Taiwanese Prison Cellmates

“You only do 2 days, the day you come in and the day you come out” — Avon Barksdale

There doesn’t seem to be any method to the way they sort prisoners. Violent offenders are placed with petty thieves, short-timers live with lifers. People cycle in and out fairly frequently because they might have to change prisons because of sentencing, request to go to the factory or maybe they might have bailed out.

I was put into a cell with two dope dealers, Michael (30) and Santino (31), they both asked me to give them English names. After a few days I realized I gave them names from The Godfather, I suppose that makes me Fredo. Michael was in for dealing Meth, and Santino was in for dealing Heroin, he was also a gangster. Michael ended up getting 10 years, and Santino got 16 years + 4 years from a previous charge and since he violated his probation that got tacked on, 20 years total. We were overcrowded in that room to be sure, but we got along great, 3 dope dealing peas in a pod. I taught them English and they taught me Taiwanese. Michael was married and he had a child, he also had a girlfriend. Santino was like me, a bachelor. Between the 3 of us, we had visitors 3 times a week, we had plenty of outside food. They introduced me to the prison life and showed me how things worked, they were the first friends I made inside. I mopped the floor, Michael washed the dishes, and Santino was the OG in the cell. We all washed our own clothes. In Taiwan you get a grade per month and that’s how good behavior is calculated and parole is based on. I never had any problems with them, if I had done all my time with them, it would of been cool, but nothing lasts forever. I only got to live with them for a week.

When I blew up, I didn’t even hear the sound, but I was about to find out soon enough though. I was on every news channel and 2/4 newspapers in Taiwan. I was the first person ever to bring edibles in to Taiwan and it was a big deal. I saw the article in newspaper and the clip on youtube, don’t believe everything you read, it’s mostly bullshit. Look how happy the clown looks, I like how they have real snacks next to edibles in an attempt to make it look like they’re doing a good job. They had no clue what they were doing. Originally, they only picked out the rice crispies, I believe that’s what the snitch tipped them off to. That’s what they were looking for, then they ran tests on the popcorn and pretzel sticks the next day. You can see the articles Here, here , here. After I made the news and the newspapers, I blew up in the prison, the next day everybody knew who I was. People started sending me food, coming up and introducing themselves to me. Basically, the Taiwan media gave me a hood pass. If you’re wondering why, it’s because they were all drug traffickers, they wanted to see if I was open to working together when I’m out. I said “Sure.” An unfortunate consequence of prison time, in any prison, is that one ends up making connections in the underground world that the authorities are trying to get the person to leave behind. It was a blessing and a curse.

In Taiwan, the people who’ve been locked up longer have the privilege of picking their cellmates. They get to choose with they want to live with. There was a man named Sun (38) who was in for murder. Actually, it was manslaughter, he got into a fight with a man and accidentally killed him. Taiwan doesn’t differentiate between manslaughter and murder. Sun got the death penalty, he was appealing it when I met him, the minimum for him is 25 to life. He’s been Ren Se for one and half years already, he was one of the ones that seniority in the wing. He was learning English in his spare time and he wanted to live with me so I could teach him English. Fuck that. He was an O.C.D. asshole, we didn’t get along from the get-go. Plus, I was mad he was the reason I had to change rooms, I liked my old cellys, I didn’t like him. Since he had seniority, it was only two people in the cell instead of three. Sun used to be a LED technician on the outside, he got into a fight with a guy and he said he couldn’t control himself and accidentally killed him. He would wake me up in the morning, he would try to tell me when to or when not to sleep, and he would try to tell when to or when not to use the restroom. He would insist I hang my towels a certain way, and would yell at me when I didn’t hang it exactly to his specifications. Like I said earlier, OCD asshole. He buys cigarettes but doesn’t smoke, he uses them to barter for things like we do in the states. He was annoying as fuck, he would try to tell me how to sleep, he didn’t like me hugging my pillow and wanted me to be quieter when I do things. I told him to “shut the fuck up.” People always called me an asshole and it’s true, I am, but guess I never realized what it’s like to be dealing with a real asshole until now. Being trapped in a small cell with a bigger asshole than me.

