5000 Years of Civilization & You Still Can't Wait in Line?

Sure, I can totally understand how some Wal-Mart shoppers can sometimes feel rather annoyed while trying to navigate their shopping carts through those big, spacious (and in my opinion, mostly wonderful) stores - especially during the holiday season - but believe me, if you tend to feel "road rage" in big box department stores in America, then trying to go just about ANYWHERE in Asia on a daily basis will probably drive you to the nut house in the blink of an eye.

"Lack of personal space" is usually the number one cited annoyance for tourists and expats just trying to make sense of daily life in most countries in East Asia.  Sadly, there is not only no sense of personal space, there don't seem to be any clear protocols about which side of the sidewalk people should walk on in most Asian countries.  Even worse, people stand in and block doorways, and will just linger there, engaging in an extremely loud public greeting with someone else.  Sometimes, even full fledged conversations will be carried on for long periods of time in the middle of a public doorway.

As if that weren't enough, people in the region tend to rush into elevators before people trying to alight can even begin to get out.  Or they come to a sudden halt and stand and stare like a deer caught in headlights for long, long periods of time at the bottom and top of escalators.  Even more infuriating, groups of friends or even entire families will walk side by side down sidewalks, leaving no room whatsoever for anyone else to pass.  Oh sure, you can step down on the street momentarily to get around (which I had to do more times than I care to remember in Taiwan), but believe me, with the way Chinese traffic tends to be, you really don't want to take the very real chance that you might get struck by an oncoming motor vehicle.

The concept of queueing up seems particularly alien to the Chinese in particular, who will very quickly cut in front of you, unless you are practically close enough to lick the back of the head of the person in front of you while waiting in line at McDonald's, a bank or wherever.  And when subway doors open, it's every man for himself.  Pushing, shoving, you name it.  Is this what the "5000 years of civilization" that they're always bragging about has brought the Chinese people?

And don't even get me started on THE TANKS.  Well, they're actually baby strollers (often carrying kids that are much too old to still be pathetically squeezed into the seat), but people in China, Taiwan and Korea tend to use them as a way to guilt or even physically FORCE pedestrians to get out of their way.  So naturally, behind the wheel of a motor vehicle, quite a few Asians are the very definition of HELL ON WHEELS.

But you're supposed to PRETEND that none of these things are happening!  No matter how rude, obnoxious and just plain FOUL people may be behaving in public, you are supposed to just take it up the backside.  Day in and day out people endure these reckless, congested and uncouth conditions in Asia, to the point where many people seem to become profoundly passive aggressive.  As a result, all this pent up angst tends to cause people to behave in very odd ways sometimes.

I've had people deliberately slam right into me in Taiwan, while pretending that they didn't see me at all.  This happened so often in Taiwan, that I finally started to take my keys out of my pocket and firmly lodge the biggest one between the fingers of my tightly clenched fist and hold it out down at my side, so that, if anyone should happen to "accidentally" slam into me, they would not get away unscathed.  A good strong umbrella at your side also works wonders.  Umbrella or keys, after I started wielding subtle weapons like this, no Chinese ever managed to "accidentally" slam into me again.

Make no mistake about it.  Asia can be an incredibly infuriating, uncomfortable and just plain frustrating place to try to simply exist.  I long for the day when I can simply go back to the small town existence I once knew as boy in Southwest Missouri, where people tend to nod and say "hello," whether they know you or not.  I'm very happy to have a Korean wife, but believe me, Asia ain't no picnic.  And it certainly ain't no Shangrila.  Not by a long shot.

So before you decide to head East, young man (or woman), be forewarned.  Your home country may not be perfect, but East Asia is much, much less perfect that you may want to have to someday be forced to deal with.  There are no more Samurai or Ninjas running around over here anymore, and much of what Asians advertise is simply little more than face saving pretense.  And that's just the cold, hard truth of the matter, I'm afraid.

Mind Your Own Business, Mister!

Let's be perfectly honest, folks.  It's pretty darned hard to relieve oneself when there's someone (a Korean, in this case, just today) standing in the urinal right next to you, with his head turned directly towards you, staring you down - as if white people were some bizarre new breed of alien creature that they've never seen before.  Oh well.  To be quite honest, it was a kid in the next urinal over, and I haven't had this happen too often to me here in South Korea.  In fact, it happened a lot more often when I lived in Taiwan and Shanghai, China.

