I went kicking and screaming the whole way. But I went.
You see, little grand-niece Julie Neihu, age 12, somehow found out about a “Teddy Bear Show” being held last Saturday at the Sunworld Dynasty Hotel for one day only.
This was big news. Not going was not an option, at least in little Julie’s world. Or rather, it was an option, but would have involved a three-month long sulk with intermittent wailing tantrums and a life-long grudge.
Guess who was the only extended Neihu clan member with enough “downtime” in his schedule to chaperone?
It was difficult to pull myself away from all my Tweeting, Twittering and Happy Farm vegetable-stealing, but I did it — after repeated entreaties from several insistent members of the Neihu clan, and promises of much Taiwan Beer in the near future.
Behold the Teddy Bear Show — a potent mixture of my beloved country’s overpowering “culture of cute” (a Japanese import laying waste to everything in its path) and our yearning for quaint, tea-time nostalgia (for the gory details, see www.twtba.org.tw).
Only in Taiwan can you dine in the presence of a massive stuffed teddy bear wedged into the seat beside you (there’s such a place off Xinsheng S Road, trust me) while being bombarded by assorted teddy bear paraphernalia nailed and stapled to the walls and piled up on tables like so many fluffy “hen ke’ai”-bombs.
On the way to last Saturday’s show, I consoled myself with the thought of a generous serving of Swedish meatballs and jelly (what? … it’s good) at the Ikea cafeteria, followed by several stiff, post-Teddy-Bear-hell drinks at the Outback Steakhouse bar.
Tempers flared outside the show as the hall reached capacity (that is, a roughly 30:1 spectator-to-teddy bear ratio). A bottleneck formed at the entrance, where every teen and pre-teen girl insisted on holding up the entire crowd by posing for a cheek-puffing, V-sign-flashing series of shots with a massive bear looming beside the door.
It actually wasn’t so bad when we got inside — at least at first. There, laid out before us, was every variety of teddy bear one could imagine, resplendent in carefully stitched costumes. There was the “seven-color changing light-up bear.” The Amitabha Buddha bear, complete with beaded necklace. Japanese kimono-clad geisha-bears, apparently either female or cross-dressers.
And, wait for it ... a Made-in-China Paddington bear.
It took all the old Neihu self-control to stop myself from projectile-vomiting a glutinous jelly-meatball mix onto that fluffy Chicom monstrosity.
So much for the bears. The crowd was another story. Woe betide the man who tries to stand between a cute-crazed middle-aged office worker and the latest fluffy object of her fancy. The crowd was mostly women, it must be said, with a few defeated-looking, glassy-eyed male partners in tow.
As more and more teddy-bear fans packed into the small hall, the elbows came out. Spectators flashed angry looks and began jostling, pushing and shoving. It felt like the place was on the verge of some kind of teddy bear riot, so I hustled Julie to the door.
That’s when the altercation broke out. We heard the voice first — angrily shouting across the crowd. Looking up, I saw him. It wasn’t hard, because he was wearing a massive fluffy teddy bear head, strapped on precariously above his own with a chin strap.
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