It's off to work we go

Here's a lazy stereotype; people in the 'East' are diligent, committed and hard-working, whereas people in the 'West' are decadent, louche layabouts who wouldn't know hard graft if it gave them a lengthy and tedious lecture on the subject. The hypothesis for this differing work ethic? It's the food, stupid.

Us whiteys, you see, have an excuse (don't we always?). Our forefathers grew wheat. Our society is founded on the principles of feast and fallow - a seasonal work pattern. We're used to being able to goof off for most of the year.

In Asia, their forefathers grew rice. Rice is a needy, insecure crop, requiring constant attention. As a result, Asian society is geared more toward a relentless grind, with long work hours and barely any national holidays.

Whatever the theory behind it, there's some truth in the stereotype here in Taiwan. People are putting in work here. Well, Taiwanese people are. Westerners are generally staying true to form, larking about and doing not-very-much.

The average Taiwanese worker puts in a 10-hour day, 6 days a week. No plaudits here for the 60-hour hero. Especially since those are the hours of a softy office worker. If you run a restaurant or a shop, your nose is pressed to the grindstone way longer than that. Most shops are open here until 10 or 11pm. And Christ knows when my betel-nut chewing cabbie last had 40 winks.

If I was in any doubt that the Taiwanese put a shift in, it was confirmed when I found myself drunkenly urinating in the men's facilities of a music festival in Kenting at 4am, while three fellows gave the entire lavatory a scrub up and hose down. If nothing else, it was nice to end an inebriated toilet trip with wet feet and know it might not be my own handy work.

And when the time comes for me to return to the UK, I hope I remember that we have it pretty good in Britain. Our forefathers in the labour movement definitely gave us one thing to be thankful for – 20 days of annual leave and some stonking bank holidays. Keep the red flag flying high...

Drilled

Remember "When the Wind Blows?"

Have you ever been so scared that you actually shit your knickers? No, I mean actually shit yourself.

I'm not talking about watching The Blair Witch Project, riding the Oblivion at Alton Towers when I was 14, or crying with fear whilst watching BBC's Ghostwatch in 1992. This was different. Scarier, probably.

This, for about ten minutes, was the real deal, folks. At 2pm on Wednesday 18^th May, an ear-piercing nuclear emergency siren split the Taipei air. It lasted for what felt like an age. All the while, me and my flat mates stared at each other across the kitchen table. When the wailing stopped, everything became silent. Cars froze in the street, bicycles were left in the road, pedestrians disappeared as they sought shelter in the closest building. The only noise you could hear was the sound of a policeman's whistle... well, that and my bowels being evacuated.

There were three of us in the house at the time. And we're all lucky enough to have no prior experience of pulling a face at each other that says, “so this is it then, you are the last people I'll see before I die”. And, just to let you know, when I thought I was about to kick the bucket, “a sense of amazing peace” did not wash over me. Instead, I was inflicted by a feeling that an utter wimp would get (confusion, panic, hysteria).

Thankfully, we pulled ourselves together enough to switch on the TV and call the tourist information hotline. They told us that, far from being on the end of an impending Chinese nuclear onslaught, we were in the middle of an emergency drill. The government wanted to “practise a bit”, in case we get a repeat performance of March's Fukushima earthquake.

But we, living in a bubble as we do, didn't know in advance. And now we each own a pair of dirty underpants. Thanks, Taiwan.

Kill em with kindness

Taiwanese breakfasty treats

While the western world goes increasingly nuts over Odd Future Wolf Gang - and “Kill Them All” becomes the meme of the year - Taiwan carries on killing me with kindness.

The latest episode happened last week, when my sister was visiting. Her first morning in our apartment after a late-night landing in Taipei, I ran downstairs to our local breakfast place to grab some take-out sustenance.

In my awkward, stuttering Chinese I ordered a load of Taiwanese delights. Four zhua bing (a thick pancake) with bacon and cheese on, two soy milk drinks and – obviously – some hash browns. No problem with the first two items, but through my uneducated ear came the bad news “we don't have hash browns, but we have mai wan”. “Hmmm, this mai wan sounds tasty!”, I thought. And so I asked, in Chinese, what it was...

Unbeknownst to me, mai wan is not an undiscovered morning delicacy. It means “sold out”. But the three kind ladies behind the counter mistook my enquiry for a translation request. My innocent question started a complete circus;

The staff behind the counter frantically interrogated each other. “I don't know in English!”, came the pained responses.

The lady who had been the target of my question grabbed the phone and started calling friends and family. Still no luck.

Free with every Taiwanese breakfast

In one final, desperate bid to get rid of me, one of the ladies ran to the noodle restaurant next door and grabbed the owner. Jimmy's English is pretty good and he managed to define the words, “they no more have”... “they out stock”.

It dawned on me, “Ah! They've sold out!” and, as one of the restaurant staff scribbled all this down on a piece of paper, three little Taiwanese kids – who I hadn't noticed until then – broke into a chorus,

“sold out!”

“sold out!”

“sold out!”

In Taiwan, it seems, they always go the extra mile. They wouldn't know complacency here if it couldn't be bothered to hit them in the face. And God bless Taiwan for it. It makes the life of this idiot so much better.