Taiwan is strange in the way that they put people on death row with people who just arrived. I was only in there for less than a week and here I am sharing a cell with a man looking at 25 to life, I wasn’t the only one either, there were a few people on death row in my wing. Never in the west. It’s weird watching a murderer cry when he’s watching TV, and watching him fold origami, but living with a dude who has seniority has it’s benefits. He gets special privileges, things normal people can’t get he has access to. He gets 10 cigarettes a day instead of 4. He’s a smart dude, no doubt, he uses the cigarettes to barter for everything he needs. I think it’s because he’s going to be locked up for so long that at some point he’s going to run out of money. He needs to scrimp and save wherever he can. He’s always asking me questions about America. “Is it true you call Bubble Tea?” “What’s the difference between very and vary?” Shit gets old pretty quickly, I feel like a monkey there just for his amusement. After 5 days I had enough. One morning, I didn’t put my towel back exactly to his liking and he said “how many times do I have to tell you? You have to put it back like this. How stupid are you?” “Shut the fuck up. You know, I’m happy they’re executing you, I’d pull the trigger myself if they would let me. I’m sad they won’t let me watch them execute you. Fuck you for real.” “You can’t talk to me like that.” “I do what I want, what are you gonna do about it you bitch?” Then the C.O. called my name for visitation because my auntie came to see me. I often wonder what would’ve happened if she hadn’t come when she did. I’m not wondering if I would of won the fight or not, I would of won for sure, he’s smaller than me and skinnier than me, he wouldn’t of stood a chance. I wonder how badly I would of injured him and how long I would of been thrown into solitary for. When I got back, the head C.O. told me that an Englishman got arrested for arson, he wanted me to translate for him and help him adjust. “Ok, no problem.” When I got back to my cell, it was the murderer, the Englishmen and me, Sun told the head C.O. that he wanted me out of his room because I threatened him, so the head C.O. moved the Englishman and I to a cell right behind the C.O. table.

I’ve written enough about my 4rd celly, so I’ll just leave it at that. (see: White Privilege in Taiwan Prison my next blog post)

My 5th celly (28) is in for surprise, surprise drugs. He was on parole for fraud, then caught a gun charge. When on bail for the gun charge, he was caught dealing meth. It’s not uncommon for people to bail out, then catch a case on bail. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd cellys, I was most definitely not in charge. I started punking the Englishman, so much so that he switched rooms. When I got this 5th celly, I let him know the deal right away, I laid down the law, “This is my cell, I’m in charge here, I call the shots up in here.” He fell in line quick. I made him do everything in the cell; wash the dishes, mop the floor, wash his and mine clothes, hang the clothes to dry, get the food, put the food away, and any other odd jobs in the cell. I gave him extra food and let him smoke some of my cigarettes. He was a poor Taiwanese dude, he’s got very little money and nobody was ever going to visit him. The only person who was going to visit him was his sister and they got locked up together. Both on the same charges, meth dealing. I couldn’t help but feel bad for him, so while he did all the chores, I had an extra toothbrush and boxers that I gave him. By this point I also had made a lot of friends inside, so people were often sending me food. I made sure he had enough to eat.

He’s the loudest snorer I’ve ever met, louder than me. Now I know what people go through when they sleep in the same room as me. He also somehow gargles in his sleep, while snoring, in addition to talking in his sleep. When I say talking, I mean he has conversations, it’s strange, he’ll wake himself up because he hears himself talking. It’s was so weird. He would sometimes wake me up because of his conversations. Because of the meth use, he would have muscle spasms and twitch when he was detoxing, I put a box between us so I wouldn’t get kicked. He’s a snitch, though. He snitched out a connect for a lighter sentence. He said “I didn’t snitch out my connect, but I snitched out somebody I didn’t like. So if they catch him, my sentence get reduced by half.” I don’t know if I believe him or not. Even worse than being a snitch? He cried, a lot. He cried for 4 days straight, longest he cried was for an hour. “I was thinking about home.” “Everybody is thinking about home.” That’s all I said to comfort him, shit, I’m locked up in a foreign country and you don’t see me shedding a tear. Fuck his snitching ass. He said “I’ve been locked up all over Taiwan.” I wonder if he cried at every stop, I wonder if he snitched out people at every stop. While he lived with me, he was on trial for gun possession, and before the trial he snitched out his friend. He told the police the gun was his friends, his friend blamed it on him. He didn’t live with me long enough for me to find out what happened to him. Fuck his ass though, a bitch like him is the reason I’m going through this bullshit in the first place. I have no sympathy for rats. The only good mouse is a Deadmau5.

