28th - 31st November 1991

"I started coughing a little, and lighted a cigarette to quiet it. I wondered whether I could risk a few drinks to pull me out of my hangover. I needed them. I picked up my two suitcases and headed up the street."

Jim Thompson , Savage Night

Taipei hostel was located at the end of a dirty downtown alley. At the end of the alley was a pile of wrecked fixtures and other rubbish and behind this mess was a smoking chimney attached to a Buddhist Tao temple. Lined along this narrow alley were broken down bikes and working and broken down motor scooters. The chimney was rumoured to be a pauper's crematorium. The wandering spirits of criminals and suicides arisen from its ashes said to blame for the demented dogs which slept and howled fitfully outside the entrance of Shantung Trading Enterprises, the dismal building which housed the hostel. Sean always thought the smoke was incense, however, and the canine dementia more attributable to their upbringing in the grey and grimey streets of Taipei. In this way, he guessed the paying guests at the hostel were similar to their four legged homeless cousins. Environment probably the largest factor in their individual equations of emotional instability.

Ah yes, a resident crazy woman who frequented the area around the hostel on Lin Shen Bay Lou. Madam Chen or Madwoman Chen the hostellers called her. Madam Chen wore a liberal application of face makeup including brightly smeared pink lipstick. The cosmetic advertisement of poor female souls with a frayed grip on reality. Her air of anxiety and bewilderment came through sad bright rabbit eyes outlined in baby blue mascara. Madam Chen might've been attractive once and her clothes were still decent enough. She never directly accosted anyone but simply sought eye contact with the foreigners during her stuttered sorties in and out of the alley and the nearby Lin Shen Lou. Sean imagined that she was probably an ex prostitute from the Combat Zone strip of bars where US troops had been stationed during the Vietnam war. Maybe he was right but who knows. There could have been a hundred other reasons for her fixations. Madwoman Chen certainly never told anybody for she never spoke. A couple of naïve Canadians from the hostel once tried to speak to her but she immediately retreated as if affronted, only to follow the confused men at a discreet distance a few moments later fired by their attempt at interaction. A strange yearning in her eyes.

*****

Sean arrived late at night on his first day in Taiwan. He felt disorientated upon his landing at the depressing Chiang Kai Shek international airport. The subsequent journey to the Taipei Station simply compounded this unease. When Sean had got off at CKS from the late night flight from Hong Kong, he felt like an alien landing on a different planet. He walked quickly along the airport's tight stark passages and endless elevator walkways. He passed or was passed by non-communicative Chinese, Japanese and Korean businessmen and Government officials. No one spoke. There were very few other travellers. One or two perhaps but the forbidding atmosphere precluded anything beyond brief eye contact. He tried to look non-committal but it was impossible to assume anonymity as a cut-price westerner.

There were virtually no signs in English and certainly no signs of welcome. There appeared to be no advertising of any sort on the gray forbiddding walls. A few public notices in Chinese characters indicated terrible retributions for drug traffickers and gold smugglers. These were the most colourful displays.

Sean's fellow arrivals were mainly Taiwanese businessmen returning home or those visiting from Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Japan and South Korea. They said little until they located their baggage and escaped the interrogative customs and immigration officials. The customs official sneered when Sean approached after collecting his backpack; one of the last pieces of baggage to roll onto the carousel. The disdain was understandable. Sean was a foreign backpacker in a country where tourists didn't go. In reality, he was a high risk profile to break his visa regulations. He didn't understand it fully at that time but simply accepted the rudeness as the unwritten right of belligerent customs officials the world over. In Taiwan, you see, the roles were reversed. It was Westerners who broke the immigration laws. Travellers were a walking negation of authority in a place ruled by authoritarians. They knew it and didn't pretend to like it. Yet they didn't have the licence to refuse them. The Taiwanese needed western visitors. Even Australian ones with weathered passports. This was a time, like most of the time over the past 50 odd years, when an invasion from the Mainland Chinese was feared and the military might and political goodwill of the Western world.read the United States.was needed as a counterweight.

The reedy immigration official in large black glasses asked Sean a question in what he guessed was Mandarin. He started to stutter a response but having baited Sean's non-comprehension, the official then said in good English, "what is the purpose of your visit".

"I am just visiting. A tourist I guess."

The official glanced at Sean with a mixture of apathy and mild contempt. He had heard it all before. "Do you have friends or family?"

Sean noticed that for all the fastidiousness of the Customs Inspector including a starched suit and cultivated arrogance, the man had a sliver of white noodle stuck between his front teeth. The inspector must've been eating plastic bowl noodles. The type you microwave in the oven. The thought made him feel slightly better. "No. I don't have any friends or family.here," he said.

Noodlemouth studied Sean's photo in his blue passport which had the fantastical antipodean fauna in the Emu and the Kangaroo emblazoned on the tattered blue cover. Sean's photo showed a paler skinned, rangy man with a larrikin grin and unruly flaxen hair. In the picture, Sean was wearing his trademark checked sports jacket which he had purchased at a St Vincent de Paul retail outlet in Sydney alongwith a blue checked shirt and thankfully a plain cotton tie. He was leaning forward when the photograph was taken like a mongrel dog straining at the leash. The inspector alternatively looked up at Sean and the passport. His eyes blinked once, twice as he stared through the thick lens of his glasses first at the picture of a journalist clothed in a televisual test pattern jacket and then at the raggamuffin traveller in front of him. He raised his front lip and bared his teeth showing his fangs as he screwed up his face in disdain to focus on the man in front of him.

He saw quite a different Sean Dinan. Sean still had the remnants of his southern Thai tan. He was lean and muscular. Four months of backpacking around the sub-continent and six weeks in Thailand including a week of pack cycling, 10 days of trekking around the Golden Triangle and, not to mention, countless sun soaked games of beach soccer had tightened his body. He had the confident gait of an athlete. Four weeks of the claustrophobic urban existence of Chung King Mansions had taken the sheen of his tan and strung him out somewhat but had not undermined his core robustness. Sean however still felt the effects of a hectic last 48 hours. This was conspicuous through his red rimmed eyes and accidental stubble.

