Taiwan lifestyle: We are not so weird anymore

The theme of how times have changed has many different angles. One of the them is how life here has become a quite a bit less 'them' and 'us' – For any new arrival who is suffering from being called foreigner every five minutes that is hard to belief but believe me it has got better. Or worse, depending on your standpoint – Again believe me there are lots of people who revel in their status as 'white monkey' and have moved further and further south as the locals stopped staring at them. But that is a different story...


Lets put things in perspective - In the old days we like to say 5% of girls really wanted a foreigner, 20% would think about it, and the rest just weren't interested. Now, we kind of think it is still 5% for the really want category, while the middle, who would think about it, has risen to maybe 60 or 70 and the not interested now a mere 20 or so.

It was Saturday afternoon and I was sat on ChongHsiao with Eric, Pierre and John, having a beer, and looking at the street life.

Suddenly a white dude comes along with a girl and we started to stare for no other reason than we have been in Taiwan too long. He was displaying various signs of the opposite: he was trying to impress the hot girly he was with by actually putting on an ironed shirt and a comb through his hair when it was a hot sweaty afternoon; he was politely saying hello to every foreigner he met on the street, and doing so in that way you could tell it was planned; he was still displaying space parameter manners: giving way to Chinese people on the pavement, and apologizing for bumping into them - As if it mattered, as if he expected them to do the same back. And, most importantly, he was reacting to stares as if he viewed himself as something more than a goldfish in a bowl.

"You know his girlfriend?” I said to everyone.

“No!”

“No, nor do I. The guy has only been here for 6 months and I never seen his girlfriend before,” said Pierre.

The implication and inside joke from us was thus: in the old days, new arrivals picked from a small pool of foreigner groupie girls so you always knew everyone’s girlfriend. It was only after a few years that you were able to break out of this and slowly get into the rest of society.

You dated the same girls out of necessity - Girls before either wanted a foreigner devil or didn’t. It was a big deal for them because their parents surely didn't approve. You went to bars to get girls, but there weren't may bars. Not many Chinese went to the bars, especially girls, because they were dens of sin. In the old days the number one place was 45. There were other bars but they were filled with Taiwanese drinking tea or playing Kerr Plunk or the game where you pull the bricks out – Bars had to provide these games because Taiwanese didn't know what to do in a bar. Going to a bar for them was like going to Paris, something you had to try and get a photo.

Also, and importantly, of course you didn't speak Chinese when you arrived, and nobody wanted to speak to you in Chinese because you were here for a purpose – especially the girls, if you were going to get ostracized by your family the least that you could do was learn English. Now with Chinese all the rage in the West guys are arriving with a passing ability in the language and speaking reasonably well in a short time. And, while most foreigners are still English teachers there is a vague segment of other opportunities – You could get a job in a computer company doing marketing with access to the average office girls. In short, there was no need to date your ex-room mate's girlfriend anymore when he left.

“Times are changing,” I said. “We are not so weird as we used to be.”

“No, fucking way, man,” said Eric. “How many times have you been called a foreigner today? Stared at? Talked about to your face?”

“Just the once or twice,” I replied. “But I suppose I did get up at 1 pm.”

“Shut up, American,” said Pierre. “Don't start.”

“But he does have a point,” said John. “It is pretty fucking far from the day when I am not viewed by my stereotypes. Where people start to look at me first rather than my big hooter...Thank goodness, I must add. I am going to have to move down south then.”

“So if it isn't any form of enlightenment, why?”I said.

“It is the divorced granny effect,” said Eric.

For once Eric had a reasonable point: when we arrived divorce was a taboo subject, nobody admitted to living with anyone, women had hymen replacement operations, and when you went to the beach girls wore a dress. They were still up to naughty stuff but, like in all crumbling dictatorships, it was all being done behind closed doors. Now was a different story: we had Next magazine and Apple, celebrities got divorced just to get a spot on a talk show, TV shows every night competed to dance as close to the censors as possible with bikini fashion shows, everyone lived together, and the prized possession was a girl who hadn't had an abortion (Along with last weeks statistic about having the lowest birthrate in the world, Taiwan also has one of the highest rates of abortion). It was not that they had particularly bothered to address the subject of breaking down foreign stereotypes, simply there own society going to pieces had narrowed the gap. We were still weird foreigners but not a social stigma anymore.

“I prefer the old days,” said John. “I could go to the bar and guarantee the girls all spoke English. Now I keep going up to girls and they ask me if I speak Chinese. I go on dates and the girls want to eat in Chinese restaurants...Are not impressed with my lectures about how cool England is.”

“Yeah,” said Pierre. “I could go to Eslite and I was the only one. Girls were impressed I could speak great Chinese. Now, I have to move quickly.”

(Eslite was a huge 24 hour bookshop that Pierre thought of as his favorite pickup joint. He had decided that if girls were wandering around alone on a Friday or Saturday night or Sunday afternoon then they didn’t have a boyfriend, and desperately wanted one.)

“What are you thinking about Dan?” said John.

“I am thinking about all those girls who did such a sterling service for the foreign community. I hope they have husbands now.”

“Amen,” he replied.

Taiwan lifestyle: YoYo TV and how to love Taiwan

If you are feeling in a bad mood about Taiwan, there is no sure way to cheer yourself up.

Last night when i got home my daughter was watching YoYo TV, and it occurred to me that you can only have overwhelming love and respect for a country that employs a bunch of super cute twenty year old girls as children's TV presenters; then gives them names like 'peach big sister' and 'strawberry big sister', dresses them up as cartoon characters or nurses or Japanese anime characters always with a very short pom-pom style skirt and obligatory boots or long socks, and then makes them dance in unison while pulling V-signs across their faces and wiggling their fingers with wrists attached to their waists.

I am still not sure who the program is for...

