Week 1 - Taiwan vs China

It's been impossible, during these initial days of my stay in Taiwan, not to walk around making comparisons with China the whole time. The two are so similar in so many ways, - they are debatably the same country, depending on how you view that concept and who you talk to (!!) - and, after all, China has been my most significant other Asia experience. So I thought I would write a post on it now while I still have fresh newbie eyes.

Typical Taipei street view

(Disclaimer: All opinions stated are of course entirely subjective and based on my very limited impressions. In fact this should really be called 'Kunming vs Taipei: An Outsider's View'! Im also aware that Taipei is a capital city and Kunming is not at all)

I'm gonna take it as a given that the similarities are obvious: Taiwan is ethnically 98% Han Chinese, predominantly Mandarin speaking, generally culturally Chinese etc, And so Taipei looks like China, it sounds like China, it TASTES like China! But it does not smell like China and, perhaps most importantly,  it really doesnt feel like China.

The first and most striking difference is that this city is clean, so clean! I havent seen or heard one person hack up and spit in the street. Not one child has peed in front of me. The subway, or MRT, is immaculate and has copious amounts of quite frankly amazing toilets, it puts the London Underground to shame. (Incidentally it is also cheap, really easy to use, bilingual, airconditioned and I freaking love it!) Little cheap streetside cantings (like tiny chinese diners) look EXACTLY like the ones in Kunming, except you get a bit closer and realise they arent grimed with the dirt of years of vague and pretend cleaning, plus the floor isnt covered in dusty mud or bits of spat out food.

Taipei MRT station

Needless to say, this makes me sooo happy!

The second most obvious thing is the proliferation of foreign outlets, I.e. loads of starbucks, pizza hut, mcdonalds, kfc, subway, uniqlo etc. Okay they have most of those in China too but it seems a lot more here, plus the goods sold are not so much more expensive than local stuff (combination of local products being more expensive than in Kunming and foreign stuff being cheaper) and they seem more integrated, less specialist and exotic. There are also loads of coffee places / European-style cafes, Japanese restaurants and, wierdly, pasta places?! They look kind of awful so Im waiting til im really desperate for pasta before darkening their doors... Oh and while I'm on the subject, I cant leave out the ubiquitous 7-11s - literally one on every street! They're an American thing right? Well here they are super-Taiwanese and even sell trad food like tea-eggs.

Anyway, the amount of foreign stuff maybe adds to the overall sensation of variety here, much more than Kunming where it seemed like every street just had the same stuff in the same types of shops as every other street in the whole country. It may be my imagination but this also seems to extend to clothes and fashion.

Next up is the cultural output. It's inevitable of course that this is completely different in Taiwan since, in contrast to the mainland, there is no censorship, but its very important to me so I think it's worth mentioning. In China I felt quite frustrated when I was looking for things to inspire me, to lure me into the Chinese world and language and psyche.  It felt like the contemporary cultural output was only a thin layer and you could enter it at any point (TV, film, music, books, art, etc.) and dig about, but it wouldn't take long before you reached bedrock and couldnt get any further. There was no depth to it, only width, and it all felt inauthentic, faked and... sanitised into a government agenda allegory. At least what was easily accessible from within China anyway.

In Taiwan it feels different. I cant pretend I have done much delving yet, lack of language skill being a severe handicap, but just from visiting some art galleries and bookshops, watching some TV, there's so much more variety, style and, dare I say it, sophistication? Im pretty sure theres more of a counterculture here too. Not that theres NONE in China, but I think its less developed. Tawainese people certainly seem more 'worldly wise' which again is probably inevitable in a more open, better-interacted society.

Bumped into these guys just jammin in the carpark outside Taipei Fine Art gallery...

This will all sound really obvious to anyone who knows a bit about this part of the world, but I really do feel the difference as much as I expected to and, being someone who is attracted to quirky, eccentric and 'countercultural' things, I'm glad!

Finally, another difference in my opinion is the people. Taiwanese people seem a lot...quieter than mainland Chinese. Subdued. Polite in a more Western sense of the word. More serious. Less flashy. This could be the Japanese influence (Taiwan was occupied by Japan for the first half of the 20th century), or maybe it's the result of having been economically successful and developed for longer. Who knows! But it does make everything a little bit less intense to my restrained, polite British eye.

As an example, I was reminded of mainland Chinese social mores the day I visited the National Palace Museum here. It houses the largest collection of Chinese antiquities in the world and is VERY popular with Chinese tourists. When I went it was absolutely heaving and I was literally elbowed/pushed out of the way every few minutes by groups taking guided tours, or just wandering around. Seriously, if I wasn't standing with my nose pressed against the glass of an exhibit someone would just come and squeeze right in front of me so that I would find myself taking a close up look at the back of their head instead of the ancient bowl. Or a group would surround me and totally full-body-contact me on all sides. Argh!

Chinese tourists outside the National Palace Museum

All in all, I feel way more comfortable in Taipei than in China. Things feel almost... normal?! I mean obviously not really since everything is totally foreign to me, the weather is insanely hot and humid, I can just barely comunicate essentials and can't read a thing, but considering all that, it doesn't feel SO terrifying. Most of the time.

You'd be forgiven for thinking China has come off pretty badly in this comparison, huh? China is not without it's merits though. I miss the general cheeky, cheerful, rough and ready positive attitude that seemed to be everywhere in Kunming. I miss the nice weather and relatively clean air. And the super low prices too! (Mostly I miss the friends I had there, the routine, and knowing where everything was, but that's not so relevant).

China has an inexplicable charm all it's own, it can't be denied. And it's a more interesting place for a visit. But as somewhere to live for a while, in my opinion Taiwan /Taipei wins hands down!

Of course, to live here for a while I will actually have to get a job and that's proving a little tricky...