He wore a white cut-off tee-shirt with a Geisha face covering his chest, dishevelled black denim jeans with his leather bomber jacket tied around his waist and worn brown Blundstone boots. In other words, despite his embedded vigour, Sean felt like shit. The official shook his head but finally said "okay fella" and wrote some notes into a terminal. He stamped Dinan's passport with an impressive visa that Sean didn't even look at properly for gratitude of having passed an unknown test. Escape. But where to now. As he wandered aimlessly for a couple of minutes along the speckled tile floor of the forlorn exit concourse, he began to understand what Croatian Vin had meant when they met inside of the Poste Restante in Hong Kong. Vin had described Taiwan as a "closed society". Officially it had been closed to inward and outward travellers until 1987. This renegade province - according to the Peoples Republic of China - remained a distant unknown land to most people despite rapid industralisation and new found wealth. Unlike the Chinese island fiefdoms in Singapore and Hong Kong; its rich and more extroverted brothers; Taiwan hid its identity and culture. He suddenly realised the inadequacy of the phrase. There were diffuse connotations in being a closed society. Perhaps it was good to be closed off from modern illnesses like consumerism and despoliation he thought. But on these, Sean's first scant impressions, it was also a cold society. Despite the 30 degree heat, he shivered involuntarily in the sterile vastness of the airport.

*****

There was one ticketing box for buses where a small woman in a nondescript cotton uniform gave Sean a receipt and the right to travel to Taipei central station for his 180 New Taiwan dollars. Sean stared at her white face. It was much whiter than his. White but with rescinding features framed by ringlets of black hair unattractively drawn back like a death mask. The ticket seller looked up as Sean was staring at her. She shuddered at the thought he had placed the evil eye on her. He went outside. There was one large chrome bus with shiny Chinese characters and the English words Taipei Lines painted on its side. The driver was a balding plump man with overripe forearms and slit eyes shrunk into the flesh of his jowls. He watched as Sean hauled his large backpack over and then helped him load it into the hollows of the bus. Sean looked regretfully after the luggage with the regular apprehension that he would never see it again. He had this anxiety despite the fact that he had never had baggage stolen from a storage compartment. He carried his smaller shoulder bag which contained his documentation, personal necessities, and his books and walked into the cool interior. As usual, his leather jacket was slung across and through the bag in a knot. Sean settled gratefully into an anonymous recess as the motor hummed into life. Thirty minutes later the bus pulled out of the airport driveway. A few minutes into the bus drive, He suddenly realised he really knew nothing of this place besides a few throwaway descriptions from a couple of backpackers whom he had met randomly. Sean hadn't read any guide books on Taipei and had only the vaguest recollections of brief textbook descriptions on this other 'renegade' China. He felt nervous and excited at his ignorance. An intoxication to land someplace unknown.

He knew absolutely no-one here and had no real knowledge about this land. No-one he had ever really known had even been to the Republic of China before. Sean thought of the places he had been so far on his journey. India . The cycle of life. Fatalistic, colourful and bizarre. The local kids and Siobhan spraying him with neon dyed water during Holi festival. A hippie junkie spewing a torrent of vomit onto Sudder street like it was the most natural thing in the world. The sheer mass of people and circumstance always confronting. Always in your face. Nepal. The impoverished kingdom in the mountains. Populated by Maoist guerrillas, Ghurkhas, Indian money changers, and climbing freaks. Restaurants that sold chocolate crème banana pies. Walking though a forest covered in mist with steep ravines that fell away into nothingness. Thailand . A lotus land of sun drenched sensuality and Maekong whiskey.

A place where both the unwary and the enervated succumbed to the lithe prostitutes and sexual adventurism. Watching the moonlit palm trees from a narrow box window on the second class sleeper to Chiang Mai. Hong Kong. The British enclave of skyscrapers and arrogant Guangdonese who really ruled the city state. An uneasy waiting game as Sean suffocated in his cubicle room among the crowds and litter of Chungking Mansions and slowly realised that he didn't want to join the local rat race. Taiwan seemed different again. He felt like he had never been to a place like it before. It seemed foreign in every essence of the word. This was his first intuition. Indeed the Taipei he came to know was like a city in Bladerunner. Neon lights of Chinese characters on East German style concrete buildings. Large Hungarian buses careering through mosquito squads of scooters. Virginal trading house girls in mini skirts riding home on their Japnese scooters and then buying dinner at the night markets. Semi shaven cooks in white singlets ladling out piping hot noodles into ceramic bowls. Their jade bracelets curled around muscular forearms and their laughing squat wives neatly counting out the change. Departing dark taverns after midnight half drunk and driving home on his ancient Yamaha sliding through a dozen red lights in the morning mist.

Naturally each man's future is in the making and the unmaking. In the confines of the bus Sean had a tumult of thoughts on his travels and imagined enticements. He thought of the loss of Siobhan but also thought of the possibility of new loves and lovers. After a while, he brought himself back to the present and more pressing, practical anxieties. Conscious of the nomadic issues of finding a bed, finding his way around and finding a job. Lying beneath the anxiety however was the exultant anticipation he felt of having to work it out by himself in such a curious place.

*****

Sean turned on the narrow overhead light and checked some scribbled notes from the conversation with Vin in Hong Kong: "Taipei Hostel. Pretty basic and crowded. Lots of strange characters but cheap and will find work there. Check out the balcony upstairs whether you stay there or not."

He studied a Taipei City and County Map he had received from the airport information counter. Sean had asked about accommodation there and a fat receptionist with thick rouge lipstick had suggested two hotels, The Golden Dragon and the Phoenix. When he had then asked about Taipei Hostel, she shot him a queer look but had given Sean the map of the city nonetheless and drawn a route from the central bus station to the dubious accommodation in question. So he had nothing to do but wait until the bus reached the city centre.

In the meantime he was journeying through what seemed like lunar landscapes, barren hills with occasional dwellings. Sean later learnt that some of these ravaged hills near Gugong stored hidden masterpieces of painting, calligraphy, ceramics and metalwork in subterranean vaults to protect them against aerial bombardment from mainland China. Gugong or the Grand Palace Museum was the one exception of a tourist attraction in Taipei. Gugong was literally a treasure trove of Chinese arts and artefacts over five millennia. Most of these masterpieces were stolen by the retreating remnants of the Kuomintang army as they slowly got pushed off the mainland to their final bastion of Formosa. Their certain vanquishment prevented temporarily by the stretch of water known as the Taiwan straits; and deferred indefinitely by the fortunate happenstance of the Korean war and its geographic proxy against the Peoples Army in the American Seventh Fleet.

