chicken

when i told my dad i was staying at the grand hotel in taipei he was impressed. “it’s for foreign dignitaries,” he told me.

well, maybe 30 years ago it was. now, this new york condo-like high-rise with quasi-chinese design flourishes serves mostly naïve tourists and as a reminder of a bygone era. when i was there, a ginormous banner hung at the top of the grand staircase leading up to the guest rooms welcoming the “17th world left handed golf championship.”

but the splendor hotel in taichung, where my meeting was held, was every bit the western luxury accommodation. there was even a multi-level supermall right across the street.

in comparison, the grand hotel felt like an aging starlet trying in vein to stay relevant. what made it worse is that it is almost impossible for an iconic building like that to age gracefully. passing through taipei on my way back, i decided to stay at a cookie-cutter chain instead, where the only things notable about the rooms were the bright-blue shag and a faint but persistent smell of disinfectant.

getting around in taiwan was a trip and a half too. cars and motorbikes zipped around each other in a perpetual game of chicken, and where to cross the road often felt like a matter of life or death. the couple of times we took a cab were also white-knuckle experiences; i could literally hear my crew gasping in the backseat.

wendy, who is from nashville and keeps a little running list of “weird shit” whenever she travels, noticed one driver who could see a small tv set in the back of the cab from his rare-view mirror.

after the meeting ended, several of us decided to pile into a minibus and head back to taipei. it was past 9pm when we got on the road and they were all out half an hour later, leaving only the driver and i awake. the driver didn’t talk much, but he was clearly in a bad mood and in a bigger hurry than we were to get back to taipei. as the bus weaved in and out of traffic, he would occasionally whip out his cell and curse under his breath at someone on the other end.

so there i was, alone in the dark with this fucking maniac, hoping we get pulled over, and debating if i should say something at the risk of pissing him off even more. i wimped out in the end because, um, i didn’t want my sleeping friends to freak out.

they have no idea how close they came to death that night on the minibus.

Posted by cellpharmer at January 26, 2007 01:16 AM