a bumpy ride

So far, the new year has brought me incredible good fortune and a healthy dose of fresh drama. Transitioning from New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day, in concurrence with the drunken revelry, I somehow misplaced my $15,000 NT camera (Canon S95) while on the train and experienced that profound feeling of despair as when anything of value suddenly vanishes in a public place. The feeling is kind of an internal vertigo: like the floor drops out from somewhere above your stomach and the organs in your chest start sinking toward your gut. I frantically retracted my steps all the way to where the camera was last seen and hunted for it. Finally, in the last place that could have been searched, a friend of mine inquired about the camera case (black with ridges) and I saw the worker produce it. A faint glimmer of hope, a tingle of anticipation beginning in my pelvis and bubbling toward my gallbladder, the worker opens the case, the S95 comes to light, is it is it oh god NO WAY, NO WAY, he turns on the camera, I see my PICTURES, THAT’S THE ONE!!, and my organs EXPLODE through the roof of my head!!

Compared with 2010, in which two different incidents saw the theft of my rent money and a valuable watch, the rediscovery of my expensive camera was utterly the greatest way to ring in the new year. Talk about an infusion of optimism! After bubbling with (and babbling) effusive praise for Taiwan and the New Year, I danced my way from the MRT station to the connecting train back to my girlfriend’s place, happily clutching my camera the whole way like a little kid who just got the gift he’d wanted for what felt like his whole life, and gleefully embraced my girl, who actually had to work that evening and was in quite a dour mood. But that was alright, and totally understandable, and she had my total sympathies BECAUSE I GOT THE CAMERA BACK!!

So the next evening, to brighten my girl’s spirits, we went out for dinner at a restaurant called the Peacock. I must have been feeling really optimistic because the last time I’d been there I’d gotten food poisoning so severe it doubled me over on the train ride home and I shat spiral galaxies for the next two days (and it had completely ruined the date I had been on).

I had suspected they had put something into the food based on the way they had eyed me and my date (both foreigners here in Taiwan). She was Indian, I was American. They had eyed us coldly, mixed up our orders, feigned indifference to our requests, and later on, of course, I was in a universe of pain. Since then several foreigners had mentioned to me that the owner’s treatment of them had been chilly at best.

I figure perhaps the owner has had bad experiences with foreigners in the past. Perhaps they run out on the check. Maybe entire groups of them come in and sit for two hours and only order water. The restaurant is nearby a few schools which offer Chinese language programs, and certain behavior which is acceptable of students in the West, are coldly received by local people who have their own preconceptions of Westerners. Anyway, it’s no excuse for the abominable way in which they treated N and I.

I had made a reservation earlier that afternoon. When we got to the restaurant, and I ordered my meal in English, the waitress clearly understood me but her demeanor subtly shifted. Perhaps I should have asked her if she spoke English first? But why, if the menu is in English? And since my girl ordered her food in Chinese, if the waitress had any trouble understanding at all, she could’ve just asked my girl for translation help. Anyway, the waitress left and came back to bring our appetizers, my beer, my pizza, and finally, my girl’s rice dish.

Everything seemed alright (my girl remarked on the unfriendly service of the waitstaff). At one point, she requested napkins, and the waitress returned with two flimsy pieces of napkin paper. Then, I discovered something in my drink. At first I dismissed it as nothing, but as I finished my drink, I discovered suspicious bubbles in it and a wet piece of a solid substance. Upon closer inspection I realized it was chewed food.

Now, I could be speaking for myself, but generally after the age of four, I stopped letting things in my mouth flow back into the cup whenever I take a sip of something. This holds true for all beverages. I excluded the possibility that it came from me because those bubbles also looked suspiciously like saliva, and I don’t spit in my drinks, either. I called the waitress over. Actually, I called her four times, because she ignored me for three of them until other people began turning around. I showed her, on a fork, what I had found in my drink. She went to speak to her manager.