The theft of these art treasures were rationalised, quite reasonably; by the belief that they would've been destroyed during the vicious class warfare of the Red Guards and the Cultural Revolution. All in all, Gugong was a superb repository of fine art but few locals and virtually no westerners were in Taipei for art appreciation. Least of all the inhabitants of the Taipei Hostel and as for Sean.he simply sat in a metal passenger ship which drove through the night past buried treasures that he wasn't even aware existed to a destination unknown. The industrial terrain changed to grey areas filled by concrete blocks of flats. A while latter they seemed to enter the outskirts of the city with street vendors and neon lit shops and clubs. Finally the vehicle pulled into the bus shelter in a dark lane behind Taipei Station. The remaining passengers rose and disembarked. Scratching his head and yawning, Sean followed them; disappointed to leave his comfortable seat and anonymity behind. He backtracked to the central railway station. It reared up at him. An astounding building in size and its pseudo Imperial Chinese design. In essence, it was a large modern hangar. More reminiscent of an airport than the real one he had just come from. Sean entered from a side thoroughfare and immediately blinked as the harsh lights of the vast tiled expanse struck his eyes. The cavernous space was dominated by the station's centrepiece, a giant TV screen playing music clips. As he stood and adjusted his bags preparing for a long walk, He was surprised to see his erstwhile countrymen in Air Supply performing one of their lesser hits.

Sean consulted his map. If he walked out of the front of the station, he worked out, he should be in Chungsiao South Road and a couple of blocks further north lay the hostel. Like most navigational exercises he undertook, it was far easier in theory than practice. The night was dark and the footpaths were uneven. Sean had to traverse a section of the city which had virtually no open businesses to seek directions by. Most confusing were the labyrinth subways that occurred at each intersection leading the unwary into wrong directions. After a couple of wrong turns, he learnt that few people had the capability or willingness to respond to English language inquiries. Especially from a scruffy foreigner lugging a backpack.

Sean eventually found his bearings - the relevant street seemed to be actually 500 metres from the Police Headquarters on one of the major city arterials. If he crossed the street and walked another 100 metres, past a five star hotel - and then across the road via a subway - Sean arrived at Lin Shen Bay Lou. The first alley on his left led him to the hostel. There was no real sign. Just the number of the building. His notes told him it was on the fifth floor so he took a grubby elevator and pressed number five, somewhat confused as there was no button for the fourth floor. Just buttons for the first, second, third and then fifth floor.

What struck Sean the most as he entered the lift was the overwhelming smell of stale urine. This was obviously a common occurrence. He noticed by the sign above the panel of buttons. Which stated in broken English:

Will man who piss in elevator, STOP! This very bad conduct. If not stop, then there will be physical action! Beware!

After the English message came a series of Chinese characters and Roman numerals which Sean assumed was the name and residence of the complainant. The lift stuttered to a halt on the second floor, and a Taiwanese couple in pyjamas entered and rode up to the third floor. They should've walked up the staircase, thought Sean, but he knew that most Asians hated climbing up stairs which was sensible given the strewn rubbish on the stairwell landings of old tenements.

Sean tried to avoid eye contact in case he gave the impression he was the mysterious lift pisser who was to be subjected to certain undefined but no doubt very unpleasant physical retribution. The time was past eleven pm when Sean walked out of the lift and fronted the Hostel reception desk. A young plain woman asked for his passport and personal details. While she was scanning his passport, a stodgy middle-aged Chinese woman limped over. She was wearing purple polystyrene pants and a Lucy Arness hairdo that gave her a time warped 50s look. This was Miss Pippy Peng Lou, the hostel manager.

During his stay at the Hostel, Sean heard many insults thrown at Limping Louey as she was more often known. Especially comments describing her miserly attitude. From his own experience, Sean found Pippy to be tough and economical but overall a reasonably fair person. After all, he reflected later, she ran a guest house which was a cross between a madhouse and workers lodgement.

"How long you staying?" Pippy asked in her naturally suspicious manner.

Sean wanted to say only as long as it takes to find something better having observed the plainness of the furnishings and the basic nature of the lounge area behind the reception desk with its few plastic chairs, torn sofa lounges and what seemed to be a wholly inadequate kitchenette with a couple of toasters and a microwave on the other side of the desk.

"Two or three nights I guess for now," he said. Sean was dead beat and just wanted to find a shower and sleep.

Pippy whispered something to the girl who assigned Sean a bed in one of the dormitories.

"Payment upfront if you want to stay here," she said. Pippy demanded $200 NT a night for two nights in the dormitories ("120 NT a night if you stay longer than a week") and after eyeing him also asked for a $500 NT bond. Not only because she didn't trust Sean. Pippy distrusted everybody. More because she figured it was too late for him to find accommodation elsewhere.

"That makes a total of nine hundred New Taiwan dollars," she said.

"Yeah, that's fine as long as you are happy with American cash," Sean replied knowing that she would be. He counted out four ten dollar bills and received $80 NT back in return.

The dormitory rooms lay on the fifth floor of the hostel. On the floor above was the actual rooftop with five private rooms where long term couples stayed for relative privacy. A balcony on this top floor overlooked the neon lit city skyline and the broken rooves and roaming cats below.

The first dormitory had its lights off as Sean entered. He let some light filter in through the hall entrance while his eyes adjusted. He discerned various sleeping bodies in a number of the bunk beds. While dark the hostel was obviously a dismal place. The tiled floor was dirty and the light, a bare bulb. He let his pack down next to his bed and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. There was a iron pipe sticking dangerously out of the wall for no obvious reason. The floor was wet and the water sporadic and cold. The grime ridden tiles and the mirror that showed Sean's unshaven and drawn face were both cracked of course. No doubt bestowing innumerable years of bad luck onto the hostel inhabitants.

He made his way up to the top bunk where he placed his money belt under the yellow lumpy pillow, undressed and lay down. After a few restless minutes, Sean felt a terrible itching. The beginning torment of bedbugs. Unable to sleep through his over tiredness, Sean looked up at the blurred form of the ceiling a couple of feet from his head and listened to several people snoring intermittently. Before he dozed off, Sean reassured himself that this was just a flying visit to Taiwan. A short term experience nothing more. After all he had an onward ticket to Tokyo. At worse, even if he decided to spend a couple of days in Taipei, he promised himself he would definitely find better living arrangements. Sean, you will get out of this crap place tomorrow.

He ended up staying at the hostel for three months.

*****

The light streaming in around 6.45 am the next morning woke him. All around people were struggling out of bed and blinking sleep out of their eyes. Sean lay awake, unwilling to rise when there was no job or particular place to go. Bed seemed more secure than dealing with the world right at this very minute. Another guest obviously shared Sean's philosophy. Pretty much opposite him lay a bearded, rube faced gnome. He lay snoring on a bottom bunk while still dressed in jeans and a striped polo shirt with a telltale beer stain down the front showing his hairy gut. The ugly dwarf had managed to kick one desert boot and sock off but had failed in his attempt to remove the other. He was collapsed with one bare foot on the bed and the other leg still wearing a boot stretched out off the bed. This sight as much as anything suggested that it was probably a good idea to face the day.

Sean wandered into the front reception area which also served as a kitchen and slowly made himself a coffee from someone else's industrial grade Nescafe instant. As he did so, he surveyed the scene, fascinated as always to witness the routines of the dominant and neurotic personalities in such places. Already the hostel was a hive of energy. Mainly Western backpackers in the throes of making breakfast and planning for the day ahead. There appeared to be any number of nationalities from the disparate languages spoken.

Later he found out that as well as American college dropouts, there were failed English actors, fugitive Australian used car salesmen, French buskers, Korean students with excessive plastic wrapping and Welsh chefs. Being a pariah itself, Taiwan had also attracted the foot soldiers from other pariah nations: South African draft dodgers and conscientious objectors, Tibetan priests and students, and former conscripts from Israel. Most of this itinerant UN worked teaching English although karaoke film clips and drug dealing were more lucrative trades.

How to describe them all? These fellow travellers Sean met who entered the hostel and into his life, some of whom he disliked intently and some of whom became good friends. All of them in the same leaky fantastic boat. Fucked up individuals on one hand and very fine crazy friends on the other; none of whom he was ever likely to see again. Perhaps better that way. There was however one way for them to re-enter Sean's life. Through his fragmented memories of lost friends as he saw them first at the hostel.

*****

There was a whiteboard above the counter. A number of teaching jobs with place or school names seemed to be written on it. There are also two red pay phones, constantly engaged by various hostellers, leaning on the Formica counter; as they called up bushibans trying to find work. These pay phones took one kwai or one NT dollar for every 30 seconds.

Amidst this activity, there was the serious business of making breakfast. Frying eggs and cooking bread in grotty toasters. Instant noodles and endless vegetarian fry ups. Sean never understood why they bothered. Buying parcels of food, wrapped in plastic and placed in a mouldy fridge, for others to steal. Better to buy breakfast on the street he figured. Hot and fresh and no stupid hassle. All he needed for sustenance was in his hands. A strong black Nescaafe. The same singular breakfast he had consumed for the past five years.

"Hey, you Blondie. Can you speak English? Or are you some type of retarded Scandinavian.HAWW, HEEH, HAHAW!

The demented parrot laugh emitted from the same red faced midget Sean had seen in the dormitory. He had somehow manged to rouse himself although he was obviously feeling the worse for wear. This was apparent through his red Gollumesque eyes and his habit of constantly clawing at the wispy strands of hair affixed to a dome head. He was sitting on top of the kitchen bench oblivious to the bustle around him but obviously directing his comments to Dinan.

Sean looked at him intently to indicate his overall contempt and then replied somewhat stupidly. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You see, you do speak English.well done. This major accomplishment qualifies you for a job if you hurry," he said (HAWHAA, HEH-HEH, HEEH!!!) and waved his index finger at a new placement on the board. "They want blondies like you at a kids school. Its this whole Aryan superior race thing. The chinks love it!" The fool peeled his lips back from his donkey's head, goggled his eyes and discharged another high pitched guffaw. "HAH, HAH, HOOWAHHH, HEHYAAAH!!!!!"

Sean was forced to step back by the laughter, a charged physical and audio combination, hitting him in the solar plexus. "Never mind, Roger, he's an actor you know.or rather would like to be an actor," said a sandy haired scouse with a boyish face with the chubby cheeks and Beatlesque mop of hair. "You know they're all a bit strange. Aint that the truth," he says winking at Roger.

Sean introduced himself and the other man told him his name. "James Dingle. But Jim is fine. That's wot my buddies call me," he said with a deep Liverpudlian accent. Jim said his girlfriend, Winnie, and himself had just spent six months teaching English in Bangkok. Before that they had travelled through India. Sean had a feeling he had met Jim and Winnie before. He just couldn't place where. Eventually it would come back to him. Things always did. Jim and Sean spent a few minutes comparing edited version of their recent histories and travelogues. The normal rigmarole. Winnie stood aloof, somewhat to the side. She did a cursory wave of acknowledgement. She was dark skinned with a thin figure and full breasts which gave the impression she was liable to fall flat on her face through the sheer force of gravity. When Sean said he was a journalist, it sounded false. Half the travellers you met described themselves as journalists, writers, photographers or creative professionals of some kind. Stating casually they were freelance. As if Time Magazine would give these hippie fuckers a few months off to teach English in a Taiwanese bushiban and stay at the crapulous Taipei Hostel. Yeah right. Or they might mention some well known corporation like Fox studios as their last place of employment.What? As the fucking hairstylist maybe.rather than lying intelligently and making up a semi believable job with some level of obvious creative worth. Sign Painting for instance.

Roger looked around as Jim and Sean spoke and seeing they weren't interested in him anymore, turned and sniffed to no-one in particular. "Mentally retarded Australian . which is really saying something . new teacher on the block."

*****

As well as general situation vacancies, traveller's messages, general advice on Taipei, and spiritual guidance in the form of a daily Buddhist saying, the white board advertised replacement jobs which needed to be filled immediately. In his first week, Sean tried calling a few and after a couple of rejections he quickly realised that omissions and half truths were the keys to finding employment. On his next attempt he told the receptionist that he was half Canadain and half Australian and was given, sight unseen, a 90 minute teaching job the following day at a cram school known as Global Village. He hung up the phone surprised and delighted. Sean arrived 20 minutes early for the Friday evening class at the Chung Siao Section 5 branch of Global Village which was housed on the 12 th floor of an Trading company. Sean had been given the drill on casual classes at this particular school by Jim who said they were "a pinch of shit". Nevertheless when he arrived, he studied the teaching article. It comprised one photocopied page from the daily newspaper of three letters and replies from Ann Landers on the respective issues of adultery, low self-esteem and the occurrence of a beard for a prim New Englander with a hormonal complaint. He squeezed the material dry for most of the session. At the end of the class, he tried some freeform conversation. This received far more interest, mainly with questions on his personal lifestyle and domestic arrangements.

The class was a varied mix above the age of fifteen including students, housewives, professionals and clerks. A particular beauty in the class called herself Baby and indeed her oval face with lustrous green eyes was child-like although her compact, curvaceous figure in a white blouse and black mini skirt excited a more venal response. Leaving the school, Sean felt exhilarated. A job on his first full day and the princely sum of $480 NT for the stop gap teaching. He was no damn tourist. There were no damn tourists in the place anyway, thank god! There were no reasons for tourists to come. The city's very grottiness and weirdness excluded them. to Taipei itself. That was one of the things he liked best about this dreadful looking city he was starting to like. On exiting the building, he navigated his way along the crowded footpaths packed with street sellers laying out imitation brand clothes on plastic sheets. Further out past the crowds, he was confronted by a row of police barricades, wooden tumbrels with razor wire curled around the timber supports and crossbeams. He later found out they had been set up to contain a planned political demonstration calling for parliamentary reform and Taiwanese independence. There had been 10,000 demonstrators and at one point the police had charged into the crowd wielding batons. Many of the protesters ahd been caught between the police and the razor wire. Two dozen had been hospitalised. This was Sean's first introduction to Taiwan authority and although he didn't realise it, a frank portrayal of the contradictions in local society. Taiwan at this time was a fledgling democracy. Recent history revolved around the self serving fiction that it was an Island province among a Chinese confederacy. It had been invaded and run by the Japanese for more than a decade before liberation by the Allies at the end of the second world war. Since then it had been ruled by an authoritarian Government in the Kuomintang or Nationalist party. This was a political and military movement forged by the nation builder, Sun-Yat Sen and a dictator in Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek. After the vanquishment of Chiang and his armies, Taiwan had supposedly become a Mecca of free market capitalism and a counterweight to the doctrinaire centralised planning of its Communist rival. In reality, the Republic of China was largely controlled by a collusion of Kuomintang political, military and business interests characterised by monopolistic control of key commodities. Tobacco, cement, alcohol, telecommunications and liquor were all under state control. Then at a distance removed was the informal economy.

A sensual showcase of modern vice notorious, in no particular order; for its prostitution, corruption, drug smuggling, capital punishment, hostess bars and violent triad gangs. Yet it was equally true that the Republic was a fantastic repository of Chinese culture in art, cuisine, etiquette, Taoist and Confucian belief and manners. Two sides of the same coin. . Taiwan was full of such contradictions. There were corrupt politicians, Taoist priests and smiling gangsters. Beautiful secretaries working in trading houses and riding home to their shared apartments with their knees drawn sharply together, their high heels pressing into the riding board of their scooters as they navigated the traffic in the dark blanket that daily covered the city. The night markets full of sensory stimulation. Smells of chilli, garlic and peppers. The incessant touch and bustle of the crowds wending their way like a multi segmented serpent along the tight Taipei streets and subways. Everywhere, the chatter of Chinese languages in singsong tones. Teppanyaki and noodle food stores on one side of a night market and the vendors of ladies lingerie and massage implements on the other. The fumes from the public buses and the dank industrial estates full of concrete hives. Formerly known as Formosa, the beautiful island in Portuguese; Taiwan had become a industrial ravaged landscape where tmillions of scooters emitting two stroke engine fumes had created a dense fog in the capital.

The pollution was entrapped by a ring of mountains so that if you travelled less than 500 metres above sea level and stood on one of the apartment verandas in Tsien Tien village you could not see the city. But there were also unexpected and often hidden delights. The public spectacle of Chinese opera from a open backed truck. The secret thrill of undressing your lover in between Burt Bacharach songs in a private karaoke room. And while at first bewildered by the complexity, Sean grew to love Taipei as much for its sins as for its virtues.

*****

As darkness descended on neon lit Linshen Bay Lou, various guests straggled back to the hostel from either a days teaching or simply from wandering through the urban jungle which was Taipei. The guests were a hotchpotch of nationalities and personalities. Nobody came to Taiwan for a tourist experience for there was none to be had in the conventional sense. If there was an underlying unity of purpose, it was probably fair to say that desperation of a lesser or greater degree brought most of the travellers. The western ones needed cash to continue travelling and avoid going home. Unusually for an Asian nation, there were quite a few North Americans, generally college students trying earnestly to pay off horrendous student loans which were meant to make them lawyers or doctors but instead just made them broke. In this way, Taipei was an attractive destination. The New Taiwan dollar was strong and the bushibans were hungry for foreign teachers, particularly those with a North American accent.

Sean returned to the hostel. He cut though a sidestreet to avoid the barricades and caught a bus from Roosevelt Lou which took him along Nanking Nan Lou. He studied his street map and worked it well enough this time to get off near the intersection with Linshen Bay Lou Section Three. He walked past an array of what seemed like marvellous shops set amidst dull office buildings. Among them, elaborate barber shops, fronted by intricately designed windows and cherry striped candy poles. He suspected the barber shops had other purposes by the bored looks of the young women lounging around inside in bright cotton dresses as leering customers entered through the frosted doors. There were also sit down dumpling shops and street vendors selling an assortment of strange fried foods and a multitude of other stores selling groceries and gadgets he didn't understand. He found his way back to Alley 36 and walked on to the last building on the left hand side. The lift was waiting at the bottom.

Climbing out of the piss stained elevator into the reception area and the lounge, he turned a sharp left into the stairwell and walked up past the garbage bags. One of them had split, spilling out rotten vegetables and plastic crap. One short flight of stairs and through a bamboo curtain with a smiling cross legged Budda printed on the front .and for the first time since arriving at the hostel Sean visited the balcony. The infamous Taipei Hostel balcony. On first appearances, it was nondescript. Yet on closer examination, he realised there was a surreal vista to behold. Once on the rooftop, he could see endless electric advertising in strident Chinese script on innumerable grey buildings across an iridescent orange sky. Unknowingly, he was about to join the first of dozens of crazy conversations he had at this peculiar place. Conversations where too much was drunk, too much was smoked and too many opinions were aired. At that moment, he didn't have a job, his money was running out and he didn't know anyone. He was sleeping in a ten dollar bunk bed in a 12 person dormitory . but Sean could distantly feel some strange insistent groove which he sensed in this place, in this city and in himself.

*****

There were four men sitting on a large table arguing in a relatively amiable manner . The cheap brown table had enough room to hold three on the benches on either side. There was another table the same size adjacent to the first which was occupied by two Western couples laughing in unison like old friends. Sean, conscious he was single and desiring the simplicity of male conversation, sat down a way from the men at the first table and opened up the first of six cans of Guinness in celebration of his first paid job after eleven months of travelling. As he swallowed his first draught, an Australian on his right leant forward and extended his arm. The same big-headed photographer he had met two days before. Once again, for the third time, he failed to recognise Sean.

"Hi, my name is Hamish but you can call me Hamo. I'm a failed arts student from Sydney in the State of New South Wales," he said. Hamo's eyes moved around the table quickly as he spoke. He'd been at the hostel two days and already he was holding court. The dryness of his delivery and his brisk mocking tones commanded his audience. "This here is William Samuel Powers. Bill is a failed boxer, a failed bachelor and a failed builder and a good personal friend who I meet yesterday from the windy city of Chicago," Hamo pointed to Bill with his Camel cigarette and Bill, a big man with crisp blue eyes and a laconic smile raised his Taiwan beer bottle in salute. "Sitting on Bill's left is Gil who you can see is now a fully qualified hippie but from a military background. A Jungian contradiction if ever there was one. Mr Gil Fosdick from St Louis in the State of Missouri, I believe. Well Gil, I guess it is plain to see, is just failed," he said and gave a bull laugh.

"Honours graduate in forestry from Missouri State University and a former corporal in the United States Marine Corps honourably discharged if you please," said Gil.

"Finally seated on my left is Prince Henry from Lagos. Henry has failed at nothing in his life."

The Nigerian in question wore a long patterned green caftan shirt with denim jeans and leather sandals and was rolling a joint as Hamo finished his introductions. This guy was like a fucking prince. Tall, strong and handsome. Henry wore a Peci and a heavy golden chain around his thick neck and copper and silver bracelets. He nodded at Sean who noticed Henry was unrolling a number of roaches in the ashtray and was sprinkling out the ash with a bit of the remainder green specks and rolling it all together to make one last joint for later. If anyone else had done it, they would all have laughed and told him he was a cheapskate. But the Nigerian did it with such informal grace that no-one entertained such a thought.

Hamo and the others with the exception of Henry looked at Sean.

"Yes, Seamus what is your failure," said a slightly familiar voice at his left shoulder. Sean turned around and saw Jim smiling faintly at him holding a duty free bottle of Jamiesons in one hand and a Peter Stuyvesant in the other.

The Seamus thing was almost a term of affection, Sean thought.

"Hi. Sean is my name.and I'm a failed misogynist.," he started.

"I'm sure you are a highly successful one," interrupted Bill dryly.

.and my friend Jim is a failed Mick," said Sean.

"Yeah, aren't we all," said Jim.

*****

An invisible breeze of mutual recognition at the humour drifted pleasantly around the table of men. They all wanted the same thing. To get high and argue and make jokes about male pursuits.sport, sex, politics, music, their travails and the ironies of life.

"Now as a group of admitted failures," said Hamo a little while later chewing his words like spit balls, "I think it is only right that we all state a short story; notice the word short, on some type of personal success we've achieved."

"A form of self-therapy right Hamo," said Bill and got up to leave. "you'll have to excuse me gentlemen," said Bill in the clipped Chicagoan speech, "but I had better find my girlfriend or she'll have my balls for dinner. Good night."

"God, I don't expect you to leave Bill just because its a tough ask for you to find a personal success," called Hamo after him. "Well I had better set the example."

"You know, once I rang up over $20,000 on a credit card," he began. "The bank should never had given me that limit but according to them I was on the way to become a publishing tycoon or so I led them to believe for a surfing magazine according to my application form. The bank gained the impression somehow that I had serious backers and thus fantastic prospects or so they figured and responded by granting me a substantial credit limit.

"Anyway the idea was publishing and surfing combined, so you know, I was partying a lot at the time. Photographing the surf competitions and enjoying that whole scene while at the same time doing the high society bisso in order to talk to potential advertisers and investors. Plenty of good quality booze too. Beer and wine of course. But there was a lot of other stuff around. Those awful sweet Tequila Sunrises, Bloody Marys, Harvey Wallbangers with freshly squeezed OJ, Martinis with beer chasers, Mai Tais, Banana Daiquiris. you name it, the works. A lot of my photographer mates were getting hammered but they weren't getting as hammered as expensively as I was."

"Shit man, you were just a starting alcoholic with rich taste," said Gil.

Hamo gave a short laugh and continued. "And spending, man. I was reaming that card like there was no tomorrow. Tooled leather boots, Shetland wool jumpers, corduroy pants.like from Fleishers, not the cheap shit. Once I even flew to Vegas for a bet. The joke was that while I was there I ended up winning enough to pay for the trip back on my card...not that I bothered. I just kept spending. A Tag Heuer watch. An Italian leather briefcase with my initials in it for chrissake. Like anyone gave a shit. . The funny thing was I wasn't doing it to be King Dick. I really didn't give a shit either way. It was just that after a few thousand; I knew I wasn't able to pay it back. The irony of course was that most of it had gone on the wasteful living rather than the business which in the end destroyed my income prospects."

"A vicious cycle," muttered Gil with clenched teeth while brushing his lank blonde hair having unravelled his ponytail.

