Oh, YOU TAKE THAT BACK! I have never been so insulted, at least not today. :snooty:
I think you’ll find it was a mobile retailer and they were just displaying the various merchandise.
Oh, YOU TAKE THAT BACK! I have never been so insulted, at least not today. :snooty:[/quote]If being insulted is the worst thing to happen to you today, you’re one of the lucky ones, at least you’re still able to walk.
Maybe you’ll like to make a funny Christopher Reeve joke now ?
Statistics or opinion. Please show the statistics.
I accept that might be your experience. I don’t believe that to be the case in all or even most of the incidents of Taiwanese vs. international community members.
Perhaps the incident is too fresh in my mind. I was chased for more than 10 minutes in duration, with the culprits trying to force me off the road and stop me repeatedly. At one point they passed me in traffic and waited for me. They managed to smash my windshield as I passed. They then got back in their vehicle and resumed their pursuit. I managed to emerge onto the number 3 four lane road at Hengshan, heading for Longtan. I managed to lose them by driving at speeds that exceeded 100 km/h, driving on the wrong side of the road, running reds etc. I was in genuine fear of my life through most of it, as was someone I care very deeply about. All along we were thinking,“what the hell did we do?!” People need to remember that these incidents are real as are the people they happen to. I fail to see the humour in any aspect of these kinds of events.
[quote=“Francis”]My brother-in-law was sent to intensive care by some thugs with baseball bats. He “brought this upon himself” by pulling out in front of them and driving too slow for them. And then the police conveniently lost all the documents and denied that an emergency call was even made. They then found the documents after some guanxi (corruption) from my father-in-law. Even then no charges were brought, they just paid him some money (which was possibly stolen anyway) to cover it up, that will stop it happening again :s
How would the Taiwan apologists like Jaboney and Maoman like to defend that ?[/quote]
Wow. That’s got to be one of the dumbest things I’ve read in a long time. Taiwan apologist? Because I think the filthy air and water, and sheer innocent idiocy of too many drivers are more dangerous than random yahoos? :loco:
Toasty, I completely understand where you’re coming from. I’ve felt the same; I’ve experienced the same. It happens. IMHO, other hazards are completely unavoidable and daily assault us.
[quote=“Francis”]If being insulted is the worst thing to happen to you today, you’re one of the lucky ones, at least you’re still able to walk.
Maybe you’ll like to make a funny Christopher Reeve joke now ?[/quote]
Still dumber.
About two years ago, my husband and I were walking across a crosswalk in Kaohsiung, where the cars had a red light. A blue truck came screaming up and wanted to run the red light, and came at a fraction of hitting my husband and I in the street. My husband screamed at him, probably called him a few names (can’t remember exactly) and the guy jumped out with a crow bar and lunged for my husband. He whacked him in the head with it, leaving him with a massive, deep cut, and they started to fight in the street. They were both hanging on to the bar and trying to wrestle it from each other. Of course, a HUGE crowd gathered and no one tried to help…I was trying to get the bar from both of them on my own…they were both so angry that I thought if one of them got a hold of the bar, they would beat the other to death with it.
Eventually the cops showed up and they both let go of it. They brought all of us to the station and made the guy write out an apology note, and asked how much money we wanted him to pay. The father came to the station to “negotiate” with us. We asked for nt5000.
The incident really scared me, especially since we just bought a car about 6 months ago and my husband gets really angered by the terrible driving here in the south. He flips people off, uses the horn a lot (i do this too 
)…and I wonder if and when it will be directed at the wrong person, and we will get into another situation. He is a really placid guy in real life, but the Taiwanese know just how to press his buttons and rub him the wrong way. He becomes a completely different person on the roads here. He is aware of it and tries to calm down, but he just can’t. Of course, it may be hard for some of you Taipei folks to understand, but driving in Pingtung is really indescribable. You just have to experience it yourselves firsthand to see how much driving here can make you despise the local people.