I’m no stranger to workers, but, it’s kind of weird to have somebody wait on you hand and foot as soon as you wake up. I felt like Eddie Murphy in Coming to America. He asks my permission for everything, he asks my permission to masturbate, “I’m going to masturbate tonight, is that OK with you?” “Yeah, sure, go nuts. Just don’t get any jizz on me.” In my humble opinion, you’re not a boss unless somebody asks your permission to masturbate. Strangely, he would watch me when I showered, and when I was done he would stand by with a towel ready for me to dry myself. I quickly got annoyed of him, he would kick things when he was bored, he would march in place for no reason, and when I let him borrow my radio, he would sing out loud. I gave him a toothbrush when he first got here, he left and didn’t use it once, he was my celly for 16 days! He put in a request to transfer to the factory, and I didn’t fight him on it. Good riddance.

I did learn one thing from him though, how lucky I am, how good I have it. I had a visitor at least once a week, sometimes twice. I often got letters from my friends and loved ones, I slept on a bamboo mat with padding on it with two pillows (one to cuddle and one to rest my head) and a blanket. I had made friends inside, I had people looking out for me. I had a bunch of snacks and drinks, a TV, books to read, and a radio, all things considered, I had it pretty good. On days I had visitors, they would bring me fried chicken, pizza, or some other delicious food, I’d eat my meal, watch TV, and smoke a cigarette when I’m done. What prison? On the other hand, nobody ever came to visit him. He slept on the floor with no mat, no blanket, and he used books borrowed from the prison library as pillows. Nobody ever wrote him. He had nobody looking out for him. It’s hard not to feel empathy and compassion for him and others like him, it’s rough. I felt like I was becoming two people inside, on one hand I was as savage and ruthless as I ever was, I needed to be in order to survive and keep my sanity. On the other hand, it’s hard not to feel for some of these men, this system is beyond fucked up. The way they treat us is inhumane, they lock us up and throw away the key, then throw away the box. We’re not even getting the necessities, the bare minimum. It seems like they shift the responsibilities of taking care of the prisoners from the government to the prisoners themselves. How good your experience will be depends on how much money you got, how many of your friends and family are willing to visit and make sure you’re doing OK.

My 6th celly was a 47 yr old drunk driver. He’s a broke, divorced Taiwanese dude. He sleeps all day then complains that he can’t sleep at night. He heard about my edibles and wants to work with me. I told him “We’ll see when I get out.” He rubbed me the wrong way. He was an alcoholic and an idiot. He would tell me “I want 10 edibles, if you could make them weaker and hit faster it would be better.” “motherfucker, who said I was going to sell them to you? You haven’t even tried them yet, how do you know how strong they are and how fast they hit?” “Oh, you right.” One time I was sleeping he woke me up saying “We didn’t eat dinner last night did we? (we did) Oh, I forgot, I’m hungry, may I have some food please?” I made him do all the chores in the cell just like the previous dude; wash the dishes, mop the floor, wash his and mine clothes, hang the clothes to dry, get the food, put the food away, and any other odd jobs in the cell. In return, I gave him extra food and let him smoke some of my cigarettes. He didn’t shower, wash or change his clothes daily. He would floss his teeth with a rubber band. I gave him a toothbrush when he first arrived and 4 days in was the first time he brushed his teeth, 4 days is better than 16 though. He thought we were cooler than we were, he had the audacity to ask me for bail money. I told him “No.”

