By Jo Huang
It was a rainy night, I came back to my dorm from a concert and found that I forgot to bring the key when leaving my room in the afternoon. It was around two o'clock in the morning, the rain was heavy, and I was exhausted. Standing outside the dorm, something miserable occurred to me–I did not know where to go. Actually I don’t have many friends in Taipei. Just as I was hanging around looking at several couples walking on campus and having no idea what to do, suddenly, a kind face appeared in my mind. Without further hesitation, I made a call to my net friend, Aerial. She had just finished taking a shower, and was about to go to bed, but as soon as she heard about my woeful situation, she hung up the phone and came to pick me up. Staying in her small and comfortable room I really slept well. The first time we knew each other was on the BBS. Both of us like the same singer, Bobby Chen, so we discussed his music on Bobby’s bulletin board several times. Some articles she posted really moved me. I had never thought that there would be such a sentimental girl who adores Bobby just like I do. We share the same experience being Bobby’s “super fans,” buying all of his CDs, reading all of his books, and going to his concerts. I began to believe that if we were friends, we would have many common topics to discuss. Therefore, I sent e-mail to her, saying that I really wanted to make friends with her. She agreed. On a full-moon night with a refreshing breeze, I had a date with Aerial and another net friend on Bobby’s board, Sunrise. We met in a little pub near the train station. I will never forget that it was so noisy that we had to speak in very loud voices in order to be heard. However, nobody suggested to move to another place, so we just “roared” to each other the whole night, chatting about our favorite singer. I was happybecause Aerial, Sunrise, and I had the same things to share with each other; we had become intimate friends even though it was our first meeting. We had only talked several times on the internet before. In spite of the fact that we got to know each other only from a screen and words, I never cared about what they looked loke; the only thing I knew was that some of my thoughts could relate to theirs. I wanted to make friends with them, not because of their appearance or position, but because of the similarities we share. This is quite different from the way I made friends before. In the past, I mean, before I learned to use the internet, most of my friends were from school, classes or clubs, so how could I find a friend who appreciates Bobby Chen as much as I do? Where could I always find a friend who is able to discuss music or movies with me? It is possible to find such friends in life, but it is not so easy, unless you log on to the internet or the BBS. Enter the board that you are interested in and you can easily find many people who have the same interests as you. Furthermore, net friends usually live in a different world from mine. Some of them come from southern schools, and some are so-called “office ladies.” Making acquaintance with these friends leads me to a more colorful life and broadens my field of vision. For example, Aerial is three years older than I am, and she works in a trading company; when we became closer friends, we often talked not only about Bobby Chen, but also her office life. As for Sunrise, I learned a lot about computers from him since he is a Ph.D. in computer science. I regard Aerial and Sunrise as my “truly good friends” instead of just “net friends.” In fact, I am not fond of the title “net friend” so much. It sounds like a mechanical friend who suggests danger or something strange. One thing I want to emphasize is that except for meeting them on the internet, they are not at all different from the friends I’ve met in the “real world.”
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by Joyce Lee
Being called the literary flagman of the 80’s, Murakami Haruki has led a great boom both in Japan and Taiwan. Asking Haruki fans why they like his works so much, we hear words like alienation, sense of loss, nihilistic, ma terialization, and so on. We can even get a very Haruki-style answer—-we don’t need any meaning after reading his novels. The most obvious characteristic of Haruki’s novels is the accumulation of nouns and the description of trifles. All of Haruki’s novels are written in the first person point of view. Most of the time we don’t know the name of the main character, but we always know what kind of clothes he wears, what kind of car he drives, and what kind of food he likes to eat. By means of piling up the brands of products, Haruki constructs a material world which does not feel unfamiliar. Living i n a modern city, all of us cannot escape from the flood of names of products. It is not difficult for us to accept a character who wears Levi’s jeans, drives a Volkswagen, and likes to cook spaghetti and drink beer. But how can this be true?How can a 49-year-old Japanese man’s work inspire the same feeling among young people living in Taiwan in 1998? Anyone who reads Haruki’s novels will find that there are many elements from the 60’s and 70’s. In his first novel Listen to the Song of Wind (聽風的歌), he repeatedly mentions the year 1968 and the death of President Kennedy. His second novel is called The Pinball Machine of 1973 (1973年的彈珠玩具). He always includes musicians’ names, like the Rolling Stones, the Doors, Miles Davis, and Don Maclean. Haruki’s novels are filled