Goodbye ROC

Return to Taoyuan:  From my hotel, I walked across the street to the Taipei West Bus Station and caught the 7 am bus to Taoyuan International  Airport.  Remember, it used to be named after Chiang Kai Shek.  Recalling his name reminded me of a monument I missed, the Sun Yat Sen Memorial.  Dr. Sun is the nationalist who brought the monarchy to an end 100 years ago this year.  In fact, the government is spending lots of money commemorating the anniversary.  By tracing the Republic of China (that is how the visa in my passport reads) back to 1911, Taiwan makes itself look like an elder among the world’s nations and like the legitimate heir to the monarchy.   I didn’t get to visit with Dr. Sun, but you should never end a trip having seen everything.  Otherwise, you will have no motivation to come back.  And I would like to come back.  When I do, the MRT line to the airport might be finished.  It’s a long distance, but the Taiwanese are working on the entire line all at once.  It looks like a serious endeavor.  In fact, I think Taiwan will have a line to their international airport before our national capital (my last stop before Norfolk on this trip) has a Metro connection to Dulles, which it should have had two decades ago. 

Flight Home:  My return flight followed the same route as my outbound flight, but it was just a bit shorter.  I noticed from the onboard map that we flew over the Arctic Ocean on the way from Washington to Tokyo, in part to take advantage of the Great Circle Route and in part to avoid the headwinds of the Westerlies.  On the return flight we flew over Alaska and seemed to try to stay in the Westerly Wind belt to take advantage of the tail winds.  We were actually an hour early coming into Dulles.  I get home around 6 pm, but on my internal clock it is about 6 am.  Once again, it will take me a week to adjust.

Hotels:  I stayed in four different hotels in Taiwan, three in Taipei and one in Kaohsiung.  They book up so quickly, especially on week-ends.   That means you can’t always extend your stay.  In Taipei, you can get a hotel for as little as $30US a night and will pay no more than $75US a night.  Food is cheap and so is transit.  If you are on a budget and want to experience Chinese culture, go to Taiwan!  It’s easy and affordable, and they even have a choice of English-language daily newspapers.  For the record, here are my hotels' business cards.  And for the record, pick up a card immediately upon checking into a hotel and keep it with you; you never know when you might need it to find your way home.

Collective Memories

Conditioning:  I woke up this morning and heard it raining, just pouring!  I got up and went to the window, and saw that the streets were dry and nothing was coming down.  I guess I am hearing what my mind expects me to hear.  Still, the ceiling is low and the day gray.  The morning, though, was dry enough to enjoy a walk again through 228 Peace Park (memorial wall in the picture) and make some more observations for my research project.  That was on the way to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial and the two performing arts centers that flank the grounds.  President Chiang was China’s leader and an American ally during World War II.  In 1949, however, he and his KMT lost to the Communists after a civil war that went back to the 1930s if not before.  In 1949, the mainland became the People’s Republic of China, and the Taiwan archipelago became the Republic of China under Chiang’s and later his son’s leadership.  Democracy took a firm and aggressive hold of the Taiwan only in the 1990s.  Despite our democratic principles, the United States does not recognize democratic Taiwan.  We recognize the un-democratic People’s Republic of China.  You know the reason.  The U.S., however, does have a strong relationship with Taiwan, a.k.a., the Republic of China, and everyone assumes that we would come to the archipelago’s defense should the PRC’s forces get frisky.  I used the word archipelago in this context deliberately, since some of the Republic of China’s islands are only kilometers from the PRC’s coast.  The two most famous are Kinmen (which I knew as Quemoy) and Matsu.  For Virginians, it would be like a foreign power occupying Assateague and Chincoteague.  On my next trip to Taiwan, I want to visit both islands and add two more ferries to my list.

