Simpleton.
I’ve come to realize that I may be a bit of a simpleton.
It’s not the remarkable, memorable events that inspire me to write. Not the trip to Hualien with my school; not the Gaelic football games last weekend with the Hsinchu team; not last weekend’s dance-dance-dance nights. Not the Chinese class I just began on Tuesday.
No: it’s the bump-and-vomit sequence that wove its way into my ride home today at lunch. After coming out on the winning end of several swerving near misses for half of the ride, I found myself sitting at a red light. I was minding my own business when all of a sudden I felt the jerking ‘bump’ on my back tire and my scooter shot forward a few inches. While in Canada, I might have shot the driver a dirty look and a few crass words – I believe that it might have been at that moment that I perceived my hurdle over the culture shock hump – for I simply turned around, nodded, and moved my scooter forward a few inches. La-de-da… your regular ‘mini accident’.
Little did I know that I’d hardly hit the climax of the trip!
Further down the road I came to another stop, and as the light turned to green again, a scooter carrying two men shot by me on the left and swerved directly infront of me towards the right side of the road. The driver slowed down, sped up, wobbled a bit, and then, throwing his head sideways and to the right, released a mighty waterfall of vomit into the air, raining down on nearby cars and all over his friend on the back of the bike. He continued for a second heave before it occurred to him to stop the bike and let it out all in one place.
I just managed to veer out of harm’s way shaking with my bike in an uncontrollable fit of laughter – I must have sounded like a jackal based on the expression of pedestrians nearby.
I can now fairly compare driving in Taiwan to riding a rollercoaster.
What an interesting day! And on top of this, I left the classroom for one and a half hours after my kindergarteners asserted that they didn’t need me as a teacher anymore. Years must have gone by during their period of solitude (or perhaps, their grumbling stomachs spoke) – for they arranged themselves in a group near the middle of the second hour, apologized in teary unison and presented me with several homemade cards. Kids really are wise, aren’t they?
Dodgingly, Laura.
Tags: Taiwan Living
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