chadkoh

Now that we are at the end of the year, and I have this arbitrary deadline looming, I thought I’d better finish off my series on travelling to Taiwan. Taiwan was extremely stimulating, and I have been promising to write my conclusions after doing a series of posts. At the same time I held off for fear of putting my foot in my mouth (this post might actually accomplish that 😅), so, rather than conclusive statements or “insights”, maybe I will conclude with some questions, lines of inquiry that you or I or whoever is next travelling to Taiwan to take with them.

Quick recap: for Golden Week in May 2024 we flew from Japan to Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. We visited a few locations including Tainan and Fo Guang Shan. Then we took the bullet train to Taipei and travelled further north to the mining town of Jiufen. Finally we returned to Taipei for the last few days where we visited a variety of local spots.

It has been 8-9 months since we left Taiwan and I still think about this trip. May was hot but not too hot. Waking up to the roaring of scooters commuting in the morning, lining up at the cheap and delicious soy cafe for breakfast, having so much access to vegetarian food, visiting some truly spectacular temples and museums, getting my fortune told by a little bird — there were so many daily delights! Not to mention you could get excellent Japanese, Korean, Thai and even great burritos and other international food! I found Taiwan to offer a better array and higher quality of international foods than Japan. Taipei is surely a foodie paradise!

Other than the amazing food culture, I enjoyed trying to untangle the history. Needless to say Taiwan’s status is very complex (which is blanket statement that could extend to most countries, I admit), but since its modern history has been so compressed, I think it is much more apparent. From influxes of mainland Chinese immigrants, to Japanese occupation, post-war economic growth under military dictatorship, the democratic era, and all within a changing northeast Asia security theatre — there is a lot to take in. New systems are imposed upon old systems and there is no time for a refactor. It’s like plugging a new multi-plug power adapter into an old one, increasing plug capacity… but at what cost? I am not sure.

QUESTION: Can Taiwan just keep pushing ahead and evolving? 🚅

One way Taiwan stays resilient is by being flexible with regards to history: ignoring the bad, leveraging the good. Inconvenient history is … not forgotten… but maybe elided over…? for the sake of moving on. (This comes of as another banal blanket statement, I know. Here in Canada we ran a whole multimillion dollar multi-year campaign to deal with our history, which has been largely stalled. I suppose it should take at least seven generations, and Taiwan‘s history has never had that long to settle before the next crisis comes along).

QUESTION: What will the legacy of Chiang Kai Shek be? 🎖️

Flexibility extends throughout Taiwanese culture. I can see why so many of the would-be “lifers” in Japan left to go to Taiwan over the past couple of decades. Taiwan is safe and has a lot of the conveniences that people love about Japan. But the Taiwanese are just a lot more willing to be flexible, which makes it easier for foreigners to navigate (I would love to get more data on this. I mostly talked with Chinese and white people about this, but I am not sure how the racial hierarchy in Taiwan differs from Japan with respects to say Black or Brown people. If you know, please share!)

Okay, now for one last big question: one thing people enjoy when they come to Japan is learning about the religious syncretism. How can a Japanese family celebrate a birth at a Shinto shrine, eat KFC and strawberry cake at Christmas, and pray to their ancestors at the Buddhist shrine in their home? That is obviously a bit of a caricature, but I think Taiwanese syncretism takes this to a whole other level! Just walk around a temple like Lungshan, each cubby holds a figure that could come from a totally different system (Confucian/Daoist/Buddhist/and more!) and on the way out you can buy an omamori just like a jinja!

QUESTION: Religion in Taiwan… how the hell does it work!? 📿

Damn I wish I knew more about this before traveling. So much of it is over my head, and I suspect it would have been useful in Malaysia (travel journal Part 1 and Part 2) and even here in Greater Vancouver.

One last bonus topic: although I am really glad we got out of Taipei and saw some different cities, we spent our whole time on the West Coast. I watched some of the Indigenous TV channel, but I would really like the opportunity someday to travel to the central mountains and the East coast which I hear is beautiful, and offers more opportunities to learn about the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. There is so much more to see!

QUESTION: How does East differ from West? 🧭

Okay, that is it. I think I have probably put enough of my ignorance on display. Suffice it to say, I think Taiwan is a fascinating place to visit, and has many many points to appreciate. You should go if you get the chance… because even after I visited there and saw how people were not freaking out about China as much as the Western press insists, I am still worried that it could get absorbed into the mainland, not necessarily with kinetics, but in a more bureaucratic hostile takeover sense like Hong Kong. There is just too much integration and dependency on the mainland. 😬😬😬

Okay, now that this is done, pass me the Su Chili Crisp. I better get started on this foot.

While I am doing that, you can go back and read more details about each location by starting at my Taiwan trip report introductory post. Each post kinda walks you through all the Taiwan photo galleries I posted to Flickr about the trip.