The CKS Memorial:  It reminds me of the Lincoln Memorial, and the grounds (officially, Liberty Square) remind me of Washington’s National Mall.  I find it hard to believe that it dates back to only 1980, the year I finished my doctorate.  Not surprising, I guess, since Chiang died only in 1975.  Chiang’s luminescence here is not what it once was, though.  I came to grips with that as I was planning my trip and was having a hard time figuring out where my plane would land.  I was rightfully confused.  The international airport is now called Taoyuan, but only a few years ago (and still in older sources), it was Chiang Kai Shek International Airport.  The named changed when CHK’s political party lost to the opposition ‘Green coalition,’ which brands Chiang a murderous dictator.  Here on the grounds of Chiang’s memorial, the image of the 228 incident (new to me when I arrived) kept contradicting that nationalistic reverence I was seeing.  Indeed, maybe it is hard for a democracy to look up to someone who defended single-party rule and had little patience for democracy.   In hindsight, it is easy to condemn authoritarian leadership, but one thing is for sure:  There would be no Republic of China were it not for Chiang and his KMT (his political party, the Kuomintang).  Taiwan would have fallen to the Communists, and everyone here would have been traumatized by Mao’s rule and the Cultural Revolution.  Without Chiang, I wouldn’t even be typing this on my netbook.  I have an Acer Aspire, and Acer is a Taiwanese Company with headquarters in Taipei.  Without Chiang, we wouldn’t have Ang Lee and Jay Chou, either.  Of those two names, which one do you recognize, and why don’t you know the other one?  Over the legacy of Chiang Kai-Shek, the Taiwanese people (or are they Chinese people?) will continue to fight, but the nation is still young.  And remember, it took the United States 80 years to agree upon the fact that we were one nation.  Only after the Civil War did we start saying “the United States is…” rather than “the United States are…” 

The Taipei Zoo:  I added another zoo to my collection this afternoon.  The Taipei Zoo is billed as the largest in Asia, and it is easy to get there by a very scenic MRT route.  Despite the showers, the grounds were crowded.  If anything, the rain just added to the authenticity of the tropical rainforest exhibits (though the camels looked like fish out of water, unless that’s a mixed metaphor).  Of course, the pandas are the big attraction.  I saw two big ones, both asleep.  Pandas are relatively rare zoo animals.  The only other ones I have seen have been at the National Zoo in Washington.  With me, every zoo commends a different species.  Here at the Taipei Zoo it was the macaques who get the golden star award.  Our primate cousins must recognize us as kin because they love to mug for the cameras, and their huge family groups make them so photogenic.  Babies will always steal the show, the baby macaque sure did.  This specific species is called the crab-eating macaque, but I understand crabs are not a big part of their diet.  Like Mikey, they’ll eat anything.

Tamsui

Red Line North:  Taipei is an inland city, sited on the Damshui River.  It commands a lowland basin fed my multiple streams and surrounded by mountains.  It is close to the sea, and I have always thought of it as a port, but it isn’t.  Its old port is Tamsui (Damshui) to the northeast (and its new port is Keelung to the northwest).  Today, Tamsui is the northern terminus of the MRT’s very-busy Red Line, about 30 minutes from center city.  The line follows a busy urban corridor:  river, mangroves, parks, trails on one side; tall mountains on the other; high-rises and ‘high streets’ down the middle.  The way urbanization has accommodated itself to steep topography reminded me of Hong Kong.  I won’t get to see the real mountains on this trip, but I was surprised to learn that some peaks exceed 10,000 feet.   That’s Rocky Mountain high.  It’s surprising because Taiwan is so small.  It’s not surprising since Taiwan finds itself along a convergent plate boundary.  It’s part of the circum-Pacific island arc, susceptible to earthquakes, but with no active volcanoes.  With as many people on this Maryland-sized island as there are in all of Australia, I hope the Republic’s government can resist pressures to turn the mountains over to the monarchs of rapacious capitalism. 

