Daily Travel Photo - Taipei, Taiwan

Daily Travel Photo - Taipei, Taiwan

Daily Photo - Taipei, Taiwan

Daily Travel Photo - Taipei, Taiwan

This is the mass dampening ball atop Taipei 101, currently the world’s tallest building. The hydraulic legs at the bottom of the ball will push it in the opposite direction the building is moving during an earthquake or high wind.

Daily Travel Photo - Taipei, Taiwan

“Rolly Polly fish heads are never seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with Oriental women….Yeeaahh” - Dr. Demento.

Daily Travel Photo - Taipei, Taiwan

The view of Taipei City from atop Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world, at sunset.

Last Thoughts on Taiwan

Taipei 101 from the street

I’ve had this sitting in an unfinished draft on my computer for several weeks now. I figure I should get it up and out before I get any farther in Asia. I don’t want to get more than one country behind or I start to forget to much.

As I noted when I arrived in Taiwan, it is the first country I’ve visited on my trip which I have previously visited. As such, my thoughts on Taiwan aren’t just what I think of the place, but also what I think of the changes in the eight years since I was last there.

Changes

The biggest change I noticed in Taipei was the traffic. When I was last in Taipei, the metro hadn’t yet opened and the thing I remember most of Taipei was the streets jammed with scooters and taxis. There were very few private cars. I remember taking a photo at the time of an intersection which must have had about 100 scooters.

Scooters are still the most popular mode of transportation in Taipei, but there don’t seem to be as many as before. Likewise, there are more private cars, pretty much all of which are new and nice. Overall, the traffic in Taipei seems much lighter and the city seems cleaner. Not only is that a function of less traffic, but I think the scooters have gotten cleaner. The newer scooters have four-stroke engines instead of older, dirty two-stroke engines.

I really liked the Taipei metro. Along with Singapore, it one of the best I’ve seen in the world so far. It was very easy to navigate even if you don’t know Mandarin.

When I last spent a week in Taipei, I still felt as if I didn’t know the layout of the city. Now I feel as if I have a good idea of how it works.

The other big change I noticed is the use of English in the population.

In 1999, other than the people in the office I was visiting, I met no one who knew English. This time, about half the people I met in stores and restaurants were able to carry on a reasonable conversation in English. All of those people were probably under the age of 20. Almost everyone at the hostel I was staying at was there to teach English. English has been a high priority for Taiwanese education. In addition to teaching it at school, there are also conversation schools which teach English to students, English schools for little kids, and English schools geared towards business professionals. I even read that there was discussion to make English one of the official languages of Taiwan (along with Mandarin and Taiwanese). I don’t know if they ever did it, but it gives an indication of how high of a priority they have given English instruction.

Chang Kai-Shek Memorial

The Future

I had the pleasure of having dinner with Aaron Mowrey while I was in Taipei. Aaron was a debate coach in Minnesota when I was involved with debate, and he was the first person I’ve seen since I’ve started my trip that I knew before the trip started. He is studying in Taipei on a fellowship from Yale.

We discussed the future of Taiwan, the economy, and how it is doing compared to the rest of east Asia.

One of the things we discussed was the thing which is sort of always hanging over any discussion of Taiwan: relations with China.

Just in case you are not familiar with the history of Taiwan, let me give you the brief, 20 second history. At the beginning of the 20th Century, China is technically still an empire with an Emperor, with European countries heavily influencing the country. A revolutionary leader by the name of Sun Yat-Sen overthrows the Imperial government and establishes the Republic of China. Sun Yat-Sen dies in the 1920s and his replacement is a young Chang Kai-Shek.

During the 20s and 30s, rebel communist groups are active in the hinterlands. Later in the 30s, the Japanese invade Manchuria. The Republican forces are overwhelming compared to the communists, but the communists, under Mao Zedong, use the war, a large amount of Soviet assistance and some very clever tactics to eventually route the Republicans and send them fleeing to the island of Formosa. The government on Formosa continued to keep the Republic of China (RoC). The leadership was the same, the flag was the same, and they continued to be recognized at the legitimate government of China by most of the world after WWII.

Sun Yat-Sen is probably the only figure looked up favorably by both the PRC and the ROC

The obvious problem was that they did not control a land mass the size of the United States and billion people. Eventually, reality gave in and in the early 1970s, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) was recognized by the US and was given the seat that the RoC had on the UN Security Council.

The end result of all of this is that today, Taiwan is sort of in a diplomatic no-man’s land. Very few countries formally recognize Taiwan as China. Those that do are usually tiny nations like the Marshall Islands. The US has to go through some diplomatic contortions to work with Taiwan. They don’t have an embassy in Taiwan, but there is a “non-governmental organization” made up totally of “former” State Department officials who work on visa and passport issues. Officials that resign from the State Department to work there do not have that time count against them for seniority or retirement. Got that?

Everywhere I went in Taipei you would see signs advocating Taiwanese membership in the UN. Taiwan has backed away from claims of being the government of all of China and have been moving to just claiming to be the government of Taiwan. However, they have not declared themselves independent. The PRC still considers Taiwan to be part of China. If Taiwan declares themselves independent, China has said they would invade. The US has said they would defend Taiwan.

