In a wider picture, it looks like they’re wearing sandals. I don’t see what the big deal is. You wash you feet after you walk. You wash your hands after you poo.
This is a newer area of Sanxia. Both the sidewalk and light probably are less than 10 years old.
People were using strollers 30, 40 years ago. Come on.
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That doesn’t excuse anything. Poor engineering is poor engineering.
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It’s Guoji Street 1 國際一街.
Shit, wrong topic again. 
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Would that be the " Path of least resistance" Engineering ?
I’m not excusing it. Why would I excuse a sidewalk that isn’t fit for function?
It looks perfectly to function for the expansion of a business or placement of a stall. What else would a footpath be used for?
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All the seats were occupied, except that one when the guy got up. The guy next to me didn’t waste time moving seats either. I’m not particularly big. To my knowledge I don’t smell. Well I was freshly showered and changed. That being said smelling bad is something I’m always very paranoid about, although no one has ever said anything to me about it. Although people don’t usually anyway.
Ditto. Freshly showered, not French showered, and there’s always someone looking askance at me and holding a finger under their nose. And no. I don’t use cologne or scented pit stick.
A scooter parking spot?
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The girl at Family Mart was scared to talk to me last night. She whispered the amount in Chinese 3 times as I just stood there looking at her. Normal voice to everyone else. There were a couple people blocked the display so I couldn’t see the amount. I just waited and waited until she could say the amount in Chinese loud enough for me to hear it. She never could get her voice up but I heard the first part was 三 so I gave her NT$500.
Funny how some people don’t even notice me, and others act like they are seeing combinations of recent news reports
- crazy foreigners on MRT
- fat foreigner making people wipe his ass
- foreingers cutting other foreigners body into pieces and throwing into river
- whatever other crazy foreinger stories are in the news.
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Twice at my local PX-mart (全聯) the cashiers didn’t ask if I had a member card. I don’t ever use the points from my card, but it was just funny that they didn’t ask. Both times I offered it they were surprised and said they assumed I couldn’t speak Chinese.
Hmmmm…You sure you don’t smell a bit like booze and loneliness?
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I find there’s about a 50/50 chance that strangers assume I’m local or foreign, which make sense. It also depends a lot on the company you’re keeping at the moment, whether they’re obvious foreigners or they’re your family/local friends/western-born Taiwanese friends.
Every old person seems think I’m a local, though. They always ask me for directions. I think they just can’t see me very well and my small build leads them to believe I’m likely Taiwanese. Plus I’m usually able to help them get where they need to go so from beginning to end they probably never realize they just spoke to an American.
When I drove a scooter people would often ask me for directions. I’d be half way to explaining to them what way to go when their eyes would light up…Some would then try to abandon me and some would listen. Taiwanese are a bit weird like that.
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And even of they do, of course, it’s too late for them notice their wallet is missing.
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This has actually happened to me several times. I always wear a fullface helmet, so when I flip the visor up is when they realize I’m not a local. I was able to help them almost every time anyway.
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Are you half Taiwanese? I’m part Asian so I get this too. But my ratio is more like a 30/70 chance that they’ll think I’m a local (that is, 30% chance of being taken as a local versus a 70% chance that I’m a foreigner). Not that I have light hair or anything, but my mix is not Taiwan-related.
For me it’s about maybe a 20% hit rate at PX mart being asked if I have the loyalty card. I go to the same one nearly every day mind. There’s one dude there who won’t, and continues not to utter a word to me, just can’t bring himself to (potentially, in his mind) waste his breath. Turns the screen around to show me the price when he rings up all my groceries. In my best Chinese I always ask verbally for the subtotal. Next customer lines up and he strangely recovers his voice. For every disappointing encounter though, there is the occasional positive. I was stoked to get asked directions one day, and even more stoked to be able to actually help some older woman find her way where she was going. Had a little spring in my step after that encounter, until crossing the next intersection I almost got mowed down by a nascar painted yellow like a taxi.
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In mine, they always ask the Taiwanese customers if they brought their fuli ka. When I roll around they seem to conveniently “assume” that the helpless foreigner can’t possibly know what a fuli ka is so why bother asking? I just directly start saying LING JIU BA BA…
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