Tamsui:  The streets of Tamsui run parallel to the river, but they don’t snuggle up to the river.  Between shoreline and shops is a waterfront park.  On weekends, it is pervaded by a carnival-like atmosphere.  People come out from Taipei to enjoy themselves, to eat their way through the day, to buy things they didn’t know they even wanted, and to spend time with friends and family.  One street (probably others, too) offers all manner of interesting treats.  I had the best cream-filled cake, candied strawberries and tomatoes on a stick, and cubed guava served up in a small plastic bag, and the ever-popular among all, iced tea with lemon.  All of this was finger food, and I was full.   Some of you will know that I am not a fan of Chinese food, so I might rank this eat-and-walk the best meal I’ve had on the whole trip.  And not all of it was junk food!  Some was only half junk food:  the candied tomatoes, for instance.  You know what a candied apple is.  Instead of an apple, dip a cherry tomato into the same red glaze and serve it on a skewer:  that’s a candied tomato, and it’s surprisingly good.

Ferry Ride:  Last summer, I decided to consciously collect ferry rides since I seem to have already compiled a long list of them.   Along the waterfront in Tamsui, I saw two ferries ready to pull out.  I hopped on one and took it to Fisherman’s Wharf, maybe a mile or so downstream.  Cost:  50 dollars.  The ride was fun, the destination a disappointment: a concrete harbor, no fishermen (ok, maybe one), touristy shops, an elegant modern hotel, an empty square, a deserted bus stop, and one over-priced amusement ride that took you aloft.  The saving grace of this place was the public art:  a mermaid in the middle of a fountain, an I-Love-Tamsui sculpture, and a smiling, spouting whale.  Lest you think my judgment contradicts the judgment of the Taiwanese:  A short while after I arrived, I rode back with the same Taiwanese family that I came with.  Apparently, they couldn’t find anything to do there either.  In retrospect, the idea for this Fisherman’s Wharf seems to have been inspired by America, and it just does not seem to fit into Chinese culture.  And, why would someone come here when they could be having fun in the real Tamsui?  My regret for the day was that I didn’t have time for the historical precinct about a mile north of the MRT station.  It’s where the Spanish and the Dutch established the first fort and port on the Damshui River, and it was one of the first points of Christian missionary contact with Taiwan as well. 

11-11-11

Sizihwan:  I cannot say enough positive things about Taiwan’s Metro systems.  Both Taipei and Kaohsiung have MRTs, and they are the most easily navigated in the world.  Tokens are cheap; vending machines are intuitive; enough English is provided for easy navigation; subway line maps follow the international grammar pioneered for London’s Underground; map placards of surrounding neighborhoods are posted exactly where you need them; riding escalators and entering subway cars have rules that people follow; above ground MRT stations are easily found; design standards are very 21^st century.  Kaohsiung’s MRT system dates back only to 2008.  It appears as if they used the 2009 World Games, which they hosted, as the motivation to build a world-class subway system.  (The World Games are held quadrennially for select non-Olympic sports.)  I took the Kaohsiung’s Orange Line to its western terminus today, Sizihwan, which means Sizih Harbor.  Of course it was raining, but only lightly at first.  The harbor neighborhood is old but now reinvigorated by a new university on its edge (Sun Yat Sen University), by a tourist trade that gravitates to the waterfront, by a tunnel through a mountain that leads to a beach, and by a series of ferries that offer easy connections to other waterside places.   As in every neighborhood, I found the morning market on a series of side streets.  I also found a few temples, one in a store front looking very humble and one rising above the neighborhood looking very elite.  