Taiwan lifestyle: Going to the Filipino disco to get an Indonesian

Sundays in Taiwan were usually a haze of hung over self-reflection and rest, starting at two or three in the afternoon – The disco in Taipei ended at eight in the morning meaning you were either there until the end desperately trying to pick up or you had done…Either way, you were getting up late – but this week was different. John had stayed in on the saturday night desperately trying to arrange a romantic date to offset the loneliness from knowing he had been in Taiwan three years.
The date had back fired and now he was insisting we had to go with him to the Filipino disco on the Sunday afternoon.
“Come on, we are taking you to the Filipino disco to get an Indonesian,” said John.
If you hadn’t been successful on the Friday or Saturday, then there was still a chance on a Sunday. John had first discovered the Sunday afternoon Filipino disco concept by accident in Hong Kong a few years ago - After going to Neptunes in Wanchai at the normal time and taking a girl to a hotel, he had been racked by guilt and agreed to her request to meet her back at the same disco at three p.m. the following afternoon. The request to meet her inside bothered him, but he dismissed it as assuming she meant outside - both were unfamiliar to Hong Kong and language was a problem so why not choose a place they knew, he rationalized. It took a while to convince himself, but after standing outside for 20 minutes he accepted that the place was open, perhaps as a restaurant during the day – and besides it was hot on the street and he was getting a lot of strange stares so he decided to go down for ten minutes. It was not pleasant inside...
The Chinese girls like us in Taiwan, so he hadn't thought about whether the equivalent existed here. Then about a couple of months ago Matt (the whore accountant) had knocked on his door to inform him he had found a ‘great disco’ and ‘would he like to see what he had met there?’ “Amy, turn around once, please. Man, it like being with a whore again,” had said a proud Matt, a tear in his eye.
The disco was in the old part of town near the combat zone. We checked nobody we knew was around and then bolted down the stairs, before finding a table.
“It is a little lowlife,” said Eric for all of us. Our sensibilities were being assaulted by the sight of so many dark-skinned middle-aged women happily dancing away to Filipino techno music; women who you only normally saw in the street or in the park pushing 90 year-old pyjama-wearing Taiwanese people with drips and oxygen masks around in wheel chairs; worried faces for very good reason that their charge might croak at any minute and they would be blamed.
Just to clarify, said Eric. “On our part, that is! We are the lowlife.”
John spoke, “Boys, this is easy compared to Hong Kong. First time I went down those stairs out of the light and saw a packed disco of big fat old lairily grinning white foreigners in rugby shirts, dancing badly with the girls who were still there from the night before because they hadn’t scored yet, I had to summon all my reserves of scuzziness to hang around. Here there are not many foreigners - besides Matt of course. Give yourself a couple of minutes to get over the acute embarrassment and self-loathing at your own sadness and you should be able to get yourself something good.”
“Why is it the Filipino disco? Surely it should be the Indonesian disco,” asked Eric, hoping he could get a serious discussion topic going, and thus ignore where he was.
“Filipinos are the pioneers of the Sunday afternoon disco…” John started to explain.
His point was two-fold: all maids used to Filipino before, and, Filipinos are the blacks of Asia known for their laid back, outgoing nature and love of music and dance (a brief look at the traditional culture of surrounding countries and it is easy to see why) Because of this Filipinos have cornered the ‘Live Band’ market – in Shanghai, Hong Kong, all over Japan and in Taiwan pubs proudly display signs for ‘Filipino Live Band’, because it will bring in the punters like a picture of a blonde white guy outside your English school. Now, popular culture means everyone can sing and dance and the majority of maids are Indonesian because they are supposed to be more conservative, but “…still any shifting of the feet on the Lord’s day of rest in Asia will be affectionately referred to by its flipper heritage. Now, go and get something.”
Matt had just arrived with exactly what you would expect him to on his arm. “I have been with her for a while now. I like her,” mused Matt. That could have been the end, a sufficient reason for his going out with her, but once what he had considered what he had said his expression changed to I’m sorry, that is not a very good explanation and he felt compelled to continue, “She is low maintenance – only has Sunday off – she’ll clean my apartment and bring me food. If I come here with her, she’ll only want one drink…Oh, and I have to buy her a phone card once every two weeks. That is acceptable for a girlfriend I think?” He was genuinely concerned to get confirmation on the last part.
“So I am bored, give me today’s history lesson. I can see you have something to say, and I doubt it is a good joke you heard,” said John to Eric. He wasn’t going to go to the dance floor, because he knew we would disappear home at the first chance of seeing him not looking or busy. Eric always tried desperately to educate us all about Taiwan’s history.
“Man, I bought this book last week…You know it is bullshit that Taiwan has always been a part of China. A brief history goes like this. Up until the 1600’s the island was populated by people of Malay and Polynesian descent, the aboriginals, then the Dutch took the island briefly, but were driven out by a small Ming dynasty army, which had fled the mainland because the Ming had been defeated by the Ching – much like Chiang Kai-Shek and the commies. The Ching came then to defeat the Ming, but did not occupy or annex Taiwan, because they were not really interested in the island, just getting rid of the remnants of the Ming. Over the next 200 years, Chinese from Fukkien province emigrated to Taiwan because of starvation. They weren’t sent by the Chinese government but had come seeking opportunities much like the Europeans going to the new world. And they inter bred with the aboriginals.
In 1887 the China government formally declared Taiwan part of its territory for no other reason than they expected Japan to annex it, and they wanted to stop Japanese expansion. Eight years later they lost the Sino-Japanese war and signed Taiwan over to the Japanese forever. Up until then the Taiwanese had been living in a state of de-facto independence for 200 hundred years and, when they knew they were going to be given to the Japanese, they declared the Republic of Taiwan; so, for a long time they have had a sense of national identity.”
Josh: “And where did you get this information from? I don’t think from KMT or Chinese Communist Party sources.”
“Of course! You have to search hard for the suppressed truth.” Perversely, Eric’s support for Taiwanese independence was as strong as his hatred of people who like to practice their English.
“But they were whipped by the Japanese? – When they tried to declare independence.” John only liked to deal in hard cynical facts.
“Brutally and swiftly! Yes, of course, but that is not the point, anyway…Taiwan was only ever a part of China for 8 years is the point. Josh, you are an immigrant, too. Your ancestors moved to a new land to give themselves a chance.”
“Didn’t the Taiwanese butcher the native population? I have no sympathy until they redress this injustice,” said Josh.
“Native populations get wiped out. Look at our own countries. Anyway, the government is trying to do something.”
“And I don’t live in Canada in protest. Next time tell us about what the government is doing for the aboriginals then we might listen to your claims of Taiwanese moral superiority.” John and Pierre were realists but they nodded anyway because they knew it made Eric angry!
I was feeling uneasy for another reason. There had been a sizeable earthquake a few week ago and the paranoia hadn't settled down yet. “I feel uncomfortable here – if the big one comes my soul ain’t gonna rest easy knowing my crushed body was dragged from the rubble of the Sunday Afternoon Flipper Disco,” I sighed. "I mean, presumably, getting dragged broken and bleeding from the night-time disco next to a girl in a mini wouldn't be fantastic, but at least i would be going out next to something young and hot. This...Hmm...Ah...This is just a little above being found in the ruins of a whorehouse.
“I ‘ave set up an immigration agency to advise on emigrating to, or studying in France. I know it will succeed! As a side business!” announced Pierre, with another business idea and not wanting to be left out.
“What the fuck do you know about emigrating to France?” John pointing out the obvious.
“Not a bad idea, man, but I think this is already a competitive market with sophisticated structures in place. You need to generate a lot of contacts in France. Meet some lawyers there. It is going to take a while and a lot of money to establish a credible brand name, but an interesting challenge.” John and Eric frowned having no idea why Josh bothered to consider Pierre's ideas.
‘Anyway!’ dismissed Pierre his expression asking John and Eric why Josh had to couch business in such bullshit ways when it was simple. “I have already figured it all out. I already have a friend of mine going to all the other agencies, pretending to be interested in immigrating. Once I know the procedures and costs I under cut them. I cannot afford advertising, but I have my contacts at the French school and I will keep it small. Let the word of mouth of what I am doing spread. You know I don’t mind talking to people…You know what the real fuckin’ clincher is – I am really sending them to England, but going via France because it is easier to get in.” Of course, nobody else had actually thought of this.
“Sounds a bit like a foreigner job to me,” spat out John who was in a bad mood. "After teacher it is a few small steps to agency for sending students to your country, and then helping Taiwanese emigrate. You aren't even stretching the sides of the cultural straight jacket."
“Not at all. Most companies in this industry are Taiwanese and I am not telling people I can do this, or you should work with because I am a foreigner. I go to them and say, “me being a foreigner offers you nothing, but I am offering you a better deal as a person. It is better for you to work with me.” Nauseated we all turned around to try and take our attention off, what Pierre said.
“You want to sit here?” said the pretty Filipino at the next table to John. There were still a few left in the Filipino disco.
“You are not with those guys?” he asked because they were large Africans.
“No, they are bastards. I hate Indians and Africans, coming here trying to pick us up. What do they think they are?" she said. "Hey. It is unusual to see white guys here. I bet you have a Taiwan girlfriend, don’t you? Why you like the Taiwan girl?”
Coming here hadn’t worked out how she had expected – her cousin had got married to an Australian she met in Hong Kong and she had expected something similar; she had been told Chinese girls didn’t like white men, but this was Taipei not Hong Kong. Everyday she did a shit, menial job for Taiwanese and then at the weekend, she had her 2^nd class status shoved in her face again, having to spend it getting hit on by huge Africans in white suits and sneakers who could dance or middle-aged married Indian businessmen who couldn’t. And, the worse of it all was she was a passionate colorful Filipino, so how could the westerners prefer dull Chinese girls?
"Don't worry, we invented most of the world's sports but we are crap at them now," said John.
"What?" she replied. Then going back to her original subject. “I always want to go Hong Kong.”
“There at least you could have been taken the piss out of and used by guys worth being exploited by eh?”
“What?”
“Nothing…Anyway, would you like to go to a hotel?”

