Foreword>: The following article is a continuation of ‘Taiwanese girls and crazy ex-boyfriends‘. You’ll probably want to read that to get the proper context of this article.


If you want to experience the worst of a culture, forget travelling off the beaten track, forget booking holidays to places you’ve never heard of and forget moving there and hoping a country’s real culture eventually exposes itself to you.

All these methods might work, but if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty of certain aspects of some cultures – just do what I did.

Start dating the locals.

I’d just finished work on Tuesday night when I decided to give the girlfriend’s phone a call again. Despite feeling kind of hopeless about it I’d been trying her number every 6 hours or so in the off chance I’d get through to her.

After three days of either being cut off or hearing ‘the number you have called is unavailable’ message, this time it rang through.

This gave me a little hope so I hit redial and patiently waited…

…this time she picked up the phone. It was the first time I’d heard her voice since Saturday night and I had a million questions, of which the most important ones were;

‘hey! are you alright?! where are you!’

‘i’m…ok. I’m on the MRT’

The MRT is Taiwan’s subway system and I could hear a lot of noise in the background. This kind of made it difficult to talk.

‘what happ-actually don’t worry. Just are you sure you’re alright? I’ve been worried out of my mind the last three days.’

‘I’m ok. not really, but I’m alive’.

‘I’m going to come see you. I’ll be over in a bit’

‘now?! wait… that’s probably…I don’t think that’s a good thing for you.’

‘what? why?! Seriously I’ve eaten like one Snickers bar over 2 days and haven’t been able to concentrate on anything else.’

‘I….I have bruise and cuts. I’m not good looking.’

As she finished her last sentence she started to cry.

‘I don’t want see you. ok? I don’t think it’s a good plan for you.’

I don’t cope very well when girls start crying as it’s not something I like to see, so I didn’t offer any argument.

‘bruise and cuts? Are you sure you’re ok though. That’s all I care about.’

‘Yes I am ok now.’

I was still at work and desperately wanted to talk to her longer so I confirmed she was heading home and told her I’d call her again when I got home.

I still had a million other questions but for now wasn’t convinced she was ok.

The cycle home gave me a few minutes to think and after the relief that at least she was contactable again washed over me my mind drifted back to Saturday night.

Despite my gut feeling I’d listened to her sister and cousins and let events transpire as they did. Here I was about to do it all over again. My gut told me everything wasn’t ok and hearing her cry and talk about cuts and bruises only fuelled my wanting to see her.

When I got home I called her up and told her I was coming around. I didn’t care if she was cut up, after 3 days of worry I just wanted to see her again.

By the time I got there she was having a coffee with her sister and cousins from Saturday – who all live nearby.

Clearly they’d all gotten the details of the past three days out of the way and were now doing the supportive ‘chatting about other stuff to take your mind of it’ thing – but I still knew practically nothing.

When I arrived I must have had worry written all over my face as even though her sister’s English isn’t so good she still managed to fumble out ‘you look so worried!’ when she saw me.

I thought about giving an obvious answer but let her statement slide unanswered.

I could see a little bruising around one of my girlfriend’s eyes but I couldn’t see any cuts. I immediately hoped this didn’t mean he’d gone to work on her body, but I didn’t think it the right place to ask.

After a quick hot chocolate her sister and cousins left us alone and we went off together. I had so many questions but was aware the last thing you want after an ordeal is to be interrogated.

Over the course of the night we spent alot of time talking, she cried and I listened in disbelief.

The guy was someone she’d known for seven years but they’d only started dating late last year. They broke up early this year (thinking about it now I forgot to ask why).

Whatever the reason she was done with him but this explains why she went outside and the casualness of her sister and cousins over it. They’d known this guy for a long time and thought it was just going to be your standard ‘waaah I love you get back together with me sentiment’.

They didn’t think he was capable of what went down.

After coming in and giving me the death stare my girlfriend had left with him because he’d threatened to start a fight with me. That’s what all the death staring was about as my girlfriend collected her bag.

Apparently for Taiwanese guys death stares are something akin to a peacock showing off it’s feathers in an attempt to woo females. You know you could just talk to the guy, but hey… easier to death stare and pretend you’re the man.

After leaving they did talk a bit but then things got nasty. He dragged her off and took her to his house.

Immediately my reaction was this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

‘Why didn’t you scream and call out? You were in the middle of a busy area! How does one guy force a girl to his house?!’

Turns out she did scream and put up protest, but nobody listened. She said some people stopped and looked but then pretended like they didn’t see anything.

