Europe 2009

I'm on my way out of Taiwan now, so I can quit moaning about the Taipei Times and about AIT. Let's go back to where this sorry adventure started. Not that I am sorry about it, I should be proud, but I'm not allowed to be because of the constrictions of the environment, and the place I'm in.

Let's go back two years, to March 2009.

Here I am, living in a small European country. Fitting in as well as a wealthy not-quite-young but not-quite-middle-aged American can. Of course, I tried to learn the local language, but there's always an accent left. One of the reasons I got the job was my talent for languages. I could understand the locals as long as they didn't veer too far into dialect.

Anyway, I wasn't there for language studies. Infiltration was my hidden agenda. Publicly, I was a concerned American at the time we got a new president and you didn't have to pretend you were Canadian if you were really American. In Taiwan, when you say you're Canadian, people think of drug-dealing English teachers. In Europe, they think of an improved version of Americans.

So I was a local activist for more cycling paths, fewer cars, even if I drove a Mercedes myself, but the locals didn't find that a contradiction in terms. I was a good citizen, pretending to favor environmental and other soft-left causes. That was in my adopted hometown.

But I could travel to other parts of the country and adopt a rawer image. A health nut, a stark opponent of nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and animal exploitation for corporate greed. Of course, I took care to leave the Mercedes on the other part of town, inside an underground garage. I plotted the activists' illegal entry into nuclear power plants and NATO military bases. And I plotted their arrest as well. That was all part of the job.

My home life was pretty simple. No confusing women things, maybe my neighbors even thought I was gay, I don't know. A bit of gardening, which helped me getting rougher hands, useful with the eco crowd. Lots of Internet stuff, but hey, I was an American geek, right. I never paid much attention to news from Taiwan, or from anywhere else but the US and my adopted European home country. That all changed in April 2009.

AIT

You saw that AIT guy on TV last night, moaning again about how Taiwan should let in American beef?
Like this country isn't in trouble enough, it should worry about eating American beef instead of that awful Australian beef, do you hear me right?
They're so deep in financial, political, economical, military, societal, ethnic trouble, so Mister Wonderful AIT wants them to eat American beef.
They were right to warn me never to let those bums at AIT get anywhere close to my project. They may be Americans, but they're the softhearted, wimpy, useless, big mouth/big face/big no-no type of Americans.
The kind that people all around the world rightly object to and protest against. They're stuffing the big stick right in your face and they still think they're being subtle.
Anyway, AIT is almost behind me now. They chose this dreary, rainy day to tell me it's my last one. In Taiwan, that is. The weather will not help my mood, but it will certainly help me cover my tracks. Took my last pictures of the Taiwanese sunlight yesterday afternoon. Nice weather, but I thought I could venture out one last time by the river without raising any undue alarms. Everyone's at home sitting by the TV watching how this sorry episode of Taiwanese history is going to play out.
If AIT is at all involved, then it will be pointing in all the wrong directions. Not because I kept them gloriously uninformed of what I was up to in the first place, but because they're so full of beef.
Rough seas, rain, wind, cold. I better dress warmly, without letting on that I'm off on a nautical voyage. People like me leave Taiwan on airplanes, to Hong Kong, or even to China these days, ironically enough. Open doors. I'm gonna walk right through them, but in a different direction than they're expecting. Of course they'll be looking for people escaping. But they're not expecting someone who looks like me. And I'm not headed for China or the Philippines anyway. I just want to get deeper into the Pacific. The time is set, the place is in the hands of the people I meet in the dark.
I'm out of here. Forever. I'll forget about AIT. The American Institute in Taiwan. Right. They won't forget about me because there is nothing to forget. I never even met any of them, just got warned about them before I even reached Taiwan.
But that was on another continent again. Maybe that's where I need to begin my story.