Expat Culture in Taiwan: My first Christmas

In the old days there was actually a day off for Christmas day, not because it was Christmas, but it was officially constitution day. Around 2000 they dropped constitution day and since then we haven’t even had a day off – unless you booked it of course. I had only been in Taiwan six months or so, and being a young university graduate was reveling in the idea I was simply not going to have a Christmas; that is was going to be hot. I had gone to a card shop and bought a bunch of Christmas cards with Santa sitting on a deckchair on the beach, and sent them off thinking I was so cool and subversive.
Christmas was a strange time in Taiwan as all the big department stores put up huge Christmas trees and played the usual carols. Taiwanese went and took photos of themselves in front of the tree, or sat in the sledge, and then completely ignored it. I cannot state that strong enough: they just don’t celebrate Christmas.
Anyway, as a teacher of the American language, I had to teach the children all about the great traditions they would never follow, culminating in cards and presents and me dressing up in a santa suit. After getting over my embarrassment at shouting ‘ho, ho’ for a couple of hours, I realized the whole thing had touched my immature heart and I suddenly felt it wasn’t so cool not to celebrate Christmas.
I got on the phone to the guys.
“Man, it is only Christmas day. Capitalist junk”
“Only good if you are a kid or have kids.”
“Man, can’t you miss it for one year... It’ll come around next year.”
“Nah, I ain’t wasting money on a bad Christmas dinner in some big hotel”
It seemed nostalgia hadn’t got the better of the others. I knew one person who would be celebrating Christmas so I gave him a call.
“Hey, John, what are you up to tomorrow?” I asked.
“I have booked to go to the Hyatt for lunch. I booked two places – I am still thinking about which bird to go with because I know you college boys won’t be coming…You want to come?”
I know the big hotels always had Christmas dinner for the expat crowd, but they could be a little pricey. “How much?”
“1800 a ticket.”
“Hmm, make sure she is really hot,” I replied.
I wasn’t that nostalgic – well, I was but I was also too tight to pay that much.
My student Michael’s family – the ten year-old boy I was supposed to be preparing to go to the UK – had invited me to their house. It wasn’t my first choice to go to my student’s house on Christmas Day, but I figured the alternative was to sit at home lonely watching Christmas day celebrations from around the world on CNN. I called them back to accept the invitation.
“Happy New Year!” shouted Michael’s family when I arrived. Taiwanese just couldn’t get Christmas was the more important day of the two.
“My brother, his wife, their child…1,2 children…yes…children. We have…Christmas party for you,” said Michael’s father pleased with himself, showing his English in front his family.
“Here is your Christmas card and present,” said Michael.
“See I write…Uh, very good eh!” announced Michael. “You sit here.”
I had had dinner at the house many times, Michael’s mother insisting on feeding me almost every time I came.
There wasn’t any turkey, but the thought was already enough. By the end of the day we had been Tenpin bowling, to eat snacks in a night market, and to another brother’s house, and then to KTV, because everyone wanted to sing.
The most popular family sport across Taiwan at the time was ten pin bowling. If the family couldn’t think of anything to do, they went bowling. And, as I was a foreigner – and by connection American - they assumed I liked bowling.
9:00 pm – I was back at the hotel waiting for Josh and Eric, regretting leaving my student’s family to drink with my mates when the atmosphere had been so warm and family orientated. They had been so kind, and even though I missed England, I was feeling upbeat and reflective:
Not bad…alcohol consumption down from the half bottle of vodka a day to several pints.
Have decided to sleep well again when I leave.
Don’t talk to my mates in my sleep anymore, or call out to people on the street because I think they are my friends.
Idea that I will be here for a while is not breaking me out in cold sweats.
Don’t get frustrated and walk off, so often, when required to repeat myself twice.
Beginning to be able to spot “Britishisms” I speak, and change into dull American English.
Fuck I miss Desmond Lynam and Andy Gray’s voices for the footie. Never thought I would say, I would miss that Scottish bastard’s voice - But I suppose the Japanese porn channels on the cable goes someway to making up.
Grateful for the veneer of privacy my room provides - once I turn the TV up loud, can actually forget the thickness of the walls leaves me you forever prepared for someone to walk straight through them, apologize for taking a wrong turning, then go straight back out.
After being woken by the motorbikes outside, am able to go back to sleep within half an hour
The mad Aussie guy next door has stopped having the same argument every night, in which he threatens to send his girlfriend back to the Philippines….Ah, that is because I head-butted him so can’t really add to the Adapted and Became Tolerant Of list.
Language still impossible - Tonight I desperately wanted to tell Michael’s mother how much I appreciated things, but all I could do was keep saying ‘Xiere, xiere’ knowing I was probably saying go die in hell or something worse. Tonal languages meant extra opportunities to fuck up, and the development of a habit of saying every word many times (xiere, xiere, xiere,xiere) in the hope you might have got it right once, but they never told you if you had it right so you tended to say it just a few more times for safety’s sake. We are often confused and misunderstood in our own language, but then, at least, you can make your point and blame the other person for the misunderstanding. Here, you just looked like a cunt.
“Hey man are you there?” It was Eric at the door with his Taiwan beer, closely followed by John and Pierre.
“Did you treat someone hot for lunch?” I asked John.
“Ok, I suppose. Preferred to have given you the ticket on reflection, but I guess I am just not Taiwanese enough yet.”
“What about you guys? Get up to anything?” I asked Eric and Pierre.
“Nothing,” they replied.
We had all been in Taiwan for about a year now, and as it was Christmas day, and although, the others denied it their parents had all called them and a couple of reflective thoughts had crept in. Eric, Josh, and Pierre shared one thing in common, separate from John: they choose to come to Taiwan and had been looking forward to the experience, but from there experiences diverged. Josh was not such a flurry of pride and confusion at the environment because he had already been on the road for three years, with stays in Australia, Thailand and Europe. He had got most of the basics of loss and disorientation out of his system a long time ago. He didn’t think too much about the culture beyond what he had to understand to do business, which was minimal – this wasn’t Japan, where supposedly not following certain etiquette could make or break a deal, the Taiwanese were very forgiving to westerners. He loved the small business, ‘can do’ culture of the Taiwanese. And, after a rocky start with the women, he was sure he had found his segment and it would be plain sailing after this. Besides, he would be gone back to Canada in a couple of years, Taiwan a distant, but happy memory.
Eric and Pierre had both come here straight out of college and were still dizzy, but then one was having the time of his life and the other disillusioned. In Taiwan you were always the foreigner. And it kind of showed how important your desires and goals were on your immigrant experience: Pierre wanted something for nothing and loved his status as the outsider, the center of attention; Eric was working furiously to belong, fit in, and wanted to be rewarded for his efforts to do so. Eric was particularly in a hurry to learn Chinese because he had figured he had a couple of years in Taiwan, before the pull of family got the better of him. Daddy was desperately trying to set him up with a good corporate job back home.
John, on the other hand, was still denying how much he loved Taiwan and where his destiny lay.

