Sitting in an Internet Cafe in Taiwan...Enjoying Freedom...
When I was planning my trip to Taiwan not that long ago (in fact, I didn't seriously think about it til I got to Xiamen, across the Strait from Taiwan....AFTER already on the road for a week in Wuhan, Guangdong Province, plus Hong Kong and Macao...I was kind of suspicions from Chinese border customs regarding why I am leaving the country 3 times in 4 days), going to an Internet cafe was definitely part of the plan...all the blocked sites, especially Facebook and this one (I have been posting via email for the past month and half on the mainland), need to be accessed...
Now here I am, sitting in a loud 24-hour Net Cafe in Tainan City, my first chance in accessing the Internet in Taiwan...there is a dog barking and walking down the hall in the net cafe rather leisurely and I am getting constantly distracted by the sounds of someone playing some gambling machine next door (I suppose the net cafes here also do other entertainment options?)...so yeah, the writing is and will be pretty horrible, but heck, as long as I can actually access this site and post something (anything) I should be happy, right?
Right? Freedom, should I say? Amidst all the commotions and worry about how much money I am gonna spend in this place as I upload all the photos I can to facebook, I am just amazed by the kind of serenity and joy I am feeling in a place so similar to home (speaking Chinese and looking like Japan) yet so different (I am probably one of only few mainlanders not coming here with a highly restricted tour group). I am staying in a rather cheap but very nice hotel (600 New Taiwan Dollar, converted to about 15 USD) in the middle of Tainan City, ironically the first city built by the mainland Chinese immigrants in Taiwan...
Now speaking of those differences, I have to say that the mainland really does have a lot to learn from this place. Unlike Hong Kong and Macao where all the "normal" neighborhoods (as opposed to where the wealthy bankers and casino owners live) look like any run-down Chinatown in the States, even the little towns here in Taiwan (after walking around Jincheng Township in rural Kinmen Island where I first landed on a ferry from Xiamen on the mainland) have an incredible sense of older and history. Not the kind of all-the-old-buildings-remain-the-same kind of history you see in Hong Kong and Macao, but the preservation of local culture and historical buildings in an extremely ordered way that is in such a huge contract to the mainland.
Just as the mainland strives to tear down all disorderly old neighborhoods (slums are what they really are), Taiwan has improved the cleanliness of the very same kind of neighborhoods that the mainland are tearing down to make way for apartment blocks. The sense of order within cleanliness, as well as the preservation of old buildings as free museums for all visitors, have really touched me as the ideal for sustainable balance between modernity and history. After all, no one ever said to be modern means you have to have modern buildings everywhere...just look at Japan, all the apartments look old but once inside, the facilities are extremely and functional (same with the hotel I am staying here in Tainan).
Also, its important to remember that there is greater population density here than on the mainland (well, at least as a whole). But there is a remarkable lack of crowdedness on the street level. For example, on the train from Kaohsiung to Tainan (a local train at the incredibly cheap price of 69 New Taiwan Dollar, or about 2 USD), there were no lines waiting to get on the train and no crowdedness when I do get on the train (as opposed to the incredible things you see on Japanese trains). The phenomenon can easily be explained by the frequency of the trains (one or two running every few minutes, a real luxury considering that Taiwan only has one circular main line...plus, it also has a high-speed line from Kaohsiung to Taipei that can divert extra traffic)
The amble resources allow for lack of the crowds fighting for tickets that you see on the mainland (I mean, sometimes I just don't know what the mainland railways bureaus are thinking...they devote so many trains to certain lines, especially long distance ones, that all the small stations are completely ignored). Here the railways have become just another simple to use transportation method. You go to the ticket booth, buy a cheap ticket, and hop on a train few minutes later...no thinking about buying tickets days and weeks in advance like on the mainland (I guess its suitable to think about train tickets as fixed-price equivalents of airplane tickets on the mainland...availability is never guaranteed)
Even for plane tickets here in Taiwan (with its limited number of domestic routes), since there are so many different private airlines serving the same routes, you can literally walk into an airport and buy the ticket for the next available flight (exactly what I did to get from Kinmen to Kaohsiung, only a wait of two hours at about 1600 New Taiwan Dollars, about 50 USD)...the ability to travel on demand and whenever I want maybe the greatest freedom I feel here (even more than using unblocked Internet, that can be solved with VPN and proxy server on the mainland...I am just too lazy to do it)
Ok, less than twenty minutes left with my Internet session, I guess I can wait for tomorrow night for my photo uploading and all that (who know where I will be though). The conclusion for the day: Taiwan is a great place to travel because of amble resources within a small, limited geographic space with a population full of order...sure, the mainland cannot be Taiwan because of all the different realities (geography, population, etc.) but it is still great to realize that a Chinese-speaking country can be different and somehow better. Well, as the main purpose of my Taiwan trip is to learn about the differences of the mainland and Taiwan, I have to say that two days into Taiwanese territory and its already been a great eye-openers that I will never regret...
