Spreading the word about Taiwan
From bus drivers, random pedestrians to busy looking people in suits— Taiwanese people are the friendliest I ever met, would go above and beyond to help, direct and ensure you have the greatest experience possible in their beloved country.
How Taiwanese relate to art
There is a gallery-auction house that sells impressive volumes of world-class art — it is Sotheby’s. Their presence in Asia gets stronger as more buyers come from the region or choose to store their art in places having more convenient tax regulations such as Singapore, Macao or Hong Kong. Regarding taxes, Taiwan is not attractive though it has many interested and capable to pay the price citizens. While China has the highest rate of new billionaires, Taiwan is on that pass since the 1950s. To show off a $50 million painting in April 2019 (before protests in Hong Kong) the Sotheby’s has chosen not their regional base which is Hong Kong, nor Shanghai or Tokyo, and not even Singapore but Taipei.
“Taipei ranked 8th among cities for those with $30 Million plus” — according to Bloomberg.
Taipei 101
Prior to my trip to Taipei, I have listened to a 99,9% invisible podcast about the construction of Taipei 101. I was surprised to learn the project got started in 1997.
Can you recall what was happening in your home country in 1997?
Taipei 101 got opened in 2004 and housed at that point the largest Christian Dior store in the world.
Taiwan is a small country surrounded by powerful neighbors, it often gets overlooked on the map and therefore they want to get more visibility.
It is pretty surprising for me that an entire nation is that conscious that they want to be recognized for good and get noticed by doing something positive and peaceful, without conquering, destroying and murdering, while the latter is a way more common approach and effectively brings lots of attention and makes “the world” to count with “You” and your “Huge Ambitious”.
“Taiwanese learned the importance of modesty from the Japanese and value the traditional Chinese virtue of humility.”
A quick excursus into Taiwanese “melting pot”
Taiwan's indigenous population is genetically and linguistically Austronesian related to most of Philipines, Indonesian, Malaysian and Brunei people.
First Chinese came in the 17th century. The same century was also a time for Dutch colonization who established their tax system, schools and churches.
The end of the 19th and half of the 20th century were under Japanese rule until they lost in WWII and had to free the island. Till then Taiwan was mostly known as Formosa — the name that was given by Portuguese who as early as in the 16th century got impressed with the island’s beauty, the name “Beautiful Island” stick for centuries.
After WWII Taiwan got significant money infusion brought by Chinese who fleed communists in mainland China. Those Chinese did not come alone but accompanied by Russians and Jewish who initially left the Soviet Union because of communists (those migrated mostly to Shanghai) and then had to abandon their new home in fear of Chinese communists for Taiwan.
Also after WWII, and especially during the Korean War in the 50s, the US military bases got established all over Taiwan, meaning lots of Americans eventually settled here for life.
After WWII and until 1971 Taiwan represented China in the United Nations but that year communist China got recognized as a legitimately functioning state and therefore Taiwan lost its seat. Since Taiwan no longer represents China and is on a pace of being an independent nation.
In Taipei I haven’t encountered anyone who would not be able to reply immediately and with no hesitation in English.
The only thing that expats complain about in Taipei is ignorance towards architecture.
I was told by Taiwanese they tend to keep prettiness inside and less for the outside eyes.
Taiwanese cuisine and iconic pineapple cake
There is another podcast I can strongly suggest as insightful. I found it only while writing this post, it interviews authors of a book about the culinary history of Taiwan. To me, it gave an answer to why I have got so crazy about a traditional treat that tourists bring from Taiwan — pineapple cake.
Interesting side note from the podcast: the authors mentioned they had no plans to research and write about the Taiwanese cuisine until they got invited and paid from Taiwan to do the work and spread the word about Taiwan!
Taiwan works on developing and spreading its positive brand as a country.
While researching on Taiwanese cuisine authors turned to history and the 50s, when during the Korean War, Taiwan got lots of military and economic aid from the US, which included such products as corn, beef, cow butter, etc. that were previously broadly foreign to Asia.
In the 1990s the US corn producer even launched a competition in the country for the best recipe of a corn-based soup, aiming to make their beloved American corn known, lovable and wanted in Taiwan.
As of Taiwanese ties to Japan, there are many specialties usually considered as Japanese to be locally produced in Taiwan, among such is matcha.
The cake that you see on a picture from above is a real hit these days all across Asia, not only in Taiwan. As you can guess these are traditional European crepes put together with a traditional Asian on this occasion Japanese felling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ1UXvhUVzI
Pineapple cake is the number one thing tourists bring from Taiwan
I was more than just surprised to learn that the recipe for Taiwanese pinnacle cake is developed by a Russian aristocrat who migrated to Taiwan and opened in 1949 a cafe together with several more Russians and Taiwanese partners.
That cafe still functions — it was founded with a typical name for cafes with Jewish founders — Cafe Astoria. As the first European style cafe, it attracted various important guests such as writers, poets, actors both local and foreign.
In the podcast, they explained that such ingredients as cow butter and milk are very unusual for the region. Indeed when I decided to bake the cake myself while mentally preparing to a complex recipe with extraordinary ingredients — I was surprised it turned out to be a typical European pastry: mix butter with sugar, en egg yolk, a tiny bit of milk and salt, then add flour — and you are done. The feeling for the cake is basically a jam out of pineapple: cut pineapple into pieces, then cook on low heat with a bit of sugar and lemon juice till it will become a consistently creamy jam substance — cool it down and use after as the feeling.
