711 Homecoming: A Personal Memory

711 Homecoming: a Personal Memory

(TAIPEI) -- The trip's nearly over and we're making loose plans to return to the US. Now, late in the game, comes a long-expected rumble of thunder, signaling not a rainstorm but a possible redefinition of "home." Angela wasn't born here, but here is where she was raised. And she'd like to stay. Can't blame her. It's a wonderful city, filled with intense and vibrant people, hurried people, people who are generous and outgoing and engaged as were the New Yorkers of my own youth.

We may decide, eventually, to divide our time between this place and somewhere in the states. Many people with ties to this island are half time residents. Maybe have the best of both worlds. Angela doesn't want to die in America. This is a sentiment heard from many a newcomer to America, even after living more years there than wherever they were born.

So, where is home? It was easier to adjust to Taipei than it had been to central PA. But neither is home. Home is Queens. Not the Manhattan of birth. Not the Bronx of first residence. Not the Nassau County of longest residence. A father who never was able to put down substantial roots in America. A wife who never was able to put down substantial roots in America. A daughter from Korea who may eventually feel the same.

The question "where is home?" is different from the question "what is home?" That's a tough one to answer. But the people of this city have extended themselves for us beyond expectation. And family and friends here have extended themselves beyond the imagination.

Angela's family has been as giving and warm as it is possible to be. Mentioning each in a long line of cousins and nephews and her friends from the old days doesn't convey the feeling we've all gotten. But there are a few:

Uncle Kung the younger (age classified, but probably older than you are): He is a tall, intelligent, well-spoken, accomplished man of respect, a loving and hearty soul with a gentle exterior and a core of steel. Has to be. He came here in '49 as a young man and made a life for himself and for Angela and for his wife and for his two children. He is a highly regarded retired government official who walks proudly and lives proudly and should.

Cousin Heba (pronounced HEE buh) who is Uncle's daughter, an intelligent and generous woman, respected in her profession and as an educator, and a good soul -- who has spent the month making sure we are happy and satisfied and well and have seen much of what is worth seeing here. If she were an American, she probably would be the head of big company or a professor of something or other.

Angela's younger brother Tn Chi, pleasant and outgoing and -- I'm working this word to death -- generous. it's fascinating to watch the dynamic between the older sister and the younger brother. He tries to dominate. She is indomitable.

Some miscellany that hasn't made it to the page and should:

--Musak, or whatever that kind of service is called here is fond of the American Pop Standard song book in English. So we've heard countless renditions of "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life," "The Shadow of Your Smile," "Unforgettable," "Take the A Train," things in that vein. Except near the gondola, where a bunch of places for kids were playing (ever so slightly) younger music -- instrumentals of "Georgie Girl," "Sugar, Sugar," and a bunch of John Denver stuff.

--A company you never heard of is doing something you wouldn't dream of doing in today's economy. The Yulon Group assembles some foreign car brands here in Taiwan... Nissans, Mitsubishis as well as some Chrysler and GM products. They have started building their own brand car, now, called the Luxgene, pronounced LUCK-jeen, a Chinglish name combining luxury and genius. All kinds of tech promises for the road ahead. For now, they're pretty conventional, but home grown.

--Our Chrysler count is up to one. Our GM count is up to two, both of them Buicks. The only American brand with a real presence is Ford. The most frequently seen vehicle is anything made by Toyota, including some models we don't see in the US, like the Corona or the Corolla-Altis. There's a good sprinkling of Benzes and BMWs, plenty of Nissans and Suzukis. But we've yet to spot a Subaru.

--But regardless of brand, the fastest way around town seems to be those pesky, bug-like scooters, which get enough MPG to get you to Mars and back on a single tank. They weave through traffic and scurry up to the traffic lights. But do they really gain any time? The jury is out.

--Electricity is 110 volt ac with the kind of plug standard in the US until the arrival of the two-different-size blade plugs we use now.

