Cruising behind Cynthia and her boyfriend down a main road in Yilan County, I started thinking over possible names for my scooter. Instead I really ought to have been focusing on the road in order to remember how to get to school on Monday (learning the route being the purpose of our trip). I don’t think I missed on much, though, since it’s pretty much straight all the way, with a left (or right, depending on which school I’m going to) at the police station and a left by the tall pink apartments. I’m leaving out a few turns, but hopefully I’ll know them when I see them on my test ride tomorrow. In any case, when giving names to objects, I like to think of the most absurd possible, names you would never give another human being. Names like Olga, Hedwig, and Ursula, and I hope no one stumbling on this blog has an aunt by that name. So I thought of something along the lines of Gloria (the actual name now escapes me), when it occurred to me that this being Taiwan, I ought to give the scooter a Chinese name. Having had dinner with a colleague by the name of Golden Flower a couple nights ago, I came up with Jin Hu, aka Golden Monkey. Moneys are rather important animals in Chinese culture. There’s a year of the Monkey, not to mention a central character in one of the first and most renowned Chinese novels, Journey to the West (which, no, I have not read, but I mean to someday, along with The Brothers Karamazov). But why a golden monkey? I thought. “Monkey” seemed fitting enough, especially for a nippy little scooter, but “golden” was entirely unexplained. Jade might be a better idea, I figured. The Chinese are very into jade, and many people are named after it, such as one of my friends from Columbia. That would make the name Yu Hu. Yoohoo. I mentally giggled about that for about 50 meters, and then came to my senses. I could never grab, steer, park, or accelerate a Yoohoo and maintain my self-respect. My scooter is 125 CC and large enough to not be named after a chocolate beverage. Thinking back on my jade friend, I wondered why I didn’t just key in my scooter’s name to my own. Picking from my four characters, I figured Yang Hu would make the most sense, the Sun Monkey. But it just wasn’t that catchy. For that matter, I reasoned while checking my speed and balance, why not name it Zun Hu, Respectful Monkey, in anticipation of future successful driving and traffic compliance. Loser. And so I was back at Jin Hu, figuring that if I knew the name for silver, I might substitute that for Jin since my scooter is a silver-grey. With that, I refocused on the road and pensively wondered why my bike was bouncing and juddering along some of the pavement.
We arrived safely a few roads away from Wu Jie and stopped to get some food at a 7-11. I got off my bike and walked toward the store, at which point Cynthia turned to me and said her fiancée wanted to know why I was still wearing my helmet. “I don’t know,” I said, “I just forgot to take it off.” Well if you go into a 7-11 wearing a helmet, she said, they’ll think you’re trying to rob the store. Wearing the helmet makes it easier for you to get away quickly. I laughed and quickly removed mine. This is especially a concern, Cynthia continued to inform me, with banks and post offices, especially if the person is still wearing a scooter mask, in addition to the helmet. This was a lot of fun to hear, imagining the difficulties caused by a nation so fond of motorcycles. It was especially amusing given my first impressions of Taiwan’s scooter drivers as resembling suicide bombers, what with their helmets, sunglasses/visors, masks/handkerchiefs, jackets worn backward to minimize the added heat while getting protection against tanning, and squares of fabric pockets hung over the handles to make them easier to hold and possibly also anti-tanning devices. Question: who would rob a post office?
I am happy to report that I made it to and from the schools twice today without incident. Some things to work on are U-turns (more necessary than you’d think because of the two-part turn rule for left turns), keeping the brakes held firmly when stopped on a steep hill (nothing like sliding down a highway backwards on an open metal contraption), and making sure to brake with the left hand (rear wheel) before the right (front) to avoid flipping over. Also, sunscreen. I wore a long-sleeved t-shirt, which helped a lot. So now the two bright red strips of skin across the back of my hand (where the sleeves left off) look just a bit strange. In addition to the bottoms of my cheeks, causing me to fear I’m getting fat.
My only other accomplishments today were paying my phone bill (really just buying more minutes) so now I can make calls again instead of waiting for others to contact me, and finally watching the last half of 21.
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