An American is Stealing Our Dog

Imagine this. You're an older, retired Taiwanese man, happily sailing through life, living in a small alley with your wife and pack of dogs, minding your own business, when one evening you hear a commotion outside your house.

You venture out to see a blonde, curly haired foreigner (automatically assumed to be an American) trying to coax one of your numerous dogs onto their scooter. When she sees you, she politely says in Chinese, "Sorry to bother you, I'm trying to catch my dog." You immediately turn around, open your front door and call out to your wife, "come here quickly, an American is stealing our dog."

To fill in the gaps in this story, I had fleetingly glanced at a group on Facebook that had been set up to help another foreign teacher find her missing dog. So, on my way home from a class I saw 'the dog' that had been in the photos on the website. After debating whether or not to make it my business, I decided to lure the dog onto my scooter and deliver it back to the distraught owner.

My biggest mistake was that, during this thought process, I neglected to address the fact that I'm notorious for crossing wires.

So to cut a long (and as usual, embarrassing) story short - I chased the dog for 25 minutes, up and down a park, until we finally arrived at the owner's house. The owner, loving the drama started playing a creepy mind game with me, giving me the dog, then taking it back, then putting it on my scooter, then taking it off. All the while cackling away, breathing his betelnut breath into my face and shouting in Chinese about having his dog stolen by an American. After a heated exchange, escalating to the point of me pulling out my mobile phone (proof that I'm not an American - no cellphone here!) and threatening to call the police.

What was I thinking? It wasn't even my dog but I was so hell bent on getting it back for this foreigner (someone I don't even know). The whole drama ended when the man kindly set his pack of 6-8 dogs on me (who's to say how many there were?), at which point I gunned my engine and flew up the street screaming, "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YYAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Which is Chinese for (I don't want). Style and dignity! Some people have it all!

The whole exchange left me a shaken wreck for the rest of the night! Throughout the ordeal I had been calling some friends who knew the foreign "owner" but they had all been in class. When they finally got back to me I received the inevitable news that the foreign "owner" had already found her dog.

Furthermore, when I got home and checked my Facebook, lo and behold, the dog in the photo couldn't have looked more different from the dog that I tried to kidnap. They were as different as a chihuahua and a Great Dane.

A lesson was learned! Don't count your stray dogs before they hatch...or whatever.