--They have some of the oddest museums. One is built around a 100 year old pump house constructed by the Japanese during occupation, and dedicated to the history of H2O in Taipei. The Water Museum. Really. There's a museum of paper making and another of puppets. The home of the American Ambassador has become a movie theater and Afternoon Tea restaurant. We don't AmbassNote to native speakers of Chinese reading this in English: "Ambass" is not a real word, I made it up. to this place any longer. And there's a Customs Museum, stocked with all the illegal stuff the government found without a Homeland Security department, drug sniffing dogs, Bernie Kerik, Rudolph Giuliani or even a metal detector.

This is the final dispatch from Taiwan, or at least the last one deserving of a Taipei dateline for having been fully written here. Thanks for traveling with us. Other stories will follow.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010

709 The Maokong Gondola

710 The Maokong Gondola

(TAIPEI) -- If there's an earthquake above 4.0 in magnitude, service is suspended. If there is wind of a certain velocity, service is suspended. There is no service on Mondays. If Monday is a national holiday, service will be suspended instead on Tuesday. Meantime, don't rock the gondola. Don't expect a car to yourself -- there's room for eight. And please use your subway easy pay card to save time, unless you're old, crippled or a kid, in which case you can stand on line to get a hefty discount. Now, then, what IS this thing?

It's an aerial subway. It's something between a ski lift in a place where it almost never snows, and the City Island Tramway, only lot's smaller -- plus it runs better. You take this thing at a station that's about 1200 feet above sea level. It goes up from there. And up and Up and UPPPPP. It passes weigh stations and platforms and you swear the thing's going to hit the concrete floors of those stations or the metal pillars a few thousand feet up, but it doesn't. You think about amusement park ride accidents but none happens. And you look over the city and you see fairly hefty buildings that look like they're made of Lego bocks. And your ears tell you that you're maybe 10 thousand feet up, but there's no way of knowing.

This system opened in 2007, but it hasn't been operating continuously. There was a 16 month shutdown while safety concerns were addressed. This happened after a Taipei mayor, accompanied by a former Taipei mayor were suspended in midair, in brutal heat and humidity while ground crews tried to figure out what had happened to stop the system. Apparently, they found out.

The ride was supposed to be scary. Riding above the tree tops, stepping in and out of moving gondolas with doors that opened... how? By hand? Automatically? But it wasn't frightening.

The system was built as a joint project between the Metro here and an Italian-owned, French-based company called Poma, which says it's the world's leading chair lift and people mover maker.

Do people actually use this in place of a subway or bus? Not this day. Passenger count was low and nicely spaced. But there's a leading indicator this isn't always so. There are markings for long lines patterned in the same way as airport security lines. That means cramming a lot of people into a small space and moving them expediently. So on weekends, probably the joint rocks. But remember, don't rock the gondola itself.

Shrapnel:

--Not so many years ago, people here washed their clothing in the waters of a moving river, but technology has changed all that. On our balcony overlooking the alley is a fine, new (Korean) washing machine, which when finished pours its water out onto the balcony floor where it (mostly) falls into a drain. So now instead of going to the river, the river comes to us.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 201

709 The Smugglers

709 The Smugglers

(TAIPEI) -- Here's our big chance! In today's world the next wave of drug mules from Mexico, north will be little old ladies and little old men driving Corollas or Impalas with their stash on the back seat in Wal-Mart bags and in plain sight. What border patroller would give someone like that a second look?

We oldsters are unlikely to go to Mexico, but here in Taiwan there are some fine opportunities as well. We found out they have a nifty cough medicine here called "Liquid Brown Mixture." How charming and innocent. For the record, we came upon it quite legitimately. Liquid brown mixtures can include some forms of prune juice or pancake syrup, even licorice. This stuff does, in fact, taste like licorice.

How do they get that flavor? Easy. They use something called Glycyrrhiza Fluid Extract. We were happy to learn that while some forms of this stuff contain ammonia, this is not one of them. Good thing, too. Think you can bring this stuff on an international flight? Probably not.

Alright. Also on the list of ingredients is something called Antimony Potassium Tartrate. This stuff's been banned in animal food in the US. It's a compound often associated with fireproofing. Tasty.