Apparently getting involved in what looks like a couple’s argument isn’t the done thing in Taiwan. No matter how abusive it might appear or the fact that the two people involved aren’t a couple to begin with.

Meanwhile back at his house he boarded her up and began to question her.

He wanted to know why we were holding hands… to which she replied we were a couple.

This answer resulted in a king hit to her face, cutting her upper lip and causing it to swell and bleed.

He then went off drinking, leaving her trapped inside behind locked doors. His father who was originally home fled the scene, apparently scared of his own son.

Upon returning the questioning resumed… which at some point lead to the bruising of her eye.

As I listened to her experience my mind headed in a direction I didn’t want it to. It was something I’d been dreading the past three days and despite not being a religious person was the one thing I prayed didn’t happen to her.

It was the hardest question I’ve ever had to ask someone.

‘Did… did he force you to have sex with him?’

‘…’

‘…yes. But I didn’t want to tell you.’

I began to shut down emotionally at this point. I remember just lying on my bed staring at the roof… trying to let my emotions configure themselves so I knew what it was I was supposed to be feeling.

I didn’t feel angry or outraged, which surprised me. After three days of hoping the worst didn’t happen to hear it did, left me stonewalled.

‘Do you think I’m a dirty girl? Do you want to break up with me?’ She eventually asked inbetween tears.

I tried to think but my mind had shut itself off. A tsunami of sadness washed over me as I began to feel tinges of responsibility. Someone else had put themselves through this ordeal so that I wouldn’t have to enter a potentially physical confrontation.

Despite not knowing what was going on at the time and failing to read the situation without any backstory, this was something I was going to have to live with the rest of my life.

‘No. I just feel sad. Sad for you and what you had to go through. I am so sorry.’

The rest of the night was spent reconciling her as best I could.

The other two days of her ordeal were spent mostly talking. Upon waking the next day the guy saw the blood on her face and claimed he didn’t remember anything. He got her a cold egg to ease the lip swelling and told her he was sorry.

He then began to punch himself in the face… hard enough apparently to draw blood.

What was supposed to be an act of regret obviously at that point came too late. The damage had been done.

Following that came suicide threats with knives and in general, what seemed like the outpouring of pent up emotion that is the sad end result of an overly repressed society.

He finally let her go after pleading she wouldn’t leave him and she agreed they’d remain friends.

I’ve been in this relationship a few months now and I’m still processing what went down over the past three nights. We spent a good few hours discussing why nobody had gone to the police over any of this and she said they are like the people on the street.

The police simply don’t want to get involved in what they see as couple disputes, regardless of whether rape is involved or the couple aren’t even together anymore. She said they don’t take that sort of thing seriously.

I wasn’t happy with this answer as I’m sure if I went down there and kicked up a fuss then at least still if nothing was done, in my own mind I’d be settled that I’d tried.

Regardless I don’t know what was going through her mind. It was the first time that anything like this had happened to her and I didn’t want to put her through anything else.

After a long sleep the next day I took her to get a massage to try and relax a bit and I think we’re going to be ok from here.

She’s agreed to be more careful and wants nothing more to do with the guy. Thankfully I didn’t have to convince her that she didn’t owe him anything to begin with, let alone after what he’s done.

For me personally I think I’m going to chalk this up to the tapestry that makes us who we are. I’m still not entirely happy with the outcome, that is some guy kidnaps a girl for three days, punches her, has his way with her and then receives no punishment, but this isn’t my culture.

As much as I’d love to run amok treading on toes, with my own minor experience with the police here and from what I’ve heard, my girlfriend’s sentiment on the matter is probably right. As much as I hate admitting it.

Coming from a culture where domestic violence is taken seriously and rape even more seriously, Taiwan’s apparent tolerance of both doesn’t and probably never will sit right with me.

I have a gut feeling that despite my girlfriend not having any further contact with this guy, that we haven’t seen the last of him. I hope it happens later rather then sooner as I really don’t know what I’m capable of.

I don’t know if I’ve suppressed any anger I have knowing that showing any of it now is useless or just how much of it there might be.

For now though at least she’s safe and that’s all that matters.

This isn’t the Taiwan you’ll read about in travel guides, holiday planning books or experiences people are likely to share with you. But it’s there… tucked away in what tries to present itself as a progressive society.

When I left Australia I’d hoped to leave behind what had been a turbulent year in some aspects of my life and I looked forward to sharing with people life in Taiwan from the ground level.

Turns out turbulence was already waiting for me when I got here, tenfold worse then anything I’d ever experienced back home.



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