Taiwan's juvenile street gangs

TAOYUAN. My wife had warned me. See that you get a good relationship with these youngsters out there. Otherwise they will follow you every time you come home and make trouble to you at our front door. Reason is, there is really a group of youngsters living on the backyard of the local paper factory close to our home. And they are not the guys to fool around with. Make friend with them while they are young, that's what she said. So I did it, carefully approaching them to make a first contact with one of the incredible backyard street gangs of Taiwan. Read the full story below.


scroll down to read the disturbing report...


So, here I go. I have shielded myself with knowledge about the common greetings and social manners of the Taiwan population. Though the advice by one long-time poster on the Taiwan expat forum Forumosa.com seemed strange to me. Common greeting rituals would involve shaking tail and sniffing on each other's behinds...


On seeing me, they approached loudly from the backyard. Note the fierce outfit of the gal on the right hand side. She is wearing the typical "Taiwan street dog" gang colors...


Prancing around right at my own front door. No doubt, these guys and gals are the masters of the streets...


I have to stay calm under the cold glare of the big darkly-clad gang leader...

So far I was lucky. There was a lot of violence among the juvenile gang members, but none against me so far...

Gosh, I was lucky this time. But on departing, the gang boss told me, I better would prepare myself with a bribe for next time. He mentioned something called "wiener". Damned, there are hard days ahead.

At least I hope I could prepare my readers for the basic troubles they can expect, should they ever consider a visit to...

The Backstreets of Taiwan.