Defining "Aggression"

When I lived in Taiwan for almost five and a half years, the locals were always asking me, "Do you think Mainland China will invade Taiwan?" I was like... well, if they do, RISE UP AND KICK THEIR ASSES!

"But we have no oil, so maybe America will not help us."

Uh... I honestly think America and her allies (to a certain extent) are the ONLY ones that are standing up to China in this region. I think America is the ONLY country that is really keeping North Korea from getting even more out of hand than they already are. 'Cause it's not like the best buddy of the Lil' Kim Dynasty up north (China) is doing all that much to curb Northern Korean nuclear enthusiasm and periodic bouts of pure aggression and show stopping saber rattling.

In fact, I'd wager that if the US didn't have a strong military presence in the Asia Pacific region, there wouldn't be a democratic South Korea, Taiwan or Japan today at all!  So, the whole point about whether the US "would" help Taiwan in the event of the outbreak of hostilities with China is... well... kind of fear fueled BS to begin with.

But there seems to be a very, very deep seeded culture of fear in many places that is often very hard to describe, let alone fathom. People in Northeast Asia even seem to be especially afraid of taxi drivers! Sounds weird from a Western perspective, but from what I've been able to gather in China, Taiwan and now Korea, is that most people are just afraid to defend themselves in many ways that most native English speakers might take for granted.  At least Americans, anyway.  'Cause many of us are raised to truly believe that we indeed have rights, not just as US citizens, but that we also have "inalienable human rights."

Imagine that. Well, I happen to be one of those American citizens who sincerely believes that I do have rights.  I have the right to speak my mind because, like all unoppressed people, I have a right to have an opinion.  And more importantly, if I think things are out of balance, or society (ANY SOCIETY) is out of step or balance, I have the right to express my thinking on the matter.  But then... I was born in the United States, not communist led China.

But I digress.  But only just a little.  See, all the taxi drivers in Asia are reportedly supposed to be involved in organized crime.  You know, real rough and tough MAFIA BOYS!  Or... something like that. Actually, I think SOME of them ARE involved in some sort of organized crime, but we have to remember that what many Westerners may see as bribe taking and wide spread corruption is often business as usual in many parts of Asia. It's disgusting, I know, but this culture of fear in Northeast Asia - how certain people exploit it to their advantage, and how it has long fostered a social environment where people are easily bullied and taken advantage of - goes back literally centuries, upon centuries.

"Aggression."

In fact, I've had words with a few taxi drivers in Taiwan and Korea over the course of a total of roughly eleven years, and none of those guys has ever busted my knee caps, believe me. "PAPER TIGER," is an expression that I believe actually originated in Asia, and if you ever lived here for long, you'd probably understand why.

There is an awful lot of faking and posing here. The last taxi driver I dealt with here in Korea wasn't very tough, but he sure did try to be! On that day last year, I was just trying to pick up my then fiancee at the bus station. The taxi driver was apparently trying to get a fare, but since I was there with my car to pick her up, I thought he was just being a jerk by trying to cut abruptly in front of me with his car. But... I'VE DRIVEN IN TAIWAN AND KOREA... FOR SEVERAL YEARS... so I've learned a few things about how to deal with shitty, aggressive drivers, that they don't teach you back home in Missouri.

On that day, I maneuvered pretty quickly, and the reckless taxi driver wasn't able to get in front of me. And that probably pissed him off the most of all. Well, it was raining, so I just wanted to get up to the curb (because I was next in line and he was trying to cut in) so I could let my wife get in the car without stepping off onto the slippery rain soaked street.

Simple.

But... after I'd stopped and she'd gotten in, this  unnamed taxi driver fellow veered around me and zipped ahead until he had to stop at the traffic choked stop light where there were wall to wall cars waiting. By then, I'd actually forgotten what he'd tried to do, because honestly, in my own personal experience, many, many drivers in Northeast Asia seem to think there are no traffic rules or courtesies to follow.  So, "let it go," they tell you.  No use getting all worked up over the actions of a few idiots.  Right?