Then, Ethyl Nitrite Spirit. Don't light up a Lucky while using this stuff. Don't overdose. Don't worry... people have been using this medicinally for centuries. Bring it on a plane? An explosive? Um... probably not.

But the clincher is the number two ingredient: opium tincture. Take that on a plane? You gotta be kidding. Of course, if we had one of those Corollas or Impalas and a Wal-Mart bag, we might risk transporting it over the border (can a drug sniffing dog pick up this scent?) But to put it in luggage on a flight from here to Washington is not a good idea. You can imagine being taken aside at Dulles and hauled into a little room with no windows and with a metal table bolted to the cement floor while Captain Freedom of the Homeland Security Department or the FBI or the CIA or the DC Police or all of the above question you about your history as a drug smuggler and international conspirator.

This stuff is perfectly legal here and has been in wide use for who-knows-how-long, probably since well before George Washington's administration.

The question is: does it work? Oh boy, does it. But this particular bottle, if there's anything left when we head out in a week, will stay behind in Taipei, regrettably.

Shrapnel:

--Just can't get used to this "no tipping" policy here. Cabbies, restaurant waiters and waitresses, hairdressers, just about everyone who gets tipped in the US doesn't get tipped here. And -- it's been said -- tipping here is an insult.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010

708 No Plastic and One Recent Exception

708 No Plastic and One Recent Exception

(TAIPEI) -- So you’ve got this spiffy Platinum Titanium Gold Silver Super World Card and you’ve been assured by the Exclusive Customer Confidence Center where operators are identified as vice presidents that you will be able to use your Platinum Titanium Gold Silver World Card anywhere in the world.

Wrongo. Of course you know that there are small merchants in places like this that will not take credit cards, even ones issued locally. But you figure that at the better restaurants, department stores, phone rental agencies, cabs, the subway and bus lines and traffic court, they’d take a MasterCard or Visa or Discover, but you’d be wrong.

Anecdotally, American Express seems to have more market penetration here than the others. But, again, that’s not a hard statistic. You feel further misled when all the shops and restaurants at the airports – especially the Duty Free Shops – take the cards or US dollars or Sheckles or Euros or Canadian dollars and probably the gold bullion you belatedly realized you shouldn’t have bought.

So you come to a worldly town like this with worldly assurances from reliable (vice presidential) sources that you’ll be able to transact all your business as seamlessly as you can in Bellefonte, the Bronx or Boston. Wrongo.

Bring cash. If you don’t have stateside access to Taiwan dollars, bring American and exchange at a bank which will require your passport and give you a lower rate than, say, your hotel’s front desk. Or be ready to debit your checking or savings account. The ATM will cost you more than a currency exchange, but it’s also pretty convenient and you don’t need a passport.

We’ll have a few things to say to the issuers of our Platinum Titanium Gold Silver Super World Cards when we get back.

One of the few places we were able to use the P-T-G-S-S-World Card was at the Hotel Royal Taipei. And royal it is. But the first impression on an American traveler, is likely “This sure does remind us of the Essex House,” the old New York landmark now called the Jumeirah Essex House after its relatively new Dubai owners.

And as was the Essex House in one of its several heydays, it is quietly noted in one corner of the lobby that this is a JAL Hotel. This means, as it did in New York, a local face on a Japanese heart and mind. JAL and the Nikko Hotels it manages are the picture of a place where cranky Japanese business travelers have almost nothing to be cranky about.

Marble and glass and ivory and smiles and multilingual staff members who dress better and more expensively than the guests. Spotless. And when they say “Afternoon tea begins at 2:30 PM,” they mean 2:30 and not 2:29 or 2:31. How Japanese. How wonderful for those of us who are time compulsive.

Afternoon tea is a misnomer bordering on false advertising. It’s a full meal, usually a buffet. And in a joint like this, it’s a meal and a half. We didn’t have breakfast this Saturday morning, and we won’t have dinner. No need.

JAL may be on the verge of bankruptcy, but it still knows how to treat a customer.