When we made the decision to leave this summer for good, I admit that I was relieved in the sense that I don’t have to worry about the potential for a run-in with the locals once we go. I am just hoping we can make it through the next few months without incident…
I might have to revisit my own stategy.
In June 2002 I drove a car to work for the first time. 12km and I was pulled out in front of some 15 times. Shocked at that I then started saying to myself “of course you can do that” but I think it started getting me depressed by locking up the anger.
Now I yell at them without wild gestures. I hope they think I’m singing something.
Just today a taxi pulled out in Rin Ai Road and I came the closest ever to an accident and missed it by swerving wildly half way into the next lane. The guy pulled in behind me and I hung most of my body out the window and tapped my head.
I knew that was wrong and he could call a heap of taxis to help him. Next intersection I’m turning onto the freeway, same taxi on my left and he slows down to let me in so I waved thanks.
It is very unpredictable here to say the least.
Correct. I guess I see the point as being: “when do you make a move to get away from the risks you can avoid by not living here?”
As upset as I am, I don’t see name-calling as necessary. I am upset by what happened to me. In hindsight, I shouldn’t post about things affecting my life here. I think this site sometimes comes up a little short in the support category. I’ll keep my personal life completely out of future posts. Let’s try to keep it civil, though.
Its called Road Rage. Its a good thing I don’t drive here… I have a real temper. If I did, I’d need to get at least:
a) Crowbar for melee combat
b) SuperSoaker Water Gun for Scooters that get too close
c) Paint Gun, to mess up the windscreen of the guy who is chasing me and cause him to crash
d) Box of Super sized Tacks in case failure of c)
e) one of those M-16 Colt’s that fire BB pellets, except the ones that are rated to shoot ball bearings, complete with scope and Laser. Just showing this to people will scare them… it goes well with the skin head look.
f) Accessories such as temporary tatoos, camo paint, bandana, steelcaps
Car of choice: 1980 Volvo Station wagon with roo-bar and sunroof (useful for person with armed with b)~e)
Not being a violent man, but once trained to be one, I let a LOT of things go, especially when my wife and son are in the car. What’s the point?
This is an example of how I’d like to handle all incidents of weird violence: I once saw a guy in Tansui, on a street crowded with families bitching out his GF and manhandling her. He grabbed her cell phone and was just SCREAMING at her. Finally after he noticed the crowd oggling him, he yelled, “What the F are you looking at!?” in Taiwanese. I yelled back from across the street, in my twangy Chinese, “YOU la! You’re so loud!” and then started laughing and pointing. While in other circumstances, this might have been subconscious attemped suicide, it worked. The guy shut up and walked away in a huff.
That said, I do now keep an aluminum baseball bat in the back seat. Swing for the knees and swing for the trees.
It is hard to reason with insane people.
I find myself thinking back on this incident, trying to find what I could have done to set these punks off. I can find nothing. We were driving in the Hengshan-Neiwan area with light to minimal traffic most of the way. We weren’t feeling ragey or retaliatory at all. We didn’t cut anyone off, make gestures or say anything. Perhaps he thought we were driving too slow? I dunno; I can’t find any reasonable explanation for the assailants’ behaviour.
I think I’ll get me one, too.
[quote=“Toasty”]I guess I see the point as being: “when do you make a move to get away from the risks you can avoid by not living here?” [/quote]I don’t know. Pretty much every time I return to Taiwan, I ask myself, “What am I doing here? Did I forget?” If you figure it out, let me know.
And don’t assume that you’ll be able to figure out what set these guys off: it could be anything, or nothing.
Statistics or opinion. Please show the statistics.
I accept that might be your experience. I don’t believe that to be the case in all or even most of the incidents of Taiwanese vs. international community members.
