as much as i love having pictures on this site, i would trade them all in for a short video clip of what happened to me last night: i had my first brush with the law! after six or seven weeks riding the motorbike everywhere, doing as the locals do, running red lights right in front of cops etc., i was finally pulled over for... actually i'm not sure what for. i was riding down Taichunggang Road, the main drag through Taichung, and wanted to turn right off it. seeing the traffic snarled up just ahead of me, i did what any self-respecting Taiwan dweller would have done: i rode up on the sidewalk to get around the jam. then i turned right against the red--apparently illegal here--but only after waiting for all the cross traffic to pass. it was safe as houses. when i straightened out and looked up i saw a guy with a small clipboard standing in the middle of the street waving his long arms at me. the arms should have tipped me off but i had to see the small police-issue scooter parked next to him before i realized i was being pulled over, or at least flagged down.
the look on his face when he started jabbering at me in Chinese told me he wasn't looking for a jump-start though, and my mad language skills notwithstanding, i had no idea what he was trying to say. i thought for a moment that he wanted to compliment me on my inventive use of the sidewalk, but then i figured he would probably use his clipboard to write me a ticket for not having my turn signal on. fortunately for the story, i did have my SARS mask on, and when i pulled it down to say "what?" the poor fellow was utterly crestfallen. he looked like he'd stepped in something of canine origin, and with pure disgust he just said "ugh, english." now, to properly picture this brief exchange, you have to imagine Mr Miyagi from the Karate Kid talking with all the gravelly contempt of the Godfather. it came out slow and scornful, "ugh, engerrish," like it was the throwdown line from a bad kung-fu movie. he dropped his long arms and stepped aside quickly, not wanting to have anything more to do with the engerrish. my language and i had been but the dirt on this officer's shoe, but we left feeling quite like a whole corps of diplomats. what a wonderful country.
the look on his face when he started jabbering at me in Chinese told me he wasn't looking for a jump-start though, and my mad language skills notwithstanding, i had no idea what he was trying to say. i thought for a moment that he wanted to compliment me on my inventive use of the sidewalk, but then i figured he would probably use his clipboard to write me a ticket for not having my turn signal on. fortunately for the story, i did have my SARS mask on, and when i pulled it down to say "what?" the poor fellow was utterly crestfallen. he looked like he'd stepped in something of canine origin, and with pure disgust he just said "ugh, english." now, to properly picture this brief exchange, you have to imagine Mr Miyagi from the Karate Kid talking with all the gravelly contempt of the Godfather. it came out slow and scornful, "ugh, engerrish," like it was the throwdown line from a bad kung-fu movie. he dropped his long arms and stepped aside quickly, not wanting to have anything more to do with the engerrish. my language and i had been but the dirt on this officer's shoe, but we left feeling quite like a whole corps of diplomats. what a wonderful country.
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