with nostalgia—-nostalgia for his youth, nostalgia for the 60’s and 70’s. Born in 1949, Haruki spent his youth in a wild and idealistic age. Similar to the situation in the United States and France, there were m any student movements in Japan in the 60’s and 70’s. It is not necessary to discuss whether or not Haruki gave himself to the student movement, but there is no doubt that this background had a great influence upon him. Even the nihilism revealed in his works can be traced back to the trend of thought at that time. The world which Haruki creates is a closed region. All the characters in his novels speak in the same tone. It seems that there are no others, only Haruki himself is murmuring. To read Haruki’s novels, we should adjus t ourselves to a particular mood. The wide acceptance of his self-centered works seems to reveal that we all need a place to escape to–a place where we would not feel unfamiliar, a place where we don’t have communication problems. This is a temporary re fusal of the outer world. Talking about Haruki seriously seems a little stupid because many people will say that the main pleasure of reading his novels is indulging in his senselessness. Well, that’s the point. Haruki will grimace at me if he knows that I analyze his works so seriously. Just buy some beer, put on some Ray Charles, the Moody Blues, or Bob Dylan, and it would be perfect to have the smell of spaghetti. Then you can start to read Murakami Haruki, and—-welcome to Haruki’s world ! By Lin Wei-Chun
There is a new book translated from German, named “Buchinderbuch” (it means “book in a book”). In Chinese, this book is called “The Exit o f the Soul” (靈魂的出口). It is a cute book with many beautiful and meaningful pictures painted by Quint Bucholz. In this book, each picture is a story. And all of them contain one or more elements of a book, like paper, a typewriter, a pen, even books. How did Buchinderbuch come about? When the publisher got 46 pictures from the painter, he sent one picture to 46 famous writers around the world, such as Milan Kundera and Susan Sontag. Each of them wrote a story or a poem for the picture and re-interpreted it. All the stories are full of imagination. You will be surprised that the pictures and the stories go together so well, even though they can be sometimes hard to understand. For example, Milan Kundera’s story describes a man who couldn’t endure people around him, so he decides to leave his house far behind. He brings some books and an umbrella, and then walks for 33 hours to find a spacious and unpeopled place. He read books, drinks coffee, does nothing. But a painter finds him, and draws him from behind. Next to this story is a painting of a man sitting in a heap of books, with an umbrella and a coffee cup. When reading what Kundera wrote, I cannot understand why he described so many details of what the man does, how much time he spends, what he brings, and so on. But looking at Bucholz’s painting, I see the man sitting quietly on a heap of books. Is he waiting for someone or something or enjoying himself? Ha! Maybe I could write a story about this picture, too, and maybe it would be better than Kundera’s! When you read this book, look carefully at every picture beside the story, think how you will interpret it, and then read the story. You’ll find a different way to read a book, to understand a book, or a new way to describe a story. Do you want to write a story by yourself? You could buy or borrow this book, think about those pictures in it, and write your story. You could also send your story to us. If it is good and interesting, we’ll put it in our next issue. E-mail us at: [email protected]. By Phoebe Chen
In the film Titanic, when with bitter sorrow Rose finally let go of Jack’s hand in order to live on, few could hold back their tears seeing Jack gradually sink into the cold dark Atlantic ocean. In the Japanese film The Lost Paradise, after losing everything except each other, the lovers chose to end their adulterous love with death. They declare their true and inseparable love by dying at the same moment with their bodies intertwined, which could not be parted even after death. From Romeo and Juliet to the Butterfly Lovers (梁祝), few classic romances do not end in tragedy. This brings us to contemplate, does all great love have to end this way? If their love story ended by having each other forever, would their love still be as memorable? Will they still be the model of perfect love? Frankly, their love might not be able to withstand the challenge of reality and everyday trifles. Take Rose and Jack for example, if Jack had not died and they were both saved, try to picture their lives together. Could Rose, coming from a wealthy background, and Jack, having nothing more than some pencils and a sketchbook, really live together harmoniously? Soon Rose probably couldn’t endure their standard of living and would blame Jack, forgetting how she once admired his talent. On the other hand, Jack perhaps couldn’t endure Rose’s slight contempt for him and her ignorance about real life. If the lovers in the Lost Paradise continued their lives together, when the thrill of having an affair cooled down, they might regret that they gave up everything just for the other’s sake. They might begin to discover each other’s fault safter living together for a short while. Then comparing their jobs and family with the ones they lost, they maybe even wish they had never met, let alone be together. As for young Romeo and Juliet, they