Prob’ly not needed, but at least for convenience, this is about as close as I could get to where the scooter appears to be in the video (if that spot-type Street View on Google Maps is accurate): 24.217197, 121.688316.
Edited to add: My coordinates don’t appear to match the location on the map in the video, so apologies to all, and please disregard this post.
Does anybody know this place well, where scooter was found?
Hypothetically if a person was to jump or be thrown over, do you hit water or rocks down below, would there be a body or evidence or washed out to see?
Are there cctv cameras that would show anything, cars pulling up, people jumping etc.
Like I said I do not believe him to be suicidal but have to look at all possibilities or at least have them removed as one.
Thanks for finding the articles guys, at least some things are becoming clearer and people will start believing my story and that he does exist.
Special thanks to Omni
The video report mentioned that the student who disappeared 8 km away (in September 2015) had never been found. The sea there is very deep and the currents very strong, so its unlikely that the body of anyone who fell into the sea along that stretch of coast could ever be recovered.
I been there but not recently and driven the road before it was closed. Don’t know the exact spot but in general, Quingshui Cliff is an old road that was closed after a tunnel rerouted around the dangerous area. People walk the old closed road as a tourist attraction. There are many spots where a fall would almost always be instant death.
You can see the parking area and then walking road to coast, high up on side of mountain.
Qingshui Cliff, Suhua Hwy, Xiulin Township, Hualien
https://goo.gl/maps/7rCosV3Eif62
Dear ironlady,
I’m surprised that you need to have it explained, but the point is that the use of 游玩 in the report is, in the circumstances, most surprising and inapt – hence the exclamation mark added in parentheses that you consider to be “misleading”. (Misleading? Because people might be misled into thinking that an exclamation mark thus inserted is part of the original report? Really?)
Whichever of the common, or even uncommon, translations of 游玩 might be used, all would be equally unfitting to the purpose for which Dave may be supposed to have gone where he did. Since “play” is the shortest, simplest and commonest of the standard translations of the word, that’s what I used, and put it in inverted commas to indicate my feeling about its strange use. I definitely don’t agree with you that it would have been better to translate it, in your words, as “… rode up to Qingshui to just go somewhere for leisure.”
But if you are truly concerned that my rough-and-ready translation falls too far short of fitness for purpose, please feel free to replace it with a more polished professional rendition. One, of course, that demonstrates how an expert translator avoids “translating ordinary Chinese expressions so as to make them seem strange.”
All that aside, and hard though I found it to comprehend where you were coming from with your peculiar criticisms, I did appreciate the “Thabks” with which you opened your remarks.
I found the rough and ready translation perfectly adequate, but I agree that “play” is a strange translation for 游玩, both in terms of the context of that sentence and the inappropriate use of 游玩 in the context of an article about someone who was obviously not out for a frolic in the sun. In any case, this is just a small quibble and in no way detracts for your excellent contributions to this thread. Good to see you back, by the way. 
The article says they was living in Taitung, there is no mention of living in Taipei. Or riding from Taipei to Taitung. It says he left his home in Taitung and rode his scooter to the cliff.
Or the women lived in Taipei, he lived in Taitung? They quarreled over the phone then or what? I don’t understand where they get the story about stepping into the car with strangers, no mention of that in the article. So many mixed informations… It doesn’t look very good…
The part about him getting into the car came from the wife. She said they checked the cctv footage and saw the cars.Would have been easy for her to have just ended the story there and have people assume he jumped unless a family gets shamed by a suicide.
great find.
your translation is excellent.
I’m re-reading ettv Chinese report.
Some thoughts:
“Bai” is just 白, which I would guess he took as his Chinese family name on ARC, etc., because his English last name started with “B”. First/middle names would be Da-wei (“大” “×乀”).
He left Taitung going north early morning of 16th after argument. On 17th, the police found scooter at Qing-shui parking lot. Got in touch with wife in Taipei on 17th.
Worried about, Dave, wife contacted police in Hualien for help on 16th.
Okay. Stop.
Why did she first contact police on 16th? Why contact Hualien police (only??)?