"That's right. A vicious cycle and a treadmill, from which there is no return, my friends. My reputation started to suck and I missed deadlines and the good ol' desktop publisher with a juicy bank balance profile didn't seem so likely anymore. For a while, I used to dread getting my visa statements and reading my balance. a fast growing balance in the red. Then I thought what the hell, there's no use getting depressed, I'll just max this baby out and that's exactly what I did. I took it to the twenty grand ceiling and beyond."

"The bank must've applauded," said Jim.

"Yeah, real happy, said Hamo, "but the funny thing was. and they knew it and I knew it, they couldn't touch me. They threatened all kind of shit but in the end there's not much they can do. Of course, your credit card rating is fucked."

"That's a given," said Sean.

"Eventually a guy rang me up, in a very serious voice and said they would forgive half the debt if I paid the other half. Like he was doing me a favour or something."

Jim was rolling a joint with his long fringe overshadowing the paper and the tobacco on the table but I could sense he was wearing a smile just like myself. Gil was more animated. He had stopped combing out his hair from the ponytail. His eyes sprouted out on corn sticks and flecks of spit landed on his furry moustache. "Go on," he yelled looking around wildly. "What did you tell those bankers . Go fuck themselves I bet."

Hamo paused theatrically. "I didn't get nasty. That would've been too obvious. I just sat there thinking and breathing deep as if I was in contemplation and this bank Johnnie at the other end of the line telling me how this step would put me back on an even financial keel. Void any future legal action he said. They were his exact words, I swear. I can remember it like yesterday. You know how it goes; sweet talk then intimidation. Good cop, bad cop shit. So I just said look I really appreciate your offer but.I can't accept on this occasion, as a friend has offered to sell me his second hand red 88' Monaro for ten thousand dollars cash. I waited for this to sink in and then I hung up."

We all laughed. Hamo knew how to tell a story and, of course, it was funny to tell a bank obliquely to go fuck itself.

"Not that I had the cash really," Hamo concluded with a note of faint reflection in his voice. "That's my story of personal success," he laughed. "Now it's the turn of you guys."

"Ok Jim, you tell us one," said Sean.

Jim looked at Sean with a hard expression and then smiled. "Sure buddy, I'll tell you one," he said and leaned back from the bench while he dusted down his pants and thought for a few seconds. He took a drag from his spliff , inhaled deeply, then exhaled and watched the tendrils of the smoke disappear into the still, humid night and began.

"About two years ago when I was studying away from home in Manchester, I was asked to have an HIV test for this university health study that was happening. Well first I refused, I was nervous as hell. A dumb scouse like me after five years of indiscriminate screwing and drugs.although never needles which is the critical point probably.Well anyway eventually I did it.I went and had that mother of a test.and you know what, it was clean. I got a clean bill of health. Fucking brilliant..I was over the moon .and as you would expect, I went out that night and celebrated. Whiskey and pints and more whiskey and more pints. I got totally shitfaced."

"Naturally," said Hamo.

".well a couple of mates and myself ended up at his sleazy disco called Checkpoint Charlies of all fucking names. By this time, I am so shit-faced, I can scarcely stand so I sink into a corner where there is a sofa with some slut half lying down who is also wasted.she's been on a girls night and had a few bottles of cider too many.anyway one thing led to another and I ended up fucking this ugly fat bitch,"

"Ah, sexual conquest of the highest quality," laughed Sean.

".without protection," Jim concluded ruefully.

"Wow a whole 12 hours of HIV free certainty," said Hamo.

"That's right, and I haven't had the test since.now its your turn, Buddy," Jim said to Sean putting on his rough boy manner.

While the others were telling their stories, Sean thought about what he should say. What ambiguous success should he relate. He thought with a twinge of self-disgust about telling them the story about the time he had sex with Clare Douglas, a schizophrenic nurse friend of Siobhan's who was staying at their house. Sean had crept out of their bed and into the guest room and quickly mounted her while Siobhan slept a few metres away. When he had finished his furtive fuck and climbed, Clare complained to him that it had been too quick and cursory! But it seemed too confessional. Something a Californian would say to strangers on their first meeting. And now there were more people around. Not just a few guys talking shit. The laundry was upstairs at the other end of the balcony and some of the other hostel guests were vigorously washing and scrubbing their clothes using soap and warm water. The twin tub washing machine was whirring and gyrating on the concrete floor like an industrial throwback. Two others had joined their table while Hamo had been speaking. Winnie was stretched out languorously next to Jim with one hand casually on his shoulder. She did not look at all perturbed by Jim's tale of sexual misadventure. A dark squat man with an American bandana had also taken a seat at the other end. This was Kent Silver. The son of a Los Angelos advertising agency scion. A self important man who had gone to Israel two years before with the specific purpose of completing national service he wasn't obligated to do and had been travelling ever since. Someone produced a battered, paint splattered ghetto blaster which was blasting out the Stone Roses. No, a lighter, funnier tale was needed for a night like this.

"Okay. I'll tell you about a recent enlightening experience I had in Koh Phang-an.

"Oh, enn-ligten-nen-ning, I like that," drawled Gil. "Very Buddhist."

Sean looked at Gil quizzically. Were all the people in this place insane he wondered. He took the joint that Winnie offered and took a couple of quick drags.

*****

"Yeah right," said Sean. "Anyway to cut a long story short, about six weeks ago, I cycled up past Hua Hin and then hitched a ride this cool truck driver. Fantastic. I chucked the bike in the back of the truck and off we set. I'm rapt of course. This guy who is a good guy drove most of the night and by the next morning we reached Surat Thani. A ferry and three hours later I arrived in Koh Phangan and like Jim over there I'm ready to party after three days of self-inflicted torture.

Kent at the same time was carrying on a side conversation with a newly arrived Hostel guest standing near the stairwell. Sean vaguely heard a thread of the discussion. A man with a South African accent was saying: "Those fucking rag heads needed to be properly fixed up. Problem was Bush didn't have the courage to finish the job."

"So that night there is a beach party right, continued Sean. There's scattered groups of Westerners and I choose one where there's a few girls floating around naturally. I'm all fired up. I've got a bottle of Maekong mixed with coke and I had a good sleep and a banana pancake in the afternoon so I'm all rested up and ready to go. The best part is that there's this Swedish girl there called Helena. She's quite stunning. Long brown hair. Beautiful body. Best of all she is studying literature and loves writers. There is also this public school prick from London called Liam hanging around however. An arrogant son of a bitch who thinks he's Adam Ant reincarnated."

