When's the appropriate time to cosh an abductor? (Taipei, Taiwan)

In my blog Be careful you don't get abducted: 03 (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2026/01/be-careful-you-dont-get-abducted-03.html), reader Valerio has left a question: "...what would the appropriate time for coshing be?!...".

    The answer is a bit long, so here's a separate blog for it.

    My reply to Valerio's question above:

    "Appropriate time in a general sense would obviously be when his head was turned, which would make it easier for me since I'm small and female.

    "Appropriate also in the sense of if I thought he was indeed going to abduct me."

    The daughter of my Chief Geologist boss at Conoco Taiwan was 18 at the time in my first year at Conoco Taiwan.  She was blonde and curvy.

    She told me about what happened to her one taxi ride home.

    A lot of expats in Taipei during my two years there (1975–6) lived in an area of Taipei called Tianmu (天母).  Her house was one of those built on the slopes of the hill there, looking down on a huge swathe of Taipei.

    On a taxi ride home one day (evening?), Beth said to the driver when they got to her house, "停 tíng / stop," but he kept going.  She started to use English ("stop!") and Malay ("berhenti!") (her father had worked in Conoco Singapore for a few years), to no avail.

    The driver got to the very top end of the road, which was then just forest around.  As soon as he halted, Beth shot out of the cab and ran down the hill.

    If I'd been Beth in that cab in that situation, that would've been an appropriate moment for me to cosh the driver first from the back seat before I made my escape.

    Of course, I'd need to unlock the car door first before I could run out of the car after coshing him from behind (or the side).

    The frightening bit is:  the locking was controlled by the driver from the lever near his gear stick.  I can't be sure that I'd be able to pull the latch up from its sunken position in the door sill quickly enough, if at all.  I do have vague memories of surreptitiously easing it up on a few trips, just to make sure I could escape when needed, so I think it can be done by the passenger from the back seat as well.

(Taipei, Taiwan, 1975)

The right time will come

 

Retired-teacher student makes some mistakes in her putting together a sentence in Chinese, saying she was doing it on the bus, trying to respond to a text (in Chinese) of mine.

    I replied saying, “Multi-tasking and Chinese don’t seem to work well together,” in an attempt to comfort her — that she was making those mistakes (which were minor) only because her attention was divided.  She came back saying, “Not for me anyway.”

    So, I tried a new approach.  Below is my response to her (and it applies to all students who might think they won’t get to the point of fluency [just purely not confident enough]).

    Think driving:  same thing.

    At first, there'll seem to be an overwhelming range of things to touch/press/tread/look at, e.g., mirrors (rear view; wing); levers (gear stick for manual; indicator; windscreen wipers); pedals (accelerator; brake; clutch).  All while the car is moving.

    Once you've reached the right point, you won't be aware of controlling all those things.  You could even be chatting to your passenger(s)!