIC.
haha@muzha man. Well that was certainly a date I havent forgotten all these years. 
i’ve seen many peoples spending a lot of hours in their working places but producing near to nothing,
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why am i made to guard my own shrine?? :s :s
[quote=“tommy525”]Yes generally true. But never hurts to pay attention to whats going on around ya, especially in view the TRAFFIC.
haha@Muzha man. Well that was certainly a date I havent forgotten all these years. [/quote]
It’s a story I’ll never forget. In fact don’t be surprised if it shows up between the covers of a certain blue spined book in the coming years. “While once a notorious swamp where ungallant Taipei youth took unsuspecting females for the kill (and very suspecting fathers sent warnings down river, sometimes in the forms of genuinely killed bodies) Bitan is now a pleasant riverside park of shady trees, flying kites, etc, etc…”
Actually, Taiwan has one of the highest gun-related murder rates in the world. I didn’t believe it either, but it’s true. Honestly, how many of your friends have guns? Really? I don’t doubt there is a horribly violent subculture here and if you dabble with it, bad things could come to you. That’s why I stay at home and have bars over my windows.
The case in question is reported to have gone to court. There must be a record of this that would include the name of the assailant. I would be a lot more comfortable with an account of the incident that had reference to something like this. It’s not that I doubt an account whose only source is a letter in the Taipei Times. It’s just that nothing even remotely like this has ever happened to me or any of the hundreds of people I know. In fact, the only violence I know about or have had perpetrated on me involved white people.
I thought you were some kind of mix-martial arts master. Boy am I disappointed. 
But you are right that the gun deaths are very high here. And given how few people have them it must be wild west days in certain circles, or perhaps Papua New Guinean days, as something like 50% of males there suffer violent deaths.
Anyways, that’s why I stay at home in my fortress of steel here in Muchaland. Too bad ozone can still get me.
The Aussie fire brigade chappies call those ‘human BBQ grills’, that’s why I don’t have them.
HG
Scott I gotta call bullshit on that. A friend of yours and mine by the name of Mark had a gun pulled on him on fuxing st. if I remember correctly. Check with Paul I am sure he would remember.
I find this really hard to believe, anything to support it? I looked around and found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_gun_vio_hom_ove_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop