The next morning I set out to explore a bit more and feeling a little peckish again, I looked for a cafe or restaurant. I saw a few places but because of the lack of English signs, decided against them until I came across a place with little plaster-cast models of different dishes in the window. Steak, Crab, Noodles and Rice and suchlike.
My first thought was that this could not possibly be a Ladies Hairdressing Salon and so I entered the establishment and attempted to converse with the very attractive young waitress in English. To no avail, I took her to the window display and pointed out something that looked like bacon and eggs. She smiled and we went back to the menu and she pointed at something, I smiled and nodded agreement.
When it arrived on my table, it was not remotely bacon and eggs but some sort of a beef noodly dish, which was very tasty, so I made a mental note to remember where I had pointed on the menu and paid and left, giving the waitress what I thought was a reasonable tip.
I returned to the same restaurant the next day and pointed at the menu at the same place and a different waitress looked at me quizzically and brought me a sort of omelette dish, this was still quite tasty, so I paid up with a reasonable tip and left.
The third day I went back and did the same thing and ended up with a fish soup. To this day I have no idea what I was pointing at on that menu. It could have been “A service charge of 10% applies in this restaurant” or “ No shoes, No shirt, No service” or “Please do not bring pets in here as they may be served up to the next customer”. After that I stayed with the “Golden Arches”. It may be plastic on plastic with a serve of plastic fries, but at least you know what plastic you’re ordering.
I decided to go down the coastal road on the east side of the island by bus and ended up at a resort near the start of the ‘East-West Highway’. I was sitting in a cafe enjoying a beer, when I was approached by a middle-aged guy who asked me in English if he could join me.
By this stage I was delighted to even hear English, so of course I said yes. He also had a younger friend who joined us, they were both trying out their conversational English. The elder of the two was a bio-ceramacist (don’t ask me what they do, something about artificial bones) who had studied and taught in the US and the younger one (who didn’t speak very much) was one of his students.
This guy was incredible, his English was a tad rusty, but almost perfect (as was probably, his Japanese and no doubt his Mandarin and Cantonese) and he was extremely well read. I asked him why Taiwan, which is such a beautiful country didn’t try to attract more Western tourists and he said that it was far better to get the Japanese tourists. The Japanese were widely understood, spent more money and were far more generous than the Westerners, so what was the point.
I also asked him why there was not far more animosity against the Japanese for them invading Taiwan, he just shrugged and said why don’t the majority of Japanese hate the Americans? Good point! I also asked him if there were any physical differences between the two races and he said not really, some Chinese can pass for Japanese and vice versa, although he may have been polite and tactful in saying that.
I spent a great couple of hours with them and learned more about Taiwan in that time than the rest of my time over there. I should have stayed in touch, but unfortunately I lost his card. From there I took a coach over the East-West Highway and it is a very impressive piece of civil engineering, with some incredible tunnels through mountains and bridges over valleys.
It was originally built for the military to get men and materiel from one side of the island to the other, in case of an attack by the sneaky Red Devils from the mainland. I would also imagine that the mountains are riddled with tunnels and caves concealing all sorts of delightful weaponry, but this is pure conjecture. From a tourist point of view Taiwan is worth visiting for that journey alone.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Showing posts with label Taiwan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taiwan. Show all posts
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
My own recollections of Taiwan in the '80's
To get back to Taiwan in the mid 80’s. I can’t quite remember why I decided to go there, it definitely wasn’t (and probably still isn’t) a popular tourist destination for Australians, Americans or Europeans. I think I was looking for a place a bit off the beaten track and I must have read something about it in the ‘Travel Section’ of one of the newspapers.
Whatever, I decided to go over there and have a quick shufty for myself, so I took off on an airline (I can’t remember which one, probably Cathay Pacific). After an uneventful flight, which was probably punctuated with a fair few alcoholic beverages, as was normal in those halcyon days of yore, I landed at the airport in Taipei.
I was transported to a hotel by a non-English speaking taxi driver and handed over a Taiwanese Shekel? or somesuch and he gave me a handful of different sized Taiwanese Centavos?. Being a very sceptical person regarding taxi-drivers in general and airport taxi-drivers in particular. I took him to the reception desk and asked the receptionist, if this lying bastard was trying to rip me off.
Unfortunately, the receptionist was equally as unreceptive as far as the English language went, but managed to convey the fact that they were in the process of changing from large coins to smaller coins and that some of the smaller coins were in fact worth more than the larger ones, even though they were made of the same stuff (In Australia most of the little ones are made of gold stuff and are worth more than bigger silvery ones).