were practically children when they met each other, and they perhaps didn’t even love each other truly. Moreover, if they had successfully run away with each other, they would probably have problems surviving. Just think, both of them came from powerful and wealthy families and they were only teenagers, what would they know about the harshness of making a living when they had people at their beck and call all the time? Romeo would have difficulty supporting their lives when he only knows how to fight for his family’s honor. On the other hand, what would Juliet know about housekeeping when she was accustomed to having everything brought to her? Perhaps she only knew how to do delicate embroidery and dance gracefully. Thus, it is not difficulty to understand why all great love ends in tragedy — because it’s just too hard to live happily ever after. by Dennis Liu
On December 3, 1997, a poster in front of the Audio-Visual Center called for an emergency meeting of the faculty in the College of Liberal Arts. Many passers-by wondered, what kind of issue would ask for such a provocative poster, in this otherwise very easy-going college? Two days before the meeting, a university order was sent to the office of the college. It read: “[Since the credits of common required courses have been rearranged] in order to make the allocation of faculty resources more reasonable, if a lecturer in your college is retired, the vacancy will be recalled by the university board, and will be reallocated by the board accordingly.” “This is a nightmare for the college,” said Lin Yao-fu, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and a professor in DFLL, during our interview. According to Lin, there is always a shortage of faculty positions in the college. If the university recalls every retired vacancy, the college would run out of lecturers in the long run. “The worst point is,” Lin said, “that this order is effective indefinitely.” So what is the college’s response? After the emergency faculty meeting, the college issued a unanimously-signed statement, asking the executive council of the university to reject the order, and that any resolution concerning the recall must be made after consulting all the departments of the college. “The order itself is completely illegitimate,” Lin said in an austere tone. “Such a powerful order is sent to the college without even consulting the Dean, or anyone I know on the university board. ” The motivation of the order is also questionable : “This college is already a minority. Everyone here works hard. Yet the university wants to recall our vacancies. Where to? The vacancies might be transferred to engineering departments, for example.” Aside from this conjecture, procedurally speaking the order is still unusual, even in terms of university internal politics, and “shows no respect at all to the college.” In the college conference held on December 24, an internal resolution asked the university to amend the order. It demanded the recalled vacancies be given exclusively to the college. That is, give the vacancies back to where they belong. The vice-president of Tai-da has “agreed in principle,” but so far the university board hasn’t responded to the college’s plea i n written form. Yet according to Lin, “We’ll push through it and ask for a clear, definite resolution no later than this April. At the moment this article was written, the university board couldn’t be reached for further comment. by Eddie Zhan
“Ding! Ding! Ding…” My alarm clock rings as annoyingly as the bells in NTU, which sound like something is on fire. I jump up from my bed and run to the clock, turning it off. “Jesus! It’s 7:30 and I have a class at 8.” Ever since going to college, I can’t fall asleep before 2 o'clock in the morning. The fact is that I want to go to sleep early and have a normal life as I did in high school, but I have roommates. I have to hurry: there is now less than 10 minutes for me to get to NTU through Roosevelt Road, sections 5 and 4. Now my Kymco and I are on the road and we both see something that can only be seen in Africa–“the stampede!” Ther e are countless cars, buses, and motorbikes. As a matter of fact, it’s worse than a stampede. We all know that in Africa a stampede runs,but our doesn’t. Belive it or not, the whole place looks just like a parking lot, except that there’s no charge. Anxious as I am, no kind of transportation on earth can get me through this congestion; by air, maybe, but not China Airlines. At times like this, I usually try to make myself calm down and analyze the situation, since here we have nothing else to do. As we know, Roosevelt is really a long long road. It is not just long, but a main road in Taipei City. In order to simplify and clarify, let’s set Chunghsiao as the x-axis, and Roosevelt as the y-axis. Then you can easily see that roads above our x-axis are named, for example, Chienkuo N. Rd., and those below Chien-kuo S. Rd.. Applying the same method, we also have xx-East-Rd. and xx-West-Rd. on the opposite side of the y-axis. So, if you are at point A (x1, y1) and you want to meet your girlfriend at point B (x2, y2), what would be the shortest and most convenient way? I believe you all have had this math question in high school. However, in real life we have more things to take into consideration. For instance, you may prefer one way because there are fewer buses and fewer, say, police officers. You may like to drive on that road because there is a supermarket where you can intentionally