It's a dangerous world

There are many random and pointless dangers in Taiwan. Ask my brother the insurance salesman about the sidewalks here- they're totally uneven. Each storefront maintains its own sidewalk so every few yards is a different height and material. At first I tripped all the time but I got used to it.

Elevators are also dangerous. You know how in most countries, if something (like a person) is obstructing the elevator door, the doors stop shutting? Not here. Here they just press you until someone pushes the "door open" button. Which half the time is only in Chinese characters.

The final one is automatic doors. Usually, you stand in front of an automatic door, it glides open, eh? Here you have to stand in front of it and wave your arms and wait and eventually it starts to creep open. Then someone coming out of the store you're going into pushed\s through and you have to wait longer. It's another thing I've gotten used to, mostly.

But the other day I was striding purposefully into Carrefour, and there was a slow family in front of me, but the huge door started opening for them, and I assumed it would continue until it was fully opened. Instead, right as i go to pass them, it starts to close but I didn't notice so I totally ran into the side of it, then it kept shutting and almost pushed me over. I hit it so hard I'm kind of surprised I didn't break it. But it was thick and man did it hurt. My arm is still sore a day later. And it made a crazy racket. So did I, saying "What the heck? Stupid door!" The best was the greeter ladies, starting at me like they really wanted to avoid an encounter with this crazy foreigner. So I just strode purposefully past them.