High Speed Rail Back:  I found myself thinking about New Jersey on the HSR trip back ‘home.’  Then, my mind went to Kent in England.  Then, I paid homage to Johann Heinrich Von Thunen, a German proto-geographer who taught me what I was seeing even though he died in the mid-1800s.  He bequeathed humanity a set of bid-rent curves that give us some perspective on rural land use around cities.  On this trip, though, I never got out of Zone 1, Von Thunen’s inner ring where market gardening predominates.  By this time, you should see the connection to New Jersey, whose nickname is:   The Garden State.   From the earliest days of Colonial times, New Jersey found itself between the two big cities of the Atlantic seaboard:  Philadelphia and New York.  They are only about a hundred miles apart.  New Jersey’s farmers had a market at either end of their state, so they used their land to provide perishables for urban populations divorced from the soil.  Perishable fruits and vegetables (like the bitter melons in the picture) must be grown close to the market (think pre-refrigeration and pre-superhighway).  Now, transition to Taiwan.  At the northern end of the island is Taipei, with its metropolitan population of 7 million.  Near the southern end is Kaohsiung, with its 3 million.  These two cities are a little bit farther apart than NY and Philadelphia, but the same rules of economic geography hold true.  Von Thunen’s bid rent curves have turned the landscape in between each set of cities over to the production of vegetables and fruits.  Once we cleared the industrial landscapes of greater Kaohsiung, rectangular fields took over.  Irrigation ponds and canals tethered them together.  The variety of crops I saw was immense, but my ‘low altitude flight’ over the fields allowed me to identify only a few with distinctive signatures:  sugar cane, bananas, cabbage.  Nevertheless, I knew that all those vegetables and fruits I saw in the Sizihwan market earlier in the day had come from this agricultural hinterland.  Changing that landscape now, also reminiscent of New Jersey, is the urbanization that is going on as the two cities expand and drive the growth of smaller cities in between.  As for County Kent:  it’s the Garden of England, just south of London.  At 2 pm sharp (and I mean sharp!), we were back in Taipei.

Rain Culture:  It’s Friday evening; it’s raining; and it’s as busy as ever on the streets of Taipei.  Everyone’s umbrella is at hand.  As people open and close them, the city looks like a garden of morning glories (evening glories?) choreographed by mother nature.  Somebody ought to write an umbrella symphony.  Here is a video taken not far from the Central Railway Station.

An etiquette goes with the use of umbrellas here.  Never take wet ones into stores and restaurants.  Rather, you are expected to do one of two things:  (1) deposit your umbrella in the receptacle outside, or (2) take one of the free tubular plastic bags available at entranceways and use it as a tote.  Should you leave your umbrella by the door, don’t worry about theft.  This has to be one of the low-crime capitals of the world.

Rain Riders

Rain, Rain, Go Away:  I had the hotel window open last night, so I heard the rain begin around 2:30 am.  It was still pouring when I woke up at 6.  It has rained all day.  In fact, it has rained every day since I arrived.  I checked the climate statistics, and they confirm that this amount of rain is abnormal.  And an article in the Taipei News announced that the red bean crop had been devastated.  November and December are always Taiwan’s driest months.  The law of averages is just catching up with me, I guess.  I traveled for almost three months earlier in the year and had no prolonged periods of rain.  I guess my luck couldn’t last.  People here seem prepared; the scooter jockeys all have raincoats, some quite fashionable.  And pedestrians have umbrellas, which are used in sunny weather (parasols) as well as in the rain.  If you forget your umbrella about 3 US dollars will buy you one on the street.

Coffee with Ronald:  My umbrella and I ventured out a little later.  This city does not come alive as early as US cities, so I actually had a hard time finding a place to sit down and have a cup of coffee.  Even though it was after 8, the café by the Kbus (Kaohsiung Bus) station was not open.  There were a few places to get coffee (mostly 7-11s), but nowhere to sit, and sitting outside was out of the question.  Plus, I wanted somewhere to work on my laptop.  After scouting out quite a few blocks, I found myself outside a McDonald’s.  I must admit it was perfect for my needs:  coffee and a place to sit.   I dislike patronizing American chains while I am traveling, but when the local economy presents no alternatives, that’s the only choice.  Judging from the number of Taiwanese patrons (every table occupied), this city’s economy could support some entrepreneurial competition.  Regrettably, I find myself patronizing McDonalds all over the world, but I have my reasons:  (1) They are open early and late, and on holidays; (2) they have tables where you can read or work, and no one will bother you; (3) they usually offer free wi-fi (but not here).  Kaohsiung needs to give the western chains some competition.  Serve  better coffee, dream up some Chinese/international fusion fast food, offer plenty of seating, make sure the heat and air are working as appropriate, keep the premises clean (a real virtue in this part of the world), and provide free wi-fi.  I would say that Taiwan lags a bit in the wi-fi department.  In two hotels, now, I have had ethernet cables, and in one hotel I had a weak internet signal.  Nevertheless, this trip has convinced me to move Taiwan into the category of developed countries.  It would easily qualify as our 51^st state.

