Brollies

It’s an unusually clear and sunny day, the first in weeks. Every woman in Taipei with any vanity will have her umbrella out, to prevent the sun from turning her black and ugly. Looking out the window, my eyes meet the following scene:


Bad news for me, because all those umbrellas are being carried at my eye level. My lunchtime trip to Starbucks, normally a five-minute stroll, will today be a perilous fifteen-minute obstacle course.

I know from experience that I walk faster than most people. I also know that few bother to close their umbrellas even when the sidewalk is shaded by an office building. The sidewalk is so narrow—well, it isn’t really, but the abundance of parked scooters leaves little room for pedestrians—that one umbrella takes up its entire breadth. When one umbrella-bearing woman meets another coming from the opposite way, it is simply impossible for either to pass, bringing pedestrian traffic in both directions to a standstill.

Fleet of foot and desperate for caffeine, I could duck under their umbrellas, but this maneuver frequently startles the hell out of them and elicits disapproving gasps. I would arrive at Starbucks too sweaty and grouchy to enjoy my newspaper, and anyway by the time I get there, it will almost be time to head back.

There is another option, which is to walk in the street. This is slightly more dangerous, but much faster, and I can work on my tan. Here I go…