canadian psycho

Only locals here know that eighty per cent of Taiwan’s expat community is Canadian. There is about one Canadian for every roach in this city. Considering the levels of this infestation, it is impossible not to meet them – they’re everywhere. On every street corner, in every bar and restaurant, on the MRT, in the bus – and they’re always yelling “fuckin’ A,” or being revoltingly encouraging. I could be taking off my shoes at the door, and my Canadian manager will breeze past with a “you’re doing a great job there!” I’ve even seen an Aussie sporting the slogan: I’m a fuckin’ Canadian – yeah!

Despite their general goodwill, I had the unfortunate experience of share-housing with the original CANADIAN PSYCHO (CP). The thing about a real psychopath is that they look normal - they dress in civvies, go to work like everyone else, and leave chocolate bunny-face croissants outside your bedroom。At first CP was a fairly quiet roommate, who tried to keep his long, unrequited love for Miss Canada out of sight. The first release from his tormented bondage came just before my arrival, when he got funky with her cousin. This was his first ‘man power’ experience, and brought up a plethora of father issues, which subsequently drove his lover out of Taipei. Following his lover’s quick departure, CP went to India and ‘found himself,’ then fell into rampant denial about his homosexuality; stalwartly insisting he could never fall in love with a man, and would never engage in the ‘disgusting practices’ of anal sex. Nonetheless, drunken nights always ended up with Chinese boys on his cock, and the empty threats that he was going to urinate on my face. These events were inevitably followed by seventeen page letters of tearful abuse directed at Miss Canada, accusing her of being a cold, heartless, soul-less bitch skank who fucked up every relationship in her life. Not forgetting he was Canadian however, he still courteously greeted us whenever he came home, before running to his room and slamming his door.

At this point let me mention that I had a total of three extended conversations with CP during our four months of share-housing; but in his mind I became part of the axis of evil – a fucked-up bitch – a sidekick to Miss Canada’s cruel torment – and a first-class enemy. I first realised this when CP put his single birthday card out on display which read: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SORRY YOUR ROOMIES ARE SUCH HOES!! Soon after, CP convinced himself I was involved in espionage and sabotage, and ascertained that I was a mindless puppet under the directions of Miss Canada … Paranoid schizophrenics eat your hearts out! It all began to climax around the time Miss Canada and I made arrangements to move apartments. I sent CP an SMS to make a time to tie up our apartment’s odds and ends, and was met by three days of silence, then an onslaught of wild accusations and emotional guilt trips. I was like: “CP, I just want to talk about the bills.”

In the final days, and to guarantee complications as the mentally disturbed do, CP accosted most of the furniture which he strategically hid around his locked room. I know this, because feeling I had restrained my cuckoo-nest alter ego for too long, I broke into his room and returned the stolen goods to the living room. He responded by throwing rice all over the apartment, re-accosting the TV, and leaving me a note that said: I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU THREW MY CLOTHES ALL OVER THE FLOOR (as if I would), and Knowing you has taught me a whole new level of immaturity – good luck with getting a mind of your own. I should have left it, but the cuckoo was out; I re-re-accosted the TV and left him a page long letter that concluded: It’s not my fault your parents neglected you. Crawl into a fucking hole and die! And just for the record, if I ever see you again I’ll have you knifed in the liver. CP’s new roommates arrived home first that day, and found my note. Bear in mind that what I have shown you was just the endnotes, and at first the new tenants thought the entire letter was for them. It was too much for their darling British souls, and they called me in teary distress: “Um, we found your letter yeah. Well, um, it wasn’t very nice. You didn’t mean it right? It was just a joke yeah?” No, no, my soft-hearted friends, “I meant every last fucking word – and make sure you give it to him.”

I guess they finally decided to give my letter to CP, because on the day the soft-cock left from Taiwan, a series of ads appeared in every personals column on www.tealit.com (a site frequented by Taipei’s foreign community). They all bore mine or Miss Canada’s names and phone numbers. Some claimed I was: a young Canadian girl, looking for fun with both foreign and Chinese men, and some claimed we were: seeking new room-mates. The first call came through from Dubai at 3am in the morning - a soon-to-arrive freak-box had seen my Arabic name, and was looking for a wife. Miss Canada and I received close to a hundred phone calls that week; everything from men wanting sex, to language exchange prospects, to new roomies. Viva la Vida!

"killer roaches"

Despite the lack of food scraps in our bins, they still make a great breeding ground for Taipei’s “KILLER ROACHES.” Killer roaches are not bigger than Australian ones, they just have more charisma. They live in squats, hide out, and chortle in their roachy ways about the hysteria that always accompanies their timely raids. They’re fucking anarchists, and have no regard for their neighbours.

Here in Taipei, I have borne witness to the most rampant, panic-stricken horror brought about by these diminutive shuttling creatures. Aside from Taipei’s city slickers who fear everything that is not made of plastic, it would seem the ‘Ice People’ (Canadians and Europeans) are particularly terrified of these ‘monstrous’, tropical manifestations. I am not trying to say I want to have a cockroach as a pet, just that I feel no overwhelming emotion towards them. Nonetheless, my Ice People theory doesn’t quite justify why it was an Australian who first warned me to never open the door to the kitchen balcony in the apartment. Behind, she told me, lay a hovel of breeding roaches, awaiting any opportunity to invade our territory with their vile diseases and impure ideas – Victorians mate!

