Future Stuntmen

There’s an old family story about me that would seem to tell a lot. When I was about three years old, my family went back to Taiwan for a vacation. I don’t remember it, but apparently the trip freaked me out. I was in a foreign place surrounded by a multitude of cousins asking, “Who is that kid?” (among many other things) in a language I did not understand. Scary stuff.

So there would be times, especially if my mother wasn’t around, when I would just hit the pavement and play dead.

These episodes of sudden death soon became a wildly discussed medical mystery among my clan. What’s wrong with him? Why does he keep going unconscious when the kids want to play? How do we wake him up? Is this an American disease?

After a few days, the other kids got used to it. They would invite the neighbors to come have a look.

“Who’s that?” the neighbors would ask.