My Taiwan Adventure

The road was grimly grey and unfamiliar. A giant tapeworm, it wound through the bowels of Taipei rounding on itself in a never ending maze of twists and turns. I followed it diligently, having reassured myself that even after it fell of the end of my tattered and tape covered map that it would still be ChangDe Road. I choked on the fumes of a passing bus while getting intimate with a taxi bumper and squared my shoulders in defense of the manholes that appeared every 20 feet to jostle me and my scooter. My mission: Obtaining a local driver's license.

Gradually, the clustered shops thinned out and became automototive stores and helmet shops. This suburban scene was interrupted by giant school grounds and then the road stretched out before me. A solid ribbon of asphalt extending into the distance and I longed to open up my little scooter. However, the sight of a sign that read ChangeDe Road, Section 5 made me pull into the turning box on my right hand side in order to cross over to the Motor Vehicles Department.

Despite the grey day, the lung-filling exhaust fumes and the potholes I was optimistic. I had practiced my test online. I had diligently studied my printed hand guide on scooter licenses. It sported phrases like "The ster one ride, the stopping distance is further." That's a direct copy from the true and false section on page 28 of the manual. This one from page 21 made me scratch my head: "When you ride on curves, the faster you ride the centrifugal force makes it (1) bigger, (2) smaller, (3) unchanged." The correct answer is one. Hey, I learned to spell centrifugal from the manual so it's not all bad.

I carefully pulled up to the stark concrete building and parked, hoping that my scooter riding entrance wouldn't be noticed by someone waiting to give me a ticket. I meekly went through the left hand glass door, my eyes searching for some English sign of where I should go and what I should do. The plethora of signs only left me more confused than when I was standing outside staring at the monolith of a structure. I bucked up my courage and approached the lady behind the round counter in the center of a very square room. I smiled, she didn't smile back.

"I need a scooter license," here I pantomimed driving a scooter. Perhaps that was my fateful mistake, maybe she was insulted that I felt the need to use body language. As an English teacher it has become second nature to act out my sentences.

She leaned forward and shoved a half page white form covered in *gulp* Chinese characters at me and then snapped, "ARC."

I smile again, and stop staring at the Chinese form, to produce the precious green card. Is green the international colour for "you're allowed to live here?" I hand it to her with both hands because, in my mind, this is how you handle things that are valuable.

Her eyes narrow and she stares at the document before rummaging to her lower right hand side, producing a slim black binder. She flicks it open and scans the paper there before thrusting it on top of the counter and jabbing her finger at the writing, "Number two."

I read Number two... "Alien Residence Certificate [ARC] with validity of over one year. (the issued day to expired day must be over one year.)"

I look at her and smile hopefully again as she hands back my ARC. My precious ARC, the one that allows me the same rights as a resident. The one that took me 10 months of tap-dancing for the government to obtain. The one that surely, must be valid for a year because they don't issue ARC's for shorter contracts or I would have had one far earlier in my journeys. I already know that it is marginally short of the year long requirement but am hoping for some leniency of the law that seems to have bent far enough to issue this 356 day certificate instead of the standard 365.

I look at the card and puzzle over the numbers, playing a bit dumb for her benefit. Hoping that my obvious ineptitude will warm her bureaucratic heart towards this sweet, earnest foreigner who can't read the Chinese form. She isn't smiling and there is no tell-tale amusement in her posture. She doesn't even gloat openly as I gesture at the card and hand it back to her cocking my head to the side, a question in my eyes. "It isn't good?" I'm thinking I should have spoken to the man at the counter. Maybe he would have been charmed by my smile. This woman seems made of granite

Her lips twist in a sneer and she again looks at the card and says "twenty-five," jabbing her finger at the issuing date, then moving her finger an increment downwards, "fourteen," by the black expiry date. With a finality she tosses the card down in front of me. I smile a fake smile, my eyes glittering fiercely and take the card that has cost me so many hours of lost sleep and pointless travel and bureaucracy and carefully tuck it away. Solemnly I return my unmarked stark white form to the pile in front of the stern Asian woman. This day, my ARC is proving effectively useless to me.

I step outside and text my handler (not my boss, but a designated flogging boy who I get to vent upon at my convenience) letting him know that their NINE day oversight has cost me a driver's license. Inside, I am steaming at having worked two twelve hour days, phoning children to ask the same sentence pattern over and over, for free time only to have it wasted on this pointless exchange.

The law is absolute. I am nine days short of a residency permit to obtain a license. They would rather send me out the door to drive illegally than allow nine days of grace. Part of me wants to turn around and march back inside. Unfortunately, there are only two clerks and not a great number of people in the building. I have no way of blending in to the sparse crowd. My white skin and brown hair mark me as different. Instead, I march defiantly from the front doors to my scooter, my stiff shoulders shouting frustration at anyone watching my progress. I toss my things in the seat, stow my cell phone and drive away.

The roads suddenly feel poorly marked outside the Motor Vehicles Branch and I end up across the giant river in suburb of Taipei I don't want to be in. I'm sure I deliberately break numerous laws getting back to ChangDe Road. I am, after all, just a dumb foreigner in a country that doesn't want me. At best, a quasi-legal being and at worst a threat to their culture.

By the end of the drive back to familiar roads I have cooled enough to laugh about the whole experience. You have to be able to laugh here or you will loose what sanity you have. Saturday I met some people who are active in the human rights movement here and their stories can be hair-raising. My troubles are really are a laughing matter.

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