Boston Herald on Tracing Chinese Roots in Taiwan

The Boston Herald offered this article from an American of Taiwanese descent, writing on returning to the homeland...

TAIWAN - As my bus made its way from Taichung to Sun Moon Lake, the landscape unfolded from a bustling city scene to rural farmland. Green rice fields stretched out on both sides of the road, replicating the Chinese countryside that had existed in my imagination.

When I read this comment the first time, I thought I was reading a bit of KMT propaganda out of the dark past. But later I realized that the writer simply had a somewhat one-sided view of what culture is:

But perhaps Taiwan’s biggest selling point is that it has allowed its Chinese culture to flourish. Many traditional practices, such as religious celebrations, are thriving in Taiwan, whereas they have been stifled by years of communism on the mainland.

When people talk about traditional culture they are generally writing about an idealized past, as expressed (as it is here) in folk religion, unless we are talking about people whose technological toolkits are much less robust than our own, in which case we refer to folk dancing and singing. The interesting thing here is that the Communist Party continues to let flourish traditional Chinese practices such as authoritarianism, which Taiwan has slowly been evolving away from. When people speak of traditional culture they rarely mean exiling, imprisoning, and executing political opponents.....

But a pleasant article, and it even mentions Taichung, the Desert of the Real -- although sensibly, the author is driving away from it. She gets away from the "Taiwan as Chinese culture" idealization eventually....

My trip began and ended in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital and largest city. As soon as I arrived, I knew I had much to learn. My mental image of Taipei was based on New York’s Chinatown (and to a lesser extent Boston’s), where I often visit, and friends’ accounts of such mainland cities as Beijing. I expected Taipei to be a chaotic city teeming with people, traffic, noise and poverty.

Instead, a sense of order pervaded this modern, fast-paced metropolis. The smoggy streets I envisioned were replaced with wide, tree-lined boulevards. Perfect rows of scooters sat along every sidewalk, and people formed neat queues while waiting to ride the MRT, Taipei’s clean and easy-to-navigate subway system.

That betel nut girl's for you, dear writer...

UPDATE: I felt sorry for the poor woman's lack of knowledge, but Jason over at Wandering to Tamshui had no such tender mercies. Go visit his mercilessly funny demolition of this article.

[Taiwan] [China] [Tourism] [travel] [Taichung]