AsiaTalk: Taiwan's Today (II)

Hello, faithful readers. This month's article is the third and final installment in a series of articles about a short vacation trip I took to Taiwan in October '98. I'd like to share with you some memories from the trip which are still particularly vivid two months later.

No matter what new place I go, I try to be sure to take a ride on a regular good old commuter bus. Over the years, I have found that a bus of this sort can tell you more about the heart of a city than can your average tourist guidebook.

The buses in Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan, are of the 'working-man' variety. While most of them seem on the outside to be rather run-down, each time I rode in one I found they ran better than I expected. As a rule, the bus drivers were a bunch of driven men. They drove their buses hard, but weren't wild nor overly discourteous to drivers of other vehicles.

The buses were all rather loud with growling engines and rattling windows. Probably as a result of this, most of the riders kept to themselves, minding their own business. If no one was visible standing at a bus stop, the buses just barreled on by without slowing down. Overall, the impression I was left with was one of practical functionality and no-nonsense attitude. (What do you think a ride from the Brookfield common to Worcester on the WRTA would tell a foreigner about the culture of Central Massachusetts?)

Where did the bus rides take me? Well, on one occasion to a movie theater. With three Taiwanese friends, I saw Tom Hanks' (italics) Saving Private Ryan. The cost was about the same seven dollars we pay in the U.S. The huge theater was full with maybe three to four hundred people. The movie was in English with Chinese subtitles. I wonder how much time there is to read all those lines in a movie like this one with so much action. It struck be as a bit strange to be in watching a movie in Taiwan surrounded by a mainly Chinese audience about U.S.-German fighting in WWII. Hopefully, all this internationalism will help prevent a reoccurrence of the horrors of war which the movie so graphically depicted.

Prior to seeing the movie, I went to a Sunday morning church service at a large Protestant church in the downtown section of the city. We had to wait in line to get a seat and the worship hall was packed with about two hundred people. The music was a nice mix between contemporary and classic. There were instruments ranging from trombones to electric pianos to tambourines. The young Taiwanese pastor delivered a passionate message in Chinese (using an overhead projector to get his main points across) about how to raise God-loving children. It was a powerful experience.

I'm looking forward to talking with you again next month. Until then, may peace be with you. -Daniel Heller

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