drop by to purchase one or two boxes of ice cream. And people are lazy; if there is some way that goes straight ahead from one place to another, people are likely to go there, for who would like to turn around and around and finally get lost? That is exactly the advantage of Roosevelt Rd. People livingin Hsintien can go by this road toward Shihlin and Tienmou without turning. Take a look at the map; it will show you. In addition, there are also several important places on this line, such as Kungguan, NTU, C.K.S. Memorial, NTU Hospital, etc. People also go to Shihlin Night Market and Yangmingshan by this road. So of course it jams! Nonetheless, that doesn’t provide enough evidence to prove why Roosevelt Rd. becomes a parking lot. Let’s go back to section 4. As mentioned, it is where NTU and Kungguan are, which has made this area crowded enough. Meanwhile the Kungguan area also has reversible lanes (調撥階段). That means if you take a bus from, say, Taipei Station to somewhere in the south, and you do not get off the bus in this reversible lane, then you have to pay double prices. Hence, lots of people get on and off here. Unlike others, Kungguan is a huge bus station. But why are there so many buses? It should be the map’s turn to tell you the answer. We can clearly see that in Taipei there are indeed many rivers and mountains, though they all look ugly and most of them are suffused with garbage and tombs. Anyway, people have to cross the bridges to get to the other side. At section 4, people have to cross to Yungho and Chungho. The river limits the possible ways to these two places, consequently, people have to get on or off different buses at Kungguan to different destinations. Another factor is our great school. It is so great that it takes a great amount of area. As a result, several roads that go from north to south end at NTU, such as Hsinsheng S. Rd., Chienkuo S. Rd., and Fuhsing S. Rd. And to the south of NTU there are boys’ dormitories. Behind them are a few professors’ dormitories, a small village, and a few cemeteries. We do not want to wake up these people, so by no means can we run over them. Someone therefore built a tunnel under them for people to go to Mucha. Other than that, there is only one way to pass the sleepers without knocking on their doors: Roosevelt Rd. Isn’t Roosevelt really something?! “Ding! Ding! Ding!” Again?! Am I not supposed to be on the road, analyzin g the traffic jam? Then, where in the world does the noise come from? Oh no! It’s my alarm clock! That means I’m still in bed. What a nightmare! by Angela Tsai
You are the next target for the banks! You may find an interesting, or perhaps encouraging surprise that your student card has been bestowed a new function—to earn you a credit card! More and more banks have issued student credit cards for college students because of their promising ability as consumers. To win students’ favor, they even try out different tricks to cater to students’ taste: provide free beepers or dolls, offer free annual fees or VIP discounts, and give special names to the cards, such as the X-card or NTU identity card. However, do such promotion strategies really work on today’s college students? Have credit cards indeed gained ground on campus? Well, according to statistics, the number of student credit and this may affect your credit rating in the future. So ifyou are the kind of person who’s obsessed with shopping, make sure that you have financial support at home. Some people are afraid to have bad credit records; on the other hand, some don’t care at all! For them, what matters is how to get things in a fast and economical way. For example, if you want to buy a motorcycle which costs forty thousand dollars and you have no cash on hand, borrowing from the bank directly may cost you more than buying it with a credit card. This is because the interest on borrowing from the bank is higher than the interest of paying a credit card debt. So consider getting a credit card if you also long for something expensive but can’t afford it with cash! In addition, since study abroad has become popular, having a credit card is very important. First, using a credit card abroad instead of cash can reduce the risk of being cheated. Besides, if you have learned a lesson from the recent air crashes, you probably know that buying a flight ticket with a credit card automatically includes accident insurance. However, there are still some precautions you shouldn’t ignore. First, don’t stretch your credit too much. If you have many different credit cards at the same time, another bank might refuse to issue you a new card. Second, be careful about the credit limit that the banks permit. Normally, if you charge too much over the credit limit, the cashier will refuse your card, but clerks will not always do so. To make money they will still accept the transaction. Then, as you can guess, you will be an innocent victim who exceeds the credit limit but doesn’t even realize it. Last but not least, since your payments will be permanently recorded by the bank, you’d better judge the probable results on your credit. Won’t y ou feel regretful if one day the bank denies your application for a home loan because your credit isn’t good enough? Hence, are credit cards credible? The decision is up to you! by Laura Jane Wey
