Bawdy Burgers

Chopstick eating, scooter riding, unedited rap music; random things that begin to form the tip of the cultural differences iceberg. (Although, given the current temperature, I have no idea why I chose to represent this with an iceberg; something that will never be a cultural difference here in Taiwan.) I must admit that during my mental preparation for our six thousand mile move, I never once thought, “Hmm, I bet they don’t edit rap music in Asia.” The truth is, I should have thought about this, considering many Taiwanese citizens understand very little English and would never be offended by four letter English words. However, with a few slightly more important things on my mind, I failed to devote any brainpower to the cultural differences in rap music listening habits.
Overlooking this fact had very little impact on my life until my first Taiwanese sports store shopping experience. Maybe I’m just a sheltered white cracker whose stores of choice experience extreme FCC oppression, but I’ve never been subjected to auditory blitzkrieg by the F-bomb while picking out a pair of Nikes. For all their hypocritical faults and mundane standards, the FCC really is taken for granted by many of us. Unless, of course, you usually listen to music by any of the 33 people with Lil’ in front of their name. That fateful day, shoes in hand and blood trickling from my ears, I realized that public shopping truly was different here in Asia. I must say that until recently I had learned to just shut out and ignore the background music. (Please, no comments from fundamental zealots about my poor conscience being seared with a hot iron.) However, as I ordered my hamburger last week, even my poor, burnt conscience found new life.
Being amazingly friendly food connoisseurs, the wife and I invited Becca, Chris and Ashley to enjoy a great, cheap hamburger at a local joint we had visited previously. I will admit that our prior visits had found the staff looking like background dancers in a 50 Cent video, and that the music had been rather “hardcore”. But again, that hot iron had done a number on me, and I just enjoyed my burger anyway. This visit proved no different. One cook was on break, smoking a cigarette and sporting some “shants” a la 1995. For those of you lost by that sentence, I will explain. Yes, I just made up a word and yes, that word is a hybrid for shorts and pants. And yes, that is the best word to describe the stupid trend of having one pants leg pushed up and one down, which appeared to be dead in America but somehow found reincarnation here in Taiwan. The cooks still in the kitchen proved their “gangsta-ness” (Another word from the Harris dictionary.) by wearing bandannas and rolling up their sleeves to expose explanatory tattoos like “#1 DAWG”, “HARD-CORE”, and “9 MILE”. (I’m sure the third guy was going for 8 mile but Eminem beat him to it.) And of course, as we began to order our food, we were happily serenaded by some random rap song about drugs and chrome wheels. It was not until we began to sink our teeth into the brown, ground, goodness of cow, that the musical Hiroshima began. As I licked mustard from my lip, the rapper on the CD began to speak. For some inexplicable reason (Perhaps simply because they like to hear their own voice so much.) rappers insist on putting little melodramatic, life issue interludes between their songs. This instance was no different, except if there is a line that defines crude, this little interlude looked at it and then jumped twenty feet onto the other side. As we continued to consume our food, Mr. Rapper was apparently struggling in his attempts to please his baby mamma. (By the way, I am the master of discretion, but if you are easily offended, please stop reading and come back in 2 months when I finally write another blog!) As said, “Mr.”, was attempting to please baby mamma, she was providing the usual background noises that said, “pleasuring”, involves. For a good 2 or 3 minutes, each bite of burger was accompanied by an orgasmic groan that would make Paris Hilton blush. As reprehensible as this sounds, the humor level was pretty off the charts as well.

Me: chewing “Soooo, nice weather today, huh?
Hooker: loud groan
Becca: “Gosh!”
Hooker: giggle
Me: “You guys like the burgers?”
Hooker: more embarrassing noises
Chris S: “Hey! Remember that time we were eating burgers with the orgasm soundtrack?”
Hooker: grand finale
All: laughing

Yes, my friends, Chris Simpson was correct. Despite all vulgarity, embarrassment and verbal assault, we experienced a moment that will be stamped in our memories for a very long time. The crowning moment had to be the lesbian couple sitting in the corner feeding each other little bits of burger like wedding cake. Perhaps the Broadway sex musical helped their date get rolling. I don’t know, but I do know I will never eat a hamburger again without bringing to mind that crazy night in Taipei. The night that lines were crossed, ears were assaulted, gangstas kept it real, and friends made memories through the most unlikely of circumstances. So the next time you want to rip out your hair from the media frenzy over a “wardrobe malfunction”, consider the alternate reality of being FCC free.