buses take you nowhere

It was the club night of YLAF last night. and it was, for me, quite a night of walking.

At the beginning, I got lost for one and a half hours in the middle of nowhere due to getting off the bus at the wrong stop. Having to start walking to the racecourse- where the event is mostly based, I launched on my 'it-'s-quite-a-walk' tour, according to the woman who gave me the directions, from one end of the town to the other. Practically seeing nobody around for one hour, I texted my supervisor for some directions. But no reply. Luckily, before I gave up my drifting about and started to find ways hitting back, a couple of women came out from a farm-like place nearby along with a big dog. I followed them immediately, worrying they would think that I were a stalker in long black coat, hesitating about asking for directions (it seemed a desolate area and so it was likely, I felt, that I ended up somewhere very far away from the racecourse- which would make my looking for the racecourse a completely random action as if it were an excuse to get close to them- OK, this is a very winding way of thinking, but it did then occur to me right away). Turned out that they'd camped behind the racecourse in order for joining in the lesbian festival and I was very near the very destination (!) I was trying to get to for the past one and a half hours. so I walked with them for a few minutes, thanking them before we parted.

At the end of this night, however, I was again left wandering on the street alone in the foggy early morning. The bus that the organisers hired for the late-night participants only took people to the neighbouring area of the place we wanted to go. So, for 'Fulford', the driver dropped us at the beginning of that road, which meant that to return to my bed required half-an-hour walking time down in a street with nobody around at 3AM. This broke the record of my late-night walking alone last time, roughly from 1AM to 2 AM, from linköping central station (railway station) to rydsvägen, where i lived at the time, in May 2004 Sweden.

I am so gonna be either a brave person fearing no late-night walks by myself, or the next person to be raped and severely traumatised in this town. To be frank, i am not intimidated by late-night walks in taiwan and other places i've so far been to. I can do it anytime when I have to. While i am glad that i feel ok (not deprived of the right to solitary walks at night on the road), i am also aware that this is after all not a good idea in general because people still think those who are raped after midnight have to be responsible for the rape themselves.

At any rate, both times the buses ended up taking me to nothing but solitary trudging in the dark. So buses take you nowhere- at least last night. This may be regarded as a way of thinking about how much public transportation really helps for women passengers and where it stops helping them.

In between the two roams in the dark, I had an boringly interesting night. Among the students who signed up for voluntary help for YLAF as a whole, I was the only one who was willing to stay last night for work instead for the drinking/dancing fun. And in a way that predetermined my night with heaps of drunk women and alcohol- I sort of had to be not part of the jolly crowd.

Wearing the earphone and carrying around a radio, I helped people with the elevator, checking if anybody smoke in the non-smoking area, answering questions with standardised sentences such as 'the cloakroom is on the third floor', 'the bathrooms are behind this door' etc. It also reminded me of the year in sweden where I'd go to pubs and bars with friends almost every other week where the regular 'people checking people out' sort of thing took place all the time, and the way we'd joked about it: 'human-meat market'.

Several women came to talk to me about completely nonsense and I guess aside from the fact that I was easily spotted in the backdrop against loads of white women, 'the most unattainable is also the most desirable'- the fact I was obviously 'working' probably added some extra charm to my low-profile outlook.

There was one very straightforward. And I guess I sort of wasted her time talking nonsense with me as I declined her suggestion to go to her hotel room with her (I was very tired; got up at 7AM yesterday to begin with).

That was something new to me. Nobody has ever asked that- I've always been perhaps too demure for that question. So I guess I shall remember this thing about YLAF 2005. . . (and, the other way of thinking about this incident will be: does horniness translate cross-culturally? XD)

Another woman who also came to me for chats said that _saving face_ is a good movie and she insisted that I must go see it- she said that I looked like Joan Chen in this one. I'm not sure if it was because 'you "chinese" all look alike' or what. But I guess I will try to look for this movie and have a look some time later since it got good review on imdb (so it was not complete nonsense after all).

YLAF will be successfully finished today and I am helping no more. For the past three days I've been bored and tired because of this job, despite many interesting observations and new experiences it has brought to me. This is not to negate this event, but simply recognise that a lot of these things are after all to do with culture, languages, personal connections etc. my position in between the margins and borders (here, in taiwan, and perhaps anywhere else for the matter)will no longer allow me to find anything 'simply', or 'innocently', fun and pleasant. as i was saying to my sipervisor last week, it's been all very clear with deliberation, awareness, choice and contemplation in leading my simple life day in day out, no matter where i am.