2011, Kaoshiung, Elevators

February 2011, Kaoshiung
Elevators

As I write this, I sit in a wheel chair at the famous and elegant E Dah hospital with a broken ankle. The B1 floor is a mini-mall with shops, fashion, cosmetics, beauty aids, restaurants, Subway sandwich shop and a 7 – 11. I go out with my wheel chair for a stroll, or roll, 3 times a day. The hallways are wide, marble and granite from the 4 corners of the globe. In the middle of the 1st floor lobby is a performance stage, with an automated self-playing baby grand piano monotonously rolling out renditions of fur Elise, Moonlight Sonata, and selections from Richard Clayderman. Placards on all sides invite people to listen but not to touch.

The elevators talk to you in 4 languages. Each wing on each floor has a “lighting room” with theater seating, large screen cable TV, ultra fast wifi, and spacious windows. This place was very well thought. I can imagine some people actually WANTING to be sick just so they could come here. It is a 5 Star hotel with nurses, also 5 star, I may add.

But one thing about class, it cannot be taught. The hospital is located far from the city on a cross roads of industrial and rural suburbs. The patients are mostly ruddy skinned farm and factory workers in stained, disheveled clothes. Paul Fussel, in his book “CLASS” presents a 5 part definition of class which includes personal wealth, intelligence, social connections, opportunity and last but by no means least, social consciousness.

I was waiting for the elevator with 4 or 5 other people. The door opened and the people barely waited for the others to disembark before elbowing each other to get on, not even yielding for an injured man in a wheel chair and a shriveled old woman on crutches.

While I waited for the next elevator, I recalled an event from years ago. I had a 4 bedroom apartment on Hoping Road in Kaohsiung in 1988. I shared the rooms with local people, hoping to have opportunity to build relationships and to understand more about the local culture, customs, language. One man interviewed for a room. He picked me up to have lunch. On the way out of his parking space, he knocked over an old woman on a bicycle spilling the contents of her basket. I waited a few seconds to see what he would do. He remained in the car and waited for her to get up. I opened the car door to help her. He motioned for me to stay in place and said,” Never mind. She is OK.”
“I'm going to help her.” I replied.
“I will,” he parried, with a sigh of resignation as he reluctantly got out of the car. How absolutely medieval, I thought. If I get out of the car and help her, I contribute to his loosing face. I will assume the posture of a Taiwanese and try to be concerned for his face.
He perfunctorily picked up her things and thrust them into the basket, “How-lah, how – lah. Mei-guan-hsi, mei-guan-hsi.” Never mind, never mind. He was completely without remorse about her bent basket, skinned knee and twisted handlebars and battered groceries.
Getting back in the car, he turned to me and said, “ Dwei buh chi,” I'm sorry. “Why do you apologize to me? You did not apologize to her. I have never seen anything so thoughtless, inconsiderate in a civilized country.“
I got out of the car.
“Where are you going?”
“The room is taken. It would be impossible for me to live under the same roof you. Good bye.”
“Why? What? “
“You have...no class.”
“Dzemme i suh?” What does that mean?
“Ni mei-yo-swei-dzun.” a Chinese language expression which carries the full connotation of a cold slap in the face.


ack in the hospital, the elevator door opened, I began to push my wheelchair into the elevator. The door began to close on my injured leg as the elevator announced in meticulous Japanese,” Doa ga tojite iru.” The door is closing. The thickness of the wall prevented me from reaching the elevator call button. So, I shifted my seat to thrust my hand in to activate the automatic stop. The door opened. I shifted my position to push the chair in. The door closed again. Again I thrust my hand into the door jam. The door opened. I positioned my self once again. I went through this cycle 4 times before a passersby held the call button for me.
"Thanks kindly."


Funny, I laughed, how after 22 years and billions of dollars of 21st century technology we have learned to program elevators to be just as inconsiderate as people.

Ping An 平安 ( Peace ) 1988 Jien Gwo Road sec 3, Kaohsiung 7 pm

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.