"These days its even worse because they try to disguise themselves so they don't seem like upper class pricks," said Jim.

" Exactly . This Liam guy unfortunately was handsome and he was travelling after studying in France," said Sean. He was starting to enjoy the telling of the tale. He looked around and saw Kent and the South African who was now persistently debating the finer points of Middle-East diplomacy, As he later learnt, Kent would always disagree regardless of the subject or the position that the other person would take . ("No, no..you don't understand the position at all in the Middle-East. In fact, it was good for Israel for Saddam to invade Kuwait argued Kent. After all, neither of those two countries are democracies. Kuwait in some ways is worse. Mossad had destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor so we knew their capacity. Better the devil you know.")

Everyone else was listening so Sean continued. "Of course, I come on like the big journalist man. Telling Helena about the front page leads I've had and the hot stories I've broken and all that sort of shit.

This Pommie twat is also doing the big seduction number however and he's been studying international development at the Cite University in Paris which she's pretty hot about as well.So the three of us are carrying on together like we're all best mates when in reality the Pommy and myself hate each other. I decide to take the initiative," he grinned wryly as he said this, "and ask Helena to dance. There's a few people swaying to the techno music that someone has hooked up. You know the drill. She agrees and I'm pretty happy about that. So we step out and we start kinda groovin' together with my hands gliding along the sides of her body. It's all sweet and then.."

"You get a big stiffy under the stars," yelled Gil who patently had permanently rearranged his brain cells.

"Almost.laughed Sean. "I'm getting into the groove and my Thai fishermen pants fall down.literally to my ankles, revealing a rancid pair of white y-fronts. Helena started laughing. Actually she's bent over double laughing her head off. In fact, the whole fucking group is hysterical with laughter. I can't blame them. It must've looked fucking funny. What do you do. I pull my pants up and walk back to my bottle. Liam is mimicking the whole scene which sets Helena off again naturally.and that was that."

Everyone looked at Sean expectantly. "That's it, asked Hamo. "That's your success story?"

"Well not quite," smiled Sean. "The next day, this guy Liam deliberately walks up to tell me how he took Helena back to his bungalow after the party. I remember his words exactly. He said, ' I fucked her brains out and she loved every minute.' That made me feel real good of course. Later that day we all played football on the beach and I made sure I got that arsehole in a good tackle, I swear he couldn't walk for two days. That was my one measure of success. That and the fact that rather than going after longlegged Swedes at moon parties, I went to the bars overlooking the beach and drank Maekong and joked with the bar girls every night."

"It would've been easier to break his face," concluded Jim.

*****

By this time, a few more people had congregated on the balcony and most everyone took a pause to smoke and drink. A couple of disparate conversations started so it seemed that the success stories had ended but then Prince Henry who had hardly spoken a word looked over to Gil and said, "Hey Gil, why don't you tell all these folk, the story about Stormin' Norman and yourself last year."

Gil stared fixedly at Henry for a couple of seconds. His left hand was shaking and he began tapping the table quickly to calm himself down. "Yeah well, that story huh.Henry. Ok, I'll tell you all about Norman or Stormin' Norman as we all called him. He was a wild man. Wild in the real sense of being out of control. It wasn't just the drugs although they didn't help. He was just out there. He scared everybody. Not just me but everyone. A big black motherfucker too. Not as black as Henry over here but black enough. A man of colour as they say.

"Anyway, one night a couple of us are sitting here. This very same table. We were just talking shit as always and Norman walks in. He's drunk of course and had some women trouble I was told later. We were talking about how the Taiwanese view other people, other races. Anyone who know me knows I'm not a racist.Right Henry," said Gil looking at Henry who nodded in agreement.

"Well I make the comment that anyone who's been here any length of time knows well enough. The Chinese think they're the best, the smartest and most cultured that is. White Caucasians are further down the list but still get some respect because they managed to carve up China and win the Second World War. The Japanese are hated but they are considered smart. But black people, well they're not considered to be high on this particular totem pole, according to the Chinese that is .. Right away, Norman's at me. Really at me. Calling me every name under the sun. At first I'm a bit worried he might try and pick a fight, grunts don't like Marines and vice-versa y'know; but we've both been living at the hostel for a few weeks and we know a lot of the people around the place so I tell myself it'll be ok and that it will all blow over in the morning when we're all slept it off. So I tell Norman to shut up and go to bed. Well I guess that was a mistake because he stood up with this angry look in his eyes and walked down to the stairwell and came back with a rusty old bike chain and just started to lay right into me. He laid into me real good. There were a couple of guys around and they tried to pull him off and stuff but he did a fair bit of damage. Busted me up good and proper. I had to go to hospital for a couple of days. I couldn't teach for more than a week. Internal bleeding and shit."

Sean and the others were somewhat surprised at the turn that the conversation had taken. It was Sean's first night on the balcony and the scene provided a taste of what to expect in the future. "What about this guy, Stormin' Norman. What happened to him," said Hamo.

"Oh, not much of course Pippy asked him to leave the hostel. Big deal. Pretty much he acted like nothing changed. He left to go back to the Philippines a couple of weeks later.

See some of his former army buddies and go whoring I expect."

"So he won't be coming back?" asked Winnie.

"I suspect he'll be back one day. He was earning good money here and there's no other place, crazy enough besides Taipei that he would find half decent work so I guess he'll be back but.," said Gil who paused and gave a curious smile and reached down to pull something from his string bag. Gil, the old hippie with the lank blonde hair tied into a short ponytail and drooping moustache who you wouldn't think could or would hurt a fly then held up a sheathed switch knife. He pushed a knob so the narrow blade sprung out and caught the light of the bare light bulb above the table. "But I'll be ready for him next time. Me and my darlin' Clementine will be ready and waiting for that prick," said Gil staring lasciviously at the knife. Then he started to intone sadly as he looked down at the knife; his Clementine.

"In my dreams she still doth haunt me, Robed in garments soaked in brine.
Though in life I used to hug her, Now she's dead, I'll draw the line.
Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine,
You are lost and gone forever, Dreadful sorry Clementine."

Gil giggled until specks of spit covered his chin. He stopped abruptly and looked up. "Yep, Clementine and me will be ready for him next time."

THE END.

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