When was the first time you heard about Taiwan?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
21

[quote=“Bu Lai En”]Do you still have the bicycle Tomas? :wink:

Brian[/quote]

I don’t want to dominate this thread, but since we’re waxing nostalgic…

I owned four different bicycles during my missionary days. The first three were nice, new bikes. No matter what I did to prevent it, each one was stolen. Once my partner got hit by a car, and we left our bikes on the side of the road while I took him in a taxi to the hospital for x-rays. When we got back, the bikes were gone, of course.

I was poor then, self-supporting in a non-paying job. I finally bought an old, cheap bicycle for NT$200, and never locked it. It worked like a charm, never stolen. In fact, a few days before I was to leave Taiwan, I stood on the balcony of my run down apartment in Chia Yi and observed an old guy below looking at my bike, then looking around to see if anyone was watching. I didn’t need it anymore, so I was sort of hoping he’d steal it. He got on and started riding off, only to realize that it was truly a piece of shit. He dumped it on the side of the road and walked away, pissed off :laughing: :laughing:

Nowadays, I have a driver who takes me everywhere I need to go, but I miss the old, pure days of poverty and bicycle theft :slight_smile: .

22

I hesitate to intrude upon Tomas’ thread :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue: but. . . .

I think my intro to Taiwan was probably accomplished by a friend of my mom. She is a medical researcher who left Taiwan at least 35 years ago. Taught me how to use chopsticks when I was around six, and she was absolutely furious with my father because he felt that the U.S. must support CKS in the quest to retake the mainland, while she and her family were native Taiwanese who loathed (and still loathe) CKS and the KMT.

I was pretty amazed a few months ago – had to get an exterminator to take care of an ant problem at my house prior to selling (yes, it was disclosed to the buyers). We got to talking and I told him I was planning to move to Taiwan to teach. He actually had a good understanding of the political situation, even knowing some details that I’d forgotten about (the missiles back in 1996, for one). He didn’t have any particular interest in politics or Asia, just picked it up from the news and so on.