Be careful you don't get abducted: 03 (Taipei)

When I got to Taipei, I was met at the airport by the woman from Tainan in south Taiwan whose flat I was going to share, so I was too busy getting acquainted with her and looking out to take note of what the taxi driver might've done.

    The first time I took a taxi back to the flat was a little bit after that, when I'd left the flat in the morning without a coat (it being sunny blue skies outside, and me being conscious of standing out for miles as someone from the tropics, wearing a winter coat when it was sunny), and left the office at 5pm to find it was dark, raining and cold.

    The locking is controlled by the taxi driver, operating a lever by his gear stick -- but I didn't know this at the time, as I'd never come across this before in Singapore (not that taxis were common in my younger days there, anyway).

    All I heard was a click, then I saw the locking latch/knob on the car door sill lowered.  Another episode of the driver locking me into his vehicle (after Hong Kong)!  What was happening?!?

    Not daring to attract his attention by pulling the latch/knob back up, I started to ease out the umbrella surreptitiously from my handbag, getting ready to cosh the man at the appropriate time.

    It turned out to be a common practice in Taiwan (but not all drivers did it and not every single time).

(Taiwan, 1974)