[quote=“Chris”]Non-air-conditioned city buses (the standard) that cost NT$8 a ride. The air-con buses, which ran a few routes, cost NT$10.
[/quote]
You arrived later than me—when I got to Taiwan it was NT$6 for non-AC and NT$8 for A/C.
How about the adminition stenciled on all the mailboxes: “be ready to resist the communist invader at all times”?
Foreign magazines with blacked out maps of the PRC (because they showed Mongolia as an independent country)
Ad for 牛肉場 everywhere
Red doors with vespas parked outside
The bomb was in the McDs in Xi men ding, which no longer exists. The one with all the old geezers hanging out trying to sleaze up the teenagers etc.
The guy was in full bomb disposal gear, and it was after that that they realised that the gear was utter rubbish, no doubt due to contract malfeasance.
The bomber had been trained by the army to make bombs when he did his conscription time.
I have trouble remembering the 80’s in Taiwan. It’s become a huge blur. Kirby’s, FuBar, DV* Roxy 1 through 4, Talk of the Town, I Like…GuGong
I remember I used to like to go to what is now DaAn park for BBQ after hours.
A couple months after I arrived I was going to BT with an English friend, and some guy
came staggering out of the elevator, like he was totally drunk, a mouth full of betel juice…
Then six other guys came along and started trying to beat him to death -
jumping up and down on his head etc.
me and my friend debated whether we should intervene - in true English student style.
Eventually we decided against it.
Very funny in retrospect.
But that guy took one of the worst beatings I’ve ever seen.
[quote=“anotherlaowai”]A couple months after I arrived I was going to BT with an English friend, and some guy
came staggering out of the elevator, like he was totally drunk, a mouth full of betel juice…
Then six other guys came along and started trying to beat him to death -
jumping up and down on his head etc.
me and my friend debated whether we should intervene - in true English student style.
Eventually we decided against it.
Very funny in retrospect.
But that guy took one of the worst beatings I’ve ever seen.[/quote]
Yeah public beating were more freqent in those days lol
Taxi drivers bus drivers everyone was in on the road rage mass street fight thing
[quote=“fenlander”]…Yeah public beating were more freqent in those days lol
Taxi drivers bus drivers everyone was in on the road rage mass street fight thing[/quote]
Curious why you think this has changed? One of my pet theories is that it includes a lot of the worst elements moving to China.
There are other reasons of course but I find there were so many violent sleazy shithead Taiwanese men around in the mid-90s compared to now.
Maybe they’ve just gotten too old.
I remember buses coming to rolling stops while people boarded and alighted.
I remember far more street vendors back then.
I remember street signs that spelled Tonghua Street and Dunhua Road the same, causing me to get off a bus at the wrong place.
I remember a corner on Jianguo Road where the street’s name was spelled differently on each of four street signs there.
I remember the pedestrian overpass at Zhongxiao and Songshan Roads was a purple tube-shaped eyesore that the locals called “the train”. It looked like it came right out of a Ridley Scott movie. (EDIT: Looking at Google Stret View images, I see that the support structures holding up the current pedestrian overpass are from the original structure, and are still purple.
There were a lot more fast food joints around back then surprisingly…Wendys, Baskin Robbins, Hardy’s, There was even an A/W rootbeer drive in complete with roller skating waitresses in Ximending. Remember Dunhua ending at Heping, and the strip of land where Carnegies is now a vegetable patch with a ratty set of CPC pumps in the middle. Traffic circles all the way from Hoping to the domestic airport on Dunhua. Looking at the just recently completed WTC building surrounded by nothing and wondering if was even going to be anything.
Real estate was still cheap, but things were definitely on the move. I could drive from Zhongli to Taipei or my place in Danshui at 5 pm with no traffic. Cars like the Yuelong Pony, and those crazy black diesel wild chicken taxis. Guys selling snake potions in Downtown Zhongli and letting cobras bite them on the tongue.
Being able to camp on Nanawn beach in Kending during CNY…Being the only white dude on Green Island when going out there to dive.
