Around the pool at the hotel in Manila, I got to see who my fellow guests were. Some of them were middle-aged men with torsos like peeled potatoes who were lying around with young Filipina women. Some of them were Guy Ritchie-type British gangsters who muttered mysteriously about "blind spots" and "vice" and shouted "Oi! Ashtray!" at the staff.
Getting out of Manila is a lot harder than getting in. There's the argument you have to have with a cab-driving bandit just to get to the airport, then a check at the door to make sure you're really a passenger -- you prove it by waving a sheet of paper, which no non-passenger could possibly have -- then a security screen, then a hall full of snaking queues, then a woman in a booth who unexpectedly demands 550 pesos in cash for airport improvements, and then the usual security screening. And then you're in the terminal itself, which makes you wish you'd given more money for airport improvements. And then another security check at the gate, where two women unzip your carry-on and point at things with little wands, whispering to each other about whether any of your toiletries could be used to hijack an Airbus A320.
I caught a cold at the airport, I think. At the time, I thought we were all coughing because our lungs were trying to expel the layer of filth Manila's air had deposited in them; but no. At least, I choose to believe it's a cold. It may be some rare tropical disease that causes you to sneeze for a few days and then explode directly into a mist of virus particles. And I choose to blame it on Manila airport, because that's the most annoying place I've been recently.
Taipei airport was built, I think, by looking closely at Manila and doing the opposite. Immigration and customs had no interest in me, and I rode into the city on a quiet bus with tasselled curtains, reading company names off buildings. Transworld Prosperity Corp is surely the best company name possible. It's the name of a company that's trying either to save the world or to open a portal to allow space aliens to conquer it. Either way, TPC is making the world more exciting. I haven't looked it up, because I don't want to find out that it manufactures cardboard boxes.
More tourists should probably go to Taipei. It has a gleaming, efficient metro very like the one Toronto will never have. It has winding alleys lined with food stalls, night markets, some tourist sights, and fewer shopping malls than any other major city in this part of the world. Which is to say that there are a lot, but that they're not obviously eating the city from the inside out.
It's not beautiful. There are no ancient buildings; the Chinese have been here for only about 350 years -- oddly, the Dutch had a colony here before the Chinese arrived in any numbers (the earliest surviving inhabitants are Austronesian). Crash modernization under Japan also helped to remove historic buildings, and after Chiang Kai-Shek -- runner-up in the Chinese civil war -- brought the defeated nationalists here after 1949, a lot of buildings were put up very quickly. The spirit of Taiwanese architecture is the spirit of expediency.
Chiang's memorial is one of the major attractions. It looks timeless, but was finished in 1980, making it one of one of the world's very few non-awful 1970s buildings. In spirit and bulk, it's very like a pyramid. The huge public square beside it, though, provided a venue for the protests that brought about democratic reforms, and those reforms have also made the whole idea of memorializing the dictatorial Chiang in this way seem a bit peculiar. For a while, the memorial was even renamed. But Chiang's colossal bronze statue still sits inside, the lower levels still hold displays of his limousines and sedan chairs, and the gift shop "Cheer for Chiang!" is still open for people who want a bobblehead doll or other memento of their memorial visit.
Longshan temple's also on the list of tourist sites, but the park across the street is more interesting to describe. This is where Taipei's elderly poor seem to gather. A notice board lists 20 prohibited behaviours, including dying clothes, gambling, and "carousing". About half the people are sitting in a line, glumly obeying the "no carousing" rule. The other 19 rules are a pretty good guide to what's going on in the park. "No gambling", especially: Big knots of excited people are standing around tables that hold stacks of money and what I think are mah jong tiles.
In the streets around Longshan, narrow market halls snake through strange buildings. Tiny spaces where people sell a handful of vegetables, or fish heads and buckets of live eels, or piles of crappy souvenirs (though, to be fair, this is one of the very few places where such things can claim to be locally made). There are a few things I had a hard time finding in Taiwan, but I was never worried about whether I'd be able to get a bucket of live eels if I needed one.
It got cold in Taipei, down to 10 or 15 degrees. This is about the best chance the Taiwanese climate offers to wear a winter coat, so anyone who owned a parka busted it out. Having a cold was unpleasant. It is useful in some ways, though. For example, I was worried that just looking different and being 8 inches taller than everyone else wouldn't make me conspicuous enough, but sneezing violently every few minutes really helped with that.