Now the restaurant has a policy that everybody who shows up must order a drink. I’d honestly never encountered such a policy before, although since this incident I have been told that it’s not altogether uncommon. Still, that’s not what it said on the menu (in English. In Chinese, it apparently did). In any case, the quantity of food that N and I ordered far exceeded the price of two drinks, and although the waitress had told us earlier that we needed to order two drinks, I had assured her that I would. When I showed her what had been in my drink, she responded that I didn’t need to order another drink.

Thanks, lady. As if I were going to order another drink after this incident. But my hypothetical future drink aside, what was she going to do about my current drink that had things floating in it?

I guess my voice had become too stern for their comfort and the manager came over, and told me, in perfect English, that her English was not very good and could we please speak Chinese. I pointed out that her English was sufficient and the English on her menu was sufficient so how about we keep speaking in English. She turned to my girl and asked if she spoke Chinese. She told me girl that the drink policy was their rule and if we didn’t like it, we don’t have to come back. They’d already taken a step back by saying we didn’t have to abide by the rule, so what else did we want from them? My girl responded by telling of the incident when I’d last patronized the establishment. The owner responded that if I’d gotten so sick, why did I come back? N’s retort asked if she and I were stupid to have returned to give the woman more business.

The lady frantically backtracked and tried to cover her tracks. Meanwhile I was getting impatient. I asked her again what she intended to do to fix the situation. At this point, the several of the waitstaff came to stand around our table. The owner took the fork and showed the chewed up food to them. She asked, in English, if it looked like a grain of rice to them. They all dumbly nodded their assent and replied, in broken English, that yes, it looked like a grain of rice. A short feminine-looking dishwasher held the fork and asked me mockingly if it were the ‘poison’ I spoke of. At this point I had an appetite for destruction, but then the dishwasher went to the sink and washed it down the drain. The lady said that if I had further problems then she could call the police on my behalf. I sensed that she was trying to scare away N and I, so I invited her to call the cops. The lady bitched about it but then summoned the authorities.

When the cops came, she met them at the door and gave her account of the situation. She told them we didn’t intend to pay for our meal and the cops aggressively approached our table. After some exchanges, I told N to tell the police that we had never said we weren’t going to pay for our meal. The cops looked at the owner in exasperation and asked why she had called them there. She nervously responded that since she didn’t know what we were going to do, she wanted to play it safe. When N suggested she knock off the service charge, the owner contemptuously asked if all we’d wanted was a discount the whole time. N, who is not usually a fighter, shot back that the money was not a concern to us but our real concern was the abysmal service the woman offered. The cops saw this was a non issue and left, and N and I paid the remaining bill and left. And since I had finished the beer, I paid for that, too.

Actually though,t he worst part was that shortly after we left the restaurant, N couldn’t find her phone. I urgently asked her to check her pockets, and she said that she had. When we returned to the Peacock, I called her phone, and we found it in her pocket. We left the restaurant with the laughter of the waitstaff ringing in our ears.

N had never been so embarrassed. I was in riot mode because no motherfucker laughs at my woman like that. But N calmed me down and we’re pursuing ways to damage this restaurant’s reputation like it deserves. N works in media and has a lot of connections. Some of her friends, who work for television stations and large magazines, have said that they’ll do stories on it. All of this is way more than I could accomplish on my own, especially my initial inclination to visit violence on that place, and once more I’m in awe of my elegant (but sometimes ruthless!) girlfriend. As for me, I’ll spread the word when I can among foreigners, who really seemed to be the restaurant owner’s object of derision and vindictiveness but probably don’t comprise a significant proportion of the lady’s patrons. So N’s method will really strike home. Clearly, the monkeyish waitstaff laughed at the wrong girl.

As for me, I guess I’m reaching karmic tranquillity with the whole event. It happened a few days ago, and the day after such jubilation as I felt on New Year’s Eve. Even after this negative experience, I was still coasting high on the recovery of my camera. So maybe I’m getting better at letting the ugly side of life slip by with less friction, or perhaps I unconsciously knew that the restaurant owner had much more to lose by escalating the situation, and feel little remorse for how the circumstances unfolded. Either way, I’m satisfied with what appears to be the ultimate outcome – negative publicity for the restaurant – and I’m still gleefully optimistic about the way this year has begun.

So once again; Welcome, 2011!!