Taiwan lifestyle: Thoughts on work in Taiwan

Why don’t you just get another job? My friends would ask when I complained about Mickey. Isn’t MTI a famous company in Taiwan? Aren’t you a senior manager now?

I had got my stocks and MTI was now one of the top companies in Taiwan so it should be an easy matter of sending out my resume – many of my colleagues were using the company name to jump ship for higher positions - but Taiwan was a funny old place – and most of the problems I originally had still existed. For work in Taiwan Acer was still employing only Taiwanese with MBAs from Harvard; and recruiting in America for its American offices. That only left me with only the up-and-coming local companies and you still had to go through the usual hoops: why do you want to work in Taiwan? Can you manage local Taiwanese? And spot the cons: need white guy to make the company look good for a couple of months…And, actually it was harder than before because my next move was as a director or head of department. I had no doubt I could manage local staff but the locals weren’t so sure – Even if, as at MTI most of the people went to school in America or Canada, and I was more Taiwanese than them.

Josh, who had sailed up the ladder quickly, had now opened his own business because he was sure there was a glass ceiling.

The few people I knew who were directors had done it by staying in the same company, and ingratiating themselves with the management, using their connection, allowing themselves to be carried up.

Several times I felt that the only way to move up was to leave the country, but I wasn’t ready to leave my adoptive home…Anyway, a story for later was that the right position did come along.

Taiwan lifestyle: Why don't we have any Taiwanese male friends

One evening while we were sat in the bar in Taipei an extremely, smartly dressed young western guy walked in laughing and smiling with an equally fashionable young Taiwanese guy. It was obvious they were more than just friends and it kind of got us thinking why after 10 years none of us had any Taiwanese male friends.

“Why don’t we have any Chinese male friends?” asked Eric.

“We do,” replied Pierre.

Eric: “No, we have Chinese guys who we like, respect, find interesting to talk with occasionally - but hanging out with regularly, nah!”

John: “I always assumed they were all boring, and, for their part, don’t like us shagging their women.”

Eric again: “That is the stereotype!”

Josh: “Man, mostly it is practicality: there is still a communication and culture barrier to overcome, and without the incentive of shagging our opposite number as reward, why bother? That goes for them and us.”

As usual Josh had a balanced thoughtful answer.

Taiwan lifestyle: The bargain that was Taiwan

After a few months I soon worked out the bargain that was Taiwan.

I didn’t much like teaching when I first arrived so I would search the vacancies section of the local paper for twenty minutes every morning for something else to do.

Children’s school requires native English speaker – North Americans only.
Adults school requires mature motivated teacher for evening, morning classes.
Foreign Teachers Required for Kindergarten. North American accent preferred
Foreigners required…I would get excited…to teach conversation to small groups.
Foreign Males Aged 22 – 30 Required…this may be it, I thought…for photo shoot.
Editor Needed for English Language…Hmm, still the same thing…
Engineer…Would be nice, but I don’t think I can bullshit that one.

Unfortunately, that was it: no marketing manager positions, you were in teaching heaven or hell depending on your perspective.

The conversation in the common room of the hostel wasn’t much better:

“How many students do you have?”
“Have you taught this page before?”
“Do you actually do these listening comprehensions?”
“The students can write but they can’t speak.”
“They do too many games here. What do you think?”
“How much time do you spend on drilling as opposed to games?”
“How many words do you think they can learn in one day? Do you set homework?”
“They are only six. Do you think they need to learn to spell?”
“What incentives do you offer to keep them quiet?”
“You put them in pairs and they never do anything!”
“Got to put them in teams and play them off against each other.”
“First time, and they are like teach them, and I haven’t got a fucking clue. What do they want to know? I don’t want to teach them something they already know. I don’t want to pitch it way above their level.”
“The students here aren’t very talkative.”

Then they would ask me stupid questions: “What do you think mate? Very quiet over there.”
I thought about telling them to shut the fuck up but I was a diplomat: “I am thinking about what you lot are saying,” I would reply. I am imagining killing you all so I don't have to kill you all.
I headed off to the school. My new work environment was taking a lot of getting used to. I was the only foreigner working in the school and my colleagues were all females. And of course not western females who I could bounce jokes off and expect to be called a chauvinistic asshole but polite girls who just smiled a lot because they either didn’t understand what I said or…um…were just polite.

I walked into the school, cursed the picture of Harry Potter on his skateboard, took off my shoes, dipped my head and entered the classroom.

I saw my teaching assistant Sara. “Sara, you are looking beautiful today,” I said.

“Jen di ma (Really?)” she answered. She feigned embarrassment, but sprang to attention like a neglected puppy, waiting to get her compliment whenever I arrived.

“Yes. Really,” I replied.

Taiwanese girls were refreshing non-politically correct: making there way in a male dominated world, conscious of not being seen as a sex object or having their integrity doubted, didn’t get in the way of accepting a compliment.

Then we had this groundhog day conversation:

“I too fat,” she would say with the same urgency; my opinion sought sincerely, my answer awaited nervously as if things might be different from the day before. Never did she getting bored or feel that my assurances were sufficient to placate her insecurities to the point where this conversation only need to be carried out once a week. At 50 kilos and 5ft 3 inches, her legs were apparently too big for a skirt -- The definition of good legs for Taiwanese was stick thin.