Shopping Precincts:  Despite the rain:  I ventured beyond the city’s old central business district around the central railway station (where all the hotels seem to be) to see some other shopping districts.  The others are more modern and chain-ridden, but when you move into the alleys and sidestreets, people live their days as they always have.  I wandered through a thriving street market that covered multiple city blocks.  I couldn’t even name a quarter of the foods that were for sale, and some, like the dragon fruit, I had learned to identify only last summer.  The rain eventually became so heavy I ducked into the only sit-down establishment I could find, an Italian restaurant.  For lunch, I had spaghetti, mushroom soup, and pomelo tea (it’s like grapefruit).   I waited for the rain to let up, then returned to the streets.  Shortly, it started again to pour.

To Kaohsiung

Crossing the Tropic:  I boarded the High Speed Rail line today for the trip south to Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s Chicago.  High speed means that we travelled about 300 kilometers per hour.  It took us 2 hours because we did make about half a dozen stops along the way.  The direct trains make it in 1-1/2 hours.  Somewhere between Taipei and Kaohsiung, I crossed the Tropic of Cancer, so now you know where to position Taiwan on your mental maps of climate.  As I ascended from the depths on my way to street level, the goddess of the escalator began issuing warnings:  “The hand rail has been sterilized periodically.  Hold it.”  It made me think of the ubiquitous face masks you see here.  She also told me to “step inside the yellow box” as I approached the escalator.  Each step is divided into two boxes, and one must not cross the line.  In the United States, things like this cause me to mutter about government telling us what to do, but here it seems normal.  I don’t know why.   Finally, I found myself on the street.  Finding a happy hotel was easy.   As in European cities, they cluster around the main train station.  Actually, my hotel was named Happy Hotel.  I had a nice view of a side street and the canal. 

Sidewalk Culture:  Kaohsiung is a modern city, but tradition owns the sidewalks.  Sidewalk space here deserves a study of its own.  In American cities, sidewalks are meant as places to walk; they are considered public space.  The private sector (i.e., businesses with sidewalk access) is prohibited from infringing on the public right-of-way.  In fact, local governments in the US connive copious ordinances to regulate anything irregular that might take place on sidewalks:  art fairs, sidewalk sales, outdoor cafes, etc.  Heaven forbid that anyone would ride a bicycle on a sidewalk!  And local governments would not think of giving permission for parking motor vehicles in a public right-of-way.  In fact, sidewalks in the US are far from mixed use spaces.  In the US, sidewalks are definitely not mixed use spaces.  Here in Kaohsiung, they are.  (And this holds true of Taipei and cities all over Asia.)   Space by the side of the road is conceptualized differently and therefore managed differently in different cultures.  There is constant competition among pedestrians, shop owners, and drivers for domination.  A segmentation of space results and creative mechanisms for complementary uses take shape.  To anyone from over-planned cities (yes, most American cities are over-planned), the result may seem like chaos, but it serves the urban needs perfectly.  Multiple use sidewalks make for vibrant cities.  I have spent the day documenting competition for sidewalk space.  Rainy days bring that competition into focus since many sidewalks offer some shelter from liquid sunshine.

