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with a family debt related to my grandfather’s gambling habits and a loan from a local crime boss to cover losses. The jiaotou , as these neighborhood bosses are known, was really paying himself back with his own money, since he ran the gambing parlor as well.
    Gambling has been a fixture in Taiwan since Chinese people arrived en masse in the 17th century and it’s been a hard habit to break. Organized criminal activity to support gambling and other vices took root under the Japanese colonizers; after they left at the end of World War II, Taiwanese took over.
    Jiaotou s are local-level guys. Maybe they have a dozen guys and five blocks under their control. They were Taiwanese Taiwanese. Benshengren , descended from Chinese who fled China when the Ming Dynasty collapsed in 1644. They also have aboriginal blood, since nearly all the Chinese who came over were men. Benshengren also speak Taiwanese and only resort to Mandarin Chinese under duress.
    The big gangs in Taiwan, the ones that operate on a national level, are mostly staffed with so-called mainlanders, descendants of Chinese who came over in waves after World War II and the Chinese civil war.
    One may think that after seventy years there wouldn’t be much difference between the two largest populations of Taiwan, or that the tension would not be noticeable on a day-to-day basis. But memories are long and the past remains present. We worship our ancestors, after all.
    Some benshengren are still bitter about their perceived mistreatment at the hands of the mainlanders during the forty-year martial-law era. Mainlanders say benshengren are looking for ways to segregate themselves, which is interesting because that’s what benshengren say about the Hakka, an ethnic minority originally from China. And don’t get anyone started on whose fault it is that the indigenous people of Taiwan continue to be marginalized.
    There are many issues we all have with each other and past grievances are stoked every election as the country tears itself apart.
    An old friend told me once that criminal organizations offer more stability than the government, and without all the fake promises and red tape. Whenever there are natural disasters in Taiwan—earthquakes, hurricanes, or mudslides—who are the first people on the scene with food, water, blankets, and medical supplies? The gangs.
    The rare times that there are stabbings, it’s gangsters killing each other. The police and the community at large don’t have problems with that. Gangsters by code use knives and swords. They disdain guns, which any dissolute amateur can use. No honor in using them.
    Taiwan’s gangsters operate outside the law, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a sense of integrity for the profession.
    In fact, after the fire that destroyed my old house, the jiaotou who had inherited the lender end of my family debt slashed what I owed and later wiped it away altogether. We had always gotten along on a superficial level, but I was taken aback by his newfound charity. The guy even sent me a little housewarming gift basket when I moved out of Nancy’s place and into the Qiangang Park apartment. Nancy had said I didn’t have to move out, but I felt weird living there, maybe because I’m old-fashioned in the sense that I believe a man should really have his own place. I was also against staying there because a rich married dude had given Nancy the apartment while she was his mistress. He was in jail now for bribing officials, otherwise I would totally be kicking his ass on principle alone.
    I entered my apartment and was greeted immediately by thumping from the ceiling. The people above had installed a Japanese-style floor of raised wood planks over a hollow center. The trapped air pocket acted like a layer of insulation that kept the floor cool during hot summer days and warm in the winter. The downside, borne entirely by me, was that every step my neighbors took