From Taipei, I took the train down to Tainan. It was a Japanese-made bullet train, a shinkansen. If you don't like the scenery on a bullet train, you need only wait a fraction of a second. Along the West coast of Taiwan, though, the new view is always like the old one: Gloomy factories and apartment blocks, with clumps of trees and a few flooded fields. Every ten minutes or so, a surprise: A pink bridge, a single amusement park ride, a gold-roofed temple. Settlements never stop. The West coast of Taiwan is divided up into cities, but this is arbitrary: It's one huge gray smear.
Tainan's the old capital, a city of 2 million people, 2 million scooters, and very few sidewalks. It's covered in a brown blanket of smog. At dawn, yesterday's scooter exhaust glows and turns translucent, and you can make out a mysterious silhouette of the city. The air is cleaned only in the lungs of the people. Maybe rain or strong winds can wash the exhaust out of the air or blow it out to sea, or at least on to the next city up the coast, but this didn't happen when I was there.
There aren't really that many good reasons to go to Tainan. When I told the hotel person that no, I wasn't here on business, he looked perplexed. This is a sign I recognize now.
Tainan does have the site of the original Dutch fort and settlement (in Anping). The lower fort has an exhibit and one of the world's best-defended soft-serve ice cream parlours. The upper levels have a bronze bust of a big-nosed Dutchman, a scenic lookout tower, and another soft-serve ice cream parlour, in case the lower soft serve ice cream parlour should fall to the enemy. There are odd little Dutch touches around the displays in Anping: A windmill, a poster of Dutch art and icons, "Holland" written on an orange wall.
Though it's now March, a church near the fort has a life-sized nativity scene out on its lawn, and a huge Christmas tree. Across the street is a cemetery, as crowded as Taiwan itself. The cemetery was on fire: Something had ignited the dry grass that covers it. A fire truck pulled up after a minute or two. They didn't seem too bothered. A routine joss stick accident, maybe.
Taiwan is full of things I don't recognize or understand. The man dressed in a ratty Santa Claus outfit folding up a red-letter banner on a highway overpass. The dumplings steaming in trays in 7-11. The rules or customs that govern scooter traffic. The pickup truck full of heavy equipment with Hello Kitty on the door.
Really, how did Hello Kitty make her way from the hearts of Japanese tweens to the trucks of Taiwanese mechanics? The likeliest theory is that she's surfacing as the symbol for a secret society dedicated to an ultra-cute form of working-class radicalism, possibly in alliance with Transworld Prosperity Corp. Of all cartoon characters, Hello Kitty is the easiest to imagine on a giant poster overseeing a May Day military parade, or looking down from the wall of the Ministry of Truth. Her mouthless face seems to expect something, and it might just be revolutionary terror.
Getting out of Manila is a lot harder than getting in. There's the argument you have to have with a cab-driving bandit just to get to the airport, then a check at the door to make sure you're really a passenger -- you prove it by waving a sheet of paper, which no non-passenger could possibly have -- then a security screen, then a hall full of snaking queues, then a woman in a booth who unexpectedly demands 550 pesos in cash for airport improvements, and then the usual security screening. And then you're in the terminal itself, which makes you wish you'd given more money for airport improvements. And then another security check at the gate, where two women unzip your carry-on and point at things with little wands, whispering to each other about whether any of your toiletries could be used to hijack an Airbus A320.
I caught a cold at the airport, I think. At the time, I thought we were all coughing because our lungs were trying to expel the layer of filth Manila's air had deposited in them; but no. At least, I choose to believe it's a cold. It may be some rare tropical disease that causes you to sneeze for a few days and then explode directly into a mist of virus particles. And I choose to blame it on Manila airport, because that's the most annoying place I've been recently.
Taipei airport was built, I think, by looking closely at Manila and doing the opposite. Immigration and customs had no interest in me, and I rode into the city on a quiet bus with tasselled curtains, reading company names off buildings. Transworld Prosperity Corp is surely the best company name possible. It's the name of a company that's trying either to save the world or to open a portal to allow space aliens to conquer it. Either way, TPC is making the world more exciting. I haven't looked it up, because I don't want to find out that it manufactures cardboard boxes.
More tourists should probably go to Taipei. It has a gleaming, efficient metro very like the one Toronto will never have. It has winding alleys lined with food stalls, night markets, some tourist sights, and fewer shopping malls than any other major city in this part of the world. Which is to say that there are a lot, but that they're not obviously eating the city from the inside out.
It's not beautiful. There are no ancient buildings; the Chinese have been here for only about 350 years -- oddly, the Dutch had a colony here before the Chinese arrived in any numbers (the earliest surviving inhabitants are Austronesian). Crash modernization under Japan also helped to remove historic buildings, and after Chiang Kai-Shek -- runner-up in the Chinese civil war -- brought the defeated nationalists here after 1949, a lot of buildings were put up very quickly. The spirit of Taiwanese architecture is the spirit of expediency.
