Is it just me, or is what happened here blatantly …
Is it just me, or is what happened here blatantly obvious? Some rich, well-connected asshole’s wife goes out driving their Mercedes even though she doesn’t even have a driver’s license. She and another car collide head-on, probably due to her lack of driving skill. Her five-month-old son, which she didn’t bother to restrain, put in the back seat or even buy a carseat for, dies of his injuries. What does the rich, well-connected asshole do? He goes and finds the driver of the other car, who is the hospital recovering from his injuries, drags him to the morgue and has him beat to death in front of his own mother. The guy was beaten twice at the hospital, whose staff were either paid to shut up and not notify the police, or else (more likely) the police are in said asshole’s pocket and just didn’t bother trying to protect the guy after the first or even the second beating. Then he threatens the guy’s family to shut up about it, and denies any involvement to the press.
I know, I know, this kind of thing happens all the time in a country where the rule of law is trumped by personal relations. I suppose the fact that a story like this is even reported shows some kind of progress. It also goes to show that DPP politicians have learned more than legislative fighting technique from the KMT*.
In other, less interesting yet more personal news, I was surprised when I walked out my door into the stairwell at noon yesterday to find it was actually warmer than in my apartment. When I got downstairs and out in the alley, it was warmer still, warm and sunny, a perfect late spring day. The sky was blue and the sun was hot, but Taiwanese buildings hold the cold so well everyone out on the street was dressed for chilly weather, which means heavy jackets, scarves, mittens, and of course blue sandals. Even today, which was also sunny and warm, you could tell the buildings were full of leftover frigid air.
Hsinchu was depressing, which isn’t exactly news. The weather was typical new year’s gloom, and the happiest thought I could muster was a vague satisfaction that I don’t live there any more. It was good to see my adopted family, though, even though being called “Ah-Bei” makes me feel old and the questions as to when I’m getting married are becoming more annoying. I actually got a seat on the train down, but it was standing room only all the way back.
Carnivorous Teddy Bear also came up to visit for a couple of days, and we spent time shopping for clothes and computer equipment (I got a new external hard drive as my old one crapped out on me). We then tested the limits of Teddy’s carnivore nature by going to an all-you-can-eat spicy hotpot restaurant in Gongguan. As always, he ate so much it frightened me, but a nasty stomach ache an hour later proved him mortal after all.
On Sunday, when I should have been out looking for places to move, I went go-carting with Shirzi, Graham, Caleb and some other people. I didn’t manage to quite flip the cart completely over this time around, though I did get it up on the wall. Shirzi’s annoying habit of t-boning other drivers left me with a sore ribcage.
Ok, enough pussy-footing around the subject: It is now the 16th, which means I have five days to find a new place. My landlady called me at work yesterday wanting to know if I had arranged the move yet, and she also hinted that I’d be facing a financial penalty if I was seen as “squatting” here. I looked at a nice apartment in a curiously unfinished 4-year-old building up the hill a ways the other day, but oddly enough I can’t get back in touch with the landlady. Many of the other places I’ve seen listed were snapped up before I could call.
I know what you’re thinking: I’m cutting it rather close, right? Yeah, but I’m sure something will come up. I know finding something like I have now at this price is next to impossible in such a short time period, if at all, but I’ll find a place, somehow.
*Notice I don’t use “Chinese Nationalist Party”, a term invented by the Taipei Times. Yes, I realize that it’s a translation of the party’s official name, but that’s not what you go by, you go by what they call themselves, not what you personally feel they should be called. The KMT refers to itself in English as the Kuomintang. The People First Party isn’t a direct tranlation of its Chinese name, and you could translate the DPP’s name in any number of ways. Why people don’t understand that this is blatant editorializing on the Time’s part I’ll never know. I suppose these people think that the build-up of puff pieces on Frank Hsieh before he was “chosen” to become premier and the plethora of articles damning Mayor Ma before he goes up for the KMT chairmanship are mere coincidences as well.
And Wang Jin-pyng thinks Lien should stay on as KMT chair? What the hell? How badly does Lien have to screw up to make these idiots realize he’s doing much, much more harm than good for the party? Maybe he should lose another election or two, or put his feet in his mouth a few more times. Either Wang is an idiot, a complete toad, or a rather unsubtle subversive sent from the green camp. I vote toad.
