Lost in Translation?

Today, I was locked inside of a convenience store for half an hour.

Laura and I went out to get breakfast and wait for Bob by the subway station before we went to Danshui and a fisherman's pier (kind of like a boardwalk...but much tastier than those sorry American excuses for street food!). We got lunch at a 7-11 for $50 and $80 Yuan (~$1.80 and $2.10 USD, respectively...booyah!) We gave into our innate American-ness (ironic, I know I just made fun of America...whatever, it's my right) and sought shelter from the hot hot heat in a Starbucks where we knew there would be air-conditioning.

I have to preface my anger at Starbucks by saying that up til then, we'd been consistently buying delicious tea from street vendors all week for about 85 cents. Starbucks charged me $100 for a tazo tea (which I didn't even really want in the first place). Anyway, so I'm kind of annoyed that I spent more money on a stupid tea than I did on my entire lunch, but we go sit upstairs and wait for Bob's arrival...this is 1:20 pm. Two minutes later, a barista comes upstairs and makes an announcement. I couldn't understand it all (let's be honest, I'm on the same literacy level as my 6-year old niece), so I interpret her speech as she's saying something about a group coming into the Starbucks for 30 minutes, and that we won't be able to leave the upstairs in the meantime. I also hear something about the possibility of lights flashing on and off, but was also told to not be alarmed, that at 2:00 we could exit the building. No one else seemed to be particularly surprised or annoyed, but we decided to leave just in case. So much for air conditioning, what a rip-off. Sorry this isn't making sense, just follow me.

So anyway, we leave by 1:30 so that we wouldn't be trapped inside the Starbucks in case Bob arrived during that time. We're walking up the next block when a policeman starts blowing his whistle at Laura and forces us into the nearest shop (which happens to be a convenience store). They're closing the corrugated metal doors and everything, so I'm kind of panicking, thinking of worst case scenarios (i.e. we're being bombed, there's a shooting somewhere, I don't know what happens in Taiwan?!?!). I kept asking people what exactly was happening, since no one seemed particularly upset, and my rudimentary Chinese got me as far as something that sounded similar to (but was not, in fact) a "performance" of some sort coming through town that you had to be indoors for.

So I thought to myself, this is strange, why would you have to be indoors for a street performance? Maybe there's a famous personality coming through town? Then I thought, does this sh*t happen every day?

I took some pictures of the before and after of the streets during the 'performance' that I'll put up later. Bob called me pretty confused and was unable to exit to the street from the subway either (literally there was no one on the streets). They let us out at 2 pm, as promised, and we met up with Bob, went about our way, still seriously confused. Poor Bob said that he had had the most boring 15 minutes of his life...at least I had hilarious cleansing products and condoms to look at.

We consulted with Laura's cousins tonight after getting back from Danshui, and I have to give myself SOME credit, I was pretty close. We just happened to be in Taipei during the one time of each year that they close down all the street to have military street rehearsals.

What?

Anyway, I guess 'performance' is pseudo-close to 'military rehearsal'. Illiteracy sucks.