“No, no, no,” I would say. “Your legs are perfect.” I protested that her legs were shapely – which they were – but her calves were wider than the shin and that meant fat in Taiwan.

I looked at the book – and then the fifteen five-year Taiwanese a long way below me struggling with their bladder control. This weeks lessons was occupations; that was ten hours – two every morning – of pretending to fire guns, arrest the students and spray water hoses, among others. I had ten flashcards and the sentence “What do you want to be? I want to be…” to work with. It was Tuesday and I felt I had already done the subject to death.

“Sara, today we are going to move on, aren’t we? Perhaps split the class into two teams and discuss whether the death penalty has a place in modern society.”

“What?” she replied.

“Nevermind,” I said then turning to the kids. ““Okay, everyone stand up. What is it,” I shouted. I adjusted my skirt and started to type.

“Secretary!” they all shouted.

The compliment was necessary with my teaching assistant because I guessed, as I was still adjusting to being an American, it kept dismissal notices away.

Everyday was the same: Could you speak more clearer? More slower? I don’t understand your accent? What is a jumper? Letterbox? Petrol Station? You couldn’t turn around twenty-five years in just a couple of months.

I frequency also broke into sentences like this: “Look at all little buggars running round…won’t pay attention for a moment. I know I don’t understand, but I know he’s giving me lip…If any of them would bloody sit their little arses on a seat for long enough for me to finish a sentence, maybe they would learn something!…You didn’t understand a word, did you? I’M SORRY, TELL THEM TO SIT DOWN.”

I owed Sarah a lot.

At break time I wandered over to the reception area to talk to Hsiao Fang, the receptionist.

“You want coffee?” she asked. I had a dilemma with her: she was good looking so it was time to move on from letting her buy me something everyday, but then I wouldn’t get the free coffee and cake. Still I knew my assistant would buy it for me – or some stranger on the street. That was a plus of Taiwan: I had never been treated so much in my life and it was beginning to get in my bones.

There was a saving grace to my accent, I could say whatever I wanted and nobody understood.

“No, but I’d love to squeeze your melons and spank your hide raw you saucy little wench?”

“Ting bu Dong (I don’t understand)” she answered.

“Melon, you know ‘melon?’”

“You want melon? I think we have.”

“You definitely have, me dear...unusual to see such good melons in Taiwan.”

“Taiwan have very good watermelon – my grandfather have the farm.”

“Does your mother also have good melons?”

“Of course - We Taiwanese have close families.”

"As I say, your grandfather should be proud.”

“You want the melon?”

“I want to see first”

“Why you want to see?”

“Not just see, but feel…need to know they are up to standard.”

“Umm..za ma jiang (How to say)," she said. "They already…(making a slicing action)..chiere.”

“Oh… not so good.”

“You don’t want?”

“I like my melons in one piece.” I shaped a melon with my hands. “Whole…no cuts…no slices.”

It looked like today was going to be a bad day. The boss wanted to see me.

“Can you be more enthusiastic with the song,” she said.

I suppose I still hadn’t got into full playschool mode yet. “I will try,” I replied.

The boss of the school then decided to come to the second hour with some parents and watch my class. I pulled out all the stops for the ‘Wheels on the Bus’ – I only glad it wasn’t posted on Youtube for my friends back home to see.

The Kindergarten only employed me in the morning; otherwise, I had another job on a Wednesday and Saturday but that only totaled 20 hours a week. The rest of the time I spent chasing private student, leads from agents like Amy and Lilly.

This afternoon was no different and as usual I was lost. “Amy, where is this place? I’ve driven along section 2 for 10 minutes. I don’t recognize anything,” I said.

“You lost again, what is the number of the lane you are?” said Amy not surprised.

“Seventy,” I said.

“So you not arrive yet!”

After having got the directions wrong so many times, I was permanently sure I was lost.

“You are late!” she continued.

“Yeah, I know.” I wasn’t going to admit I had already turned back once because I must have missed it, it couldn’t be that far. But it always was; I suffered from a perpetual need to shrink distances. A shell-shock from the unfamiliarity: in Europe, I had never learnt a word of any of the languages, but i had subconsciously learnt to recognize words and phrases on sign posts to show me the way, but here it was left at the first cool squiggle and right at the second. I had rang one too many buzzers, entered too many unknown offices, asked countless people where to go and endured humiliation through the knowing smile that I was a stupid foreigner. And I had called students only to find out, I didn’t understand their directions: ‘which road? Is that Ching Hsing or Ching Shan?’, then not wanting to offend saying ‘okay, no problem’ and sit helpless on the side of the street, often just getting in a taxi and going home because I couldn’t face being late. Sometimes, I would try getting into a taxi and say drive, desperately looking for something I could point at, before getting out no further forward - and I hated to get a taxi because it was admitting defeat, and a waste of money.

Half-an-hour later, hot, dripping with sweat and bad tempered, I got to the school not in the mood to give my demonstration. “A thousand apologies,” I said.

Unfortunately, the class of eight year olds who I was supposed to teach had already finished so I had to teach the pre-schoolers. All three and four years old, they sat crying and bewildered as I tried to teach them the lesson I had prepared for the older kids. That had been a waste of time.

Next possible student was a fifteen year old boy who wanted to study at home, an easy student. I found the apartment first time and decided my luck was on the change.

“Here is my son,” said a very confident mother who said she was also a teacher. It was a standard Taiwanese boy of the worst age: Jordan t-shirt, crew cut, slouched across the table, with an expression that gave away it wasn’t just this morning he succumbed absolute to his mother’s hen pecking and haranguing to get better results.

“Wait a moment. My husband and daughter also want to study. Maybe, you can talk to my son for a moment,” she continued. “This is my husband, he is a manager in an electronics company…And this is my daughter, she is an English student at Tai-Da (Taiwan’s best University). Okay, I let you teach.”

Too fucking kind, I thought.

“My name is Dan. Each of you, introduce yourself.”

“Hi, Dan. I am Eva and I am hoping to study art history in UCLA next year,” answered the daughter with a perfect American accent.

The other two introduced themselves and I knew I was in for an hour and a half of hell. Daughter who speaks better English than me, husband who speaks English, but I can’t understand a word because of his accent, and son who can’t fill in the blank in the middle of a three-word sentence, when he is given the words, ‘I’ and ‘fat’. You teach a group and they are supposed to be similar levels but here I had the mixed class from hell: different levels, different age groups and different interests. Hell! Hell! Hell!

And, the girl was making me particularly nervous because she could articulate my crapness to my face, if she so felt.

“So each of you ask me three questions?” I said. This was classic time-wasting for people like myself who didn’t know where to start. I was actually justified in not knowing how to proceed because of my imbalanced class, but, unfortunately, as I needed the work I couldn’t walk out.

“Start with Simon.” Simon was the son.

Simon to his sister: “Ta suo shir ma.(What did he say?)”

“Ne wen ta 3 ge wen ti. (Ask him three questions?)” she replied.

“Shir ma wen ti? (What questions?)” It wasn’t all Simon’s fault, his mother and the education system hadn’t exactly worked on growing his initiative.