Shrapnel:

--Things you can’t get here: Butter, cottage cheese, real American French fries, sour cream, cream cheese, ASA 100 color film, an iPad, and NASCAR posters. As you know by now you can buy a bottle of real American hootch on every corner, but no one except drug stores have Tylenol or anything similar.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010

707 The Confucian Carnival

707 The Confucian Carnival

(TAIPEI) -- The Confucius Temple here is a confluence of two cultures. There's the 25-hundred year old philosophy of the greatly wise Ultimate Master Educator whose street name was Kongqiu or Qiu Kong, and the merciless and endless commercialism that pervades 21st century Taipei. Y'all want a Confucius notepad? How about a picture of what people think he looked like? Postcards, anyone?

And yet, the faithful come from all over the world to bring gifts of fruits and vegetables here. There are pieces of wood shaped like half moons, and maybe three inches, end to end. You ask questions, shake the pieces in your hands and drop them as you ask a question. Two heads or two tales equal "no," one each of heads and tails means "yes." They are much like the Runes of Scandinavia.

The deities in this complex are rough guys. Confucius is one of many. Down the street from his "house" is the Dalojngdong Baoan Temple, populated by what westerners would likely think of as "graven images." These are the men (and they're all men,) who answer the questions you ask with the wooden moons. What "ism" is this? No one has an answer. It's not an ism, it just is. How Chinese. How Confucian.

They burn sticks of what we New York kids used to call "punk," and wave them at statues and ask for stuff. And all this time, the Chinese sense of justice and humor perseveres. There are wooden beams and dragons and birds and statues. Some of the statues hold up beams that hold up roofs. Most of those statues look like white guys and they are. Specifically, they are Dutch. It was the Dutch who conquered this island hundreds of years ago. In the words of our guide they "did not treat the Taiwanese well." The euro statues are Dutchmen forced to hold the heavy canopies and overhangs in retaliation. Revenge is sweet.

But underneath all this barnumesque baloney, after you get past the jokes that start "Confucius say..." there's real wisdom here. Ideas like justice, fairness, morality (understood rather than defined) permeate his teachings.

What Confucius did was a great deal like what America's founding fathers did. More important than exactly what he said and what he didn't say, more important than what he advocated or opposed, more important than anything in writing, he brought us a key concept, a pivotal premise.

Without actually saying so, Confucius said there is a structure and a meaning to things. There is a place in the world for a correlator of accumulated knowledge, a condenser of wisdom. So is Kong Qiu the ultimate example of Reader's Digest? Yes. His work is a compression of wisdom and knowledge and thought that makes us realize who and what we are, and who and what we aren't.

Meantime, welcome to the Confucian Carnival. Step right up and getchyer wisdom from the bearded wizard, himself.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010

706 Radio Taiwan International

706 Radio Taiwan International

(TAIPEI) -- The huge radio towers look sinister at night. Skeletons with red lights stretching to the heavens, sending 15-thousand-plus kilowatts -- more than 15 million watts -- into the ionosphere and then back down to earth in 13 languages, telling the story of this island. Our guide, Rachel Luo says in her perfect, British English "you don't want to know about our electric bill."

Radio Taiwan International is a government service, much like our own Voice of America. This means you can't hear it here. At least not over the air. Anywhere else you can hear it. Much of Australia. Russia. Most of Europe. Most of North and South America. Africa. Here on the island, you can't get the programs unless you go to the internet and listen to the streams or the podcasts. Thirteen languages. Down from 18. One anonymous source says "every time there's a budget cut we drop a language."

Rachel offers a copy of the 2009 annual report. It is as impenetrable as anything Exxon, Enron or General Motors can provide. RTI either made a profit or didn't make a profit in 2009. Impossible to tell. One balance sheet talks about surplus, another about loss. Congratulations to the government of Taiwan: you have mastered the American system of obfuscation in financial reports.

