Ping An 平安 ( Peace )
Summer, 1988 Jien Gwo Road Sec 3, Kaohsiung 7:30 pm
The sky was just blushing over the after dinner traffic. I was unsure that I was at the right bus stop, if the bus would stop, where it would go. Jio Ru Road, sec 3 runs pretty much - east west. To my right the last colors of sunset had just coalesced into the neon of the night. To my left, the promise of a full moon began to bleach the denim horizon.
All day the island breeze blows onshore, as the land is warmer than the sea. At night the island exhales. But this hour is the Sandhya, the yogic pause of breath between. The anabatic pause traps us in the residual heat, when Taiwan holds her breath in anticipation of the night.
Bus travel afforded me a chance to practice my Chinese. Motored traffic seemed so antisocial. It had been a long tiresome day of teaching English to local kids in Fengsan, an industrial and agrarian suburb of Kaohsiung. The traffic was backed up on the 2 lane road because of road work, construction and undoubtedly, an accident up ahead. In a classic display of “Might is Right” cars commandeered the motorcycle lane. Motorcycles dominated the sidewalk. Construction was everywhere. Freight trucks blended with farm vehicles and mothers on their scooters with their precious bundles of future inheritance bustling them off to supplementary school through the dust and diesel smoke.
Neon lights diffused by the smog offered sanctuary in temples dedicated to fashion, steak, seafood, alcohol, karaoke, betelnut,...
A solid crash of metal on metal brought me swiftly out of my CO2 induced meditation. A blue truck farmer smacked the back of a welder's light pickup truck. The vehicles locked together, bumper to grill work. The drivers exploded from their vehicles, both in their early thirties, half dressed and half drunk.
The road dirt clung to our gritty necks, sweat poured down their faces. Not a breeze blew but for the horns of the traffic. The stolid air wrapped round them like chain mail. Street lights glistened on their smooth hairless swarthy torsos as if pink body armor. As hostilities escalated farmer grabbed a pitch fork, welder leaped on his truck and came back with a long iron rod and they chased each other around. In an act of chivalry the women stood before to protect and behind to pull back their husbands. The jostling about of their combined weight was sufficient to loose the vehicles.
I heard all of the popular Taiwanese expletives peppered with sprays of red betel nut juice saliva. The stench of battle was rife in the air, only meters from my suburban gaze.
Amidst the clang – banging of farm implements, I can only guess what the wives are saying, from the direction of the pointing, gestures, intonation. “Get back in the car. Let's get out of here.”
“You bastard! Can't you drive?”
“ F--- your mother”
“You can't talk to my man that way!”
The trigger incident was long forgotten and they were all driven by the need to save face. The damage to the vehicles was minor, a headlight, a taillight. But the damage to the honor was was getting deeper with every blow.
Usually this sort of thing attracts a crowd who take sides until the larger crowd wins the argument - a sort of spontaneous people's court.
But these 2 were unapproachable. Like the Dance of Demons on Lantern Festival, they swung their weapons and flung invectives. Nobody dared to approach them with persuasive words.
I failed to find an experiential 'slot' to put this into. Why can't we just do rock, paper scissors and go home. Maybe this is the adult version of the game. There was nothing in my Occidental, Judeo-Christian background that lent a shred of understanding. I asked myself, ”What would Jesus do?”
I knew what Charlie Chaplain would do. I put on my most beatific face, timing my stride with their blows, I sidled into the fray, my road map before me like a shield. In broken Chinese I asked,”Excuse me, can you show me the way to the train station?”
One of the farmers turned politely to me, looked at my map and muttered incomprehensibly. Still I grunted, in agreement, while the other fellow mumbled aggressively amidst which I could make out 2 or 3 words, “ foreigner”...“we're busy”...
Seeing that the tempers had relaxed a bit, I thanked them both, and chose my parting salutation as an opportunity to pronounce a blessing on them, “Ping An” - peace.
Their women coaxed them back into their vehicles and they drove away into the night, leaving me to await a bus of which I was unsure. A looming moon smiled down from just above Bei-Da Wu Mountain, sending with it just a whisper of a wind.
Someone saved face tonight.
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