I completed my duty at 7.30am and proceeded to rest till now. Suffice to say, double periods of 3 hours plus rest is totally insufficient for my body. I feel like a soggy pancake now, and I can't even remember my first girlfriend's name.
As some of you may already know, Taiwan has a nationwide iron-clad law that all rubbish shall be sorted into recyclable and non-recyclable materials. This means you do not throw metal cans and plastic bottles along with your Hello Panda wrappers and chicken wings.
Moreover, people in Taiwan gather in large masses at the same timing every evening outside their homes. No, it's not a global alien invasion, but rather, we are all attracted to the loud music tune (it's miraclously the same tune from
Taipei all the way to
Kenting) of a rubbish truck, in which the personnel will give icy stares at you if you fail to segregate your rubbish with upmost precision.
More amazingly, if you would notice that most Singaporeans don't clear their fast food trays after consumption, Taiwanese have several bins for leftover food, drinks, recyclable cups (which is further divided into small, medium, large and very large cups bins), general trash and recyclable materials. I pity whoever's detailed to clear all those garbage.
Though most of my Singapore friends here have idiotically thrown food into recyclable waste and paper cups into general trash because they couldn't read Chinese, most people in Taiwan still abide by the rules. I think for Singapore-wise, only threats of numerous fines would work.
As such, I was extremely disturbed yesterday when I had to reach my hands into a trash bag full of rotten food, cardboard and other trash to retrieve plastic bottles and metal cans. Being a rich, spoilt Singaporean who have never ever had such great intimacy with rotting, foul trash before, I was having a immense feeling of self-satisfaction when I completed the task. And yes, please note. I am satisfied because I managed to do it by myself, so don't start doing the habit of throwing every single thing into one bin again.
Well, with a few more duties involving external parties still in line for me, I bet these dirty business has seen its end yet. And did I mention I nearly broke my arm hauling all those garbage bags onto a menacing rubbish truck this morning. And everytime, all the auntie (who's with the truck) did was keep saying in Chinese, "Dong Zuo Yao Kuai".
Someday, I will haul her inside too.
