July 20, 1989
To Josephine, from Taipei
First, let me disabuse you of the common notion that everything works perfectly in Taiwan. It doesn’t. Three things have gone awry so far.
First, the weather. We flew in at the tail of a typhoon, and it looks like we’re about to run smack into another on our way out, but I can’t really bitch about that, can I? I just have to clutch my beads and hope that my shirt doesn’t end up drinking tea.
Second, a computer. They installed a brand new one, a COPAM, in the room upon our arrival (yes, this is a working trip all right) and, horror of horrors in this land of clones, the blasted thing refused to boot. Not their fault, though. It turned out the CPU was locked up. The resident nerd fixed that in a jiffy.
Third, we got lost. Our host wanted us to inspect one of his properties, an amusement park of sorts right beneath a dam in the city’s outskirts. Two problems: the driver didn’t know the way, and the directional signs weren’t where they should have been. As a result, we lost half a day just meandering about some pretty desolate and narrow byways.
Not that I was altogether unhappy, as our numerous detours gave me glimpses of day to day life in the countryside. These impressed me: the mountains were thickly wooded, every tiny patch of land as far as the eye could see was tilled, and there wasn’t a single “tambay” in sight anywhere.
Taipei itself, insofar as this brief visit allows me to tell, is a cross between Caloocan and Singapore. It strikes me as the quintessentially schizophrenic Asian city – occidental, organized and efficient on top, oriental, frenetic, and topsy-turvy at bottom. And humid as home.
Horrendous traffic jams on the freeways and main thoroughfares, where daredevil drivers of top of the line Japanese, American and European models and swarms of battered, puny scooters constantly try to outdo each other. Run-down tenement houses crowding humongous high rises. Tai Chi at dawn, Karaoke at dusk. Everywhere hordes of people in constant motion and great hurry. But at least the trees in the parks and lining the boulevards look healthy and happy.
Shopping here is decidedly an aggravation. The prices are astronomical, compounding which hardly anyone speaks English. A bane and a boon: though my pocket hurts, my sign language has improved.
Most items cost double if not triple what they do in Manila. In the hotel, a bottle of beer, Taiwan or Carlsberg, is around P80, a bottle of Coke P60. Outside, a cup of Blue Mountain coffee is P60 also, but at least it’s the genuine article. Really, Taipei is Tokyo with the price tags but without the quality, or Hongkong without either the range of choices or the haggling.
I can’t quite understand why so few speak the universal language. Not the giggly counter girls, nor the avuncular policemen, nor the septuagenarian (I swear) street sweepers. In our hotel, only the supervisors do, but only rudimentarily. And, of course, the Filipinos.
You’ll be happy to know there are some 40,000 of our tribe here now. Good news in that respect: we’re not openly disdained in these parts. I guess that’s because apart from the fact that our respective Chinese communities trade and cross-pollinate freely, Pinay maids in Taipei are not an ubiquitous, unruly breed as they are in Hongkong and elsewhere. Here, as the Brits say, we do not foul the footpaths. Not yet, anyway.
Otherwise, just a jumble of impressions:
The service on PAL compares favourably with that on China Airlines, which is still just about the stodgiest thing there is on wings: crime and fashion aren’t consuming passions: the “China Post” invariably looks like the handiwork of some campus publication staff, “sans” news, “sans” malice: department stores stay open until 9:30 p.m. and there are variety shows on TV close to midnight: not a single beggar or stray cat on the streets.
Can’t say it’s fun to live here, but safer than safe to do so it most certainly is. After home, this kind of anonymous dullness is refreshing.
