AsiaTalk: Taiwan's Today

Last month I used a lot of ink basically to say that Taiwan and mainland China seem to be getting along better now than they have in the past. And barring any major disruptions to the the politics of the region, the two sides should continue to grow closer in the years to come, likely resulting in a peaceful unification along the lines of the reunification of Hong Kong in 1997.

This month I want to take off my metaphorical necktie and simply be your eyes as I share with you what I did and saw on my four-day vacation in the city of Taipei, the capital of Taiwan.

My time on the island of Taiwan naturally began in an international airport. (Though someday I'd like to go there by boat!) The building itself was relatively clean, though not very new. (It kind of reminded me a little of Tantasqua, actually.) Fortunately there was an ATM machine (Cirrus Network) right on the other side of customs, and using my cash card I was able to take out Taiwanese money without any hassles or exorbitant fees. With a wallet full of funny (looking) money foreign money, I boarded a bus for downtown.

The architecture of the city and the layout of the streets is a cross between what can be found in many other Chinese cities. It wasn't as boxy as the cookie-cutter structures which dominate Beijing, though some of this style did stretch past my eyes as I looked out the bus window. Yet neither was the scencery as dramatic as what can be found in Hong Kong, where jam-packed tenaments can be found right next door to world class 5 star hotels. For those of you who have been to, say, Chinatown in Boston, I'm sorry to say it didn't look much like anything that can be found there. Much like Chinese food, Chinese style achitecture outside of China has developed its own unique characteristics.

After touring around the city a bit, I went to a Taiwanese friend's house where I was kindly allowed to stay while in Taiwan. The inside of the house again reminded me of my other experiences in China. It is not uncommon for a number of generations of a family all live together. The grandparents together with three of their four children. The eldest of whom is in her mid-thirties, is married, and has a 5 year old daughter. The amount of livable land relative to the number people is much lower throughout Asia than it is in the U.S., even when compared to some of the bigger cities in our country. People are satisfied with what we from the West generally would think of as too small a living space.