But then... I guess this "taxi man," or "king of the road," (as I like to call them) must have thought that he had plenty of time to get out of his car while we were all waiting at the red light. So he got out of the car and started shouting at me at the top of his lungs. He was just wailing away and waving his arms like an animal, so I rolled down my driver's side window, pointed straight at him and told him he'd damn well better get back in his car.

Of course, the taxi man continued to carry on, coming closer and closer to our vehicle.  So I continued to point and tell him, "Hey! Shithead! GET. BACK. IN. YOUR. CAR. NOW!" Well, he finally did, but the point is... he wasn't ever going to do anything except shoot his mouth off. And POSE, of course. He was a typical poser. Now... could he really have been a bad, bad person that I should eternally live in FEAR of? Maybe. But I sincerely doubt it.

But then... I began all this by saying that there is a deep seeded culture of fear in Asia, right?  I mean, if everybody in Asia is so chicken shat, then why did this guy go off like that when he was the one driving unsafely - AND being overtly aggressive?

Because he's a taxi driver!  He's got STRESS!  There are lots and lots and lots of taxi drivers in Asia.  There's a lot of competition for what little taxi fare there is to be had.  Further, it's terribly overpopulated, the streets are choked with cars everywhere you go and, quite often, the roads and driving conditions in general are just plain hideous.  Yes, driving or even just trying to get anywhere very far in Asia is often just simply a pathetic, stress filled ride to pure hell.

So, the man was a taxi driver.

So what?  Well, for another thing, many, many people in the Northeast Asian countries where I've lived, are not only very, very superstitious and tend to really buy into the idea that certain people are simply entitled to break the law based on their status, profession, for convenience, what have you, but their avoidance of everyones simple right to stand up for themselves really seems to dramatically increase the odds that they definitely will get bullied by all sorts of people in this horrifically lopsided, hierarchical society.

Superstition.  Fear.  So many people in Taiwan, China and South Korea that I've personally known really seem to believe way too much of the anxiety fueled, superfluous stuff everybody around them says. They don't check facts.  They just buy all the hype.  Hook, line and sinker.  But then, come to think of it, people are like that everywhere, right?  Yes.  But not everybody lives in a really, really densely populated place, do they?

So... to keep up his bad boy Mafioso taxi driver image, I suppose, this little taxi man had to threaten me in public to show what'll happen if the locals don't allow the corrupt, reckless driving taxi lords to run red lights, break any rule they please, and just generally drive around really recklessly.

Long story short, from the looks of him, I probably could have twisted this guy into a coat hanger in just a few minutes, but then... I am civilized.

And guess what? As proof of how pervasive this culture of fear in Asia is, and the fact that so many people here really only seem to care about what everybody else thinks.... Guess who got in trouble immediately after the incident? ME!  Yes, the then fiancee threatened to call the whole damn wedding off because I wouldn't let a taxi driver cut in front of me while she was waiting... without an umbrella... at the curbside... IN THE RAIN... at the bus stop.

Said she was "embarrassed" by my "aggression!" Yep. Mind you, I didn't get out of my vehicle or threaten this guy in any way, shape or form, UNTIL... he threatened me and my significant other.  Again, he was the one who got out of his car and came at us like a crazy man, flailing his fists! I, on the other hand, kept calm and stayed in the car. And yeah, I did call him a shithead, but he really was acting like one, and I only did that because he'd started going nuts and was both physically and verbally threatening me and my woman.

So... crisis averted.  And most importantly, I did not back down.  "Biting!"  As many Koreans are often heard to shout in sometimes heavily accented English. But they actually mean to say, "Fighting!" of course.

But not everybody is good at accents, right?  And at least they're learning some English.

