I know my legs are tasty because the insects here seem to love them even without a honey glaze. I have a nagging feeling that word has gotten out that I’m eating everything in sight and causing a food shortage; the insects have been recruited and are mounting an offensive. Their plan is simple: drain me of all my blood to weaken me and substantially impact my ability to eat.
Their most brutal attack came as I was walking through the Meiluen Shan Park
1. Earphones are optional
Quite a few people will play their hand-held radios aloud…blasting actually…for everyone to hear. Mostly it’s Taiwanese pop but one particularly happy gentleman was enjoying Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”. I ran into him again a short while later, only this time playing Shania Twain’s “Man I feel Like a Woman”. As a spot in the city where you’d expect people to come to get away from the noise, they bring it with them! But I’ve been told that the residents are very good at blocking out sound. They’d have to be, because even here, up in the trees in the centre of the park, I could hear it: the garbage truck song. It was inescapable...at least it was for me.
2. Squirrels sound different here
I heard a rustling in the trees beside me and then the call of an animal. Naturally, I got closer to see if I could spot the thing. The noise got louder and I half expected the beast to abandon its warning call and proceed straight to jumping on me and eating my face. Just then, it scurried out of the tree; a squirrel. Not that squirrels can’t be fierce. I recall the time when I was living in residence at university. Our caretaker, an older gentleman named “Royce”, calmly advised us against taking the screens off our windows since squirrels could get in and, in his gentle words, “tear your fucking face off”. I don’t know what killer mutant attack squirrels Royce had faced off with in his life, or if he had just done a lot of drugs, but I took his advice to heart and have maintained a healthy fear of squirrels ever since.
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