Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

May 12 2003

It’s become an internationally well-known fact: Ta…

It’s become an internationally well-known fact: Taiwan is full of selfish idiots:

“In Taiwan, a guy who’s caught drunk driving will refuse the breath test and curse the policeman to the third generation,” said Loh I-cheng, a jovial former deputy ambassador to the United States. “Everyone in Taiwan thinks he’s special and smart, so why should he observe the rules? He knows the police won’t strike him or arrest him.”

Exactly. Even now, after being bombarded with non-stop media reports that are way over the top warning about SARS, we still have people fleeing from the quarantined housing complex. A dentist in Kaohsiung died of it, and nobody knows how he got it. I’ll tell you how: some jerk-off who was supposed to be in quarantine decided to get his or her teeth cleaned after a day of shopping and public transportation-riding. The government says these people face “hefty fines” like the student who decided passing his chemistry exam was more important than people’s lives.

The streets seemed deserted yesterday, with about the same amount of people out that you’d see out and about in a medium-sized US city. Mindrime, Dean and I went to see X2 in the afternoon. There were about a dozen other people in the Estrogen Mall theater, but they still managed to distract me from the movie by talking through their masks and making phone calls. I had to wave my hand in front of one phone guy’s face to get him to shut the hell up. Probably all quarantine-breaking idiots, the way they were acting. it’s that kind of disregard for other people, that lethal combination of selfishness and stupidity that has made this society such an easy target, Taiwan Strait or no. Vietnam, the US, Canada and Japan all dealt with it. Hong Kong and Singapore are getting it under control, and no doubt being former British colonies is a tremendous help. China’s in a bad way because they’re even more socially fucked up than Taiwan, and they’re not nearly as advanced technologically either. Taiwan really has no excuse except for bad government management, lack of measures enforcement and rampant individual disregard for one’s fellow man. It’s devastating to see the havoc a few assholes can wreak in such a situation. This experience is going to follow Taiwan for years to come; there’s no fixing a reputation like the one it’s earning right now.

posted by Poagao at 6:58 am  

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