Perhaps the incident is too fresh in my mind. I was chased for more than 10 minutes in duration, with the culprits trying to force me off the road and stop me repeatedly. At one point they passed me in traffic and waited for me. They managed to smash my windshield as I passed. They then got back in their vehicle and resumed their pursuit. I managed to emerge onto the number 3 four lane road at Hengshan, heading for Longtan. I managed to lose them by driving at speeds that exceeded 100 km/h, driving on the wrong side of the road, running reds etc. I was in genuine fear of my life through most of it, as was someone I care very deeply about. All along we were thinking,“what the hell did we do?!” People need to remember that these incidents are real as are the people they happen to. I fail to see the humour in any aspect of these kinds of events.[/quote]
with “statistics - (my opinion)”, that’s exactly what I mean. My personal statistics based on the people I have spoken to in Taiwan. ie - out o the 10 guys I know who know guys who have been involved in fights, all of them, say that it was the foreigners’ fault. I don’t know what the official statistics are. I’m really not trying to argue with you here. We just have different opinions. If you still feel like I’m attacking or mocking you in some way, please accept that I’m not. OK?
Once again, that Matrix joke was not in any way directed at you or attempting to make any sort of commentary on your experience. Got that? Not about you.
It was JUST a joke, about an imaginary scenario. In the imaginary scenario, foreigner gets harassed and threatened. Foreigner gets out of vehicle looking very threatening. Harrassee runs away. Alrighty? In my opinion, that’s in a wholly different league to making jokes about Christopher Reeve, disabled people, etc or other such things. (Just to clarify, the last sentence was not implying that you said that, just in case you take further offence).
In another incident back in SA, I was involved in a bike accident, wherein a drunk/high pedestrian suicidally jumped in front of my bike (A 400cc, doing 80kph - shattered both his knee caps). Of course, I flew off the bike, my right shoulder was dislocated, jeans torn up, bad case of road rash etc. As if this was not enough, the guy’s friends ran up to me and started shouting at me, they were all drunk too. There were six or seven of them - all black guys, and me, a white guy. Other black guys started coming up and a crowd was forming. all very angry, because white guy (who is nonetheless pretty fuckin injured himself) has just run over a black guy (despite it being black guys fault). This was some scary shit. Well, within seconds I was being beaten viciously by the crowd. Two (white) bouncers from a nearby club ran up and managed to get them off me, but by this stage my jaw was fractured on both sides, a tooth or two missing, all bloodied up, etc. Of course, this added to the racial tension and it looked like a race riot was gonna happen. Fortunately the cops showed up and broke it up. All this shit happened because some drunk moron had decided to dive in front of a moving bike.
I too feared for my life there, being beaten by an angry mob. A few days later, I got out of hospital, with some stitches and a wired jaw - couldn’t eat for 2 months, and lost 10kg off my already skinny frame, looked like a concentration camp survivor. My mates were very supportive of me, but of course after I had gotten over the incident they ragged me about it, and I didn’t get pissed off, take offence, accuse them of making jokes in very bad taste or whatever. I’m sure they wouldn’t have if I had been PERMANENTLY disabled, but the point was, I was going to be ok, so it was alright to joke about it. “Man you should’ve kept your helmet on and charged them like a battering ram and headbutted those bastards”, “hey man, you want something to eat? Oops, sorry, forgot”, “Jon, open your mouth when you talk to me!”
Sorry for the ramble.
Toasty, once again, I’m not trying to argue with you, mock you, trivialise your experience or whatever else you might think. OK? I have my opinion, you have yours. Agree to disagree, and don’t take it personally.
[quote=“Jaboney”][quote=“Toasty”]I guess I see the point as being: “when do you make a move to get away from the risks you can avoid by not living here?” [/quote]I don’t know. Pretty much every time I return to Taiwan, I ask myself, “What am I doing here? Did I forget?” If you figure it out, let me know.
And don’t assume that you’ll be able to figure out what set these guys off: it could be anything, or nothing.[/quote]
You are most likely correct that I won’t be able to figure out the incident. Try that I may, there is no rational explanation. But I guess these are the kinds of things that may lead some to re-evaluate their relationship with this place. What is it that I value? Are my values reconcileable with the realities here ? What impact does my living here have on my relationships (my partner, though a Canadian of Taiwanese parents, has made it very clear to me that she wouldn’t miss this place were we to leave)? And, yes, even the ubiquitous “what am I doing here?” question is evoked in these circumstances. I think a lot of questions come up when something of this nature happens.
