A New First! I Am SOOO Not In The U.S. Any More!

Where in the World is D Today?

Trying to figure out if he should "Duck and Cover"!

Duck and Cover is a term I grew up with in the 1960's and
70's. It can be applied in a Tornado but I first learned it in Elementary school when we, the United States, thought we might get attacked by RUSSIA! (Just for the recorded, based my basic knowledge of nuclear warheads, Duck and Cover is a less that effective strategy for survival.)

Yesterday was an unusal day. First of all, I was home in the middle of the day on a weekday. Then I hear sirens sounding. The conversation I had with myself went a little like this;

"Sirens?!, Hmmmm, I didn't think Taiwan had Tornado's? I'm on the 14th floor. CRAP!! It was sunny just a few minutes ago."

Looking out the balcony, "There's not a cloud in site. Clearly not a Tornado. It is probably just a test of the system. This IS TYPHOON season. They test the systems every month of Tornado season in Missouri. That must be it. The sirens have stopped."

Completely oblivious to what's going on I leave my apartment headed for the bank. "Why are all these cars parked in the alley? It must be a busy day at the liscense bureau. It is the last day of the month." (I live next to that office and seeing people park badly in Taiwan is... NORMAL.)

I walk past all the cars and turn the corner, "cool I got a green light and the traffic is clear! I can make across the street safely!"

Then I notice this across the street policeman blowing his whistle and waving his baton. "Hmm what's up with that?" Then about 2 seconds later another policeman runs up behind me franticly blowing his whistle, waving his baton and very angrily pointing toward the building. "Crap! What did I do?!" I go in and there's a maybe 10 people sitting around. The cop goes back to watching outside. It is then I look outside and notice the streets are completely silent. There is no movement. Jhongli has become a ghost town. "What in the world is going on? Should I be worried? No one else seems overly concerned, but this is NOT normal." My inner thoughts were pretty chaotic.

After about 15 minutes, A car comes around the corner followed by another and the sirens sound again. Lots of whistle blowing from the police and the streets of Jhongli come back to life. I wait for a moment waiting for the OK from the policeman. The look he gave me was something along the lines of, "Idiot Foreigner". And then Mr. Lu, a fine gentleman in my apartment building, appears. He explains, "It was an attack drill. It's not like this is the U.S. is it? The sirens mean stay inside the country is under attack. The safest place is inside from bombs and planes." Taiwan is an island and has to worry about being attacked, especially with it's proximity to N. Korea and though he did not say it specifically, mainland China was implied.

I was aware that as an island, Taiwan is vulnerable to attack, but I chose to basically ignore it. Taiwanese people don't seem overly concerned with potential threats from N. Korea or China. But, ya know, a little heads up to the drill would have been handy. (They probably were there but in Chinese.) I count it as another on of those experiential lessons we all learn as we go through life. Afterward I felt pretty silly that I had all of these signs that said Hey Pay Attention To This! and I walked right past each and everyone. There was a ration reason for doing so in each case.

Sometimes we can have all the Right information and still draw the Wrong conclusion. Life is funny that way sometimes.

Peace