As there were no Roman Numerals on the coins, this made life difficult during my time there and I had to rely upon the honesty of the good folks of Taiwan. Which is not a very reliable assumption of any nationality and I am not casting any aspersions on the Taiwanese.
After parking my bag and having a quick shower, I went back to the reception desk and managed to make it understood that I desired something to eat. She signalled that I could take a taxi, but once bitten, I decided to go out for a walk and check the place out, figuring that I could just do the usual and find a bar somewhere and have a packet of peanuts if necessary.
This proved easier said than done, this was early evening and already dark, so I approached the first place I came across with flashing neon lights and went in, to say that I was surprised to find that it was a ladies hairdressers would be an understatement. To find out that the next two places I approached turned out to be the same, was more than a trifle disconcerting. I appeared to have stumbled on the Ladies Hairdressing Centre of the Capital of Taiwan.
By this time, I had worked up a terrible thirst so I caught a taxi and indicated this in sign language. He took me to what may have been at that time the only street in Taipei that catered for western style drunks. I entered one such establishment and went to the bar, over which was a huge sign saying “IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT, YOU AIN’T SHIT”.
Being a bit of a grammatical pedant and not a pilot, I could only concur wholeheartedly with this sentiment. Seeing as the rest of the clientele appeared to consist of veterans of the ‘Flight over the Hump’ in the 1930’s. Or at the very least, from the Vietnam War, having ‘choppered’ innumerable Medevacs, I kept this observation to myself, (wisely, I thought at the time). Although I wasn’t totally accepted, I had a reasonable time and preferred it to being in a Ladies Hairdressing Salon.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Whatever, I decided to go over there and have a quick shufty for myself, so I took off on an airline (I can’t remember which one, probably Cathay Pacific). After an uneventful flight, which was probably punctuated with a fair few alcoholic beverages, as was normal in those halcyon days of yore, I landed at the airport in Taipei.
I was transported to a hotel by a non-English speaking taxi driver and handed over a Taiwanese Shekel? or somesuch and he gave me a handful of different sized Taiwanese Centavos?. Being a very sceptical person regarding taxi-drivers in general and airport taxi-drivers in particular. I took him to the reception desk and asked the receptionist, if this lying bastard was trying to rip me off.
Unfortunately, the receptionist was equally as unreceptive as far as the English language went, but managed to convey the fact that they were in the process of changing from large coins to smaller coins and that some of the smaller coins were in fact worth more than the larger ones, even though they were made of the same stuff (In Australia most of the little ones are made of gold stuff and are worth more than bigger silvery ones).
As there were no Roman Numerals on the coins, this made life difficult during my time there and I had to rely upon the honesty of the good folks of Taiwan. Which is not a very reliable assumption of any nationality and I am not casting any aspersions on the Taiwanese.
After parking my bag and having a quick shower, I went back to the reception desk and managed to make it understood that I desired something to eat. She signalled that I could take a taxi, but once bitten, I decided to go out for a walk and check the place out, figuring that I could just do the usual and find a bar somewhere and have a packet of peanuts if necessary.
This proved easier said than done, this was early evening and already dark, so I approached the first place I came across with flashing neon lights and went in, to say that I was surprised to find that it was a ladies hairdressers would be an understatement. To find out that the next two places I approached turned out to be the same, was more than a trifle disconcerting. I appeared to have stumbled on the Ladies Hairdressing Centre of the Capital of Taiwan.
By this time, I had worked up a terrible thirst so I caught a taxi and indicated this in sign language. He took me to what may have been at that time the only street in Taipei that catered for western style drunks. I entered one such establishment and went to the bar, over which was a huge sign saying “IF YOU AIN’T A PILOT, YOU AIN’T SHIT”.
Being a bit of a grammatical pedant and not a pilot, I could only concur wholeheartedly with this sentiment. Seeing as the rest of the clientele appeared to consist of veterans of the ‘Flight over the Hump’ in the 1930’s. Or at the very least, from the Vietnam War, having ‘choppered’ innumerable Medevacs, I kept this observation to myself, (wisely, I thought at the time). Although I wasn’t totally accepted, I had a reasonable time and preferred it to being in a Ladies Hairdressing Salon.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A very short, grossly inaccurate history of Taiwan
Taiwan
Just in case you’re unaware of it, (which is highly unlikely, or you wouldn't be perusing this) Taiwan is an island between 150-250kms (depending on which bit you look at) off the coast of mainland China that I visited in the mid- 1980’s. I went there for three weeks and had a stop over in Thailand for a bit of R and R for a week on the way back, for reasons which will become obvious if you carry on reading.