Once, at the train station in Chiayi, Taiwan, an old man was staring me down so hard while I was trying to drain the proverbial lizard, that I finally looked over at him, my eyes widened with obvious angst, and gave him a big shrug, while thinking (almost aloud), "What the hell do you want?"  Now, mind you, I would've just ignored this dude, the way I far too often had to in those days, but his eyes (and his entire head, really) kept bobbing up and down the whole time I was trying to pee.  His rude, quite unabashed gaze was going back and forth from my face to my... you know... MY FAMILY BUSINESS, over and over and over again.

Finally, I could stand it no more, so, as I frantically tried to pack in the family jewels and zip myself up, I turned from my own, not quite private enough urinal, and looked this block headed man squarely in the face.  "WHAT?" I half shouted.  He merely responded with a broad grin, his thumb suddenly thrust way up and croaked, "Goood!  Numba one!"

True story.  But damn... do I wish it wasn't.  In fact, I really wish it had never even happened.

Unfortunately, I've had far too many experiences like the one I relate above while living and working in Asia over the years.  Most Asians, I'm ashamed to say, simply do not seem to understand or at the very least, have much respect for the the concept of privacy.  Do most East Asians even have a basic understanding of the term?  Oh, I think they do, but it really doesn't mean the same thing to most Asians as it does to most Westerners.  I mean, personal space?  WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ANYWAY?

Again, as I mentioned previously, the... I'll call it "the penis peeking phenomenon" happened so often when I lived in Taiwan, that I really began to feel a great deal of trepidation every single time I had to relieve myself in a public place in all three of the major cities that I lived in Taiwan between 1997 and 2002.

So, one day, in, I believe Taipei, I was at an Italian restaurant (or rather, far from being authentic Italian, it was the kind of eatery one tends to find in Asia, that serves Western style dishes, mainly pasta and crappy pizza), I found myself needing to hit the lieu.  So I excused myself from present company and when I went into the typically tiny bathroom, there were of course only two standup urinals.  And since there was already a guy using one, my usual choice of which one to head for had already been made for me.

Being that I was in Taiwan (the Republic of CHINA, no less), I was a little surprised to find that the guy doing his business next to me was also Caucasian.  A tall fair haired guy, in fact.  So naturally, we both stood there in silence, answering the almighty call of nature that, like it or not, every man must pay heed to every now and then, come hell or high water.

Naturally, this guy was NOT looking at me, and I was NOT sneaking any creepy peeks at him.  But I think, out of his peripheral vision, he did notice that I was also a Westerner, so he sort of nodded in my direction.  I politely did the same in return, and seeing that he seemed like a decent fellow, I decided to ask him if he'd ever encountered this phenomenon in Asia, where the locals tried to sneak a peek at his foreign package.

"Oh!  You mean," he began in a pronounced Australian accent, "do I get the blokes here trying to look at what I got in my trousers?"

"Yeah!" I answered quickly.  I'd naturally prefaced my original inquiry by apologizing in advance for bothering him in such an awkward situation, but he seemed to be quite laid back about the whole thing so I was instantly quite relieved.  So, I guess, by asking a friendly expat, I was relieving myself upstairs as well as down!

I was of course, then doubly relieved when he answered in the affirmative.  "Oh yeah!  All the time, mate!"

"So, you've actually had that happen to you, too, here in Taiwan?  You've had a local person trying to look at your privates while you're just trying to take a piss?"

"Happens all the time, mate!  Happens all the time."

The two of us then had a good laugh at the absurdity of the whole conversation, and I think we exchanged details about a few other things, but by and large, that was about it.  But boy, I gotta tell ya, that awkward and really rather bizarre little conversation sure did make me feel better.  That was in the middle of the third year of my five and half years in Taiwan, and to be quite honest, prior to having lived in Taipei, I seldom ever saw other expats.  So, naturally, I was the only white (or rather, non-yellow) person around for hundreds of miles for days, months and even years on end most of the time.

So if you think there are no white people in the world who don't know what it's like to be a "minority," you're kidding yourself.  I personally know far, far too much about it.  And believe me, I really wish I didn't.