“Don’t speak Chinese please…Simon, ask me a question?” I pushed. One minute of awkward silence later and with energy levels dissipated to zero, I gave up.

“Okay, How old are you?” I asked.

“What did he say?” said Simon.

“He asked you, how old you are?” said the sister trying to be cooperative by speaking in English….“Ne je suei” Father not.

“So how old are you?” I repeated.

Five minutes later and under pain of death from sister and mother. “Fourteen”

“Good. What do you like to do?”

“….” In response to life’s pressures the boy had developed a go-slow technique that could hold back the sands of time and suck the energy from exploding hydrogen bombs…All the while the father sat expressionless and his sister smiled to deal with her inner excess of impatience.

“So why don’t you ask your father a question?” God that is so stupid, I thought, but all I was trying to do now was last the hour.

“Will you pay for me to study for my MBA?” asked Eva. When she repeated the question a minute later, her father gave her a look that unequivocally stated he didn’t want to discuss it now.

“See what he is like. I have given him a lot of face by getting into the best university in the country and he-”

“Let’s move on,” I said. This was beginning to sound like his family back home so the only thing was to do something from the motivated son’s textbook, a bit of pronunciation would pass the time.

I read a word I knew he wouldn’t get. “Garage.”

“Gara G,” he repeated.

“No! Orange…garage.”

“OranG…garaG.”

No, not oranG, but orange.”

“…oran G” Five minutes later and I had his tongue out – like that was going to fuckin’ help – and was pronouncing at dead slow - “gar…age’- which was also pointless because nobody spoke that slow in the real world, and I should’ve moved on. I wanted to tell them: ‘Yes, I fucking know I am a useless twat and I should have given up and moved on from this along time ago, but to fucking what? This means I don’t have to think, I can use your crapness to cover my own.’

“I have a question regarding the use of the present perfect and past perfect…” said the daughter.

“I am sure you do,” I replied. And, unfortunately, as I feared, I didn’t have a clue how to answer, having to pull my weight as the teacher just to get out of their house.

Finished for the day I bought a small bottle of whiskey from the convenience store and sat in the park. I had just orchestrated stagnation, boredom, misunderstanding and inertia that would make David Brent proud. Yes, it was in fact impossible to teach that class but being a desperate bastard I couldn’t say no to the money. Worse I left a local with the knowledge she spoke better fucking English than me - And worse still, they wanted another class next week and no doubt I would turn up. I wasn’t adapting well to being a happy smiley teacher. I don’t know if I was cut out to be a children’s TV presenter and I disliked being ordered around by middle-aged Taiwanese women. I needed to go to a football match or something where I could swear and shout and be macho.

All he needed now was one of his students from the Kindergarten to walk by with their mother -

“Hello, teacher Dan,” called Emily, one of my four year olds.

“Hello Emily,” I called back desperately trying to hide the bottle of whiskey and so tipping it on my jeans.

I dragged myself up and thought about going back to the hostel.

Suddenly my phone rang.

“Hi, this is Jessica,” said the voice.

I had dated Jessica a couple of times and then kind of forgot to call her for a few weeks. “Hi,” I said. “How are you? What are you up to?”

“Ok, uh…um…That is why I call you. I want to say, I don’t think I perform very well last time. Um, if you want to meet again, I can do better.”

I was of course taken back. “That is ok…No problem...Well, lets meet up now.” I said.

And that was the bargain that is Taiwan: during the day having our macho credentials bashed teaching English, and then at night reinforced by local girls.

Taiwan lifestyle: The marlboro girls

One of the biggest reasons why we loved Taiwan was the women, but it could be a double-edged sword.

New guys in Taiwan always asked why the crap architecture didn’t bother us anymore, and, it was because we had already readjusted our sights to the thousands of perfectly manicured, slim, hip-wiggling girls that went by. That was our scenery. But it could be a problem, because we were never satisfied: maybe, you went to an orgy the night before and were now outside on the street spent and satisfied waiting for a taxi, then something would walk by to get you all desired up again.

On this particular Saturday evening we were sat in the bar thinking not much was going on, and this was a good thing: we could go home early and actually do something with our Sunday. Unfortunately, then the Carlsberg girls walked in.

You have heard of the showgirls that you get at the electronics and car shows throughout Asia? Well, all the big cigarette and alcohol companies hired the same girls to wander from bar to bar every night in white cowboy uniforms with short skirts and boots or silver space girl outfits to promote their drinks. Contrary to stereotypes about Taiwan, invariably they were all university students who were bright, mannered and infectiously upbeat, viewing the job as learning about public relations or sales. We flirted with them and were not told where to go – and that got us excited. Now, we would be dragging ourselves home at eight in the morning after the disco ended.

I decided to call a number instead. “You want to meet at the hotel?” I said.

“Hao a,” she replied. I loved this girl’s repressed indifference: ‘hao a’ meant ‘why not’; but that was not the end of it, her tone was all passive, well I’ll go along I suppose, got nothing better to do, anyhow shouldn’t make a lot of difference to me either way, doesn’t sound much of an idea, got no real opinion so whatever. And the great thing about it all was she was going off to a hotel to be unfaithful to her fiancé and it was only the 2nd time in her life she had done such a thing.

Some two hours later: “I’ll give you a call sometime,” I said as we mounted our separate motorbikes.

“Hao (Okay),” she replied. I was surprised, it was barely perceptible, but there was a hint of ‘give a shit’ about her answer.

Taiwan lifestyle: Taiwan is not the best place to save money

Taiwan wasn’t the best place to come to if you wanted to save money. It was not that work wasn’t available, it is just the temptations of women, cheap beer and mountains were too great.

This contradiction was at its worst in the summer: it was the best time to earn money if you were teaching and it was also the best time not to be working. Feeling guilty about not having saved any money I signed myself up for packed summer of teaching determined to be a good boy.

The summer holidays were of course the best time for earning teaching dollars because the government schools closed and the private ones would have to take up the slack.

For an idea of the length of a school year in Taiwan think a Premiership Football season, significant progress in the Cup competitions domestic and European, plus a couple of summer tours with a world cup in between.

In order to fill my schedule I volunteered for the morning class that nobody wanted. It was not for the faint hearted: Monday through Friday from 9-12 for 3 months, a bunch of blurry eyed, angry kids who hadn’t sleep enough (they never go to bed in Taiwan before 12 o’clock on a normal school day and this was a holiday) were dragged through the door by their grandparents.

(A side note: grandparents didn’t get to see their grandchildren when it suited them, they were obliged to take care of them full-time. When they were babies they would take care of them from Monday to Friday only returning them to the parents at the weekend. Then when they were old enough to go to kindergarten, their duties became ferrying them from school to school.)

Things were made worse still because the schools forgot all their rules about assigning based on age and ability because they were oversubscribed and they could.

The children were rarely openly defiant instead, they compromised, opting only to stop moving or talking when the teacher was addressing them directly. Once I had turned my attention to the kids sitting next to them they carried on.