Most of Neihu was a swamp. Guandu just a small village. The local train ran all the way to Danshui.
Suhua gong lou was one way. South in morning, North in afternoon. Stunning and so sketchy.
Seeing water buffalo pulling carts on the Huadong road and not seeing another car for 30 minutes
The incredible pollution from all the two stroke Vespas, and heavy manufacturing in Taipei County.
Holding your breath to overcome the incredible stench of the dump by the river in Wugu during rain. Never forget that smell.
Could go on all day…
Taxis that were all manner of normal car colors.
I think the taxis became uniformly yellow in 1991.
MTVs
Kaohsiung- lived in the apartment block just up Chongshan road from the President department store, across from City Park, and it was loaded with MTVs.
Jerry the record store owner opening The Basement, the first place in Kaohsiung that wasn’t a disco or sailor/businessmen/hostess bar (like Amy’s), since so many foreigners hung around his shop drinking anyway (it was either there or the sidewalk outside the Box Shop.)
Great music, of course- I remember Jerry yelling at two poor high school girls who came into his shop asking for Aerosmith- he gave them a list of music to go and listen to before he would let them come back.
People stopping you in the street to offer you teaching jobs.
Wild chicken taxis doing the suicide run between Kaohsiung and Taitung.
Or getting English teaching jobs between the time the elevator doors closed and when you got out on your floor.
I remember getting hired to teach English on Guangfu S. Road and refusing because that was just waaaay too far out.
Gambling video games at every mom and pop store in the corner. The one where it was NT$5 to play and you could bet on apples, oranges or other fruits at different payoffs. NT$1 little tickets where if you matched a set of numbers, you could win a little snack.
I stayed in Taipei Hostel.
Not many alternatives back then if you just arrived.
Lots of the folks there went on to become everything from famous brokers, academics to prisoners.
It was an interesting scene.
oddly, the management was still the same a year ago, last time I checked.
But mad old Mr Chang from down below has been stuck in a home.
rather sad.
i miss being attacked by his dogs.
That’s where I proposed to my wife!
That’s where I proposed to my wife![/quote]
on skates? 
[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“fenlander”]…Yeah public beating were more freqent in those days lol
Taxi drivers bus drivers everyone was in on the road rage mass street fight thing[/quote]
Curious why you think this has changed? One of my pet theories is that it includes a lot of the worst elements moving to China.
There are other reasons of course but I find there were so many violent sleazy shithead Taiwanese men around in the mid-90s compared to now.
Maybe they’ve just gotten too old.[/quote]
Not really sure.
I think there are more channels open for people to sort out their disagreements than before.
There are also many more CCTV cameras around
The cops and public prosecuters are less corrupt than before so will usually prosecute against most violent offenders. (comparatively less corrupt)
I’d say some of those bad elements have gone to China or are in prison now.
Some of those bad elements also went to Taichung when Chen Suei Bian was mayor of Taipei. A lot of brothels and other sleazy places were forced out of Taipei
Perhaps the attitudes of younger people to violence is changing. It is certainly less violent here in Taipei than it used to be. In my experience anyhow. Sure it still exists but not on the scale it once did. Taxi drivers grabbing and hitting people with metal bars, pipes, locks etc was almost standard practice in an altercation and sometimes they would call all their taxi cab driving mates to come along and join in the beating. I still have a scar on my arm where I was hit by a bus driver with an iron bar around 1988.
I think I still remember the number of the bus lol believe it was the 266 that ran down Nanking East and West Road
Just remembered the orangutan in Huaxi Street. Sad. Many things are better.
Not all orangutans had it bad. I was at a bus stop one day waiting for a bus (what else) when i suddenly noticed the person on the back of a scooter in front of me was rather warmly dressed for a hot summer day. and i was wondering why he was wearing an orange coat. Then i looked more carefully and it was an orangutan riding on the back of a scooter, hanging onto his owner like a person does. No chains or anything. I guess that dude got around !
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Ok, hows this…There was a 10NT toll on the Kuandu bridge!
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