Nostalgia for Taiwan's Dark Ole' Days
Two Books Dive Into U.S. Military Cold War Sex Antics
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20 AUGUST 2022
Nostalgia for Taiwan's Dark Ole' Days
Two Books Dive Into U.S. Military Cold War Sex Antics
By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike)
Taipei - Before book worms, dust mites, Wokists, destroy the darker records of the Cold War in Taipei, it might be worth mentioning that two new books explore the days when whorehouses outnumbered convenience stores on Zhongshan North Road. Today, now gentrified, the area has little in the way of sleaze (minus Linsen North Road; from Nanjing Road to the gates of the Military Police Command).
The first is a reissue of Andrew Harris’ 1969 non-fiction narrative Taipei After Dark: 50th Anniversary Edition and the other is a new book by Daniel Reid: Shots From The Hip: Sex, Drugs, and the Tao. There is some overlap in venues in both books as the same bars, whorehouses, and vice echo between the two books. Reid’s book does help to bridge lost history between the 1960s and 1970s/1980s.
Old maps cobbled together from U.S. veteran websites, those who served at the U.S.-Taiwan Defense Command (now the Taipei Expo Park), indicate that the base and the bars were 10-15 minutes walking distance from the main gate. One veteran’s website, Shulinkou, provides an amazing array of photographs from the Cold War era of bars and of other activities of the era:
ABOVE: Template showing patrons how to fill out a bar fine for taking the hostess out for the evening. Note the slightly humorous name “Jack Hammer”.
Above: The Ambassador Hotel still stands.
ABOVE: Chin Chow Street was once called “sin alley.” Note the location of Air Asia, which was at the time part of the CIA’s cover airlines that included Civil Air Transport, Air America, and Southern Air Transport. See Leary’s Perilous Missions: Civil Air Transport and CIA Covert Operations In Asia; Pocock’s The Black Bats: CIA Spy Flights Over China From Taiwan, 1951-1969. Those who hate to read and prefer movies: Air America (1990) was a semi-realistic movie with Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. Air America’s main base was at Tainan Air Base in southwest Taiwan.
Virtually all of the bars mentioned in the above maps are in Taipei After Dark. The book is not entirely about U.S. military misbehavior, but also delves into the sexual debauchery of all expatriates: Japanese businessmen, Overseas Chinese expatriate businessmen (Singapore, Hong Kong, etc), orgies of all types, references to pedophilia in Wanhua, and the making of a “blue film” (early black and white porn films were normally 8mm silent films; they were traded amongst U.S. college fraternities, men’s clubs like the Moose Lodge and VFW, and stag parties). Comparing the two books, Taipei After Dark is by far more surprising.
Sexual liberation in the U.S. got its start in the 1960s with the birth control pill, giving women sexual freedoms not seen before in human history, but the level of decadence amongst U.S. citizens in 1969, including the wives of U.S. military personnel, was an unsettling read for me. It seems that exotic locales for Westerners excites the libido, whether male or female.
VIETNAM: But to be honest, an even raunchier book on the U.S. military’s debauchery is Saigon After Dark (1967). Those interested in an academic perspective on the 1960s sexual era and its impact on the Vietnam War, particularly for gender studies as an academic discipline look no further than Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men's Adventure Magazines (2020).
The 50th Anniversary Edition of Taipei After Dark includes photographs not found in the original:
Above: Front Cover.
Above: Back Cover
Daniel Reid’s Shot's From the Hip: Sex, Drugs, and the Tao is an autobiography covering 1973 to 1989 in Taiwan, first working for the Hilton Hotel and gradually transitioning to a full-time travel writer. Reid, after graduating with a Master’s degree in Chinese language studies in 1973, moves to Taipei to look for work.
But that is not where the book begins. Reid describes the reckless attitudes of the 1960s Baby Boomers. He dubbed it “brute apathy”; a line borrowed from the novel Catch 22: “God alone knew at what her glazed and smoky eyes were staring in such brute apathy.” Reid simply did not “care!” how his attitude, outlandish behavior, cruel pranks, affected those around him in Asia. During this period of his life in Taiwan, he seems the perfect template of a Peter Pan.