And that brings me back to the title of this here "aggressive" little blog entry.  Now that I've lived in Korea almost as long as I once lived in Taiwan, I'd like to think that I've gotten a pretty good handle on the way both societies tend to work, and, in general, how most people within these respective societies tend to think.  At least, I certainly hope I've gotten the cultural expectations and patterns down as well as possible.  Well, at least as well as an "aggressive foreigner" ever truly could, that is.

So, in my observations over the years, living and working in both Taiwan and South Korea for half a decade each, I'd say that "fighting" is a lot more common in South Korea than it is in Taiwan.  Well... not really, but if you ask most Taiwanese what word immediately comes to mind when you drop the word 'Korea,' they'll say, "aggressive.  We think they're aggressive.  They have such bad tempers.  Maybe it's because they eat all that spicy food!"

Yep.

Well, I have no idea if eating a whole lot of spicy food makes a person more foul tempered or "aggressive" than certain individuals in any group of people tend to be, but I do know that while in Taiwan, I heard those specific stereotypes about Koreans an awful lot.  But... to be really fair,  when I've mentioned Taiwan to many Koreans, the words that they most often tossed around were, "lazy,"  "slow," "stupid," and "dirty."

Stereotypes!  What can ya say?

To be really fair though, I've known several Taiwanese who studied in Korea, or married a Korean spouse, or the other way around, and those little arrangements seemed to work out just fine.  At least as far as I know anyway.  I've even taught several half Korean, half Taiwanese kids in English classes.  And for the record, those kids don't malign the ethnic origin of either of their parents.  Well... at least, not to my knowledge.  Instead, one of them, a teenager, shot his mouth off about the US in my class one day in Taiwan.  Hey!  Equal opportunity stereotyping, I guess.

And most importantly, in a true democracy, everybody is entitled to voice their opinion.  And to express their true feelings?  Aren't they?  Well... unless your feelings are deemed to be too "aggressive" by some age old socially oppressive society, that is.  Ah!  Asian traditions.  But that's another topic for another time.

So... what about this "aggression," then?  Well, in the case of South Korea, I think a lot of the "aggression" I've seen while living here can simply be attributed to the fact that Korea is a rather overpopulated place to live.  On the other hand, so is Taiwan (where, I believe the population density is actually much higher than in Korea).  But... no Taiwanese kids EVER, in more than five years, EVER hit me with their fists, like many Korean kids have.  No Taiwanese kids EVER stuck their fingers up my butt when my back was turned, like many Korean kids honestly have.  EVER.  Meaning... NEVER.  Never ever, in fact.

But then, the Korean war never truly ended, right?  There's still an enormous amount of tension on this peninsula because only a cease fire was signed in 1953, not a real peace treaty.  And the Koreas are still very much divided, and South Koreans still live very much in fear of what might happen if North Korea attacks them.

Wait!  Now THERE'S a big similarity for you!  Just as South Koreans live in fear that the North will invade, Taiwanese live in fear that Mainland China will invade them!  Ah-ha!  It's all so clear now, isn't it?

Maybe not.  Overcrowding and constant competition for scarce breathing room and resources definitely would tend to make the best of us (from any country) sort of "aggressive" every now and then, wouldn't it?

I guess I'll have to give all this "aggression" some more thought.  Until then, PEACE on Earth and good will to ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE this holiday season.  Black, white, red, yellow or some beautiful shade of brown in between - I wish you all, every single one, all the best.

And... to that poor taxi driver who had to go around the block one more time because my wife did not indeed need to pay his taxi fare... and I indeed may have learned far too well how to drive defensively/offensively in Taiwan... I say, "Merry Christmas, taxi man!"  Or, "Lord of the Taxis."  Or... "King of the Road."  Or... whatever.  Peace, dude.

And stay in your damn car next time, buddy!  Not everyone in all those cars out there is a humble Asian who knows his little place in your fanciful little hierarchy.  'Cause you just never know when you're going to come face to pale face with the descendant of foul tempered Vikings - who may not be in the mood to back down when somebody tries to bully them.  Fear that, buddy.  Fear that.