It has been a potential mess in the making for decades.

Personally, I think the odds of a war happening over Taiwan are small. There are several reasons for this:

• if it was going to happen, it would have happened under Mao. Much more is at stake now and the Chinese and Taiwanese leaders seem more rational.
• China has more to lose now that it is more tightly integrated into the world economy. While Taiwan is important, the implications of an embargo or sanctions could crush the Chinese economy. It is much easier for western nations to find low cost supplies of products than it is for China to find new buyers.
• Relations have been improving between Taiwan and China. While I was in Taiwan, the communist party had their congress in Beijing. Hu Jintao announced he would be open to talk with Taiwan. China has proven they can think long term with Hong Kong, I don’t see why they can’t wait out Taiwan, especially since they can do business with them in the mean time.
• An invasion would destroy Taiwan which would defeat the purpose of invasion.
• A move towards independence would risk Taiwanese assets in China. Even if China didn’t invade, they could seize Taiwanese assets and stop trade and investment. Taiwan has an enormous amount at stake in China economically and it would cripple them if they announced independence.
• A personally think that a Puerto Rico solution might be the end result. Puerto Rico is part of the United States, yet they pretty much run their own show, have their own olympic teams, etc. I could easily see a compromise where Taiwan is part of “China” (whatever that means) yet they have their own government, own currency (like Hong Kong), own olympic team and military. They would send advisors to Beijing (like Puerto Rico has representatives in Congress who don’t vote), perhaps have some officials at the UN in a non-voting status, have joint military exercises, etc.

If this issue can be resolved peacefully (and it is in the interest of all parties to do so), there is really no reason for armed conflict between the US and China, who are a world apart. While I don’t think the probability of a conflict it high, I do think it is one of the most important areas for future diplomatic efforts.

Taipei at night

Economy

Aaron pointed out how the Taiwanese feel like they are slipping economically, especially compared to other Asian countries, specifically South Korea. I certainly don’t see any signs of slippage from the changes I’ve seen over the last eight years. While other nations have caught up to Taiwan, I don’t think it means that Taiwan has gotten any worse.

The most important industry in Taiwan seems to the computer electronics industry. Unlike Japan or Korea, much of the industry in Taiwan seems centered around personal computers, in particular processors, memory and laptops. If you have a laptop, there is a good change it was manufactured in Taiwan, regardless of the brand.

The problem is, the industry has pretty much become a commodity business. There is only one Taiwanese brand I can think of and that’s Acer. Acer isn’t really what you’d call a high end brand. Certainly not thought of in the same way as a Samsung, Sony, or Apple. Taiwan needs to start moving up the food chain. The business they had being the location of preference for manufacturing is quickly being taken over by China. They need to focus more on creating strong brands, design, and engineering. Basically, get out of the commodity business or find a way to de-commodify what they do.

Taiwan also needs to figure out how it fits into the rest of China. China already has two strong finance centers in Hong Kong and Shanghai. I think Taiwan’s best bet would be to become the Silicon Valley of China. China has the finance and manufacturing in place. What they need is place for entrepreneurs to flourish. While many businesses are starting right and left in China, being on an island away from the mainland and outside of the control of the PRC makes it an ideal candidate for being the Chinese launching pad for new ideas and entrepreneurs.

I really enjoyed Taipei. I was there a week longer than I had originally planned because I found it such and comfortable place to be. It will be interesting to see how it compares to Hong Kong and mainland China.

National Day

Flag of the Republic of China

I am a member of Couchsurfing.com. While I have used it to get information, I have never used it to actually stay at someone’s house or to meet someone. The first person I’ve met on from Couchsurfing was Ruby, who agreed to show me around Taipei on National Day. (October 10)

This is the story of that very interesting day….

Morning

The primary festivities were supposed to take place at the Peace Park in Taipei. I was told to get there early, about 7am, so I got up really early just to make sure I was able to find my way there on time. The Peace Park is on the metro line so it isn’t hard to get to, but I hadn’t used the Taipei metro at that time, and the park was in walking distance of my hostel, so I figured I’d just walk.

Bad move. I ended up far away from where I was supposed to be and eventually had to take the metro just to get back to where I started. I did get to the Peace Park finally, but I was late so I figured I had missed Ruby. I had no idea what she looked like, so I figured I had screwed up and should just make the best of it.

Police at National Day “celebration”

I had no idea what was going on at the park. Police were everywhere. Not only were the police there, but they were loaded for bear. They had the riot gear out, trailers designed to deploy razor wire barricades, large steel barricades with barbed wire, and rocket launchers. Yes, rocket launchers.

Bus loads of kids from local high schools were showing up. Everyone was dress in similar school jogging suits. Being the only white guy in the area, I got lots of kids that would wave at me in the bus or try to practice their English with me (”Where you from? You like Taiwan? Do you like the Yankees?” See my Taiwan McDonald’s post for why the Yankees are popular in Taiwan…)

Being “the white guy” paid off as Ruby eventually found me wandering around with my camera. She didn’t know what was going on with all the police either. There was supposed to be some sort of parade/performace with all the high school kids. From what I could gather, there were protests last year so this year the police went way out of their way to have a strong show of force. The missile launchers were there as a sort of show of force to China.