Pathetic, corny melodrama, some say scoffingly. The plot: old lady returns to site of the sunken Titanic, and goes back 80 years in her memory to recall the romance of her life. Boy meets girl on board the Titanic. Boy is poor – won 2nd-class passage on the Titanic in a poker game – sketches astonishingly well and is incredibly knowledgeable on all things as it seems. Girl is young, beautiful, engaged to one of the wealthiest men in the world, and very unhappy because of it (of course they always are). Under the most unlikely circumstances they meet – and despite the screams of reason and the protestations of common sense, the sparks fly. After a torrid 12-hour affair, after having torn the girl away from her fiance, turned all her plans upside down and ‘saved her in every way a person can possibly be saved,’ the boy dies in the cold embrace of the North Atlantic, having given his life to save hers. Certainly nothing remarkable about a story like this. So what, then, explains the record-breaking box office, the raving reviews, the 14 Oscar nominations, the movie posters and postcards (at least 20 different versions) that fill every poster shop? For weeks it was impossible to walk from one end of campus to the other without hearing half a dozen different people say 'Titanic’ with a tremour in their voices and a hundred exclamation marks at the end of the word. One’d have thought the Titanic just sank again. Why this craze over it, if the movie’s nothing more than a mediocre soap opera – as the summary of the plot seems to suggest? Because the summary says nothing of the way the story is told. It says nothing of the intricateness of the narration, as the plot line weaves back and forth through past and present, stirring the emotions of the viewer with the ever-recurring motif of 'then’ and 'now’: the bright, defiant blue eyes of the young belle shimmer and melt and then congeal again into the thoughtful, sunken, faded ones of the little old lady looking back into the distant past; the proud prow of the majestic ship wavers into distortion before coming into clear focus again, a decaying, forsaken ghost lying prostrate in the silent depths of the sea. It says nothing of the beauty of the imagery: the dark hull of the ship cutting through the waves, sailing straight on into a crimson dusk, straight on to its doom, a pair of young lovers standing on the prow, the girl’s white scarf blowing in the wind; neither does it tell of the lights blazing from every porthole on board as the ship begins to sink, glowing upon the midnight sea the way a comet would glow before falling into eternal darkness. Against this exquisite, poetic backdrop, with the shadow of tragedy falling like a shroud over everything, the aliveness and the passion of the young couple stand out like a single scarlet rose in a faded autumnal garden, reaching out and touching the hearts of the viewers in an unexpected way – for we all love life, and the thought of life being cut short in its sweetest bloom incites strong feelings of pity and sadness. And then there is the fact that the sinking of the Titanic is a true story. Everyone knows that the horrors pictured in the film really happened on the high seas that fateful night eighty years ago; it is all true, the portrayal of humanity in the face of death – the panic, the screams, the mindless prayers, the orchestra that goes down with the ship coaxing notes from the instruments until the last moment… And because of this, the viewers feel, if somewhat irrationally, that the story about the lovers has to be true too; that fantastic as it seems, there really was a Jack, and a Rose, and everything happened the way it is narrated in the film. The clever mixing of truth and fiction lends credibility to the story – for the duration of three hours anyway. So it doesn’t really matter there isn’t anything special about the story, or that Jack is too good to come across as a convincing character. There isn’t anything special about the Romeo and Juliet plot either, and Melanie Wilkes in Gone With the Wind is too sweet a character to be convincing also. Yet we still read Shakespeare and Mitchell. Now James Cameron, too, has given us an unremarkable story well-told. Enjoy the beauty and poetry of his work for what it is worth then, and don’t worry about the gap between the film and reality – for if we can’t have romance even in films, where else are we going to find it? by Hsien-yu Lin
With the diffusion of computers, a new era of love is beginning. Technology brings us convenience at work, but troubles in love. What do you mean Janet is in love? She sits in front of the computer all day long, she never sees any boys! Recently, internet romance has become more and more commonplace, especially among students. You simply need to logon to some BBS and join a chatroom. Or you can check the users list and pick out a person whose name is to your liking, then page him/her. If you behave well, you may be able to find a friend for life. Wow! Sounds appealing, How does it work? Will there be a happy ending? Is it any different from a traditional romance? She’s tender and bright. The way she talks is charming and elegant. Most important of all, she can read my mind as if we’ve known each other for a life time, Bob chants like crazy. I notice that Bob has been acting unusually. First, he stays in front of the computer for hours and his facial expression changes constantly. After he wakes up, the first thing he does is turn on the computer. Moreover, he doesn’t talk about his favorite comics any more but about a girl instead. What’s wrong, Bob? You’ve been acting strangely, I finally ask. Claudia, the girl of my dreams. Months ago, I joined