Chew the Fat

It’s easy to see how some people feel like they have blinked and their life has gone, without time to even take a breath and to do the things they really want. So this blog is a quick breath before I dive back into it.

When I first arrived, it was different and quaint. Everything was silly and cute to me.
You need to have a running business before you can get a business permit, but you cannot start a business unless you have a business permit. The mesh of ridiculous laws coming from all quarters, and never being checked against each other, means that nothing can be done without actually breaking the law.

I went to work yesterday and they had put a fake wall up because the building inspectors demanded that the room had a wall. They had to get it down before the next day because the fire inspectors demanded that there cannot be a wall in that room.

To work in Taiwan you need an ‘Alien Residence Certificate’ to get one you have to be employed by a school. It is, however, illegal to work for any school unless you have an ‘ARC’ – they take two months to get and you can only get them if you are in Taiwan.

Some of the questions in the license test go exactly like this:

If you slip and fall down because there is some oil on the road, you should:

(1) take it as bad luck and ride away
(2) report to the nearest police station.
(3) put tree branches on the area to warn other people

Answer: 3

A motorist who follows traffic rules is because:

(1) he is afraid of being caught and fined
(2) he has the responsibility and honor to do so
(3) there is someone to supervise him.

Answer: 2

If a motorist wants to keep the traffic order to gain a good image for the country, strengthen the social safety and have the happiness of his family, he should

(1) have good riding moral and spirit of obeying the law.
(2) have good riding skills
(3) not smoke and drink.

Answer: 1

When riders kill or injure pedestrians at a pedestrian crossing because they did not let the pedestrian cross, the criminal law punishment should be

(1) doubled
(2) tripled
(3) halved

Answer: 3

Everything is upside down –even the water goes down the hole the wrong way. It’s quirky at first, but then it starts to piss me off. The people constantly staring and pointing at me; risking my life every time I ride my scooter –I have knocked over two people already; pollution so bad my eyes and throat burn if I ride longer than 20mins; never knowing if someone wants to rip you off, or worse, working for an organization that worships the chairman and chews up the workers.

It’s hard to get some space in the second most densely populated country on the world, and these things can quickly eat at you and make you really bitter –God knows there are enough foreigners like that here. That is when you need to stop, breathe, have a Taiwan beer on the roof of your building and remember that this isn’t my world. I’m just stopping through and I will never fully understand.

Taiwan is in one of the most peculiar social and political vortexes in the planet. It exists in a constant state of purgatory. It is a mesh of complications.
It is only recognised as a nation by a few nations from Africa and South America. To the rest of the world it is either anomaly sitting in limbo or a state in rebellion from mother land. It was excluded from the United Nations in 1971 after China was recognised.

The debate over Taiwan and China has an effect on the people and their identity. Not so much as to whether they claim to be Chinese or Taiwanese, but what they give up if they claim a particular label exclusively. Who do we make our enemy and who do we make our ally? -Not only internationally, but locally, within social groups. Taiwan has only been democratic since 1990, less than a generation ago this nation was under military rule. Old mindsets do not change very quickly. Fear of authority and an ‘un-questioning-ness of those above us’ still persist. The government, police and military are rank with corruption, and corporations treat workers with disregard without real dispute.

On top of this is Western influence, and an obsession for all things cute and post-modern, which clashes with the tradition of saving ones “face”. Human Resource Management is used to force everyone to sing the corporation song for the boss (literally) so it looks like a great team. Yet the team is being ripped apart by gossip and back-stabbing. The company I work for has a new motto. It is simply, “Winning is everything.” A meeting is held so it can be seen to be held – not for reason. But to be seen to be progressive – it all just becomes stuff.
All the while, over 100,000 rockets are pointed at these shores by the Commy neighbor.

But it’s not all that bad, one litre of beer cost $2nz.

Time to climb to the roof of my building.