The hobby of drinking helped to cater to our otherwise mundane and harrowing existence in a stranger than strange land. But there are always consequences. Now the laws in Taipei are slack. Especially for us strange looking people with our white skin and different colored hair. The police would always look amused whenever they had to deal with us - laughing at the fact that we couldn’t understand their language or laws. But as is always the case in Taiwan things on the surface rarely looked as they seemed. The concept of ‘face’ kept police and people in general from saying and doing what they really meant to. ‘Face’ is in fact a big part of the reason English people are paid as much as what they are. As outsiders the concept of always respecting elders and being polite regardless of what is said and done did not apply. On the down side this also meant that Taiwanese people had every right, culturally speaking, to lie freely. This was an important fact that was to hit me hard in my final year.

As slack as the laws are in Taipei there were always quietly spoken rumors. Late at night you’d ear the tales of someone that had too much to drink, jumped on their scooter and been stopped by police. The stories always varied from there. Some people bribed the police, others preferred to pay a hefty yet strangely not inhibitive fine. In one case a friend of mine told me how he had been stopped and, when failing to provide a license the disgruntled police used bolt cutters to cut off his plates and threw them over the side of a bridge leaving him to walk home. But all these were rumors and the most extreme of cases. It was a given that they could rarely happen to people you knew or yourself. The specialty with which foreigners are treated in Taiwan affords them a sort of delusion that makes them believe they are invincible to an extent. I was duly afforded the same feelings.

Until one Friday night. I had actually worked late and went to an even later party. But in a strange coincidence while I didn’t feel a qualm about driving home drunk I did have a conscious pang about working early the next day. I left the party early and went home. My petrol tank sat on empty and I was desperately trying to get home before the last wisp of gas left me in the darkened streets of Taipei city with a bike that wouldn’t run. It was in that strange rush that I encountered a police block. In seconds I was asked to pull the scooter onto the side of the road and produce a license. My nightmare was complete when I told them I had no license.

What happened afterwards was surreal. As I stood on the side of the road next to my scooter the police went wild. Now I don’t speak fluent Chinese but I can understand the basics. Basically the police were arguing. More specifically they were arguing about what to do with me. Whilst four of the officers simply wished to let me go the fifth was determined to ‘have the foreigner’. After something that resembled a scene that resembled Desperate Housewives in full swing it was decided that I would have to take the breathalyzer test. 

The fifth officer approached me.
“You blow”, he said waving a small tube in front of me.
I have never been one to respond well to those two words put together by anyone much less a strange Taiwanese police officer.
I shook my head. The officer stomped his feet like a spoilt child.
“YOU BLOW” he bellowed.
“I would like a Foreign Affairs police officer please” I answered.
Ahh the Foreign Affairs police. Taiwan’s answer to diplomatic immunity. At the very least with a Foreign Affairs police officer you are guaranteed to be told everything in English. As it turned out the least was all they really provide anyway.
After a few more attempts at jumping up and down the officer stormed off. He returned two minutes later not with an officer of the Foreign Affairs but, of all things, a mobile phone. With a grunt he pushed it at me. I put my ear to it.
“Hello?” said a woman’s voice.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Um …..please….take the breathalyzer test” said the voice.
“Who is this?” I asked in return.
“I am the girlfriend of the officer that arrested you” answered the voice.
With a mixture of awe and disbelief I handed the phone back to the officer with a shake of my head.

Again he jumped up and down. If I was going to be arrested I was going to be fully aware of the situation beforehand much to the dismay of the angry officer. After another fifteen minutes it was decided they would send over the youngest of the officers that spoke in broken English.

“Foreign officer ……….come now” said the nervous youth. I sat on the curb while I waited.

Thirty minutes later the foreign affairs officer arrived after passing us on two occasions. Only when the committed officer ran after the car did they finally arrive. The Foreign Affairs officer shook my hand and told me his name was Peter. I took the test. I was over the legal limit-I think.

At this point even the officers seemed confused. I registered as 0.7. Now this is a frightening way of showing blood alcohol content. Remember I grew up in Australia where the reading is always a point zero level; the legal limit in Australia is 0.025. According to that rate I was not only over the limit but should also have been clinically dead.

After looking at a few books to confirm (and figure out) what the reading meant I was told I was under arrest. Now I was raised to believe that when you have done something wrong you have to pay for it. It was obvious to me that I was in the wrong and despite the problems the police had shown (by way of doubt and uncertainty) the arrest was a fair one. Little did I realize that in Taiwan the whole truth is rarely given. Needless to say I co-operated and was taken to the station. The Foreign Affairs officer assured me that it was an offence but as my first it would be little more than a fine. In my guilt I trusted him.

As my first ever arrest I assumed all the tests and certification was the norm. I was told to undergo a series of tests for sobriety and then make a statement in both oral and written form. Both were recorded by camera and voice tape - it would appear that the Taiwanese police had revised their former state of inefficiency. All the while Peter tried his hardest to maintain the appearance that this was normal and all would be fine. Then I asked the golden question. “So what exactly can I expect to happen after all this?” I asked Peter hopefully.

Peter’s charade fell apart. In Chinese he asked the officers around me the same question. They seemed as confused and uncertain as he was. Not exactly the most reassuring reaction after having signed my life away in both oral and written form. After a lot of checking in books and computer files I was brought a form. Unfortunately said form was also entirely in Chinese. I had studied a little bit of Mandarin writing and reading but as the alphabet contains over five thousand characters a little bit does not go a long way. For all I knew this could have been the local menu from the restaurant downstairs! Peter ran his fingers along the paper and showed me the sum of 45000NTD (roughly 1800 Australian dollars) adhering to the colossal blood content I had blown. Peter smiled. “There you go! They just changed the law last week. If you had been caught before it would have been much higher!”

Peter seemed pleased with his work. But I was more than dubious. Having lived in Taipei for 4 years I knew that is something seemed too good to be true it probably was and there would probably be a Taiwanese person smiling and nodding their head in a way to try and convince you otherwise. There was that and the fact that, as an unofficial country, new laws always met trouble and usually for the undesirable foreigners. The new law and what Peter was saying just seemed too illogical. 

And so it was that after performing the monumental task of getting fingerprints and mug shots taken that I ventured to find a lawyer - a lawyer that understood the machinations of the Taiwanese law system and spoke enough English to share it with me. The task itself was verging on the impossible and only served to illustrate exactly how far out of my depth I really was. I had spent 4 years in this country, learnt some of its language and generally behaved myself. And yet I was defenseless. I got calls from lawyers that wanted to plead my case but when I described the charge and location of arrest I was told that the result would be uncertain. It seems that the law system in Taiwan changes from place to place probably due to different golf partners and general public relations. The concept of ‘face’ more than reinforces the idea that sucking up to a person in power is a brilliant idea.

Only after two weeks of being arrested did I have the good fortune to find a lawyer that might suit my needs. He was a criminal lawyer that dealt with cases where foreigners without licenses had accidentally killed someone on the street. Incidentally the results in those kinds of cases was always terrifying. Whilst the Taiwanese had their own way of grieving they had no restraint in realizing how much money can be made of a foreigner stupid enough to do something wrong in Taiwan. In those cases Foreigners have little or no defense and are left to the devices of the offended family. This usually means a lot of money. I had heard all the stories spoken in the quiet at the end of the night where someone was always ready and willing to compare woes. One friend of mine (after I had left) was in such an accident. As a result he had his passport taken from him and has to pay 3,000,000,000 NTD (New Taiwanese Dollars). 25 NTD equals 1 Australian Dollar. In essence this means that he has to work for the next three years without pay!

