

Early Monday morning a sozzled British ex-pat and longtime Taiwan resident named Paul was arrested for drunk driving in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung, just two days after inking the traditional characters for Taiwan on his forehead and the country’s independence flag on his chin.

On Friday night, Paul, the proprietor of “The Kayak Club,” a bar in Kaohsiung’s Yancheng district, reportedly beelined for the nearest tattoo parlor after a spirited debate over Taiwanese independence. In an impassioned — and by his own admission “rash” — decision, he opted to use his face as a canvas for the expression of his views, apparently not content to tackle the issue through the medium of bar chitchat.



On the defensive after netizens accused him of taking advantage of Paul, the tattoo artist claims that the bar owner-cum-Taiwanese nationalist, “though reeking of alcohol,” was lucid enough to “answer my questions without ambiguity.” “‘Do you really want to tattoo it on your face?'” the tattoo artist asked. “He insisted that was what he wanted.”



In the ensuing days Paul became a viral internet sensation in Taiwan. Even the police officer who nabbed him for drunk driving Monday morning recognized him from the news. Paul submitted to a breathalyzer test at the scene and blew 0.82mg/l, according to the Liberty Times, more than five times the legal limit. Taiwan News reports he was held overnight in a detention cell, “where he became highly agitated to the point of even breaking the toilet inside, before he finally passed out due to exhaustion.”

[Images via Taiwan Observer / Taiwan News]

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