During my weeks here, I came across some animal behaviour...of all kinds. In a few seconds it will be all clear to you what I am talking about. I would like to mention first that I do not follow the chronology of my observations.
When I say 'Taxi drivers in Istanbul', 'animal behaviour' should immediately pop into your mind! Why? Because they drive too fast, incorrect, aggressive, charge you too much and toot every two seconds. (True story) In comparison to the taxi drivers in Istanbul, I must say the taxi drivers in Taiwan have less animal behaviour like described above but still... To make it easy for myself, I will tar everyone with the same brush. You are all smart enough to know that the word 'everyone' has many meanings.
First of all, driving in Taipei is a skill in itself. You have to be able to not hit the scooters, pedestrians, stray dogs, stalls at the side of the road and the other cars of course. Besides that, you need to be able to understand the traffic rules and most importantly apply them like in almost every other country. I can tell you that some Taiwanese drivers are better than others in acquiring the skill and knowledge...
When we took a taxi home one night after partying in club LUXY, we just randomly picked one because..well they all look kind of the same and I am not the mentalist. Of course, we chose the wrong one. He was chewing the betel nut* while he was driving, was passing all cars from left, from right, then from left again, his favourite thing to do was drive over full white lines and that all at a speed that was three times the allowed. Alan (the Mexican guy) and me, we asked Ann (the Taiwanese girl) to tell him that he needed to slow down. We did not understand the conversation but we felt the tension rising inside the fusty taxi. Apparently he thought that he was driving well, like all the other taxi drivers. We decided to let him kiss our asses and changed to another taxi that was much better. I mean, taxi's enough..
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areca_nut (for more information about the betel nut)
Taiwanese have their own customs and habits, that is a fact but after a few weeks here in Taiwan I realized that adapting to another culture has its limits, at least when you are only experiencing the culture for two months. It is NOT impolite to slurp, smack and burp at the table. I call it animal behaviour. Something that would take years for me to get used to because if there is something I cannot handle, it is slurping and smacking and burping :/ :/ the ceremony of terror! It is also very normal to take a whole piece of meat with bones in your mouth and to lay the bones on the table with your mouth because if there is something they try to avoid it is touching the food with your hands. I say 'lay down' but some really spit it out with sound...:/ the ceremony of terror (part II).
There was also some animal behaviour of...well me and my friend...in the club..s. If you are going out in a club in a place you have never been before, where nobody knows you except your 3 other friends...animal behaviour is unstoppable! YOU ARE FREE! You do not care about the opinions of the locals, you just party till you drop, the sky is the limit! Dirty Dancing is nothing in comparison with what I saw these nights. I will not go into further detail on that. I prefer to keep some things between the Taipei club walls :). Oh I almost forgot: the animal behaviour of the local girls/women. What they are wearing when they go out.....unbelievable! Do you know the top that is a little longer than the normal top length but still way too short to wear it as a dress? Well, in Taiwan, some women do not get the picture. One girl was wearing that kind of "dress" where you were able to see here butt cheeks, imagine what you would see when she would rock the dance floor!
When someone tells you that you are behaving like an animal, it is most of the time not a good thing! Well, I went to the Taipei Zoo and I must say that a lot of animals do not behaving like these women in the clubs in Taipei...Their behaviour was pretty good and sometimes really funny. Ok, the slutty girls were also funny, but that aside for a moment. I saw the whole Zoo in 5 hours, can you imagine how big it must be? I saw he famous two panda's and the big penguins. But all the animals were a-ma-zing, especially the monkeys!
So animal behaviour, as you can see. I experienced some on my trip until now:
sometimes it makes you mad,
sometimes it is irritating
but sometimes it is to be taken literally and then it is just amazing to look at,
liberating when you behave yourself that way
and sometimes just funny
and if there is something that really makes you laugh,
just let it out because thát is good behaviour!
XieXie amigos. <3 you!
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