My Taiwan Adventure

Another Gavin Saga

When travelling to Hualien I offered to teach Gavin one of the Taiwanese travelling games that I've learned from my students. The whole affair is basically elaborate hand clapping followed by a round of "Rock, Paper, Scissors," which is turned on it's head here and called "Paper, Scissors, Stone." The loser is either poked, tapped or slapped all depending on what your social status is with them. The more intimate you are with them the more you can get away with.

Teaching Gavin took a while. First, he was reluctant to play with me. Maybe he wasn't sure of his social status with me. *grins* Second his hands dwarf mine and getting them to do some of the slapping was kind of funny. Third, I think he was self-conscious of standing out on the train. Obviously any white person will stand out in this culture so I managed to convince him to be the social equivalent of a monkey with me. Eventually he caught on to the ritual and is deceptively good at "Paper, Scissors, Stone" so I ended up loosing - a lot.

To make a long story very short, we ended up entertaining a small Taiwanese girl and she took great delight in playing with first myself and then later on Gavin. However, she hesitated at punishing him when he lost, so I got the dubious duty of slapping, poking and grabbing his chin. Later on, after I had accidently tapped Gavin hard, she took to getting Gavin to punish me too. I think she had more fun watching the two of us poke each other on the nose, squeeze each others chins, and slap each others cheeks than she did playing the game. The three of us ended up giggling quite a lot... I have a photo of Gavin and the girl making faces together. It is one of many fond memories for me and quite possibly my best train ride ever.

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