From this point on, the jail started becoming really crowded, the head C.O. had to add a third inmate to my cell because of overcrowding. He was a 41 yr old Meth user (tweaker) and a thief. He’s in for 41 counts of burglary. Before coming to our cell, he used to live with my 3rd celly, the murderer Sun. He got into an argument with him (of course he did) and requested to move cells. He was going through withdrawals when I met him, it wasn’t that that bad, he had went through the worst of it with his previous celly. I hadn’t been in a cell with 2 other people since my first few days in, so it took awhile to get used to. It wasn’t all bad though, I had two bitches instead of one, I called them Bitch #1 and Bitch #2. If I did nothing in my cell before, now, I really did nothing. Whatever Bitch #1 didn’t want to do, he just told bitch #2 to do. I slept on the side with the fan and the window (the best side) Bitch #2 slept in the middle, and Bitch #1 slept the furthest from me. One night when we were sleeping, Bitch #2 ran his fingers across my chest. I thought it was a mosquito so I slapped it out of instinct, when I realized it was a person’s hand, I sat up and saw it was Bitch #2’s hand, I hit him in the face. He apologized and told me “it was an accident, I was dreaming.” “Fuck you, you don’t do that shit to me, you especially don’t do it when I’m sleeping. Tomorrow, you’re going to put in a request to go to the factory. I don’t want you in the same wing as me anymore. If you don’t, I’ll fuck you up.” He did as he was told, he was gone the following day after he submitted his request. He only stayed a week in my cell.

During that week the tweaker stayed with me, a little homie of mine sent me a kite (a note passed between prisoners) that he wasn’t happy in his cell, and he asked if he could move into mine. “Sure, but my room is full, as soon as somebody leaves, you can come in.” The little homie was a 22 yr old dope dealer and a gangster. He got caught with 20 kilos of Ketamine, and 5 kilos of Heroin. He’s married, his wife is 17 yrs old with a child on the way, she’s due in the beginning of May. He was hoping to get bail in time to see the birth of his child. I was pulling for him. The little homie transformed the cell, he made some speakers for my radio out of paper, so it amplified the sound. We have the radio playing in the background most of the day. He made a bunch of shelves in our cell, and turned it more homey. He also taught bitch #1 how to properly clean the restroom, so our toilet sparkles now. Around the time he moved in, I had been living with bitch #1 for about a month now and I was wondering why he was still locked up. I thought to myself, drunk driving can’t be that serious of an offense can it? What’s he still doing here?

As it turns out, he wasn’t in for drunk driving, he was actually in for rape. I don’t know if it was male or female, child or adult, quite frankly I didn’t care. Outside of our cell there are name cards with our name on it, when we got arrested, what we’re charged with, and age. Mine says drugs, as does the little homies, bitch #1 says rape. I was furious when I found out, I asked the head C.O. “Why did you put me in the cell with a rapist?” “It wasn’t to punish you, I don’t know if you know, but in Taiwan thieves and rapist are the lowest of the low here. I put him with you because I was hoping you wouldn’t know and if I put him in another cell he might get bullied.” “Can you move him to another cell, please” “I can’t move him unless he wants to move and he doesn’t want to move. He’s worried that he’ll get bullied if he moves to another cell, and he thinks that no matter what, you won’t bully him as bad as another cell will.” I confronted Bitch #1 and asked him “How come it doesn’t say drunk driving on your name card?” “Because, I’m in for rape.” “What the fuck, then why did you tell me and everybody else that you’re in for drunk driving when you’re really in for rape?” “Well, I was out on bail for drunk driving, then I got caught for rape.” Fuck that, when he told me that I went from zero to 100 real quick. The little homie and I started taxing his cigarettes, we each had 4 for a total of 12, we took his 4 and split them between us, we had 6 each to smoke and he had none. Fuck his raping ass. Everything started making more sense, whenever we would be let out of our cells to smoke or exercise, he never seemed to want to stay outside of his cell for very long. He didn’t have any other friends inside, save for another rapist, birds of a feather I suppose. The little homie and I were scheming to get his raping ass kicked out of the cell, but everything we did to him he just took and took. At night he would wake me up whenever he would use the restroom, which was quite often, about 3 or 4 times a night. So I told him, “Be quieter when you wake up to use the restroom, you’ve been waking me up and it’s annoying.” “You annoy me at night time too.” “alright, if we annoy each other so much, I’m going to tell the head C.O. and you can transfer cells.” He adjusted and was quiet for a few days, then the day I had my last court date on April 19th, the day before, he woke my ass up 4 times during the night. As I was getting dressed for court, I told him, “you woke me up 4 times last night, I told you before to be quieter when you wake up, this living situation isn’t working out. I annoy you, you annoy me, when I get back from court I’m going to tell the head C.O. what the deal is and I’m going to have your ass moved to another cell.” He was silent. “You fucking hear me? Do you understand? When I get back, you’re out of this cell.” Fate had other plans, turns out I was granted bail. I felt bad for the little homie, leaving him all alone to deal with the rapist.