During the night, the rain came, subduing our plans for the day.
We were going to meet up with Irene’s friend Sam at some form of amusement park, but the weather forced a re-think. Instead Sam came here.
As always Sam brought puzzles and games to keep his mind occupied. He’s one of those interesting people you can watch and you can just see that his mind is always turning.
Irene’s brother, Johnny, told her that there was a Taipei city fireworks display this evening, so after a little research, Irene discovered the where and the when.
Speaking of Johnny, he’s working at a school now, but there’s already a “Johnny Huang” working there, so he’s adopted the english name of “Austin Huang”. I can’t bring myself to call him that because a musical 1950’s teenage jingle for “Johnny Austin” runs through my head every time I hear it. It beats the time he was trying to use the name, “Duff.” I don’t think I ever convinced him that’s slang for “ass”.
Anyway, we decided to get caught up in the politics of fireworks.
You see, there is a perception is that the privileged Chinese invaders who came to Taiwan after the communist revolution and their descendants live in Taipei. Meanwhile, the poor, repressed and downtrodden Taiwanese natives live in the southern parts. (my wife is half Chinese oppressor and half Taiwanese downtrodden.)
The current president is firmly of the southern folk, being from Tainan, really the first ever and since coming to power, national celebrations, such as the Lantern Festival and Double-10 are being “shopped around” the country to other cities. In the past, Taipei got everything.
For right or wrong, that means there hasn’t been a fireworks display in Taipei in five years and so the mayor of Taipei (and undoubted Chinese oppressor candidate for president in the next elections) arranged for a fireworks display last night for “Celebrating October.”
The display was slated to start at 9:00 and city busses were running from designated MRT stations starting at 5:00PM.
Michelle didn’t want to go, and as things turned out I was really glad, but we packed up James and headed out about 7:30.
These people love their fireworks, and the city grossly misestimated the load on the busses. Each bus was loaded by two doors and there was a 2 city block long line for each door. We managed to get on the bus at 8:20, it was packed to physical capacity, standing room only, no moving room whatsoever, and then we made another stop to pick up more passengers!
The traffic in the area was horrific, and the busses couldn’t move. At 8:50, 10 minutes early, while we were still on the bus, the fireworks started. And the densely packed crowd on the bus began to get anxious. Most of them were short enough to see the fireworks through the windows, when the buildings permitted it, but I was too tall.
When we finally were let off the bus, at 9:05, 45 minutes after getting on, and having travelled about 1 miles. The drop off point was still out of sight of the fireworks, and the crowd began to rush. The streets were thronging with rushing people, and then the fireworks started in earnest and the crowd started to run. Luckily they could only run 30 yards before they hit a solid wall of people, otherwise I’m sure this would have been on the news worldwide along with the people crushed for $50 iBooks.
I’m not a big fan of fireworks. They’re OK, but not something I’d make much effort to see. Irene has always told me how much more magnificent the fireworks displays in Taiwan are.
They aren’t. At least this one wasn’t, yet still the crowd ooooo’ed and ahhhhh’ed with each new burst. Then, as quickly as it began, and just as early, it ended, and the crowd dispersed.
Rather than brave the busses again, we decided to walk away from the scene before trying to catch a normal bus. Many other people had the same idea and we walked with a large crowd of people and scooters for over a mile before we reached Ximending station.
I hadn’t yet been to Ximending this trip and I was disappointed, but not too surprised, to see that Tower Records is gone although with seemingly all the other landmarks I’ve enjoyed in Taipei.
I’m sure Mayor Ma got himself a few votes tonight.
We stopped at McDonald’s on the way home and I tried the “Chicken Rice Burger” – that’s a chicken sandwich made with two compressed rice circles instead of bread. Irene tells me that it’s been so popular they’ve considered trying it in America.
Based on my experience, I’d say that was wishful thinking of the local press trying to make a “local boy makes it big” story. On the other hand, Ray Kroc supposedly once introduced some form of radish burger at McDonald’s that went over like… well, like you’d expect a radish burger to go over. Maybe it is true.
In this case the problem is that sandwiches in the form we know them have been doing just fine with bread for 250 years, there’s really no reason to use rice. It doesn’t hold together well and has to be served in a special wrapper so it won’t break up in your hands, and to my taster, just isn’t as flavorful as bread, either.
Well, here’s another entry where some spineless knucklehead will send me an anonymous comment calling me an tasteless American imperialist dog for liking western food better than Chinese, but, so be it. I do, and I’m not apologizing for it.