Trying Wordpress

I've been having issues with Blogger recently, so I'm trying out Wordpress to see what it's like.

I kinda like it, although it will take some time playing with it to really make a decision.

Until further notice, all posts will be made to my new blog at http://lenlangevin.wordpress.com/

I hope to see you there!

Taiwanese Hospitality

A couple locals who befriended Wendy and me at a little restaurant.

After spending time in Taiwan and Mainland China, I often wonder how Asian visitors to Canada or America find us as hosts. When was the last time you approached people on the street looking at a map and asked them if they need directions? Have yo ever walked up to a table of people speaking a different language and tried to start up a conversation, regardless of whether you spoke that language or not?

If you're like me, the answers to the above questions are "never" and "no."

I've mentioned the hospitality of Mainland China in previous posts, but it's even more pronounced here in Taiwan. We've been here a month and we've already lost track on the number of times people on the street have offered us help without a request from us. It will happen when we're reading a bus schedule, or looking at the subway guide, or standing on a sidewalk looking at our map.

"Hello! Can I help you?" is something we've heard many times since arriving in Kaohsiung. On one of those occasions Wendy and I were trying to get our Taiwanese cell phone numbers. This is incredibly easy in Hong Kong, Macau and Mainland China, where you just hand a vendor the equivalent of $20 Canadian and he gives you a SIM card with a local phone number. It's a little more involved in Taiwan. When looking for a cell provider office, we stopped at a TGI Friday's where we knew the staff spoke English and asked for directions to a place where we could buy a SIM card. The host gave us directions and even wrote the name of the place in Chinese so we knew what sign to look for. We didn't have any luck finding the place he told us about and we kept retracing our steps, thinking we had missed the place.

As we walked by TGI Friday's again, one of the hostesses who was getting off work noticed we were still looking for the Taiwan Mobile office. She looked at the address we had and realized the first guy gave us directions to a location that had moved. This young lady had difficulty giving us directions we could understand, so she actually went out of her way and took us to a store...then she actually stayed and did the interpreting for us!

Getting away from receiving help on the street, I'm even more impressed with basic hospitality from locals who just start talking to you out of the blue. This often happens in a little mom-and-pop restaurant that doesn't have any English menus or pictures of what they sell. These are the places where I try to muddle through in my survival Chinese skills and hope to hell I get what I think I just ordered. If I can't get through with my Chinese skills, I usually end up in the kitchen, pointing at ingredients and playing charades trying to demonstrate how I want the stuff cooked.

In those situations, someone in the restaurant - sometimes the owner, other times a customer - will come to our table and start a conversation, usually beginning with "Welcome to Taiwan. Where are you from?"

They usually only speak a couple words of English, and more often than not, the "where are you from" part is in Chinese. I muddle through with the little Chinese I have, often referring to the Chinese-English phrasebook in my pocket, and before you know it, a few other locals have joined us at our table and we all share a few laughs on how we butcher each others language.

Broken English or broken Chinese may not be the most effective way to communicate, but never underestimate the power of either of them!

Taiwan: China, but not China

 One of many building-sized billboard in downtown Kaohsuing

Taiwan is a bit of an oddity. To the Taiwanese, it is an independent country called the Republic of China. To the Chinese, it's a province of the People's Republic of China. To the rest of the world, it depends on how your government recognizes each place. During the height of the Cold War, most of the world recognized Taiwan as the Republic of China, completely ignoring the Godless Communists of Mainland China. The list of countries that officially recognizes Taiwan as the Republic of China shrinks daily, thanks to the Mainland's economic clout and massive pool of cheap labor that other countries want to exploit. To further confuse matters, countries that move their official recognition to Mainland China still maintain "Economic Trade" offices in Taiwan. These offices are actually embassies in disguise because if you recognize the Mainland as "China," it cannot also recognize Taiwan as "China." Because of that, Mainland China has all most of the world's embassies while Taiwan is home to a very long list of trade offices. Basically, it's a huge diplomatic tap dance that tries to keep everyone happy.

The Dragon and Tiger Pagodas at Lotus Pond in Kaohsiung

Despite the political/diplomatic quagmire and the complex history that makes Taiwan what it is today, it is still  Chinese in culture, with a few differing cultural characteristics which makes the Taiwanese markedly different from their Mainland counterparts.

To further illustrate this, a brief history of Taiwan is necessary. After being colonized or conquered by a few different countries over the centuries (the Portuguese and Dutch claimed the island at different points in history), Taiwan ended up under Japanese control for 50 years from 1895 to 1945. After the Second World War, an international tribunal determined that Taiwan should be returned to China (Mainland China, that is). This was a bittersweet moment for the Taiwanese. Although they were controlled by a foreign government, Taiwan prospered and developed well under Japanese rule while Mainland China remained undeveloped. Making matters worse, Taiwan was handed back to the Mainland while the country was in the midst of the civil war between the ruling Kuomintang party and Mao Zedong's Communist forces.

When the communists defeated the Kuomintang on the Mainland, Chiang Kai Shek and the remainder of his forces fled to Taiwan where he stubbornly entrenched himself as the President of the Republic of China. Rather than following Chiang to Taiwan and defeating him there, Mao let Chiang operate in Taiwan. Unfortunately for Mao, the rest of the world was slow to recognize his government as the People's Republic of China. That basically brings us to where we are today.

Wendy at the top of the Dragon Pagoda

If you have ever spent any time in Mainland China, the differences are often subtle - much like the differences between Canada and the US. The Taiwanese are more worldly. They don't live behind the Great Firewall of China, so they have far more contact with the rest of the world - and none of the Mainland's propaganda. Taiwan has a well established middle class, so the spread between rich and poor is not as evident in the Mainland. The Taiwanese are more polite than their mainland counterparts (you can really see the Japanese influence come through here). They bow like the Japanese, politely stand in line or take a number, speak quieter...the list goes on. This is not to say the Mainland Chinese are impolite - they just have a different set of values regarding what is polite. One thing the Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese have in common is they will kill you with kindness and hospitality.

For the visible differences between Taiwan and China, Taiwan is much cleaner. The cities seem more organized (from an engineering/infrastructure standpoint), the driving is less crazy (but still very chaotic compared to Western standards).

A colorful 22-meter statue of the God Xuantian, which houses a Daoist temple.

Going to the other end of the spectrum, Taiwan is more "Chinese" that Mainland China in some ways. Unlike Mainland China which was plundered of its historic architecture during the cultural revolution, Taiwan is home to countless pieces of classic Chinese architecture - temples, pagodas, courtyard homes, etc. It's difficult to walk any distance here in Kaohsiung without passing a temple of some sort.

So that's my take on Taiwan so far. It's only been a month and we've only been in one city so far and I'm sure I'll discover more differences and similarities as time goes by.

For more photos from Kaohsiung, go to http://www.facebook.com/lenlangevin#!/album.php?aid=427709&id=850395130