Stories about Taiwan

My friends would ask me what it is like dating a girl from Taiwan, and I would say, “You have watched Pulp Fiction of course. Well…Remember Bruce Willis’ character’s girlfriend. The one who lies on the bed talking about whether she has a belly or not – Who forgets to bring his watch and then [...]

Condoms were a no-no for some older women because it suggested you were planning to have sex, and you did it often. This is one of John’s stories. He had had a particularly bad class and started drinking beer from the 7/11 and hanging around on Chong Hsiao East Road, one of the most popular [...]

A couple of weeks after the condom ad we had the apartment building complex shoot. “Jesus. Why am I a waiter again?” complained Eric while we were on the way. “It is your fault, you choose to be the waiter in the bar ad,” answered Pierre. “Now you are type-cast. You Americans should understand that [...]

I was once recruited to do a condom ad. When i asked the agent why she wanted a foreigner, she explained it thus: abortion rates were among the highest in the world, and the condom manufacturer believed there was a market if he could get his message out. Unfortunately, when he had done an advert [...]

I  was in the living room with a book one recent Sunday afternoon and Char was out front with the cat when Eddie came up the walk.  He’s a Taiwanese man I met in 1977 when I lived in Pingtung City.   I was teaching English as an intern missionary, and Eddie was a veterinary student.  [...]

In the 1970’s an American pop song about a rural lawman, “The Sheriff of Boone County” contained the lyric, “You might outrun my old Chevrolet but you won’t outrun my old two-way”. It implied that though lawbreakers in that rural area had better cars than the sheriff, his two-way radio meant that he could arrange [...]

When I was a child in California a National Guard unit about 10 miles from my home often flew large silver cargo planes with orange on the tails and wing tips over the neighborhood on training flights. It being the height of the cold war, military stuff was common in the area. “Real” Air Force [...]