Steamed Dumplings

We kept waiting around for something to happen, but nothing ever did. A bigger crowd showed up, including quite a few German tourists, some Boy Scouts, and a guy walking around with a sign giving out free hugs. (guess who got questioned by the Police…)

We eventually decided to leave as nothing was really happening. Ruby helped me through the process of getting a card for the Metro and we went to the Metro mall inside the Taipei Main Train Station. In particular we went to a restaurant called Din Tai Fung, which specialized in steamed dumplings. They had a window where you could see them making the dumplings. It sort of reminded me of an upscale Chinese version of Denny’s.

Steamed dumplings are not something new to me, but I did learn the proper way to eat them. I had always just grabbed them with chopsticks and put it into my mouth. I was shown how to put it on a spoon and add ginger with vinegar or soy sauce on top. We also had some other dishes as you can see from the photos.

After we were finished eating, it was still pretty early, so she took me to a city outside of Taipei near the coast, Jiou-Fen.

This is bean soup, and this is is dessert

Afternoon

The trip there was about an hour via train and bus. The city was a just a small town was some temples. It was where a lot of people from the city would come on their days off. Because it was National Day, there were a fair number of people there.

It was also raining. It has been overcast or raining my entire time in Taipei up until the last few days I was there. It was the leftovers of the typhoon which passed by a a few days before I arrived. The area we walked around was partially covered, so I only had to occasionally jump between awnings to avoid getting wet.

The market was sort of a day equivalent of the night markets in Taipei. Lots of food vendors, lots of souvenirs, lots of things to cater to tourist (mostly from Taiwan. I don’t really seeing any westerners there).

I got the impression that this was the “keepin it real” part of Taiwan. I’ve eaten at tons of Chinese restaurants in my life, but I have never seen many of the foods offered here. Stinky tofu, pies with meat and tapioca, and something that I don’t know the proper name of, that I can only describe as bean soup dessert.

Fish Ball Fendor in Jiou-Fen

Stinky tofu does indeed stink. It has a smell very similar to that of a strong blue cheese. It isn’t as bad as a limburger, but it’s pretty strong. The taste is just like tofu, which is to say there really isn’t much taste to it at all. The stuff we had was fried, but I saw it served other ways as well.

The bean soup dessert really weirded me out. It didn’t taste bad, it was just a very different combination of tastes that what I normally expect when eating bean soup. For starters, it was literally bean soup. It was full of beans and sweet potatoes. As if you purchased a bag of beans to make a bean soup. Second, The sweetness didn’t come from the sweet potatoes either. This was very sweet. Like they dumped a bag of sugar into a pot of bean soup. Also, it was also served hot. I had the simultaneous sensation of eating a hot soup for desert and sugary beans. It was very odd. I ate everything, but I couldn’t really finish off the broth. Hot, sugary, bean water didn’t appeal to me.

On the way back to Taipei City, we stopped and checked out some of the local souviner places and had dinner at a local restaurant which was near the hostel I was staying at. When you are in a place where you don`t know the language, it is easy to eat street food but much harder to eat at proper sit down restaurants. With street food, you just point at what you want, but if it is a legit restaurant, you have to read from a menu. Having Ruby there to order made the entire process easy.

Evening

The goal for the evening was to go and catch the National Day fireworks display. We managed to get out of the restaurant, take the metro, get on a shuttle bus and made it to the harbor where the fireworks were being displayed, just in time. The street in front of the harbor was packed with people. It looked like Times Square on New Years Eve.

Dried fish vendor

I have no photos of what happened this evening. I was carrying around my camera in my camera bag and I wasn`t able to take it out. I had planned on taking photos of the fireworks, and I brought my tripod along so I could shoot it, but if I had taken the camera out it probably would have been destroyed.

I need to describe the set up where everyone was taken to view the fireworks. The harbor, where all the shuttle busses dropped everyone off, is surrounded by a very high wall. The wall goes down the lenght of the river, so there is no way to really go over or around it. There was however a gate and a small area on the other side of the gate near the river.

The fireworks were being set off on the other side of the river. This means that the wall prevented pretty much everyone who was there on the street from seeing them.

Oh, and the Chinese really like fireworks…..

We eventually worked our way op to the harbor wall, which was right at the point where the entire street of people was trying to get to. The crush of everyone trying to see the fireworks was to the point where I felt I was going to have the wind crushed out of me. Little kids were screaming and it was near impossible for their parents to get them out. I kept having headlines from the 1979 Cincinatti Who concert flashing in my head.

This is literally the only time on my trip where I felt like I was in any sort of danger. When you are in a crowd like that, there isn’t much you can do. You can’t run. You can’t walk. Eventually a flow of people moving the opposite direction opened up and Ruby and I got out that way. It was really crazy.

My day began with a failed parade and a show of Taiwanese police and military force and ended with fireworks show that could have ended up in a mass trampeling, and in between, lots of Chinese food.

I’d really like to thank Ruby for showing me a side of Taipei I probably woudn’t have seen otherwise. It was a helluva day…