I’ve always cringed when looking into the bubbling vats of frying oil at fast food joints. Now I know there was cause for real concern.
Comes the news from Taipei County (where else?) this week that the local health department found arsenic in the frying oil at two McDonald’s restaurants in Tucheng (土城) in a June 21 test — in amounts up to 10 times the legal limit.
Unhappy Meal, anyone?
For those not familiar with arsenic, it was one of the primary methods of suicide back in the 19th century before they invented charcoal inhalation and jumping off roofs.
Madame Bovary famously offed herself with a helping of the powdery poison at the finale of the literary classic of the same name (oops, spoiled the ending — no matter, it’s a boring read).
McDonald’s immediately leaped into denial mode — not surprising for anyone familiar with the fast food giant’s vast, intimidating McPR machine. Our very own Taipei Times reported:
“The company’s statement insisted that its food and oil were safe. … ‘The Department of Health’s (DOH) latest tests on 183 samples of edible oil showed that our oil is safe and meets national standards,’ the statement read.”
Even without the Filet-o-Toxins special, it’s not surprising that dousing your food for a minute or two in a vat of boiling oil isn’t McGreat for the old McLife Expectancy.
(And that’s true no matter how many park line-dances you do. Kudos, by the way, to the World Games opening ceremony producers for including hundreds of shequ mama — community moms — in an extended dance routine. Stroke of genius, that.)
Speaking of things hard on the metabolism, I recently ventured — against my better judgment — into that circle of hell known as a water park. The specific park will stay unnamed; suffice it to say they’re all pretty much alike.
My exiled gal Cathy Pacific’s gal-pal and fellow former trolley dolly, Ariel Lingus, called me up to pull some guanxi.
She was taking her two tykes for some water fun and needed some help chaperoning them (her man skipped out on her five years ago to shack up with a 21-year-old Singaporean from a budget Asian airline).
Entering the locker rooms and shower area, I immediately knew I’d made a big mistake.
There before me, hundreds of screaming brats in various stages of undress swarmed a floor covered in dirty sludge and flip-flop detritus. Over-the-hill fathers squeezed themselves into skin-tight spandex swimsuits, often mercifully half-covered by sagging Taiwan Beer paunches.
Women in equally revealing skin-tight garb — far too oblivious to be flashing cameltoe — were doing so. A lot of them.
Doing my best not to barf on a shrieking toddler next to me, we jammed our belongings into tiny lockers, showered off some — but not all — of our epidermal city grime, then headed for the pools.
It bills itself as a “water” park, but I’ll be damned if half of the liquid wasn’t kiddie pee. That’s how warm it felt, anyway. And forget “swimming” — the place was more crowded than the pig’s blood cake stall at the Gongguan Night Market.
Instead, we elbowed our way around, sloshing through luke-warm, knee-deep liquid, checking now and then to make sure Ariel Lingus’ tykes were still breathing and had their heads above the pee-line.
After a bit of this, we made for the water slide. Here, you wait in line for half an hour with a cranky, impatient horde of the middle class at play, then rocket down a water-slicked chute for about 30 seconds.
At least, that’s what’s supposed to happen. Perhaps due to my advanced girth, I became firmly lodged in the chute about halfway down, unable to slide any further. It was only when Ariel Lingus piled into me from behind and dislodged me that I was able to tumble out the bottom — into a shallow pool of more warm child urine.
The safety measures were lax, to say the least. A bored teenage girl sits at the top of the slide, droning “go” in a barely audible voice when the way is clear (this elaborate system clearly broke down when she waved on Ariel Lingus).
Safety was even less of a concern at the park’s most dramatic ride, a two-person plunge into what looks like a massive (three-story high) skateboard half-pipe.
A stoned-looking “lifeguard” in red shorts packs pairs into beaten-up innertubes, then shoves you off the precipice at the top. He’s supposed to enforce weight limits and such. But I saw one rider attached to an IV drip and two middle-aged fat guys who nearly flew off the far end of the half-pipe into the trees after making it past “quality control.”
Then it was off to the indoor pool area, where you have to stare down a pack of grim-faced obasans for the chance to relax under the pounding water jets.
By the end of the day I was sorely wishing I’d pulled a “China World Games Team” and skipped the whole damn thing.
But water park hi-jinks can’t compare with Taipei’s latest thrill ride: the Neihu MRT line.
Taipei residents are lining up in droves to experience the adrenalin rush from this new offering, where you never know when a key power system will go on the blink and strand you in a sealed train-car with no air-con at high noon in July.
If they wanted to provide some real shits-and-giggles, though, they would have had the MRT carriages plunge into the Keelung River at the end of the ride for a splashy finale.
I’m referring, of course, to the recent snafus on our newest MRT line. According to the Taiwan News: “The cause of the problem was the breakdown of an uninterruptible power supply system at the Chungshan Middle School station, officials said.”
“Uninterruptible” — sounds like Cathy Pacific the morning after one of my Combat Zone booze-fests. But I digress.
The breakdown affected the Neihu and Muzha lines for more than eight hours on Friday last week, forcing hundreds of riders to pry open car doors and shamble down the open tracks to the nearest stations.
But never fear, dear reader — “Bombardier sent an engineer from Pittsburgh in the United States, said Tan Qua-quang (譚國光) , the vice secretary general of the Taipei City Government. The man is an expert in solving problems on MRT control systems, Tan said.”
Ah, the old “get a guy from Pittsburgh to fix it” routine. Well, that should put everyone’s mind at ease.
The unnamed “guy from Pittsburgh” is going to have a lot of pressure in the coming days, and our thoughts are with him.
If he gets too stressed out, he can always hot foot it to a water park.
Got something to tell Johnny? Get it off your chest: Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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