About three weeks into my two months of forty-five hours a week, I was beginning to lose it.

On this particular day the sky was clear and my friends were determined to make me suffer.

I got a call from Eric at around twelve, midday - just three hours into my nine for the day.

“Hey, man. What are you doing for lunch?” he asked. “You want to go up to Yangmingshan? It is a great day.”

“I have half an hour, today. Same as yesterday when you called,” I said. “Stop taking the piss.”

“Sorry, man. Today is a different day. Maybe you saw the weather and phoned in sick….Anyway, Yangmingshan is past you so I’ll meet you for lunch. Nothing else to do…”

Fucking bastard, I thought. I knew it was a fantastic day, and there was nothing better than applying your sun cream and driving around the mountains, breathing the fresh air, feeling the cool breeze on your skin instead of the constant sauna that was the city.

“Hey, man. Let’s eat somewhere cheap?” said Eric as he arrived. “I spotted a dumpling house just around the corner.”

“Whatever,” I said although I was thinking about going to a coffee shop where they had comfortable chairs not stools. The bill in the coffee shop would only be about 150NT each, but Eric was thinking more on the lines of 40NT.

We walked up the alley. It was the hottest time. The sun reflected off the humidity in the air and the cars and apartments either side were given a slightly surreal look; as if viewed through steam. The women coming out of the kindergarten and nearby shops and offices were carrying parasols, or wearing jackets to protect themselves from the sun. There was a little park at the end of the road and I stared longingly at the bench. I felt the sweat drip down my back. This weather just cried out for a trip to a swimming pool. I was English, and that only made it harder: these Californians and Southern Europeans had sun at home; they didn’t understand the English need to spend every minute under the sun.

We arrived at the shop and took up positions on a couple of stools at the corner of a table filled with locals quickly wolfing down their cheap boiled dumplings.

“You coming out Friday night,” I asked.

“Sorry, a little short of cash,” he answered.

“You never have any money,”

“Yeah, man, but this is special – I have been eating fucking dumplings for a week. And, I don’t mean dumpling-shop poor, but packets of frozen dumplings from the Welcome supermarket.”

For 60 NT, from a street vendor, you could buy enough dumplings to fill up a Samoan, so if you needed to buy from the supermarket…

“Anyway, didn’t I give you a student? Four hours a week, 900 an hour.”

“That didn’t work out!” Eric had turned sheepish.

“And why is that?”

“She used me. I was seduced. She kept wearing those little shorts - you know the ones.”

“The type you wear when it is 38 degrees and extremely humid, and you are relaxing at home.”

Eric knew he had been a complete idiot: he needed the money more than the girl, but her four hours a week of expensive English lessons had become many more for nothing.

“That is the last time, matey boy - I will lose face over that…Anyway, where are you going,” I said to torture myself.

“I heard there is a free hot spring somewhere in the park. If not I will sit by the river with a couple of cans of Taiwan beer and study.”

Eric continued, “You?” he asked with a smirk.

“I have another seven hours left to teach.”

“Harsh, man. You have to learn to take it easy. Live a little.”

“Hmm, we have been through that one,” I said. “I am saving money.” I paused for a second. “Right, I have to prepare for the afternoon’s class. You get the fuck off and stop torturing me.”

I walked back to the school dreading walking through the doors into that mass of artificial light, and concrete. God I was missing my old lifestyle that Eric and Pierre were still enjoying. It was a fantastic quality of life: great food for cheap, minimal transport costs, and, most importantly, some girl, who because she wanted to practice her English or wrongly believed you wanted to make her life like a bed of roses, was prepared to sleep with you.

As the two hour class for the afternoon was fruit, we managed to draw fruit, pretend to eat fruit, sing about fruit, guess the fruit from colors and shapes. I forget actually what else we did to pass the time…

At three o’clock I got on my bike and headed into the city center for a private student – on the way trying not to look at the scantily clad betel nut girls. The day was getting tougher.

Suddenly my phone rang and my three-thirty was canceling. I sat by the side of the road and considered my options. Actually being left with two hours to kill was a pain: going home was an option, but it would take half an hour to get home and then half an hour to my other student. I could sit on my bed with the aircon on, but it hardly felt worth it for one hour, and it would mean I would take a shower and change clothes and then the last thing you wanted to do was get back out in that traffic. I decided to hang around outside instead. Sit in a coffee shop and eat my dinner slowly.

I taught my next student in the Seattle Coffee Shop on Chong Hsiao so I decided to head to Sogo to have something to eat in the basement.

I knew I was going to have the combo meat set from that Japanese chain store, Yoshinoya, but still I did a circuit of all food outlets. The four walls of the basement were lined with small food outlets, each no more than about six feet across. The soup with the Japanese noodles was excellent but the meat was never enough, the Taiwanese oyster pancake looked good but I still hadn’t learned to say it in Chinese and I couldn’t be bothered to try; the Cantonese duck was great but a little greasy, as were all of the stir-fried dishes. MacDonalds and Kentucky I had already had several times this week. Finally, I arrived at the Yoshinoya and pointed at the big plastic specimen meal under the glass counter - A big bowl of rice with strips of chicken, beef and pork on the top covered in sweet soy.

“Do you want the set?” asked the assistant.

“Yes,” I replied. The set included ice lemon tea, a portion of steamed egg with shrimp inside, and a little saucer of Japanese pickled ginger and radish.

I took my tray and looked for a seat. That was the problem coming here - there were hundreds of seats in the center of the floor but most were occupied.

“Sorry,” I said and squeezed my knees under the table next to a mother with a couple of kids.

“No problem,” the mother replied, and then I watched them watching me use chopsticks.

It wasn't a smart move coming here. It was seven o’clock so all around were shop girls finishing their shift upstairs and office girls having dinner before spending the rest of the evening wandering around upstairs looking at clothes.

It was summer so the Taiwanese girl was being displayed in her full glory. What did I mean by that? – Taiwanese girls were petite which meant when they were wearing their big coats in winter their body shape was hidden; now, in their low-rider jeans, short skirts, flat scandals and sports vests their lean shoulders, flat stomach and slim legs were apparent and intoxicating.

Since I started teaching forty-five hours a week, I had stopped chasing in favor of fuck partners and girlfriends of convenience, usually young students - students had time on their hands and you could call up in the afternoon if you had a cancellation, or late in the evening if you had a cancelled morning class the next day. Office girls weren't a good option: they worked so hard, they always wanted to meet on Friday or Saturday nights when i wanted to go to the bar.

I treated the student girls nicely: they got free English lessons, and I would genuinely help them to fill out that application for studying abroad, or answer questions for their TOEFL. If everything went well, I would stay with said girl until she left for Canada or America, and even answer her emails for a couple of months until she found another boyfriend.

A bunch of girls in black dresses and high heels sat down at the table to my left, and by their white complexions and heavy mascara I assumed they were just having some breakfast before going to work.