Night markets in Taipei
Night markets all over Asia play an important role in people’s life. It is the same in Taiwan. You go to a market to spend time, to play, meet friends, eat, drink and maybe shop in the end.
I was extremely lucky to have by my side a friend who’s family is originally from Taiwan and who was visiting them the same time I was there. We experienced a night market as locals do: played various games and ate things that foreigners usually afraid of ordering.
For example, we had stinky tofu and I must say it has a very strong smell but in the end, it is just tofu, fermented but nothing to be afraid of!
My favorite Taiwanese streetfood is a sausage inside another sausage —called sticky rice sausage! The bigger sausage made out of sticky rice with spices and garlic, all that is shaped like a sausage. The smaller sausage is just a normal sausage. They are often served with mayo and pickles. Delicious!
It is just common and normal for Taiwanese to queue up for something. For these buns, people were ready to wait for hours and lucky we came back at the very end of the evening and waited 15 mins max.
Food in Taiwan was certainly an everyday joy for me. Check food-guides and come to try it yourself cause it is a unique experience!
On the picture below you can see how everyone pictures the entrance to the night market while ignoring this gorgeous temple.
There are many hipster places in Taipei and overall in Taiwan, almost too many. I won’t be talking about them, you can easily find them on Instagram. But there is one eatery that I want to point you to. I am ready to fly back just to have this dish again. It is a bit like crepes but salty and well, it is not like crepes, but super delicious.
Wild Lily and Sunflower movements in Taiwan
In the 1990s Taiwan went through week-long students' pro-democracy demonstrations wearing white lilies as a symbol of simplicity and care for indigenous people.
In 2014 another student demonstration occurred. A florist donated 1000 sunflowers to protestors which were used as an allusion to the Wild Lily pro-democracy movement in the 90s and as a symbol of hope for a better future.
What Hong Kong protests mean for Taiwan?
Hong Kong currently gets lots of world attention — everyone observes China dealing with protests in what they consider belongs to them. One wrong move can cause a scud of the world's negativity towards communist China. A couple of months back I published an article explaining the situation in Hong Kong which is indeed is to become officially part of China in 2047. Still, there are almost 30 more years to go although already for years it is harder for Hongkongians to maintain their freedoms and protect values from China.
In Taiwan which is considered by China as also another province of theirs and not an independent country, there are groups of people who prepare to stand for their freedom and protect democracy.
There is a Taiwanese parliamentarian who is the leader of a popular metal band and additionally, a jury member in a popular talent show that older Taiwanese adore. In the video above, he talks about his vision of Taiwan’s future collaborating with Japan, the US and Australia to navigate better relationships with China and resist Beijing’s infowar.
Nowadays, the number of people migrating from Hong Kong to Taiwan is raising. According to the official statistic, in 2019% Taiwan granted 30% more residence permits compared to the previous year. It is not easy though for Hongkongians to obtain residence. The asylum process is not in place in Taiwan. Therefor usually people can obtain a permit in case they study in Taiwan or through investment. In the video below a coffee shop owner originally from Hong Kong explained that he got his residence by investing $197,000 into Taiwan’s economy.
In a little bit more than a month, there is a general election for presidency and vice-presidency in Taiwan on January 11, 2020, and there are many news accusing Beijing in interfering with the course of the election.
The US is one of the most important supporters and business partners for Taiwan (in 2017 Taiwan got ranked to be the 11th by the US’ top trading partners by the total exchange of goods, despite the US not recognizing Taiwan officially as a sovereign country).
In August 2019, when the situation in Hong Kong was already overheated and the election campaign in Taiwan was fully running — the US made 8 billion weapons deal with Taiwan and executed it unprecedently quickly as for this sort of a transaction. That important for Taiwanese leaders it is to show their citizens they can protect the country and for the US to show that they are ready to help Taiwanese leaders in standing up for their values against China.
China demands the weapon deal to be revoked, moreover, they demand the US to stop selling weapons and providing military training to Taiwan.
“One country two systems” slogan used by China in Hong Kong proves its inefficiency to 23 million Taiwanese population and therefore keenness towards protecting Taiwanese independent status is strong on agenda.
China, Hong Kong and Taiwan are complexly interconnected. There is certainly no way one could say that China’s territorial claims for both Taiwan and Hong Kong are groundless.
Taiwan holds one of the biggest collections of art artifacts on China’s history — 700,000 pieces in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. They got there with fleeing from communists China’s leaders. To nowadays the museum avoids exhibiting in China in fear of losing these valuable artifacts.
On the other hand, there are reasons for Taiwan to claim its independence. When Japan lost in WWII it was to transfer Taiwan back to China, that transition did not officially happen as the official government of China got overthrown by communists who for decades were not getting official international recognition.
The most surprising thing I learned in Taiwan
Taiwanese temples host not just multiple gods but multiple religions inside.
In one temple you can find a Buddhist, Taoist, Chinese folk religion corner and more. I was nothing but shocked about this fact and ask several times to repeat it. The woman who was introducing me to the Bangka Lungshan temple (one of the most famous in Taipei) was surprised that I am surprised.
Yes, different religions can coexist and be framed by one fence.
The bigger the yard is — the more space there is for differences.
On this thought, I would like to finish my article. I hope that soon I will be able to edit it to add a link to a separate post about my trip to the coast of Yin Yang sea, Golden waterfalls and mountain gold mine village Jiufen cause these places must be presented separately.