ABOVE: Front Cover.
ABOVE: Back Cover.
Unlike Andrew Harris, whom no one remembers amongst the old school Taipei expats that remain today, there are mixed memories of Reid. Most are negative, based on stories that normally evolve around ugly arguments during drinking sessions.
But to be fair, memories are difficult to corral, like cats. And for the sake of being fair, Reid’s book makes for an interesting read. He appears unashamed to mention well-known Taipei brothels, such as the Mayflower (which survived till the late 2010s). Details of the old, now demolished, legendary Hilton Hotel are of interest. It was a popular watering hole for journalists before China opened up and the media shuttered their Taipei offices to move to Beijing.
U.S. military references include two stories. One involving a disabled U.S. Army Vietnam veteran, Pat Gairns, who carried nunchucks tucked under his belt while bar hopping. The other involves a Jamaican singer, Bobby Jones, who shot a man in an unidentified “American Military Club”.
According to Reid, Gairns was drafted to fight in Vietnam and trained as a “ranger for Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol” (LRRP). Gairns was crippled by a leg wound suffered after tripping a land mine.
While writing and researching this article, I did locate some information on Patrick Gairns (1947-2004) on the Internet. He received a Purple Heart while serving as a U.S. Army Specialist 4 (above Private, below Corporal). He was indeed seriously wounded as a LRRP in the 25th Infantry Division, dying of cancer caused by Agent Orange in 2004.
ABOVE: Gairns - center wearing shorts while hanging out with LRRP buddies. The overall look of these men is typical of those involved in special operations against guerrillas.
The other military-related story involved a character named Bobby Jones who tap danced and sang for a living. Jones, according to Reid, was from Jamaica and had lived in Taiwan from 1961 until his death in 1994; marrying a woman named Lulu, a member of the Amis aboriginal tribe in Taiwan. They both performed a popular duet in night clubs around Taiwan.
One night an enraged American soldier with a switchblade threatened Jones, so Jones casually shot him with a .32 caliber pistol, grazing his skull, knocking him down. The man lived even though the “blood gushing from his head” made it look worse than it actually was. Reid claims Jones simply sat back down and ordered another round of drinks.
“Someone called an ambulance, and a few minutes later Colonel Yang strode through the door to restore order. He was the chief of the Foreign Affairs Police and a good friend of Bobby’s [Jones]. After the wounded man had been loaded into the ambulance, the colonel came over to our table and joined us for a drink. He picked up Bobby’s pistol and sniffed the muzzle then checked the chamber to see how many shots had been fired. Handing it to him, he said, ‘Put this in your pocket, Bobby, and next time please don’t bring it into the club’."
Reid’s travel writing picked up significantly after leaving the Hilton Hotel. Books and articles on China, Thailand, Tibet, including art and cuisine, began filling his CV. But money seems to have driven him out of Taipei as the country became one of the Four Asian Tigers and rents skyrocketed.
“The biggest blessing in an author’s life is the freedom to work when he wishes on his own terms and when he’s done with a piece of writing, the freedom of doing absolutely nothing.” But then Reid’s caveat: “Literary aspirations notwithstanding, money is the primary force that motivates writers to write, but it’s not as easy as people who don’t write for a living may think.”
Reid was also motivated to leave Taiwan for other reasons. An obsession with Tibetan Buddhism and other Asian religious beliefs turned his “brute apathy” into a passion for a different kind of holy trinity: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.
He relocates to Chiang Mai, Thailand, and continues writing books on spirituality and sexuality. See his website.
But Reid is not exactly on the same Noble Eightfold Path walked by real monks, as his description of finding spirituality in the East sounds more like Karma Cola than The Real Thing.
In one section of his book, Reid relates his discovery of Taoist sexual disciplines and the opportunity of experiencing “full-blast ejaculations.”
The reader might want to get a bucket and mop before reading more.
END
