Friday morning I find the gear stick cleanly broken off my bike…broken plastic piece NOWHERE to be found on street. Saturday morning I find my bike on the ground with a rip on the seat.
I’ve been parking my bike in the same place for weeks. The other bikes, including mine, are spaced away from the place he usually chains his cart up at.
But now I’m finding my bike being massacred.
My Mandarin is crap (Taiwanese nonexistent) so me confronting him is futile.
Can I do anything? I’ve thought of pouring black paint over his cart, or leaving a big rock in this place…but I don’t want the neighbors to see nor do I know where to find a big rock. Plus, I’ve seen a beatdown on my street and I’m not interested in me being the one beaten up.
Is all I can do is move my bike on another street and forget about it?
(My girlf suggested I order a few sausages [$35 sausages with all kinds of toppings/flavors at Tong Hua Nightmarket, if anyone’s interested] and then refuse to pay, saying he broke my bike and therefore owes me.)
[forgive any crap grammar…i’m pissed (angry, not drunk).]
There are many ways that you can feel revenge is deserved and the best option available to you, but let it go. Move your bike and don’t park there again. Rise above it, or be brought down to a load of back-and-forth arguments and maneuvers that will bring you more stress and take up more of your valuable time than you could ever hope to recuperate from vengeful actions.
And know that karma works a treat without your interference. It always does. That guy will bring about his own just desserts, I guarantee it.
I’m always really careful with my bike and I’d be pissed if that happened to me. But you might end up losing more if it escalates. Without Chinese you have a severe disadvantage - not only with the police but in your neighbourhood generally.
Personally, I’d move my bike somewhere else and forget about it.
I’m guessing your gf cannot help you out in the language department? You must’ve done something inadvertently to piss the guy off? Just a guess. Communication is key. I’d offer to act as a mediator, but I’m over 9500 miles away at the moment.
As likley as not, someone else did something to piss off the sausage guy and blamed it on you.
This happened to me numerous times, actually, while living in very rural parts of Kaohsiung. I couldn’t figure out why someone suddenly had a beef with me until it finally came out that someone else had “seen” the foreigner do it.
Of couse, I didn’t do it–I was no where around. In fact, everyone knew my commings and goings better than I did and therefore, every one also knew damn well I could not have been guilty of whatever I was being blamed for.
I was just a convienient way to side step responsibility because the injured party was supposed to feel intimidated and helpless about dealing with a foreigner. Never mind that they were causing a problem for an innocent person–they were getting rid of THEIR problem.
Situations like this are one of the worst negatives about life in Taiwan.
I was once driving (a car) behind a drunk fool in K-town late at night. His helmet fell of his head and bounced up under my car. The strap wound around my axel and I had to stop in the middle of the street, crawl under the car and un-wind it. This entire time, the jack ass was swearing at me in Taiwanese and once he realized I wasn’t a local, giving me his best, “fucka iuoo!” I got the damn helmet off and tossed it to the side of the road. He started in with, “you break my helmet–you pay me!”
Even though I’m a girly girl, let me tell you, I really thought about speaking to that guy in a language he could understand!I’m usually very slow to anger. That wasn’t long before I left the island and there was a rash of starnge and negative things happening at that time. I really almost asaulted that guy.
I’m glad I didn’t, of course. Would have lost in so many ways. Sometimes it really is better to just let it go; Stray Dog is wize and correct. Things will come back around–so step to the side and out of the path of someone else’s bad karma.