Sanfonzon Street:  Proudly posted at both ends with its name in English and Mandarin is Sanfonzon Street, maybe the most famous in Kaohsiung and one of the oldest.  It is the closest I have seen here to a Middle Eastern spice souk, but the dominant commodity seems to be mushrooms, though garlic and other cloves are extremely popular, too.  Ditto, little wrapped candies.  The huge bags of mushrooms in storefront after storefront are the clue that this is where the restaurants and hotels come for their ingredients.  Mushrooms are tremendously popular in Taiwan, and there are so many varieties.  I am reminded of the bananas I saw throughout Southeast Asia this summer (and here, too).  In the US we have one variety of banana and, until the last decade or so, we had only one variety of mushroom.  In both cases, we chose the most commercially viable species, not the best tasting.  In Taiwan, fungi are for sale in infinite varieties.  Did I say fungi?  I meant mushrooms.  Of course, mushrooms are fungi; they aren’t green and can grow in the absence of light; their nutrients all come from the soil.   Remembering my days as an economic geographer investigating Pennsylvania’s mushroom industry, I recalled that Taiwan was the source of major competition for the US mushroom market.  As for fungus, I did see one variety that looked like the plate-shaped tree fungus that grows on the trunks of trees in First Landing State Park back home. 

National Taiwan University

National Taiwan University:  The highlight of the day was my visit to the Geography Department of National Taiwan University.  The department has a whole building, which is something that few American departments can say.  The NTU campus is quite like an American campus even though it has Japanese roots.  It was founded as an Imperial University when Formosa (the former name, of Portuguese origin) was a colony of Japan.   In 1945, it became a Chinese university, and after 1949 it became the premiere university in the new Taiwan.  The campus is very American-like.  It is an island of greenery in the middle of Taipei; the central avenue is lined by royal palms, and azaleas are all over the campus.  Like Norfolk, they have an azalea festival every spring.   All trees and bushes on campus are identified by name, by small plaques, as they are in almost all of Taipei’s parks.  The curriculum is also modeled after American universities.   Anyone in the US looking for a post-graduate program in geography would feel comfortable here, and many (maybe most) of the faculty have graduate degrees from American universities.  Beware, though:  the language of instruction is Chinese.  On this day, an off-campus art class was working around the perimeter of one of the outdoor commons areas.  They were learning to paint. 

Tea:  Think China, think tea.  Cha, in Chinese.  In the western mind that means hot tea and the ceremony that goes with it.  On the streets of Taipei, however, that means iced tea served in more different ways than you can imagine.  The United States prides itself on being the home of iced tea, so I guess the availability of my favorite beverage here is a product of westernization.  The Taiwanese, however, have taken it to new heights, and American entrepreneurs would do well to take note.  Black vs. green tea is just one of the choices.  You must also choose whether you want fruit or not, or whether you want milk tea or maybe even coffee tea.  You can also have it with tapioca or gelatin balls.  Every glass is hand-crafted, just as coffee shops hand-craft your coffee in the United States.  Every glass is sealed with a slab of cellophane by a machine.  Turn the sealed glass upside down and nothing leaks out.  To drink, take a straw (one end is pointy) and poke it through the top.  Enjoy.  Perfect.  There’s a tea stand on every corner, and so many competitive chains I couldn’t count them all.  The cost for a glass is a little over a US dollar.  Of course, you can buy some of the varieties in the convenience stores, too.  Tea is more popular than coffee (though Starbucks is here en masse), and iced tea is more popular than hot tea (at least among the young).  In fact, I am struck by how unpopular the colas are here, and perhaps my generalization extends to anything carbonated.  I am also struck by the low profile of alcohol in this society.  That’s good because of all the scooters. 

Push Hands

Intermodal Transit:  The Taipei Railway Station (including high-speed rail to the south) is the hub of center city Taipei; it is flanked on either side by parking lots (though there is not a lot of surface parking here in the center).  Next door is the bus station, actually several, with easy links to the airport.  And, the city’s MRT hub (Metropolitan Rapid Transit) comes together here as well.  A new MRT line is being built to the airport.   Underneath the station and stretching north along the Tamsui line is an underground city of shops and eateries.  I ate at a small curry shop that was right underneath the Caesar Park Hotel.  Everything is easily accessible, and walkable.  Of course, there a too many cars, but the vehicle of preference seems to be the scooter; it’s almost like Rome, though parking here seems to be more orderly.  Wherever someone can squeeze in another cycle, they do it, even if it means shifting the ones that are already parked (they’re light). 

