It will be hard to ever move away from my current neighborhood as it is rather convenient. Less than five minutes from my house is RT-Mart. Which is basically a Wal-Mart type store, in particular the ones that have a super market in them as well. Shopping in Taiwan can be quite difficult if you are looking for a very specific thing. Not only do you have to track down a store that sells them, but you have to luck out and they actually have it in stock.
Thankfully a store like RT-Mart has many of these items all under the same roof. In fact many of the things i buy here, i don't even know where I would find them anywhere else. And like Wal-Mart, they are also very cheap. As such just looking around my apartment it seems like most things are from this store. From furniture, to food, to the oil and tires i bought for my old bicycle. I know that stores like these are considered "evil" but for a foreigner like me, they are a godsend.
Well enough gushing, it's time for the uplifting story about how one person changed an entire store. The RT-Mart is two levels, with upstairs being food, and downstairs being everything else in the world. One day a friend and I were shopping on the lower level, and I decided to buy some new free weights (muscles like mine don't come easy...), and by the time we got to the upstairs part, i was sick of carrying them (obviously i needed the weights). As soon as we came up the escalator, there was an old man in front of the big bags of rice. Behind him was his cart, free of any contents, so i told my friend to steal the cart for me. She was a bit hesitant, but I told her "in america we do this sort of thing all the time" which is the secret way to convince anybody to do something (although it's probably more logical to think that if americans do something than that is probably something that you shouldn't do). To my surprise she stole the cart, and we quickly sped away as she looked back to see the old man with a heavy bag of rice in his hands and a confused look on his face. My heart felt sad, but my poor arms felt relieved.
So how does this horrible story of an evil foreigner corrupting the soul of an innocent girl, who then stole from a defenseless old man have a happy ending? Well a few days later when I was back at the store and came up the escalator, I saw this small rack of shopping carts. before neither these carts, nor the metal guard to hold them there, were here. I'm guessing our act of immorality inspired change in this company's operating procedure, to now have carts between the floors for people who suddenly realized they needed a cart.
So there you go kids, proof that one person can make a difference. And just like all those who came before us, it took breaking the "rules" to finally inspire change for the better. Most importantly i hope that this little thing lets you know that you never in your life have to feel that "i'm just one person, i can't change anything." because now you've seen what one person can really do.