Did she also contact Taitung County police and also I-Lan County police?
Because those are counties on the way north to Taipei, too, if he’s on his way north to see her after leaving Taitung. If someone in north only knows that friend/husband is driving north along the coast, then all 3 county police would be called, right? Unless…
If she only contacted Hualien police, did Dave call her from Hualien, saying where he was and maybe she got worried about tone in his voice and thus only called Hualien police?
Police should have asked her about this, if so.
Married 10 years. That means back to 2006.
@Davesbrother, do you know when exactly they even met?
Why pull into parking lot?
As another Forumosan showed on Google map link, he’d have to know exactly about that spot. Did he just happen to “luckily” run out of gas at that very exact turnoff to down that short road to cliff parking lot?
Anyone live in Hualien?
Can visit that kind police officer on the TV and maybe ask to go over facts.
Just 
When you add your own opinions – especially ironic ones like (!) – a monolingual English speaker would read the text to assume that the Chinese press is taking the piss, as it were. I’d prefer to see a straight translation with comments if you want to make them. Comments can be valuable – it’s just difficult to correctly interpret the meaning of “(!)”, especially if you have no idea where that’s coming from. Just reading the English, it looks like the press is making fun of the guy that he just went to “play”, which isn’t something an adult would do (in English, at least, if not a sport).
I say exactly what I mean. Thanks for doing the translation. That was a good thing. The interlinear comments and the tone (through English word choice) concerns me, and I said so. It’s not an attack on you as a human being. It’s a comment about a translation.
If scooter did break down in that area then it would make sense to get in a car with someone to return to the nearest gas station or convenience store or town like Hualien.
People having a major life crisis such as Dave appeared to be going under are not thinking clearly in many cases.
The following is just a hypothesis.
If he was thinking clearly he most likely would have taken the train up to Taipei. It’s not that expensive. Choosing a difficult method like using his scooter may have been in part to be alone and think things over. If he had a car he may have driven.
Breaking down along the way may have further eroded his belief in that everything is going to be all right.
Hitching a ride on a road like that is common in Taiwan and he may well have hitched a ride and perhaps returned to his scoot later with a battery.
Just surmising here but when that didn’t work and in his fragile emotional state he may have just jumped off the chingshui cliffs.
And if no one saw him or mounted a search his body could easily wash to sea and never be found.
That area is a perfect place to dispose of a body or one self with it being difficult to find the body.
If no one saw and time goes by.
Just even here at the fisherman’s wharf in SF if I recall correctly a boy had fallen over and his body has not been found.
Much less at the cliffs there .
It’s not looking good that Dave is alive if no one saw or heard from him after that point .
While I’m sure Dave didn’t both meet and propose to his wife on January 1st, 2009 at 3am, I think we can at least guess that they got married sometime after. So it seems strange that she mentioned they had been married for OVER 10 years in the article. She rounded up and then some. Very weird.
November 16 and 17 were a Wednesday and Thursday. The weather all over Taiwan on those two days was clear and sunny, with temperatures ranging from the low to upper-mid 20s.
Also, I apologize if this has been mentioned already, but i noticed that Dave has two Facebook profiles. I don’t know if that’s significant at all, but it looks like one was created around the end of January 2016.
A lot of us jumped to the conclusion, in light of recent developments, that Dave may have committed suicide. It could have also been a tragic accident. Stopping along the way to get a better view, do some hiking near the cliffs, etc. and he may have fallen completely by accident. It is looking more and more like Dave is no longer among us.
To all Forumosans and people out there,
Take care. Don’t go hiking, adventuring alone, let people know where you are and who you are with. If you are feeling depressed, upset or overwhelmed, seek company with others who can help lift you up. Surround yourself with activity and people. Don’t let depression, anger and stress overwhelm your rational judgement. You can even come here to vent and seek friendship. This place may not be perfect for everyone, but it is a place where people do come together to help each other out. This thread is proof of that. You are not alone! This could happen to any of us, stay strong!
@Davesbrother, Best of luck in your searching. Even if it ends up as a tragedy, I hope you and your family can have peaceful closure. The Forumosan community is here to help.