The 228 Peace Park:  I took a walk early this morning in the city center’s civic precinct.  Taipei has lots of parks and this is one of the best.  I will be returning to it periodically for my research project because it serves so many functions.  This rainy Sunday morning, groups of men (and some women) were assembled under whatever shelters they could find playing ‘push hands,’ which apparently is a Chinese martial art that is (or is associated with) Tai Chi.  The men I spoke with looked relaxed; they seemed in it for both balance, coordination, conditioning, and companionship.  It looked like something we all ought to do.

National Taiwan Museum:  When rain threatens, it is time to go to a museum, so I headed for the nearby National Taiwan Museum, which the locals are proud to tell you has been a museum on that very site for over 100 years.  Today, it seems to be devoted to hosting special exhibits.  I was fortunate to see a 100-year perspective on Anthropology in Taiwan, which meant that the native peoples, especially a group called the Paiwan and their slate houses, were prominently featured.  Of course, a hundred years ago, Taiwan was held by the Japanese, a fact which was delicately handled in the exhibits’ explanatory text (nicely done in English as well as Mandarin).  Japanese anthropologists brought the newly established discipline to the island and got right to work on ethnographic studies of all the tribes.  This generation of Taiwanese seems appreciative of their scholarly contributions as individuals and plays down any notion that the contribution was made by “the Japanese.”  What went unsaid, I suspect, is that the Japanese in the first decade of the 20^th century were anxious to prove that ‘Formosa’ was not really Chinese, but rather the land of ‘primitive peoples’ waiting to be civilized.  All imperial powers of the time were willing, even expected, to do the civilizing.  Whatever their motives, the Japanese generation of anthropologists brought new ideas and data gathering techniques to the study of native cultures.  They gave us a record of tribes classified as Austronesian rather than either Japanese or Chinese.  Another exhibit focused on Taiwan’s candidate site for Unesco’s World Heritage List.  I now understand why there is a candidate site for the ‘New Seven Wonders of Nature’ in Taiwan.  Yushan, the highest peak in Taiwan’s mountainous backbone, is one of 28 sites on the list.  If you go to this website, you can vote: http://www.new7wonders.com/.  But you have to do it now; voting closes on 11/11/11, what I have termed the holiday of Perpendicularis Major.  What I want to know is why they are picking 7 wonders and not 11, which seems to be the only logical number to go with a date that won’t be repeated for a thousand years.

Serendipity

BEW:  It had taken me 24 hours from the time I left home to the time I touched down in Taipei.  There is a 12 hour time difference, so let me say hello to everyone from the future.  It is Saturday morning here, but Friday night in Virginia.  Last night I thought I would sleep in until noon, but here it is, 7:30 am, and I am up, feeling fine.  I suspect that will change as the day wears on.  The hotel provides breakfast, but not on site.  They gave me a coupon for the coffee shop next door.  It is called Dante (“Coffee Life Always Bright”).  Man, are they busy!  I had a coupon, but I can see coffee costs $70 for a small cup.  Outrageous!  Almost forgot, the exchange rate makes that about $2.25 US.  I had a big breakfast, which included a hard-boiled egg, very typical of East Asia.  But it was a brown egg.  I had crossed into the Brown Egg World (BEW).  I recalled American egg exporters trying to sell white eggs to the Chinese several decades ago.  There was no market because white was associated with death.  Brown eggs sell here; white eggs don’t.  Having lived in New England, also a part of the BEW, I am almost nostalgic.  In fact, I remember leaving New England and moving to Maryland and thinking how anemic white eggs looked.  I had become so used to rich brown, it was hard to go back.  By the way, there’s no nutritional difference.

