Taiwan has many quirky aspects to its lifestyle and culture, but we're pretty much immured to all these things by now. I thought it might be fun to cast our minds back to when we were shocked, horrified, interested or just mildly surprised by some of these things.
Taiwan tiles every building and surface inside and out. There is some edict from the government that buildings must be externally clad in a form of tile. This means that every building as far as the eye can see looks a little like a bathroom or kitchen turned inside out. There is the occasional one that has sought and won some kind of exemption, cloaked in steel and glass, but in the main, off-white rectangular tiles seem to be the clothing of choice. In the sulfur laden atmosphere in the volcanic north of the island, the buildings very quickly look shabby and run-down. To add to this tile fever, many pavements and shop stoops are also tiled in high gloss numbers which can see the populace ice- skating along footpaths during the not infrequent tropical downpours!
Cars are either white or black( except for cabs which are yellow). Sharing the Japanese fondness for white vehicles (perhaps for safety or a sense of conformity), the Taiwanese car-buyer is not terribly adventurous. The roads seem comically kaleidoscopic when we arrive back home with colours of the rainbow, metallic paints and accents. Here in Taiwan, if you buy a top-of-the-line Mercedes it seems de rigueur that it should be black. We, however, with our metallic silver Honda Accord are being outrageously non-conformist!
Although we rave on incessantly about the high quality, variety and value of international food options here in Taipei, it wasn't always so and remains only a tiny part of the city's overall foodscape. Local favourites such as oyster omelettes, beef noodles and stinky tofu are still delectable choices at night markets and stalls, along with a dizzying array of other choices, vegetarian and non-vegetarian. One constant, seemingly on every block and always chock-a-block full of slurping customers, are the "slop kitchens" where every manner of steaming noodle concoction can be had. Many of these brews have floating body parts, largely unidentifiable, of various animals: in fact some restaurants boast that no body part goes unused.....the ultimate recyclers!
It's not uncommon to be driving along a very major thoroughfare and be suddenly stalled in a line of traffic. This is to be expected in a big Asian city (especially one like Taipei where there is an urban legend which says that there are nowhere near enough car-parks for all the cars in the city: thankfully there are always thousands on the roads at any given time!). The cause, however, is often just someone picking up their dry-cleaning, collecting some takeaway, or sometimes, just stopping to have a chat to someone they know! They stop their car right in the middle of the traffic lane closest to the footpath and put hazard lights on, which seems to be the equivalent of a supersonic force-field around the car giving them license to do whatever they like. Everyone just calmly waits, no horns, no yelling, no road rage. Hey, you can do it next time too!
Photos: Photo up top is a get-together for an AFL match 7 years ago....we all look so young! The ubiquitous makeup exhibition in the department store, the very best ice cream sandwich you'll ever eat: a Japanese milk caramel made by Morinaga, a "Mory"! Bamboo horses in the park, strings of snags in the open air, and a glittering array of fish in the foreground as Cass buys a slab of salmon.
Just for fun: The current "Game of Thrones" sex and splatterfest series might be based on the long running Taiwan-China territorial dispute according to this article