As those of you who listen to the podcast know, I've been in Taiwan for a while. Recently I had a self-defense situation come up that ended up about as best as one could hope for.
It's considerably more complicated for me to travel with two children and this at times creates moments of miscommunication and uncertainty between my wife and I.
We were recently walking around a shopping area centered inside of an underground train station in Taipei. After a long day, we were tired and ready to go home so we headed to the elevator to leave.
While we were there a man with a very dark tan (this is rare in Taiwan with the exception of construction workers and homeless people), a raggedy backpack and a collapsible seat sauntered up. I say "sauntered" because I can't think of any other word than "swaggered" to describe the way he walked up. When he approached I made eye contact with him. He had an angry look on his face and after glancing at my wife and children he made a scoffing sound, smirked and looked away.
We were waiting at the elevator when he walked up and there was someone in front of us. However, when the elevator arrived he pushed his way to the front and got on the elevator before anyone else. This is noteworthy as there is a general cultural point in Taiwan that people in wheelchairs and families with strollers get priority at elevators. There are even signs up to indicate this.
This guy however, pushed his way to the front. Okay, whatever. We all got on anyway and started going up. While we were riding in the elevator I noticed him eyeing me in the reflection of the elevator door. The interior wasn't quite mirrored, but the metal was shiny enough that it basically functioned like a mirror and after his initial behaviors, several red flags had been set off in my head. Due to this I was paying extra attention to him.
Based on my assessment of him, which later proved true, I guessed that the man was homeless and might be a bit mentally unstable if not just angry and resentful in general. It's rare but my wife and I also catch a bit of flack for being an interracial marriage. I've actually had people come up to me and scream in my face about it before. Most people in Taiwan are not like this. On an nearly daily basis we would get people commenting on how beautiful our children are and wanting to talk to or help us. However, no matter where one goes in the world... being the outsider attracts attention and being an outsider married to a woman from that culture attracts aggressive attention from resentful men who would rather blame others for their lack of relationships than do a little self-introspection. But I digress...
Having seen this guy angrily staring at me in the elevator door, I made the decision to get off at an earlier floor. Strategically it was perfect. There were two doors in the elevator one in "front" and one in "back." The angry man had pushed his way to the "front." Before we reached the top floor, the elevator stopped at another floor and the door at the "back," where my family and I were, opened behind us. A perfect exit scenario. So I started backing the stroller out of the elevator.
We all got out, my wife just following my lead until a second or two out of the door she exclaims that this isn't the right floor. I tell her that "I know, but just follow me." However, at this point the other well meaning people in the elevator hold the door and give us an opportunity to get back in. There are a few seconds of back and forth as I try to convince my wife to follow me and she's trying to figure out what I'm doing all while the nice people hold the door. It couldn't have been more than four or five seconds before the homeless man bursts out in anger, yelling about the hold-up.
My wife replied back with a naturally angry response and then the homeless man is suddenly turning around, shouting at the top of his voice and pushing his way through the people in the elevator to get out.
Now you have to understand that all of this is taking place in Mandarin Chinese and while I could basically follow what was happening, once people get angry and loud they start speaking very fast. Much too fast for me to understand.
All I knew was that this angry man was pushing his way through the crowd to approach my wife.
So I stepped in between and brought my hands up in what's known in law enforcement as a "fence" position. Both my arms are up in what could be described as a boxing stance, but my hands are open and facing out. In what might be described as a "calm down" posture. It was a part of my training and it came naturally then in that moment. I knew that if he continued approaching I could intercept him before he got to my wife and kids.
When I did this, the guy's eyes widened as he looked up at me (I was a bit taller than he was) and he immediately turned around and went back in the elevator still yelling angrily.
At this point the doors shut on the man and that was the last we saw of him.
I took my family to a different elevator and we exited the train station from a different side. I did not want to run into him waiting for us to come up in the next elevator.
All things considered, not a bad conclusion. There was no need to get physical and we were able to get separated and leave the scene of the confrontation without any further trouble.
However, there's something I messed up on.
I didn't communicate well enough with my wife. We even have a code word for times like this, and it completely slipped my mind to use it. I just assumed she'd follow my lead and all that did was create confusion for her. In one sense I made the situation worse by creating a situation that caused the already unstable man to get angry.
To improve on this situation I should have given my wife better communication when initially exiting so we could have avoided the situation where people were trying to be considerate because they thought we'd gotten off at the wrong floor.
The self-defense laws in Taiwan are not quite as forgiving as they are in the US and so if it had become physical, literally anything other than running away could have resulted in jail time for me. All in all, a good conclusion and a good example of how a combination of training, confidence and keeping calm when emotions flare allowed us to avoid a very basic social violence scenario.
Most of the time, that's real life self-defense. Not fighting in the streets. Checking the ego, controlling one's emotions and separating the conflicting parties can, most of the time, prevent the confrontation from escalating into physical violence.
"Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.
-Epictetus-
This is why we train. So that our "no" is backed up with more than hope.
Listen to the podcast "Walking With The Tengu" at: https://anchor.fm/walkingtengu for analysis and thoughts on how classic works are meaningful to the modern martial artist.