Motorcycles in Tainan - Yamaha

In 1968-1969, I was a freshman at the University of Minnesota, I was driving an Allstate(Vespa Knockoff). I thought I deserved a real motorcycle and planned to buy a Yamaha 180cc motorcycle in the summer after my freshman year. My father said I should NOT buy a motorcycle. I defied my father anyway and bought the Yamaha 180, and my father retaliated by saying he would no longer pay my college tuition. Each quarter was about $125 so $375 for the year, the Yamaha 180 costs about $600.

My father had paid for each of his 6 children to go to private Catholic high school. I believe he was looking for a reason to stop this subsidy. I feel bad that my 5 younger brothers and sisters also had their funding cut off after their freshman year, because of my action. But my father was looking for an excuse and I gave him that excuse.


I was desperate when I lost the funding, so my second year at the University of Minnesota, I joined ROTC(Reserve Officer Training Corps). I was good in the classwork which was mostly history from a military viewpoint, but I was terrible as a soldier on the parade grounds. I am a little bit dyslexic, so when they gave commands to the right or the left, I was either wrong or slow. Anyway, I stood out as a fuck up. That sophomore year, I also started work as a parking lot attendant and made good money, I no longer needed the ROTC, that wouldn't start paying until my Junior year. At the end of the school year the drill Sargent said "We know you don't like it here and we don't like you here, so why don't you quit?" So in the middle of the Vietnam war, they didn't want me so I gladly quit. We all make mistakes when we are young.

Here is a picture of the motorcycle(from the internet) that started me in my short military career.

The typical Yamaha in Taiwan is this one, the 4 stroke engine:

But they still have some of the 2 strokes going, the famous 100cc:

And even more modern 2 strokes, big fins on top of the cylinder marks them as 2 strokes.