My crime did not fit the same magnitude but it was obvious that this foreign lawyer, who had been working in Taiwan for upwards of ten years, would have at least a vague idea of what would happen to me. As is usually the case in a tiny place packed with people I stumbled across him in the street. When I described the details to me his face was grim.
“When do you leave?” he asked.
I had been planning to leave Taiwan even before being arrested - it had been a full year of saving to afford it.
“I leave in six weeks” I told him.
“Why not leave sooner” he asked.
This took me aback. Strangely, in my guilt, I had never really considered the option.
“Is that what you’re telling me to do?” I asked stunned.
“As a lawyer I can’t say that. But it would be a lot easier. And trust me the inside of a Taiwanese court is not something you want to see!” he replied in all honesty.
“Do I want to ask why?” I asked.
“Taiwan works one way or the other. The judge could see you and think you’re not worth the trouble - foreigners are notoriously hard to deal with here as you only have an alien status. On the other hand, seeing that it is a new law and you are a foreigner the judge could think this was the perfect time to show what Taiwan can do to tame the foreigners living here. It’s a pretty big gamble. And even if you do get a fine and they don’t make a conviction it will show up on immigration. Effectively this means you couldn’t immigrate, become a lawyer or live anywhere else for a period of 5 years until the conviction is annulled.” 

Lawyers have a knack for stating facts and this one was even better than most. My world fell apart. I had long known that Taiwan had its dodgy side. I had heard that people that were barred or deported from other countries came here because the security of a country that isn’t really a country was lacks. But I never thought I would consider becoming a part of that. In the end the guilt won out. I was determined to see the court through no matter the risk. In retrospect it was a stupid decision or, at the very least, a stubborn one. The lawyer kept in touch in the coming weeks as my life got more and more wrought with anxiety. As it turned out the arresting officer had lied to me. The new law stated that it could be a fine or a jail term. In essence the best I could hope for was a jail term reduced to a fine. These facts were terrifying. And the fact that there was little anyone could do to help was even more terrifying. This alien place I had called home for 4 years became even more alien.

And then I got the letter. I had always known that mail was delivered on Saturdays in Taiwan but it had never affected me before - until now. The irony was that the letter stated perfectly in English on the envelope: TAIPEI DISTRICT COURT And yet the rest of the letter was in Mandarin. I got a Chinese friend to translate. The letter contained the date of the hearing along with some helpful hints. The cheekiest of which was that, if I failed to understand what the letter said I could call a help hotline!! All of which was in perfect Mandarin.

Obviously by this stage I was a wreck. The letter was the end and it was with shaking hands and legs that I showed up to the courthouse 15 minutes early. A woman at the front desk asked me if I needed help - how little she knew! I showed her the letter. Her friendliness evaporated as she checked the log. She shook her head. I couldn’t look at her. She handed the letter back. I asked her in bad Mandarin where I should go. She shook her head. Had I gone to the wrong place?? If so I would be in even more trouble!
“No court” she said.
Great the place wasn’t even a court.
“You no court anymore” she said as she noticed how confused I was.
It was with wobbly knees and covered in sweat that I left the building. Not believing my luck I faxed the form back to my lawyer friend to find out what was going on. It took an agonizing two days to find out.
“As far as I can tell there were too many complaints and the new law was rescinded” said the lawyer.

I never thought that a sentence like that could be one of the most beautiful ever heard. I packed my things two weeks later and left. But I remember even then it had amazed me how little security I had had in such an alien place. This was a place that I thought I had tamed in one way or another. I knew how to get work and teach. I knew how to deal with the idiosyncrasies of Taiwanese people and the way they ran business. I made friends that I will never forget and look forward to seeing again in the near future. But at the end of the day, when I was in real trouble I had no security at all. I had friends for support but very little else, especially in the way of a decent defense. I even discovered that it wasn’t right to be angry or annoyed at Peter - my arresting officer. According to my lawyer Taiwanese people rarely have a clue about the issue themselves. I found that most Taiwanese families had had at least one family member in the same predicament as me. Actually some had been caught on a number of occasions. But the law for the Taiwanese is different from the one for the foreigners. That’s why my arresting officer was so adamant that I would only have to pay a fine - that’s what happens to Taiwanese people. They pay a fine without fear of further consequence. The whole Taiwanese law system is so completely unaware of how it’s different parts and branches work that many things go wrong or are mistaken on a daily basis! 

The easiest thing is not to drink and drive and that is the best lesson I ever learnt. But it also pays to know where to go to in those circumstances - to know your rights rather than to trust them to someone whose only talent is to speak English. I will never go back to Taiwan but where ever I end up next I will be more than aware that blind trust in a bad situation is the worst thing you can do to yourself.