Twenty minutes later these girls finished their food and got up. I decided to leave as well. They went left, the same direction as me, so I continued behind them across Dunhwa South Road; they then soon took the left into Minchuan Department Store and started queuing at the elevator. I had been to the MTV on the seventh floor many times, so even though I didn’t follow them and see what floor number they pressed, I had confidence they were going to the KTV on the eighth floor. I hissed, feeling the want consume my body, before walking to the coffee shop to meet my student.

“Have you done your homework?” I asked.

“Yesterday, my work very busy - go to see client.”

“Yesterday, you were very busy because you went to see a client, yes? Past tense of go is went, past tense of is…” hold on he didn’t even use the be verb, I thought but anyway, “past tense of is, is ‘was.’” Besides he had had one week to do his homework so what did it have to do with yesterday?

“Yes, yesterday, because I go see client, I very busy.”

“I think we need to do some grammar practice, concentrate on making our sentences more accurate. I give you a verb and you give me a past tense sentence.”

“I know past tense. I want study conversation.”

“This is conversation -” I said.

One of the problems of trying to keep a busy schedule was this kind of student. I had an empty slot on a Tuesday night and had taken an adult student against my better judgment. I didn’t like to teach adults because: classes were slow, they didn’t learn as fast as kids, and, most importantly, when they kept making the same mistake or didn’t do their homework, you just had to smile sweetly, because they were adults after all. To be fair adults could be broken down further: housewives, students and women in general came to learn. This type of student was the worse kind: male, forties, businessman; they were always late, never did their homework, and invariably wanted to study conversation. This was the great buzzword that got adult Taiwanese flocking into schools by the thousands handing over their hard earned cash: ‘You studied writing and grammar in schools so all you need is a chance to practice. We will get you a foreign teacher for conversation,’ went the sales pitch. Unfortunately, they had only learnt how to write ok grammar. Their terrible bad habits when they spoke could only be ironed out by relearning the rules and oral practice, something they were convinced was unnecessary.

“So what does your company do?”

“My company sell car brake.”

“Your company sells car brakes. Who do you sell to? Where are your clients from?”

“Many client! Yesterday, they come from Japanese.”

“You have many clients. Yesterday’s clients were from Japan. Japan is the country, Japanese is the person.”

“Okay…uh...yesterday, we go…” It was going to be a long evening, as usual.

After class I made up my mind to give the student to Eric, who enjoyed teaching adult conversation classes; no preparation, sitting and watching the clock teaching.

Class was over at ten o’clock, and I ambled back to Sogo to find my motorbike, looking around longingly. I knew I should go to bed, as I was three weeks into a forty-five hour week schedule, but I was pushing myself hard, and the offset to that was to seek more powerful kicks to take your mind off the day job. I understood why brokers were coked up all the time.

The choice was to get really drunk, get in a fight or pick up a girl. Getting laid was clearly the most constructive of these. I thought about who to call. Who would come around immediately?

That would be the best thing to do, I thought as he drove past a brothel on Linsen South Road, on the way back to the hostel. I didn’t have a lot of time, and I was looking for a cheap kick, just pay my 3,000NT and get things done. I circled back to go past the place slowly, stopping outside. It had a smoked glass door so I had to wait for someone to walk past and step on the mat to open it. Sat downstairs were four middle aged women with the usual bad tight perm, casually watching TV. I searched for a young one, but nothing under thirty.
I ain’t paying for that I decided…Fuck.

I had just revved my motorbike to get back into the traffic when a taxi abruptly stopped directly in front of me…Hmm…Two minutes later the taxi was still there…I beeped my horn…I beeped my horn louder…The taxi still didn’t move…I looked at the taxi driver and beeped again even louder…Still no response…Hmm, there is of course that option, I thought. I have been cut off by taxis and cars for more than a year, and I haven’t punched any out because I would be in a constant fight, still, on reflection, it wouldn’t hurt to take out my frustration on one of them.

I took another look at the guy and he was a middle-aged man, and his audacity – and stupidity – because he must be able to see how big I was made me angrier. I turned off my scooter, dismounted, and make his way around the boot of the car, the adrenalin was starting to build up…Nah, I decided, and walked back around to my motorbike peddling it backwards. There were too many variables out of my control: the police could arrive, and I could spend the night in a cell. I wanted something I could start and finish in the next hour. Get to sleep by twelve.

“Hey, Pierre,” I said bumping into him coming out of the hotel where we lived. “Where are you going?”

“Bit of business to solve,” said Pierre.

“Alright, mate,” said John. “Hey, got any women who are no questions asked type, will be around in twenty minutes. You know I am a busy man.”

“Why don’t you go to that whorehouse down the road? That is what I always do.”

“Those old skanks? I don’t know whether they want to suck me off or straighten my collar. I thought about going in but it just felt like I was intruding on one of me mother’s Tupperware parties.”

“Very nice! They know what they are doing…How to provide ze service.”

“Your right,” I said.

This old, therefore, provides a service bollocks is bullshit. Yes, when I was 14 and clueless, I wanted my mate’s mother to broaden her legs and my horizons; I thought ink she was gonna take me on a magical ecstasy tour – but then I grew up, and realized there is such a thing as a bad fuck, but they are mostly the same, with location, fitness of said bird, and atmosphere being more important. I haven’t really experienced anything new from the box of tricks in a while.

Pierre stopped and turned around. “I have something for you. Just go home. Take a shower and I will sort it out…Don’t worry, it is not a whore…well, not one that charges anyway.”

Twenty minutes later I was sat on his bed waiting. I had just gone downstairs to buy some condoms, a bottle of water and some beer – and had turned the TV to MTV (something neutral; prevent the neighbors from hearing through the wall). Life was good again. Today had been a bad day: it had rained the last few days so the pollution had been cleared away. Tomorrow it would start to build up again, and in a couple of days the sky would be cloudy again and I would be thinking about how it was best I was in work. At the end of the week he would be half way through my marathon summer schedule. I congratulated myself for not punching anyone. I was going to get laid; make an excuse to get rid of her and then be asleep by twelve, ready and refreshed for tomorrow’s ten hour day.

“Very pretty,” I said opening the door. “What is your name?”

“Claudette,” she replied.

Most girls had an English name so it was fun and exciting to get a French groupie - I guessed she could also speak the language of love.

“Pierre said you would like to meet a Taiwanese girl. You are lonely in Taiwan, and you would like to talk.”

I smiled, “That is right.”

One hour later: “Yes, a good start. I know you foreigners like to fuck - satisfy a woman. Come on. Drink some water and then make love to me again.”

Hmm, not me, I thought, once is enough to get my frustration out.

I should tell her she had been watching too many movies, but then I always believed you shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds. I felt strangely responsible to not let down our stereotype.

I reached for the bottle of water and pointed at my soft dick to suggest she do something …Oh well, I wasn’t going to get any sleep.

...Fuck it is light. I have to get up in one hour. And I can’t even sleep that because that bottle of water was finished hours ago and I am parched…desperate for some more.

I headed for the shower, and scrubbed my body in slow-motion, enjoying cleaning myself as if he had just played football for four hours in driving rain and mud.

That fucking bastard Pierre…Then I looked down…Well, at least you are going to be out of action for a while.