After a confounding spell of share-housing, I become accustomed to my Canadian roomie’s tradition of giving a series of rapid claps and whistles at the doorway of each room before entering. This was done to ‘scare’ the roaches into hiding, so there would be no impending confrontations. The highlight round of Miss Canada versus Killer Roaches everywhere though, was brought to me live in a Ko Phangan Island beach cabin. In the early hours of a humid morning, a particularly petulant Thai roach was bent on tormenting her. It shuttled back and forth across the room, before running at her in a full-fledged muy-thai style attack; it then gloatingly crawled all over her bed, before using it as a runway to fly into her hair. During these ten minutes of terror, Miss Canada slipped into the fits of an anxiety attack, enhanced by wide-mouthed screams and hyperventilating. It was a great show, but it quickly ceased to entertain me. I was driven to genteelly release the roach into the night, thus diminishing chances of either of them suffering any long lasting, post-traumatic stress disorder.

Miss Canada’s neuroses were not outstanding though; in my apartment alone, there has been Miss Poland, Miss Switzerland, and Miss Japan. I have been crowned The Cockroach Queen - a saviour of the people, for my courteous and unfailing dedication to roach removal. The outcries always begin with an ear-splitting cry of my name, followed by sporadic screams and general hysteria – they can come at any time of day, and continue until the offender has been expelled. Miss Japan has recently taken to sleeping on the couch after being unable to apprehend one suspect intruder – a master in the art of shape-shifting - who insists on disappearing and reappearing in her room ...

As one would expect, I have a number of male competitors for roach saviour status; and I have to say, I am just ‘not man enough’ to kill a cockroach by shooting at it for ten minutes with a handheld firecracker!

the sanitation officers

Twice a day, five days a week, the familiar dinging of Beethoven’s Fur Elise drifts through the sliding doors of our apartment. Neighbours rush outside bearing their official, powder-blue, Taipei-City garbage bags, filled with the day’s trash. In hordes they hustle down the streets to meet the long foray of rubbish trucks. In our apartment we tend not to ‘hustle’; mostly because we never quite adjusted to the system, and usually let our rubbish live with us until it becomes unbearable. Eventually (and it is always a spectacle), we load ourselves up with our copious, oversized bags, baskets of beer cans, and kilos upon kilos of frozen food scraps. Like donkeys we herd down the three flights of stairs, out into the street, and around the corner. From time to time our incompetence has sparked the empathy of our neighbours, who kindly offer to lighten our load.

Personally, I am not afraid of the trash, but of THE SANITATION OFFICERS, who not only drive, but guard the rubbish trucks. These watchdogs are the main reason I evade this nightly event, which for some locals is the social high point of their day. The Sanitation Officers have taught me: the official garbage bags are not just official, but mandatory; waste must be separated into general trash, paper, bottles, food scraps, and unidentifiable things; not every day is bottle recycling day; I choose the wrong truck because I am an illiterate; and some trash I will have to take back to my apartment. Without their help I have learnt just how long maggots take to breed in the tropics. Sanitation Officers are licensed to fine any offenders who don’t separate their trash properly, and in my opinion, the stench from the trucks makes them testy. As a foreigner, I am considered an ignoramus, so they tend to just yell at me, and angrily gesture that I: STEP-AWAY-FROM-THE-TRUCK! I am then grudgingly allowed return to my apartment with bits of my trash.

On a good night, the kindly junk collectors are passing by - they are the toothless, cart-pullers hidden under rice hats that like trash. They at least, are ever willing to lighten my load of styrofoam, cardboard, and plastic bottles!


.cardboard collector (photo: nicole simes)

the putrid cat-vomit stench of chou doufu

After 18 months of living here, I now think nothing of people shoving and pushing each other in crowded streets and shops - the night-markets wouldn’t be the same without it. Nonetheless, this type of physical hostility remains a point of contention for many foreigners. There are the irate venturers who protest angrily; the timid and fatigued who avoid busy places; and the offensively ignorant who repeatedly claim the Taiwanese are uncivilized and inhumane. I knew one foreign enthusiast who used to give a good ten minute lecture: “Let me tell you something. I am a NIGERIAN MAN, an AF-RI-CAN MAN. Why do you think you can push me? In Africa, people are not pushing in the street. This is something you need to understand today. I am a MAN … from AFRICA.” I am not one to wage a losing war of such frivolous nature however, and long ago became a convert as many of my friends know. Pushing in the night-markets is one of my favourite pastimes – and I sometimes even go out of my way for a little shoving action!

There is one very serious, lurking danger though ... If you push your way into the wrong crowd you risk getting trapped and then violated, as THE PUTRID CAT-VOMIT STENCH OF STINKY TOFU starts creeping into your nostrils. One deep intake is enough to make your insides curdle. In these moments you can only pray the police will appear and the hundreds of illegal street vendors will disappear into shop storerooms and alleys, clearing the desired escape route. Stinky tofu (known locally as chou doufu), is a night-market favourite made from boiling fermented bean curd. Ever true to its name, in any given moment you can see ‘fresh-off-the-boat’ foreigners, retching in the streets, and frantically trying to cover every facial orifice from its impending onslaught. I have discovered that the best cure is to start voraciously chowing it down; once you’ve sat in the stench for a while, it miraculously seems to normalise. I am still not convinced however it is a great delight, just that its flavour is delightfully bland compared to its odour!


.chowing down some chou doufu at shilin night market