a chatroom by accident where we met for the first time. There were only three people then, so we had a good chance to talk. I didn’t expect she was so charming, and after talking a couple of times, I know she is the one I want. The greatest part is that she has a beautiful body and a sweet smile. Oh, I am in love with her. Bob can hardly conceal his excitement. How do you know what she looks like? Have you met? What if she’s not your type? No, we’ve never actually met but we did send each other photos of ourselves. Both of us are satisfied so far. We’re planning to meet this weekend, Bob explains. Weeks later, it seems like something is bothering Bob. It’s about Claudia. She is the most horrible woman I’ve ever met, Bob trembles. First of all, she looks nothing like her photos. She is tubby and old, and she smokes like a chimney. She’s… She’s… We had an appointment to meet at her place. When I saw her look out of the window, I began feeling weak. I was so weak that I couldn’t run away. She pulled me in and then she began to smoke. I couldn’t understand how this woman before me could be my Claudia. That night she said there was no empty room for me so I had no choice but to share the room with her. The saddest part is she told me she only likes women. The reason why she approached me was merely because she wanted to know what it is like to have a boyfriend. How depressing! I will never touch that computer again, Bob said with a hurt look. Hey, don’t be so extreme, I said. You won’t always be so unlucky. Do you know Lynn? She is one of my best friends. She’s been going out with the same guy for two years. They met on the BBS too. In the first place, it was Lynn who paged the boy after checking the users list. She was attracted by the boy’s unique nickname. They kept in touch for two months before meeting. Luckily, they liked each other and now they go out just like other lovers. But how come they get along so well? Bob asked in disbelief. Well, they knew each other quite well before meeting. Both of them thought the other was the right person. For this reason, they fell in love. They keep in touch even when the other is away; they enjoy sharing ideas, talking about daily life, and supporting each other all the time. Wow, that’s beautiful. They were first attracted to each other because of their personalities, and that’s why they can get along so well, I explained. I’m just trying to tell you bad luck won’t follow you all the time. What really counts is that you need to have the correct mentality; that is, be friends first. I think I’ve learned a good lesson; don’t trick others and don’t believe others too easily. An increasing number of people build relationships through computers rather than through meeting in person. Thus, it is almost impossible to tell what the person is really like. While absorbed in the atmosphere of romantic illusion, remember there are lots of tricky things. Be careful. by Phoebe Chen
“The working hours are too long!” “The salary is lousy!” “The workload is too heavy!” These are the usual complaints from students when they cannot find a good part-time job. Who wouldn’t want an easy job with high pay? However, this kind of job doesn’t come around that often. If a part-time job meets all these requirements, who would turn it down? Perhaps this is the reason why an increasing number of male students now choose to work as gigolos as a part-time job. Recently, the police in Taipei busted the Alexander Members Club, netting 156 gigolos. The public was not only shocked by the large number of gigolos arrested, but also how young some of them are. Quite a few turned out to be still studying at school. It is not hard to understand why they bring themselves to work as gigolos when we learn how much money is engaged in the business. By working three hours a day and a few days a week, it isn’t unusual for a gigolo to take in over NT 100,000 per month. Moreover, some loyal customers have become so attracted and devoted to their gigolos that they purchase clothes, jewelry, even cars and houses for them. A high-school night student claimed that he would be paid NT 1,500 merely for accompanying one woman and the rewards would be greater if he went out with her. Just think, with a salary of NT 70 per hour at McDonald’s, one would have to work twenty five hours to achieve the same goal. Not only do gigolos earn a huge sum of money, but their working hours are also short and flexible. If something important suddenly comes up, they can choose not to work. This way, they can make time to hang out with their friends and have fun rather than work However, if one has ordinary part-time jobs, one has to suffer the inconvenience of begging other colleagues to change shifts with them. Another reason why the job appeals to them is that they don’t have to work as hard as in fast-food restaurants or convenience stores. They are only required to chat or dance with their clients without having to stand in front of the counter for hours on end. Many would consider this profession shameful, but the gigolos don’t see it this way. One of the gigolos laughed off criticism of his line of work by stating, “the streets are full of prostitutes, so what’s the big deal about having men?” Therefore, although it appears to be a disgraceful job to most people, with all the reasons above, it is still an irresistible temptation for some. |
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May 2024
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