Self-cultivation at the wheel
For anyone, spending 12 hours a day at the wheel of a car, or doing any other kind of work for a dozen hours without a break, would be an arduous task. Driving in Taipei City is an even greater challenge.
But in many years of driving, Chou Meng-te has gained the instincts of a professional. "When a fare gets in and tells me where they want to go, by the time I've moved off and reached fourth gear, I've already planned out my route," he says. After that, much of his mind is free to think about other things, such as chatting with his passengers about everything under the sun, thinking about his paintings, listening to the radio and so on.
Threading his way through Taipei's streets and alleys from morning till night, Chou knows every part of the city, and the routes through it, like the back of his hand. "You can get through along Chunghsiao East Road in the morning before the shops open at 11 o'clock, but from three in the afternoon till seven in the evening, nothing moves...." "Don't go towards Keelung on Fridays, because that's when goods go through customs, and the road's chock-a-block with container lorries...." "Whatever you do, don't go to Sanchung on the 25th of April. There's a big temple festival there that day, and once you're in you'll never get out...," he says, displaying his comprehensive knowledge.
However, in busy, chaotic Taipei, there's often no way to avoid getting caught in a snarl-up. When this happens, says Chou Meng-te with a laugh, "I make the driver's seat a place to cultivate myself." Taipei's traffic situation is something he can do nothing to change, so he can only find ways to adapt.
When the traffic grinds to a halt, Chou Meng-te takes his sketchpad out of his bag, and uses the opportunity to quickly sketch the passengers dozing in his cab, or people waiting for a bus at the roadside, as "notes" to serve as material for later paintings.
But most of the time Chou Meng-te simply attentively observes and remembers impressions and features. Then after his fare has got out of the cab, he stops somewhere at the roadside and sketches what he has just seen from memory. "I can often capture some pretty good things!" He says with a laugh: "Other people hate traffic jams, but I like them!"
For a while he even took plasticine along with him in the cab and in traffic jams he would mould it into little human and animal figures, which he placed along the top of the dashboard under the windscreen as decoration. But when the weather turned hot the plasticine would soften and collapse in the sunshine, so he stopped.
After many years of hard effort, Chou Meng-te is gradually pulling himself free of the "quicksand" and successfully shifting the focus of his activities to the creative art he loves.