Now here I am, sitting in a loud 24-hour Net Cafe in Tainan City, my first chance in accessing the Internet in Taiwan...there is a dog barking and walking down the hall in the net cafe rather leisurely and I am getting constantly distracted by the sounds of someone playing some gambling machine next door (I suppose the net cafes here also do other entertainment options?)...so yeah, the writing is and will be pretty horrible, but heck, as long as I can actually access this site and post something (anything) I should be happy, right?
Right? Freedom, should I say? Amidst all the commotions and worry about how much money I am gonna spend in this place as I upload all the photos I can to facebook, I am just amazed by the kind of serenity and joy I am feeling in a place so similar to home (speaking Chinese and looking like Japan) yet so different (I am probably one of only few mainlanders not coming here with a highly restricted tour group). I am staying in a rather cheap but very nice hotel (600 New Taiwan Dollar, converted to about 15 USD) in the middle of Tainan City, ironically the first city built by the mainland Chinese immigrants in Taiwan...
Now speaking of those differences, I have to say that the mainland really does have a lot to learn from this place. Unlike Hong Kong and Macao where all the "normal" neighborhoods (as opposed to where the wealthy bankers and casino owners live) look like any run-down Chinatown in the States, even the little towns here in Taiwan (after walking around Jincheng Township in rural Kinmen Island where I first landed on a ferry from Xiamen on the mainland) have an incredible sense of older and history. Not the kind of all-the-old-buildings-remain-the-same kind of history you see in Hong Kong and Macao, but the preservation of local culture and historical buildings in an extremely ordered way that is in such a huge contract to the mainland.
Just as the mainland strives to tear down all disorderly old neighborhoods (slums are what they really are), Taiwan has improved the cleanliness of the very same kind of neighborhoods that the mainland are tearing down to make way for apartment blocks. The sense of order within cleanliness, as well as the preservation of old buildings as free museums for all visitors, have really touched me as the ideal for sustainable balance between modernity and history. After all, no one ever said to be modern means you have to have modern buildings everywhere...just look at Japan, all the apartments look old but once inside, the facilities are extremely and functional (same with the hotel I am staying here in Tainan).
Also, its important to remember that there is greater population density here than on the mainland (well, at least as a whole). But there is a remarkable lack of crowdedness on the street level. For example, on the train from Kaohsiung to Tainan (a local train at the incredibly cheap price of 69 New Taiwan Dollar, or about 2 USD), there were no lines waiting to get on the train and no crowdedness when I do get on the train (as opposed to the incredible things you see on Japanese trains). The phenomenon can easily be explained by the frequency of the trains (one or two running every few minutes, a real luxury considering that Taiwan only has one circular main line...plus, it also has a high-speed line from Kaohsiung to Taipei that can divert extra traffic)
The amble resources allow for lack of the crowds fighting for tickets that you see on the mainland (I mean, sometimes I just don't know what the mainland railways bureaus are thinking...they devote so many trains to certain lines, especially long distance ones, that all the small stations are completely ignored). Here the railways have become just another simple to use transportation method. You go to the ticket booth, buy a cheap ticket, and hop on a train few minutes later...no thinking about buying tickets days and weeks in advance like on the mainland (I guess its suitable to think about train tickets as fixed-price equivalents of airplane tickets on the mainland...availability is never guaranteed)
Even for plane tickets here in Taiwan (with its limited number of domestic routes), since there are so many different private airlines serving the same routes, you can literally walk into an airport and buy the ticket for the next available flight (exactly what I did to get from Kinmen to Kaohsiung, only a wait of two hours at about 1600 New Taiwan Dollars, about 50 USD)...the ability to travel on demand and whenever I want maybe the greatest freedom I feel here (even more than using unblocked Internet, that can be solved with VPN and proxy server on the mainland...I am just too lazy to do it)
Ok, less than twenty minutes left with my Internet session, I guess I can wait for tomorrow night for my photo uploading and all that (who know where I will be though). The conclusion for the day: Taiwan is a great place to travel because of amble resources within a small, limited geographic space with a population full of order...sure, the mainland cannot be Taiwan because of all the different realities (geography, population, etc.) but it is still great to realize that a Chinese-speaking country can be different and somehow better. Well, as the main purpose of my Taiwan trip is to learn about the differences of the mainland and Taiwan, I have to say that two days into Taiwanese territory and its already been a great eye-openers that I will never regret...
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