Rachel knows the history. Founded in 1928, still the infancy of the medium. Founded in China, but brought to Taiwan when the Nationalists came here. They have a history room. Shows Chang-Kai-shek announcing the end of the Sino-Japanese war in 1945. There's an audio console made by RCA in the 1940s, used here until the 1960s or 1970s. They still have cassettes. They still have tape cartridges, called "carts" ("Cats" if you're from ABC.) They still have reel-to-reel tape decks, Studers, made in Switzerland and able to withstand floods, earthquakes, typhoons and ham handed users. They have RCA 77DX microphones, the industry standard from the 1930s to the 1980s.

This is or was Taiwan's Ministry of Truth, up until 1998. It was a propaganda arm largely designed to swill the mainlanders with Nationalist Bumbo. For the last 12 years, says Ms. Rachel, less so. Maybe that's right. Maybe it's become more subtle -- again, like our VOA.

Next stop, the interview. Shirley Lin is Boston educated. She lies somewhere on the scale of interviewers between Barbara Walters and NPR's Robert Siegel. Shirley's done a lot of different stuff in her life. She was a math and economics major. But she insists she can't help her kids with their math homework. She was something or other in an investment firm, but she doesn't have any recommendations this day. She is worldly, sincere and has mastered that interviewers' skill that makes you think she's really interested in you. Maybe she is, maybe not. The suspicion is "she is." She makes the interview into a conversation and 12 minutes in you realize you've told her your life story and maybe more than you wanted to.

Radio Taiwan International is trying to present the case for Taiwan to the world without seeming to be a ministry of propaganda. This is a tough spot. They're really careful about the way they report news. Right down the middle. Guys like Wes Gallagher at the AP and Steve Capus at NBC would approve. But they still have that heritage: it's a government operation, dependent on government funding.

Shrapnel:

--The Chinglish phrase of the day. It's on a woman's t-shirt and apparently is supposed to say "Biker Chick." What it DOES say is "Biker Chich."

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010
"

705 To Change A Light Bulb

705 To Change A Light Bulb

(TAIPEI) -- There's the old joke, and you've heard it. "How many Teamsters does it take to change a light bulb?" Answer: "twenty three. You want to make something of it?" People who dislike unions have always thought they "required" too many people on any given job. So how many Taiwanese does it take to change a light bulb? Lots. And that's good. There is no shortage of help.

The minimum wage here is 17,280 NT, New Taiwan Dollars, a month. That's $542.15 USD. A major expense for most of us is covered, sort of. Universal health care has been in place here for 15 years. And according to studies the system may have its flaws and inequities, but basically it works. So while the wages are low, no one is running around worried to death about the cost of a catastrophic or even minor ailment. The money can be used otherwise.

In America we have become accustomed to endless waiting, usually because there isn't enough help. Here, the hospital has enough clerks and nurses and dental assistants and accounting people. There are what we used to call "Traffic Brownies," people to keep things more or less moving on the street. There are rush hour platform agents in the subways who keep things moving. The banks have enough tellers. The supermarkets have enough check out people. The street side parking garages have enough attendants.

As Americans we may look at this as over employment, too many people. We are so used to insufficient we don't recognize sufficient when we see it. Those of us who remember conductors on buses, full time handymen in apartment houses, two guys behind a soda fountain counter, five clerks on duty in the deli, car inspectors on the subway and rail platforms, beat walking cops, two daily deliveries of mail and street sweepers are jarred back to an earlier time by the abundance of help.

The unemployment rate here is just under six percent. And that's the highest it's been in seven or eight years. So, yes, the global economic woes hit here, too. But there are plenty of jobs available here, and yes, you can make ends more or less meet on that 17-thou a month.

From the perspective of a tourist, especially an impatient New York tourist, you can't do better than this.

Shrapnel:

--Chinglish, as they call it, can lead to some interesting constructions. So you may smile when you see a sink with a sign that reads "automatic sensoring faucet," or puzzle the meaning of a sign that says "visitor stop" over a doorway. But chances are that their English is a whole lot better than your Mandarin.

--In doing some research for the health insurance aspect of this post, one thing leaped off the page. Taiwan has an obesity problem, it said? So where do my fellow fatties hide? Haven't spotted more than a handful in two weeks of walking the streets here.

I'm Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2010