Break Dance Lantern Festival

2-22-16 

      I fell asleep at 10 pm and woke up at midnight when Leona came in; I have followed that pattern before when I couldn’t take a nap in the afternoon. In the afternoon, I rode the bike up the Han River. In the evening we were going to Taichung Park for the lantern festival and to see Michael Smith perform the break dance, but I received a line message from him that he decided not to perform; I asked if he was okay but he didn’t respond. I rode home and we went nowhere we were only going to Taichung Park to see Michael; the lantern festival we went to last year. It was overcrowded and boring. 

2-27-16 

     Michael sent a message that he would perform that Saturday evening. I rode the bike there, since Leona didn't want to go, and chained it up near the police station. Like most trips on my bicycle, the trip itself is worth the price of admission if nothing else happens more interesting. This was the case that night at Taichung Park. Not only couldn't I find Michael performing but he didn't respond to any of my Messenger requests to tell me where he was. 

     Michael is the fellow Leona and I met last year outside the Taichung train station. He was break dancing to loud music on a boom box and the police were harassing him to move to the side and lower it. Leona and I defended him to the cops who let him be. A few months later, Michael read something I wrote and tried to friend me on Facebook. He reminded me who he was and thanked me for helping him that day. We later made a date to have lunch at New York Bagel and we chatted about what brought us to Taiwan. 

     As a recovering drug abuser, his Sze-Chi girlfriend, who he met on the streets of Berkeley, "rescued him" from the authorities who had him pegged by sending him a plane ticket to Taiwan. He is praying and staying straight but keeping up his interests in break dancing