The Palette of Place:  With no agenda, I went out exploring today.  As usually happens, my instincts led me in the right direction, the old North Gate of Taipei, which I could see in the distance.  It was standing all alone without its wall.  I felt sorry for it, especially when I saw how close the freeway fly-over approached.  As I got closer, however, I discovered something was going on this Saturday:  a festival celebrating the goddess Mazu, one of Taipei's respected deities.  The focus of the festival was a parade, and I had stumbled upon the starting line.  It seemed like every temple in Taipei which was even partly dedicated to Mazu had a part to play.  It reminded me of the videos I have seen of Chinese New Year.  There were intricately carved Mazu houses carried by porters, huge yellow dragons, and costumed warriors from ages past.  Along the route were places where offerings were left for Mazu.  It was the perfect opening for 'day one' in Taipei, and later in the day I would catch up with the parade at its culmination and see more of Taiwan's colors.  Geographers often talk about the spirit of place (certainly in evidence here), but I want to coin a term:  palette of place to signify the color signature that places etch upon the landscape.  Taipei (perhaps shared with all of Taiwan and maybe all of China) has a color signature that is bold, bright and saturated; it is dominated by yellows, oranges, and reds.  Every place has a palette of its own, and Taiwan seems to have one of the world's most striking.  I could not have planned a day richer in culture than this one, thanks to Mazu.

Haircut:  Shaggy was I when I arrived; it had been two months since I last had my ears lowered.  So, one of my first practical objectives was to find a barber shop in Taipei.  I chose one down a side alley.  The owner was from Singapore and he had a bevy of women working for him.  I liked my haircut, the second this year that I have gotten in Asia.  As some of you know, I collect haircuts from different places, preferably different countries, but also different US states.  When you are traveling, you need souvenirs that are light and a haircut is lighter than light because you actually have less weight to carry home than when you started your trip.  I would like to think that I now  look Chinese.  And, speaking of the palette of place, watch the following videoclip to see what the Chinese have done to the red-and-white barber pole (this one wasn't taken at my Singapore barbers).  You find these all over the city, and they seem to be excellent in attracting attention.  This is the first time I have posted a video, so let's see if you can get it to work.

A World Globe

Arriving in Taiwan:  From Tokyo, I boarded a Nippon Air flight to Taipei.  It took me a while to figure this out, since All Nippon Air now seems to go exclusively by ANA.  We arrived about 8:40 pm and Taiwan Taoyuan Airport was still very busy.  My immediate problem was that I had no reservations for a hotel room (typically me).  Not a problem.  As soon as I emerged from the baggage claim area, in front of me materialized the welcome desk, and it was staffed.  You couldn’t miss it (which reminded me of some airports where I had to go looking for a place to get local information).  The kind folks at the desk hooked me up with the Flowers Hotel on Hankow St in the city center and guided me to the coach line, which got me there for about $4 US.  I was groggy by this time, but it seemed like an hour’s ride to Central Station, where I disembarked and began my search for Flowers.  Several blocks later, I found it and settled in.  It was 11:30 before I turned in for the night.  Changing money (real US dollars) was easy at the airport, so I am all set for tomorrow.  The exchange rate is about 30 Taiwan dollars per American dollar, which makes prices here look expensive even though they are not.  I have already fallen in love with Taiwan's $1000 bill.  I shows a group of school children pouring over a world globe.  They must be studying geography!  On the other side, is a mountain peak (physical geography) and two pheasants (biogeography).  Maybe later I will post an image.

Going West to Find the East

Travel Day:  I fly out of ORF at 10:24 am this morning.  I arrive in Taipei at 8:45 pm tomorrow.  The flight time alone is almost 19 hours.  This flight is a short one; it's to Dulles.  Then a marathon flight from Dulles to Narita in Japan, then on to Taipei.  I hope I can see the flight maps on the planes.  It should be a good lesson in the Great Circle Route.  I think this will be the longest flight I have ever taken:  14 hours in one fell swoop.  In the past, I have always had layovers in Hawaii or on the west coast. 

As usual, I have only a small backpack, and it is not full.  The more I travel, the less I take.  Baggage really slows you down and adds cost to your trip.  Try under-packing sometime, and see how much freer you feel.