To give a little potted history of the Island, which may or may not be strictly accurate, on account of the fact that I’m relying on my memory and not looking it up on Google (which would be the obvious thing to do, but any silly bastard can do that).
Alright! Taiwan was originally populated by a mob of Chinese, they were invaded by the Japanese. They, the Japanese also invaded Manchuria, but they made a big mistake some time later, when they bombed the crap out of the American Fleet at Pearl Harbour.
This had the result of making the Americans very angry, which any idiot could have predicted. This resulted in the Yanks dropping a couple of atom bombs on Japan, which wasn’t particularly friendly, but did stop WWII which was good, unless you were Japanese. To the Taiwanese this meant the end of the Japanese occupation.
Meanwhile, on the Chinese Mainland, the Japanese had also returned home. This left the Communists under Mao Tse Tung and the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek to resume hostilities over who should rule China. Well, depending upon which particular school of thought you were dragged up under, for better or worse Mao beat the bejasus out of Chiang.
Chiang, spat the dummy and along with his supporters (The Kuomintang) grabbed as much gold and priceless relics as he could get his sticky fingers on and took off for Taiwan in 1949. I am unaware what the locals thought of this, they may have been overjoyed, or they may well have thought “What the fuck is going on here? I don’t like the look of this new mob!”
However, it was a ‘fait accompli’ as we intellectuals say and the locals were stuck with them. Between them they started copying things from the West in much the same way as the Hong Kongers (another mob of ex-patriate Chinese) so that ‘Made in Taiwan’ and ‘Made in Hong Kong’ and ‘Made in Japan’ became synonymous in the West as ‘A bunch of el-cheapo crap’ in the 50’s and 60’s.
Of course the Orientals were far too inscrutable and hard-working to let that continue and those labels are now badges of pride. All you have to do to confirm this, is to visit any Department Store or Car Yard and check out the electronic goods and cars and shake your head in wonder.
That ends the history lesson.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
Just in case you’re unaware of it, (which is highly unlikely, or you wouldn't be perusing this) Taiwan is an island between 150-250kms (depending on which bit you look at) off the coast of mainland China that I visited in the mid- 1980’s. I went there for three weeks and had a stop over in Thailand for a bit of R and R for a week on the way back, for reasons which will become obvious if you carry on reading.
To give a little potted history of the Island, which may or may not be strictly accurate, on account of the fact that I’m relying on my memory and not looking it up on Google (which would be the obvious thing to do, but any silly bastard can do that).
Alright! Taiwan was originally populated by a mob of Chinese, they were invaded by the Japanese. They, the Japanese also invaded Manchuria, but they made a big mistake some time later, when they bombed the crap out of the American Fleet at Pearl Harbour.
This had the result of making the Americans very angry, which any idiot could have predicted. This resulted in the Yanks dropping a couple of atom bombs on Japan, which wasn’t particularly friendly, but did stop WWII which was good, unless you were Japanese. To the Taiwanese this meant the end of the Japanese occupation.
Meanwhile, on the Chinese Mainland, the Japanese had also returned home. This left the Communists under Mao Tse Tung and the Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek to resume hostilities over who should rule China. Well, depending upon which particular school of thought you were dragged up under, for better or worse Mao beat the bejasus out of Chiang.
Chiang, spat the dummy and along with his supporters (The Kuomintang) grabbed as much gold and priceless relics as he could get his sticky fingers on and took off for Taiwan in 1949. I am unaware what the locals thought of this, they may have been overjoyed, or they may well have thought “What the fuck is going on here? I don’t like the look of this new mob!”
However, it was a ‘fait accompli’ as we intellectuals say and the locals were stuck with them. Between them they started copying things from the West in much the same way as the Hong Kongers (another mob of ex-patriate Chinese) so that ‘Made in Taiwan’ and ‘Made in Hong Kong’ and ‘Made in Japan’ became synonymous in the West as ‘A bunch of el-cheapo crap’ in the 50’s and 60’s.
Of course the Orientals were far too inscrutable and hard-working to let that continue and those labels are now badges of pride. All you have to do to confirm this, is to visit any Department Store or Car Yard and check out the electronic goods and cars and shake your head in wonder.
That ends the history lesson.
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
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