Tai WANDER YEARS

I am an American technology worker who just moved to Taiwan.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Choose Toscana

I'll often be out and something quite mundane will occur and I'll make a comment to the unlucky soul sitting across from me to the effect of, "Wow, that would make good blog material". In Taiwan that may involve a guy on a scooter with a Chihuahua, live chicken, rice cooker, and a 20' extension ladder bungie corded to his back.

I am working in Europe right now which sort of shifts the scale, but I had dinner out tonight and three potential blog posts unravelled before my eyes and I've decided to just roll them into one long post, arguably only connected by chronology.

Blog fragment #1: Don't be a cocksucker

There is a restaurant nearby the hotel called, Antonio's, a very good Italian restaurant, the likes of which I have yet to find in Taipei. One of the secrets to Antonio's is he employs about a 50% Italian staff which includes my bartender for tonight, Allesandro. Allesandro started out as a hyper-talkative bartender which for me, being from Connecticut, is naturally tough to deal with but by the end of the evening, "Alle" and I were paisans.

Alle quickly asked me where I was from, which for the first time, became a complicated question. Identity is a strange thing (see blog fragment #2) and saying I was an American but I live in Taiwan brought about an onslaught of questions from Alle. Alle knows that the tunnel from the NE coast (somewhat near Fulong Beach) back in to Taipei is the 3rd longest tunnel in the world so I was not in a position to bullshit Alle about Taiwan and he asked a million and one questions. I was somewhat embarassed that he, perhaps knew more about Taiwan than I did, but that's something you learn to deal with being a travelling American. He grew slightly uncomfortable talking about himself and work but said that he wants to stabilize himself and then figure out "what he wants to do with his life". In bartender simplicity, he noted, "The important thing in life is not to be a cocksucker." Aside from any homophobic implications, I think he hit the nail on the head. I took it as similar to saying, "Don't be a jerk off" has nothing to do with masturbation.

Blog fragment #2: Identity crisis

So it seems now when people ask, "Where are you from?", it becomes a complicated question for me. Alle was much more interested in life in Taiwan vs. life in the U.S. I haven't watched American TV since life in Neihu back in May. I "live" in Taiwan, work partially in the Netherlands, still own a house in the U.S., and in some way, don't feel 100% at home in any of those places. I recently attended a series of orientation events involving Shirley's school and found it to be uncomfortably..."western", unlike my work environment. It's not like I'm ready to pull the trigger on changing my name to Bruce but I sort of feel like a stranger in a strange land. Everywhere.

Such must be the case for Alle. He seemed to be quite friendly with the Dutch patrons at the bar, even though he is from the Italian Alps. At one point a male customer came in and some old man rolled out of the back room (watching soccer games on a laptop so I was told) to give the guy the triple kiss on the cheek so it really is an Italian sort of place. I envy the ability to pull off the triple kiss, even just with a woman, not to mention a mention, a man. I had flashbacks of childhood life where on XMAS eve it was a real family fest. There was a sense of neighborhood where when people asked you where you were "from", it meant what part of town which also indicated your ethnic heritage. Now it's effectively like, "So which Starbucks do you go to?" Times have changed. One tough thing with Taiwan is you are ALWAYS on the outside, wei guo wren.

Blog fragment #3: Choosing sides

Choosing sides is an important lesson in life.  Only douchebags fail to pick sides. You can't root for the Yankees AND the Red Sox. One great thing about sports, regardless of where you live, regardless of what Seinfeld says, it is critical to pick sides. Teach them young. I asked Alle for a "red wine". He said, "I have a house wine, or I have a Toscana, it costs a little bit more." This is an opportunity to choose sides, you have to pick the Toscana. We spent the good part of 2 hours talking about everything from tunnels to women (ubiquitous bartender topic) to sports betting. Every once in a while, in between the chaos, Alle would duck in to the back room to check the football score on a laptop to see how his 26:1 parlay was working out. One could make a case that sports betting is for douchebags but I wasn't going there, not tonight. I had picked my side.

So these guys sit down at the end of the bar and Alle gives them the house vs. Toscana pitch and the guys insist on the house wine (bad idea) and Alle says, "C'mon man, I need to eat" to which one guy says, "You eat just fine." And at this point I could tell this would end badly. Of course, when it comes to wisdom, bartenders are a step behind Master Yoda and Alle was no exception as he retorts, "You must be German" and you could see these guys faces sink into their house wine. Then Alle looks at me and I started laughing, being one to pick sides and knowing who's side to pick. I thought it was genuinely funny that I was presented the same decision point but realized that there really was no "choice". As Henry Rollins would say, "your choice is fish".

Alle tried to make light of the whole thing but as they were walking to their table, head douchebag said, "nice tan". Living in Taiwan has made me more sensitive to race issues, though I don't think Italian is a "race". It is common in Taiwan to try and be as white as possible. I know in India, men advertise their daughters for "sale" in context of how fair skin they are. I had a Taiwanese guy send me a resume last week in which he indicated his blood type, as the Japanese identified the "feisty" Taiwanese by blood type during occupation and some companies still follow this biggoted practice.

So if identity crisis isn't enough of a problem we now have to worry about exactly how white white people are? I tend to think Germans get a bad rap because of things that happened 70 years ago and then this knucklehead at the bar enforces a "told you so" mentality.

In my fantasy world where people ask me what it is like to be a blogger I confess that blogging involves maintaining a personality that is an exaggerated form of yourself. One where I take real situations and embellish them with wit and sarcasm such as to make it entertaining to the reader but not a total abomination of the truth. I had such a post evolving at Antonio's tonight that then recoiled into a sense of true reality. I watched the line cook put out a plate of salmon and thought a good blog punchline would involve, "Only a douchebag orders the salmon at Antonio's" but the true wisdom in this post is: don't be a racist douchebag when a bartender who is slightly less white than you jokes about you not taking his suggestion, because in the end, he is faking like he's watching football in the back room when he is really stirring your Rumple Minze with his schwanz.

1 comment:

  1. Weren't the Germans and Italians on the same side? What's happened??

    ReplyDelete