Taipei Weekend

We have just returned from a weekend staying with friends in the Republic of China (Taiwan). We flew on Friday afternoon and arrived in the dark and in the rain. This is becoming a habit but perhaps it is a test of our staying power. We were met by a minibus which took us along ten-lane highways groaning with traffic, into the capital, through downtown Taipei and up to the northern suburbs.

It was a good thing our friends had insisted on the bus. Even the driver struggled to find their address and had we hired a car we might be there still, surrounded by swarms of mopeds, trying to navigate a city where numbered lanes lead off the roads and numbered alleys from the lanes in ever decreasing blocks. As we speak not a word of either Mandarin or Taiwanese asking for help would have been tricky. We drove past neon signs advertising the wares of the shop units beneath. One of many ladies’ outfitters was called Wanko. The brightest green lights were arranged radially above elevated stores consisting of a single small room with a large picture window where scantily dressed ladies of the night perched on bar stools looking rather bored.

Passing a vast Chinese-style hotel standing proud above the river, a little over-painted in gold, red and green, we headed up the hill where the buildings grew quickly less dense and where thick vegetation crept down the steeply banked roadsides.

We stumbled into our friends’ home, a wide low house with a garden, filled with beautiful mementoes of their stays in Hong Kong, Penang, Colombo, Mumbai and Manila and travels through Vietnam, Laos and Korea. His work moves them on every two to three years. We met them in Germany and a cuckoo clock struck hourly, and somewhat incongruously, in the kitchen as a reminder of their one European sojourn. There was a carpet-like lawn where frogs hopped about in the evening rain and we were happy to be amongst friends.

The following morning we went up Taipei 101. This is officially still the tallest building in the world, until a taller one opens shortly in Dubai. We had barely seen its lights on our drive through the city the previous evening due to the low cloud but the day had dawned bright and clear and the structure was now to be seen towering over Taipei’s relatively low-rise cityscape. Taipei 101 was modelled on the Chinese pagoda we thought, but our nine year old had done his homework and said it was inspired by a bamboo stalk, a symbol of learning and growth. Actually we were both right. The repeated segments recall pagodas, bamboo and a stack of ancient Chinese ingots or money boxes representing abundance. The building is rich in symbolism: The height of 101 floors commemorates the renewal of time: the new century that arrived as the tower was built (100+1) and all the new years that follow (January 1 = 1.01). It symbolizes high ideals by going one better than 100. It also represents the spot where the tower stands: 101 is the postal code of Taipei's international business district.

We went up in a lift which grew dark as stars illuminated the ceiling. Was this to give us the feeling we were going into space, I wondered as the lift took off at a speed of 1010 metres per minute. I only know because a display on the lift wall told me so. Our stomachs didn’t have time to wobble for all of a sudden we were on the viewing platform on the 88th floor, still 13 floors from the top but the outdoor platform on the 91st floor was closed for renovation and I for one was quite relieved. Our friends remember the business district of Taipei from their first posting here 20 years ago when it was still paddy fields. Next to the tower is a hangover from this era in the shape of a rather untidy yet charming field of allotments, lying cheek by jowl with the banks and financial institutions. From the top the grid system that houses 3 million inhabitants can be clearly seen, as can the city parks and the wide swathes of greensward which line the newly sanitised riverbanks and provide paths for cycling and space for sport. Inside the tower is a huge steel pendulum suspended from thick twisted cable which hangs from the 92nd to the 88th floor and is the largest damper sphere in the world. The pendulum sways to offset movements in the building caused by strong gusts of wind. I’m not sure I fully understood the engineering detail but I did gather that in strong winds the top of the tower can move up to a metre at which point I felt it was time to go back down.

Taxis took us to lunch where our friends ordered dumplings in fluent mandarin and the children watched them being rolled, filled, pinched, twisted and steamed by a human conveyor belt. The taxi drivers are stricter than in Hong Kong and only allow four in each car. Our driver had black teeth and his gums were stained red whilst the brown hairy remains of chewed and spat betel nuts sat in a plastic cup between us which I eyed with distaste. Betel nut is a mild stimulant and is sometimes chewed with tobacco leaves for the added effect of the nicotine. Our driver took a fresh nut from a bag and started chewing as he drove. It is not illegal but I found the habit disconcerting and especially so when we entered an ill-lit underpass and sped towards the car in front whose single functioning rear brake light disguised its actual speed. My right foot hit the floor and both palms reached for the dashboard before the betel-chewing driver deigned to slow the car.

Our friends told us about the betel-nut beauties, a sight unique to Taiwan: young women who sell betel nuts and cigarettes from brightly lit glass enclosures while wearing revealing clothing. So those were my misunderstood ladies of the night from the previous evening, but why the scanty clothing? The arguments range from exploitation of these agricultural and working class girls to self-empowerment: young women with few resources who improve their lot by employing a marketing technique that requires confidence. The girls prepare the nuts and take them to the truck drivers who pull up outside their kiosks. Exploitation or self-empowerment aside, I couldn’t help feeling it might be a bit chilly.

Taiwan is further north than here and was noticeably colder than Hong Kong. That afternoon we drove on further up into the hills to the Buffalo Meadows where, true to the name, buffalo roam the rolling green hills amidst the wild pampas grass high above Taiwan’s capital city. The children hid behind the huge clumps of grass and ambushed the adults as we wandered up the hills. It was stunningly beautiful but as the sun slipped behind the hills and the clouds descended I grew cold for the first time since leaving Europe and began to think of replacing my shorts and t-shirts with jeans and long sleeves. That evening we saw the tired children in to bed and slipped out for a curry and the new Bond film. To say that this is what the English do, far from home on a Saturday night would be unfair to our well-travelled, cosmopolitan hosts who are so very at home in Asia, and yet on this occasion it hit the spot.

Sunday found us at the Martyrs’ Shrine in Taipei where we were fortunate to witness the Changing of the Guard – a hilariously drawn-out, meticulously choreographed performance by soldiers in camp uniforms, platform-heeled boots and shiny tin-pot helmets. So laboured were the steps that getting anywhere would have taken forever. No wonder they lost, said the Pioneering Accountant. The children were thrilled and marched alongside only to be moved aside by the black suited minders that bemused us by seemingly safe-guarding the armed National Guard in ill-fitting patent leather shoes and shabby trousers.

We left ROC (Taiwan) feeling we must return with more time. It is China with an alternative post-1949 history, protective of its own traditions and cultural history, once provincial, now with a distinctly national feel, and yet fully in the shadow of its huge neighbour. The People’s Republic of China maintains that it is the legitimate government of China, of which Taiwan is a renegade province. Taiwan constitutionally claims sovereignty over mainland China. The acceptance or rejection of this One-China principle is the major factor determining relations between mainland China or the People’s Republic and the Republic of China or Taiwan.

A recent a visit by the most senior Chinese Communist Party official to go to Taiwan since 1949 was widely reported by the press here as the two governments signed agreements on charter flights, maritime shipping and cooperation on food safety issues. The coming together of the governments is a sign of the times as both countries struggle to overcome economic slowdown. Meanwhile Taiwan’s ex-president Chen Shui-bian is on hunger strike in protest at what he sees as his successor’s policy to forge closer links with mainland China. He is currently in jail on corruption allegations.

We arrived back to a warm sunny Hong Kong afternoon and as we made our way home after a happy weekend it dawned on me that it really was home we were going to and that I was glad to be there.