A staggering ride

In New Taipei City, unless you are blessed with the ability to afford accommodation that grants you access to convenient public transportation, it’s hard to get around town. For someone like me, a scooter is very much necessary. However, unlike a motorbike, there’s nothing even remotely macho and rebellious about it. There’s the heavy shower and in typhoon season and the cold in winter, and apparently people who are rich enough to own a car are not smart enough to know how to drive it, so it’s comparatively dangerous for a scooter commuter to share the road with, let’s say, a Mercedes car owner, whereas he can always go like ‘oops, didn’t see this guy coming’ while the scooter rider might just lying dead under the wheels (fine, this image might be slightly too dark. But it happened.)

A second-handed scooter might cost you NT$15,000. If there’s a thirty minute ride to and back from work, in Taiwan, it will cost approximately NT$800 for gar per month. And bear in mind, for a used scooter, constant maintenance is necessary and costly. For example, I just had the transmitter replace, which cost NT$900 for a used, possibly stolen, one, and three NT$200 taxi ride and NT$1,000 when I failed to get to work on time the day the scooter broke. Alas.

You see? That’s what I’m talking about, vicious circle. There you are, stuck with a scooter in the first place, but then it cost you almighty God to keep it going (I might be exaggerating here a little bit, but at the moment, it really made you feel like all your money are spent on that piece of crap.) How are you going to get out of it?

I have a name for my scooter. But first I should tell you the story behind it. I was living in Hualien City at the time. The day was so bright that it’s a shame to spend it indoors, so I got on the scooter and rode south-west into the mountain. The thing about Hualien is that it’s so close to the mountain and The Great Pacific, sometimes, one forgets that it’s still semi-wilderness and just goes thinking it’s just like a trip to the park. Anyhow, I parked my just then bought scooter on the side of the road. And went for a mountain walk. The day was really fine. And the scent of the Nature just set me right at ease. However, when I decided that it’s enough adventure for me, I found myself lost. It may sound incredibly stupid, but I really felt that I might not see the light of day ever again. Just when I was on full panic, there it is, my proven faithful scooter, parked on the road, tilted a little bit, firm on the ground, as if saying ‘alright, you had your fun, time to go, you rat.’ I nearly burst into tears. I named my second hand scooter Grandma, for she’s old, and everything is broken. But she’s reliable and loves me unconditionally.

The garage didn’t have the parts. So I had to leave the scooter and take a taxi to work. I paid for the transmitter, and left the key to the mechanic. He said he would park my scooter outside my apartment building, and hide my key under the mat. With no apparent reason, the idea just simply struck me as disrespectful. I asked him to take the key to my landlord. And then I went to the landlord, and asked him to throw the key to my mailbox. I got home past midnight. There’s an additional twenty dollar for my taxi fare at night. I got the key and immediately went and turned my scooter on. It’s running again. I guess it does seem like a grandma, well, maybe not exactly like her, but at least some sort of a relative: it’s such a pain in the ass to get stuck with her, such a fuss to keep her. But after a costly surgery, I’m really glad that she’s fine.