Most Common Questions a Foreigner Might Ask in Taiwan

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
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Unfortunately, that one apology was the difference between me being here, and being, well…somewhere else. Did I apologize in my heart? No. An apology does not necessarily predicate the state of being truly sorry, and I’m not. Sorry.

In fact, I did it again. Last week. Consequences were immediate and ephemeral, though.

At the intersection of Anhe and one of the double-digit lanes near the post office there. Waiting for the light to change so I can cross. Light goes green, I start to cross, everything is cool.

You know how scooter drivers are incessantly cutting corners, drawing beads on the shortest angle between their vehicle and a left-hand turn? Also, you know how almost everybody in this fuckin’ chimp menagerie HAS TO BE THE FIRST ONE THROUGH AN INTERSECTION? Like, I know a lot of you on scooters are thinking, “But you’re a pedestrian! I have the right of way because I’m on a scooter.”?

P.S. You also know how you all look like a bunch of circus bears on mini-bicycles, don’t you? Haha. Go get your scooter, lil fella.

Classic game of pedestrian vs. scooter. I’m in the crosswalk, dude is bearing down on me, clearly intending to turn left before I clear the lane. That’s not happening. I have direct, Adolf Hitler blank stare eye contact with the guy, who’s apparently about 40, wearing his lan bei slippers and a trench coat. Somebody call Anna Wintour - we have a new fashion icon!

OK, enough with the commentary. I didn’t move, dude wasn’t going to let that slide, but we eventually came to the point where either he had to stop and wait, or run over me. He chose to kinda-sorta wait, but in doing so, lost his balance, and Dr. Zaius forbid, had to put his lan bei slippers on the tarmac.

As I walked by him spitting and cursing, I said, “Nice work, asshole” and continued through the intersection, lah-dee-dah. Went to 7-Eleven, bought my beer, cracked it open and lo and behold, fuckin’ scooter chimp had parked his bike and was now coming for me.

I’m standing there sipping my beer like, “Oh, this is going to be good.” Scooter chimp is pointing and saying shit - I have no idea who he was talking to but it sounded like he was rounding up a posse of casual witnesses. Before he’s within arms reach, I say, “Go fuck yourself.” Repeatedly. And I turn to walk away. I hear a bunch of “cao bei”, “laowai” and “gan” and I’m amused, but at the same time, a bit anxious cuz you never know. Maybe this cat is Bruce Lee Jr. gonna give me some kar-a-tay chops.

So I just posted up and stood there. Whatcha gonna do?

Nothing. He did nothing. He yelled at me. I shrugged and said again, “Go fuck yourself.” Apparently, they don’t understand that one as much as “fuck you”. I think the “go” and the “yourself” throw them off. They struggle mightly with semantics and grammar, don’t they? Finally, he huffed off and whatever he said, I’m sure it involved something about going back to where I came from.

A minute later I’m casually sipping my beer and this Euro-sounding kid comes up and says, “Did you just tell him to fuck off?” and I said, “No, I told him to fuck himself.” And he said, “You can get deported for that. I read it on the internet.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a snappy comeback for that. Again, I shrugged and said, “Then fuckin’ deport me. Be doin’ me a huge favor.”

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84

As long as there’s no recording, it’s your word against his. Just make sure no recording gets made…unless you are actually gunning for a deportation.

85

Super lucky super angry strikes again haha.

These days instead of telling people to fuck themselves i fuck objects at their vehicles when they go through red lights.
It’s quite amusing as they realize they will be fucked themsevles if they do anything. They can always fight me but then again none have had the balls to do that so far.

Of course I don’t do it with every vehicle that goes through a light as I’m not THAT angry most of the time…just when they get close to my kids.
Also angry dad throwing umbrellas and coffee cups at vehicles isn’t a good look.

86

On Sunday I was standing at the Admissions counter at the hospital with Ma Rocket and at least one of my kids. We were having fun, kind of goofing around, although I was kind of snarky after waiitng 2 and a frigging half hours for our number to come up.
As we were talking, my back brain sort of started naggin me with the vague awareness that English was being spoken in the vicinity, and I turned to see this old fucker next to me.
One of these real PITA alte kakkers who thinks he’s got it going on, especially ones like this who learned some English back when the friggin US Army was here.
So I look at him and he repeats
“Who’s having the operation?”
And I just look at him and, after a moment, reply “Mind your business”
Probably making this face:

And he says “That’s pretty rude of you”
And I go “More than likely”
He says “I was just trying to be friendly”
And I go “I know what you were trying to do”
And he says “I guess you got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning”
I just looked away and carried on.

Surprisingly, I got practically no grease from Mama over it.
And my kid and I spent most of the rest of the day responding to each other with “That’s pretty rude of you”.
Which is a lot more fun than you’d think.

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87

I keep comin’ back to this post - it’s an old sweet song that keeps Georgia on my mind…

88

The advent of smartphones cured me of flipping people off in public here. (Just for the record, it was them, not me.)

I was adrift after that until my wife decided to teach me how to curse in Taiwanese. So far it’s worked perfectly. Now, rather than ‘fuck you, lowlife’ it’s ‘bo-lo-yong aa-ka-shau!’ or something similar. I get the satisfaction. The lowlife knows something has hit him and it’s not good and as a bonus I get plausible deniability.