Well, the weather didn’t clear up so I didn’t get the opportunity to go to Beitou today (see my last post). As it was, I had a fairly good time sorting myself out—including the opportunity to buy a light waterproof—before heading off to Japan tomorrow. I’ve now sorted out accommodation for my first five nights (two in Tokyo before going to Nagoya and then on to Takayama—I’ll be returning to Tokyo for a week before going on to Korea).

Anyway, by not going to Beitou, I was able to take the time to go to the observation deck in Taipei 101—thus proving false my suggestion that such a thing didn’t exist. Even if I had had my camera with me, the photos wouldn’t have shown much since the building was shrouded in cloud, which was moving pretty quickly and thus allowed a few glimpses of the nearby buildings every so often. In spite (or possibly because) of this I still suffered from vertigo attacks and so couldn’t stand right next to the floor-to-ceiling windows for fear of keeling over (“What if I leant against the window and then it broke and then I fell, what would that be like?” I kept thinking for some reason). You’ll understand, I’m sure, why I didn’t choose to buy a ticket to go to the external viewing area on the 91st floor (this was on the 89th). Anyway, I would have got soaked because I would essentially have been standing inside a cloud. Most impressive was the huge concrete pile suspended by massive steel cables inside the building—one of three—which dampens the movement of the building caused by wind. Apparently the one I saw is the biggest such thing in the world, and the only one in the world on display to the public.

The last world record held by Taipei 101 which I’ll mention here is the fact that they have the fastest lift (elevator) in the world—this is the lift which goes from the entrance to the observation deck (on the fifth floor) to the observation deck itself (on the 89th floor). On the way up the information screen inside the car reported that we reached a maximum speed of 1010 m/m (that’s metres per minute), completing the journey in 37 seconds; the return had a top speed of a more leisurely 600 m/m (45 seconds). Toshiba, the lift’s manufacturer, has a deservedly proud display and model about the lift on the observation deck. Apparently if the cables broke, the lift wouldn’t go into freefall but instead some device expands to cling to the sides of the shaft, thus braking the car. Well, that’s a relief.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about my general observations from my last thirteen days here in Taiwan. Here goes:

Officialdom

It interests me how much different countries have a culture of the police state, and I’m happy to say that Taiwan is as individually-liberal a society as that in the UK and Australia (although HM’s Governments in both countries seem set to put an end to that with their various introductions of compulsory identity cards). I detected no harassment by officials during my brief travels and everyone was happy to go about his everyday business.

I did see a couple of soldiers standing around at the airport as I arrived, and there is a dedicated “military transport” desk at each of the railway stations I visited but there isn’t really much other evidence that this is a country troubled by the possibility of invasion by the mainland Chinese. If you don’t know much about Taiwan’s relationship with China and it’s troubled identity on the world stage—my knowledge of these matters was sketchy even when I arrived—I thoroughly recommend the following Wikipedia articles, which helped me to understand the current state of affairs:

• Taiwan
• Republic of China
• Political Status of Taiwan (whose territory is Taiwan?)
• Legal Status of Taiwan (who holds sovereignty over the country?)

One slightly amusing incident was at immigration when I arrived—the friendly official (a stark contrast to those sour-faced officials at UK immigration), having stamped my passport stating my visa-exempt status and stapled in my arrivals form, closed my passport and made to hand it back to me. He then, genuinely interested, rather than accusingly, asked me what the little E-passport symbol on the front of my new Australian passport signified. I explained as best I could, he thanked me and waved me on. My bag arrived minutes later; I was on the curb waiting for a taxi 20 minutes after landing. Are you listening, Heathrow?

Pedestrians beware!

Taiwan really is the country of the scooter—I was surprised on my first evening in Taipei to hear, as I was walking along, minding my own business, the purr of an engine behind me. I looked back and saw a scooter making its way along the pavement. This, it seems, is perfectly normal behaviour (the roads are certainly pretty busy and a little hair-raising, but about what major metropolis wouldn’t a foreigner say that?). Also, most of the only legal places for people to park their scooters is in designated places on the pavements. Thankfully, in Taipei at least, the pavements are generally quite wide so pedestrians and scooters can live in harmony. However, don’t get me started on my walking experience in Taichung, made even more unpleasant by the businesses which encroached onto the pavement…

Language

I was pretty sure, despite the assertions made by various people, that I had no real hope of getting a grip on the language. Most people here now speak Mandarin Chinese, although apparently people at home in the south tend to prefer to speak Hakka, one of the other languages of the island before it was taken over by the Chinese. It may have been my ears playing with me but I think I noticed a slightly different accent in some of the people I encountered in the southern city of Tainan—possibly the Hakka influence?

Anyway, I don’t think that anyone can really learn Chinese without proper teaching—without even thinking about the characters, any form of adaptation of Chinese into romanised scripts (whether in Pinyin, Wade-Giles, or even the IPA) is the merest approximation of the subtle nuances of the languages pronunciation. I can’t get a grip on it—there’s no Romance or Germanic handle I can cling on to—and I have to say that sitting in a taxi at one point listening to the radio I burst out laughing when I heard someone saying something which sounded to me as “shuh shah sher shugh shuh shuh”. To those who know these are all probably markedly different vowel sounds, but to me it merged into one big aural mess.

Food

One effect of my non-existent linguistic skills has been that it’s slightly limited my choice of eateries, since it’s prevented me from going to places with solely Chinese menus and Chinese-speaking staff. However, I think that I’ve had a fair stab at the food of the place. Don’t think of the food you get in ‘Chinese’ restaurants in the Occident; this is almost always Cantonese food which isn’t what they eat here. I’ve had a lot of clear soups with very unpleasant-looking animal carcases floating in the bowl. They’ve tasted fine, but bland. My chopstick skills are now almost good, although I do fling them unwittingly across the table every now and then! I’ve decided that I prefer chopsticks that don’t have tapered ends (and so are either square or round all the way down) since the tapering means that the ends don’t actually meet… Another decision which I’ve now made is that I really don’t like tofu—for some reason the combination of its texture and taste makes it difficult for me to keep it down. I mean I have, but on some occasions it’s been somewhat touch-and-go.

Possibly the nicest meal I’ve had while here—sorry everyone—was at a Vietnamese restaurant in Taipei, where I had tasty beef curry. The strangest experience was at a ‘Western’ restaurant in Tainan, which it turned out was part of a chain: the atmosphere was almost like that of a Pizza Hut, although the clientele was really remarkably classy. They only had a set menu (appetizer, soup/starter, antipasto, sorbet, main course, dessert, followed by a drink (!)—fortunately the portions were all fairly small), so I sat back to see what would happen. Some of it was slightly bizarre (asparagus sitting in coronation sauce?) but the funniest was the service—my waiter (I think he’d been elected to serve me because his was the best English of the whole corps) kept instructing me which cutlery to use. Fair enough—that start-from-the-outside-and-move-in thing can be confusing for those not in the know, but he also actually cut up my main course for me before my eyes! Even funnier (in some ways) was his ‘explanations’ of the food that was coming—for example at the sorbet he said, “Here you are, it is made by [sic] juice.” Thanks, pal. Similarly, with my panna cotta dessert (very tasty, incidentally; interesting how I don’t like tofu but do like this) came the announcement, “Here you are, it is made by milk.” As I say, I think it was all a translation of what he would have been saying to his Taiwanese customers, but nevertheless I found it pretty funny.

Right, I should go and pack ready for my flight tomorrow—a process which has got easier now that I’ve established a location for everything within my bag. It just means that I can’t buy any big souvenirs because I just haven’t the room! Maybe that’s not such a bad thing?

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