I feel a little guilty to some degree for possibly thread-jacking Truant’s thread. I also regret my reactivity in some of my posts. Clearly, I’m far from over this incident and should have passed on the opportunity to take part in this discussion.
I’m not sure what we will do in the end, though the condo that we will have ready in Vancouver by Fall or Winter (which we were planning to simply rent out while we continued to work here) has us thinking. Another possibility is relocating to Taipei something that, through pm exchanges, I’ve found Truant and I are both currently considering as options.
“Statistics” denotes measurable, objective empirical evidence. Personal experiences are subjective and often not an accurate reflection of reality. It goes without saying that I disagree with your subjective assessment of why members of the international community sometimes have problems with Taiwanese (in bars as you’ve chosen to highlight that area). From my experience, I’ve found that the problems often start with a non-Taiwanese guy inocently talking with a Taiwanese lady (this conversation may or may not have been innitiated by him). There is often a Taiwanese guy who may have had designs on this same lady or had been recently rejected by her. This guy then has some perceived loss of face episode and proceeds to smash a bottle over the Non-Taiwanese guy’s head in a display of innapropriate rage and violence. But we can agree to disagree on this as well. I’m ok with that.
Ok, I accept your apology re: the intended joke. As I said, I’m a bit reactive where this incident is concerned as it is still very recent for me and has me somewhat shaken.
Toasty, you didn’t hijack anyones thread, and I think talking about it here amongst your peers will do a world of good.
Couple of quesitons: First, are you sure you didn’t do anything to get these guys going? What were you doing when they started chasing you?
Second: Did you consider just driving to the nearest police station?
Sorry this had to happen to you…
These things happen more often than any one of you might think. “Isolated” incidents. I had my own trouble in Taiwan which nearly ended everything for me and I’ll tell you this - Don’t let it get you down and keep goin. My ego was bruised long after the incident but contrary to what was circulating at the time…I’m still here to talk about it and I didn’t fuck off back to Canada.
Ya live and learn.
Always remember that being a foreigner (white or black) and you get into a scuffle with these guys, they won’t fight fair to our standards and you don’t have the means nor the back-up you would back home. Unfortunately, most of the foreigners I’ve met here talk a big game but cannot or will not back it up. I’m living proof of what I stand for even if it nearly ended my life. Then again, I’ve always been that way. I’m not giving you advice to stick up to thugs because in alot of cases you’ll lose.
You know who your friends are after situations like that. That’s for certain.
Ramble/Rant Over
Not that I can establish. Best I can gather is that we were not driving fast enough for them. Maybe they took that as a slight. We said nothing to them, didn’t gesture to them or anything at all. It was just myself, my gf and the dogs out enjoying the day. Incidentally, their initial response to our complaint filed with the police was they didn’t know we weren’t Tawanese and thought we were in pursuit of them :loco:
Absolutely. We tried dialing “110.” We weren’t able to establish where a police station was in the area from what they told us. We weren’t familiar with the area, that being the first time I’d driven out there (I was there once before when Mr He drove). Also, I was preoccupied with keeping the buggers behind me (we were still being chased). In going back there recently, I realized I passed right by one (probably why the buggers gave up ont he pursuit). At a certain point, when we lost the thugs, we decided we’d best go the station in Yangmei (seeing as we were a good part of the way back by then and we knew how to get to that one).
I think trapjaw is right. Most violence that involves foreigners in bars and such is brought on by the foreigner acting like a jackass.
But the Taiwanese seem to have an especially bad case of road rage. So many of the stories we are hearing here are about experiences while driving.
I’ve seen lots of really bad driving, but never any road rage. In fact I’d say the locals here are far more tolerant of poor driving habits than back home. Maybe its because I spend 90% of my time in Taipei
I had a guy follow me home and yell at me for not indicating… as it turns out, the indicator was broken.