Choosing the wrong people to challenge (Taiwan)

 

I’d met 胡 Hú (whom I called “胡老大 Hú lǎo dà” because he was the oldest of the three) and his two high school classmates in Lishan on the central mountain range in Taiwan in July 1975.

    We were going in different directions (they from 嘉義 Chiayi in the south up to Taipei in the north, me from Taipei down to Taichung in central Taiwan), and were stopping over in 梨山 Lishan (“Pear Mountain”) for only one night.  Such is fate.

    I then met Daniel (founder of sina.com) through 胡老大.  The two of them were basketball players, with Daniel standing at 6’3” (190.5cm) or 6’4” (193.04cm), so his friends called him 百九 bak gau in the Minnan dialect (“hundred nine”, for 190).

    One day, when 190 and 胡老大 were in Taipei, I was taking them to my office on Chungshan North Road 中山北路.

    Got to a subway to cross over.  (Taipei had railings on the central reservations of lots of roads, so one couldn’t just cross at any point — one had to do so at junctions where there were subways.)

    At the bottom of the steps on the other side, I decided (foolishly) to challenge them, “Race you to the top!!” and without waiting for them to agree, I took off ahead of them, up the steps, two at a time.  (One has to cheat a bit when one has short legs, you know…)

    They waited until I was two-thirds of the way up before ambling up, four steps at a time, then turned round at the top, and folded their arms to watch me finish off my challenge!

    I never made that mistake again, challenging two basketball players to a race up a flight of steps….  (I was 5’ 1.5” / 155cm; now lost half an inch in my old age.)

(Taipei, 1975)