May 23, 2004

Sunday morning around 3:30am at the Hsinchu Pig&Whistle several foreigners got attacked by locals. I saw several Chinese guys get up from their table and rush toward the dance floor. They attacked 7 foreigners including a girl from S. Africa. The Chinese guys used fists, chairs, an ashtray and a bat. The guy with the bat even used it to bat the S. African girl on the head. The bouncers did nothing and waited for the police. The police got there as the attackers were driving off in their car.

There was blood everywhere. It wasn't just a normal brawl. I mean there were cuts up to 9 inches in length. The foreigners had blood all over their faces. I mean these gangsters were really out of control. The foreigners tried to get away but they couldn't make it to the door. Six sustained quite serious injuries to the head and chest. Cuts everywhere.

Later on at hospital I met one of the attackers. He claimed that he did nothing wrong attacking and in batting the foreigners including the girl.... He claimed that he was the bouncer at Pig&Whistle and that he is a powerful gangster.

The foreigners,to my knowledge, will not press charges against the attackers. They fear further attacks by them.

So....nothing will be done about this and I think that the attackers will think that they can get away with attacking foreigners anytime again.

Scottie, the manager at Pig&Whistle, said that everything will be settled by the police. But nothing will be done without charges being filed by the foreigners.

I almost got hit too. I was standing a little too close to the dance floor where the fight was taking place. I almost became one of the injured.

Pig&Whistle has no real security. Anyone could get killed there.

I will find out whether the attacker that claimed to be the bouncer there is really the bouncer there. If that is true the foreigners can sue the pub instead of the attackers for compensation(being afraid to sue the attackers).

The foreigners are from S. Africa, Canada and America.

Are foreigners being targeted by local gangs for attacks? Violence against foreigners seem to be on the rise. One of the reasons might be foreigners not pressing charges and/or the police not doing their job in apprehending the assailants. Also poor security if any at many of these disco pubs.

These foreigners got attacked while they were dancing. I mean they weren't picking a fight with the locals. They didn't know why they were attacked and I was there watching and didn't see any reason for the attack.

Share some of your views on pressing charges. Whether that is something you would do or not.

Wow, terrible story! I am really, really curious to find out why these local guys attacked the foreigners. Since I have been in Taiwan, I have never had any major problems from the local people so I wonder what happened to start things? Perhaps the locals were just angry and drunk or perhaps one of the locals had a problem with one of the foreigners and simply got his friends to attack all the foreigners they could see.

I hope this is not an indication of some local people starting to resent the foreigners here in Taiwan. Recently, Bassman wrote of some very hostile comments directed at him for no reason. Let's hope this is not some kind of trend among the local people.

In the states, I have seen foreigners get attacked by locals simply because the locals believed that jobs were being taken away by the foreigners, at least that was the excuse they used. However, I believe that predjudice is often at the heart of such problems.

I am not too surprised that the bouncer would not get involved. After all, he has to live in this society well after his shift ends,and he probably fears incurring the rath of these gangsters. Thus, he may have felt powerless to do anything and just made up an excuse as to why he didn't try to stop things.

All in all, a very disturbing story.

Of course no one deserves to be attacked so viciously but *something* must have triggered the attack. I don't believe the reason was simply that they were foreigners.

As a fully paid up member of the Self Preservation Society I avoid pubs with drunk gangsters. They're like pit bulls; they can turn nasty all of a sudden.

Maybe they were tall or maybe "proud". It could have been because they were with a Taiwanese girl......nope, they were with a Western girl. That's the reason.

No. The real reason is that they are cowardly punks, brave only when standing behind their victims with their pengyou to back them up. Shitheads.

This is Taiwan, there are a lot of fascists here. Many Taiwanese harbor a deep-seated resentment of all foreign presences; english-speaking foreigners are just another form of colonialism, and we just top the list of colonizers -- dutch, portuguese, english, japanese, etc... Nothing new under the sun is going to make the character change. The xenophobia of the people runs deep. If they want to hit and run, they will. I suggest the victims go to a temple and burn some strawmen, like Chiang-Kai-Shek, at least. I would definitely press charges against the morons... It's such a sad reality, sometimes, being here, when the rest of the world lives so freely. Nobody gets called names, everyone can reach out and find someone to love... SUE THE BAR IF YOU CAN'T PRESS CHARGES !

just curious How does a guy have a bat in a night club/pub?

I am very curious what the gang situation is like in Taiwan.

How often would people come into contact with gangs and what sort of gangs are they?
Are they young thugs that do a bit of extortion and theft, or more serious stuff like murder and gun fights?
How big are these gangs?
Are there gang names to watchout for?
Do people believe they will be killed if they fight back or press charges?

Didn't the Taiwanese colonize Taiwan?

Yeah, right. You've never seen what violent people can do in retaliation to their victims when they try to press charges. If it happened to you and you knew that worse awaited you should you file a report, would you be quick to do so?
The rest of the world is such a free place? In some countries, the girl would have been stoned to death for being out in the company of men who were not her male relatives. Even in the US, in some circles she'd get called some rather nasty stuff for going to a pub with a group of men. I think it's time to lay the bong aside and come back down.

If they don't press charges, they will be partly responsible for the next attack on whomever.


People like that don't need an excuse to attack anyone.