Chiang's memorial is one of the major attractions. It looks timeless, but was finished in 1980, making it one of one of the world's very few non-awful 1970s buildings. In spirit and bulk, it's very like a pyramid. The huge public square beside it, though, provided a venue for the protests that brought about democratic reforms, and those reforms have also made the whole idea of memorializing the dictatorial Chiang in this way seem a bit peculiar. For a while, the memorial was even renamed. But Chiang's colossal bronze statue still sits inside, the lower levels still hold displays of his limousines and sedan chairs, and the gift shop "Cheer for Chiang!" is still open for people who want a bobblehead doll or other memento of their memorial visit.
Longshan temple's also on the list of tourist sites, but the park across the street is more interesting to describe. This is where Taipei's elderly poor seem to gather. A notice board lists 20 prohibited behaviours, including dying clothes, gambling, and "carousing". About half the people are sitting in a line, glumly obeying the "no carousing" rule. The other 19 rules are a pretty good guide to what's going on in the park. "No gambling", especially: Big knots of excited people are standing around tables that hold stacks of money and what I think are mah jong tiles.
In the streets around Longshan, narrow market halls snake through strange buildings. Tiny spaces where people sell a handful of vegetables, or fish heads and buckets of live eels, or piles of crappy souvenirs (though, to be fair, this is one of the very few places where such things can claim to be locally made). There are a few things I had a hard time finding in Taiwan, but I was never worried about whether I'd be able to get a bucket of live eels if I needed one.
It got cold in Taipei, down to 10 or 15 degrees. This is about the best chance the Taiwanese climate offers to wear a winter coat, so anyone who owned a parka busted it out. Having a cold was unpleasant. It is useful in some ways, though. For example, I was worried that just looking different and being 8 inches taller than everyone else wouldn't make me conspicuous enough, but sneezing violently every few minutes really helped with that.
From Taipei, I took the train down to Tainan. It was a Japanese-made bullet train, a shinkansen. If you don't like the scenery on a bullet train, you need only wait a fraction of a second. Along the West coast of Taiwan, though, the new view is always like the old one: Gloomy factories and apartment blocks, with clumps of trees and a few flooded fields. Every ten minutes or so, a surprise: A pink bridge, a single amusement park ride, a gold-roofed temple. Settlements never stop. The West coast of Taiwan is divided up into cities, but this is arbitrary: It's one huge gray smear.
Tainan's the old capital, a city of 2 million people, 2 million scooters, and very few sidewalks. It's covered in a brown blanket of smog. At dawn, yesterday's scooter exhaust glows and turns translucent, and you can make out a mysterious silhouette of the city. The air is cleaned only in the lungs of the people. Maybe rain or strong winds can wash the exhaust out of the air or blow it out to sea, or at least on to the next city up the coast, but this didn't happen when I was there.
There aren't really that many good reasons to go to Tainan. When I told the hotel person that no, I wasn't here on business, he looked perplexed. This is a sign I recognize now.
Tainan does have the site of the original Dutch fort and settlement (in Anping). The lower fort has an exhibit and one of the world's best-defended soft-serve ice cream parlours. The upper levels have a bronze bust of a big-nosed Dutchman, a scenic lookout tower, and another soft-serve ice cream parlour, in case the lower soft serve ice cream parlour should fall to the enemy. There are odd little Dutch touches around the displays in Anping: A windmill, a poster of Dutch art and icons, "Holland" written on an orange wall.
Though it's now March, a church near the fort has a life-sized nativity scene out on its lawn, and a huge Christmas tree. Across the street is a cemetery, as crowded as Taiwan itself. The cemetery was on fire: Something had ignited the dry grass that covers it. A fire truck pulled up after a minute or two. They didn't seem too bothered. A routine joss stick accident, maybe.
Taiwan is full of things I don't recognize or understand. The man dressed in a ratty Santa Claus outfit folding up a red-letter banner on a highway overpass. The dumplings steaming in trays in 7-11. The rules or customs that govern scooter traffic. The pickup truck full of heavy equipment with Hello Kitty on the door.
Really, how did Hello Kitty make her way from the hearts of Japanese tweens to the trucks of Taiwanese mechanics? The likeliest theory is that she's surfacing as the symbol for a secret society dedicated to an ultra-cute form of working-class radicalism, possibly in alliance with Transworld Prosperity Corp. Of all cartoon characters, Hello Kitty is the easiest to imagine on a giant poster overseeing a May Day military parade, or looking down from the wall of the Ministry of Truth. Her mouthless face seems to expect something, and it might just be revolutionary terror.
