My wife Helene and I just returned from a two-week
trip to these three areas. We were members of a group of 7 former members of
the Canadian parliament (all Conservatives, except for one NDPer) and 6 of
their spouses and friends.
The trip was managed by the Canadian Association of
Former Parliamentarians (CAFP), which you should know, did not subsidize it. The
CAFP secretary Carolina Moore accompanied us and made sure we made all our
appointments and that all the bills were paid.
The itinerary and logistics of the trip were handled
by Chungsen Leung (CS), with the assistance of Dorothy Dobbie. CS was Parliamentary Secretary in the
Stephen Harper government, serving Jason Kenny, the Minister of Immigration,
Citizenship and Multiculturalism. Dorothy Dobbie was Parliamentary
Secretary with for different ministers in the Brain Mulroney government. Both
CS and Dorothy lost their seats in the 2015 election.
CS was born and raised by a family that came to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek who fled the
mainland of China after his defeat by Mao in 1949. CS earned degrees in political
science and commerce at Carleton University and engineering at the
University of Southern California, pursued a successful career in business that
often took him to the three countries we visited. He became a Canadian citizen in
1976 and in 2011 he was elected to parliament.
CS drew on his personal and professional background to arrange
this trip that he believed would increase our understanding of the culture,
politics, and economics of the region and lead us to share this information
with friends, family and importantly, influential Canadian politicians we know.
His effort created a most informative and interesting itinerary involving a
good mix between visits to interesting tourist spots, cultural landmarks, economic
establishments, and meetings with political office holders and government
officials.
THE FLIGHTS AND OUR GUIDE
The
trip’s flights were on EVA Airlines of Taiwan (its privately owned national
airline), which used seemingly brand new Dreamliners and the world’s longest
plane the 777, very efficient staff and fine meals to serve us. For the first
time in ages, we got to use real steel knives and forks to eat our meals. I
guess we were just lucky. No one tried to use the knives to hijack the plane.
The overnight
nonstop flight to Taipei took eleven hours from Vancouver and 15 hours from
Toronto. Somewhat disoriented after landing, we were met by our mother hen,
Ting, who provided us the best tour service any of us had ever experienced. She
spoke English well, was superbly organized, helpful and informed about the
places we visited. Museums tend to bore me after a short time, but Ting made
near three hours at the National Palace Museum of Taiwan fly when she took us
to a limited number of culturally important items and explained their historic
and artistic significance. This museum is an unrivaled collection of the best
Chinese artifacts in existence. Chiang Kai-shek had brought them to Taiwan when
he fled the mainland in 1949.
Early
during the trip, we learned the value of having Ting as a guide. She made us
leave the hotel for the museum at 8 am to avoid the large crowds arriving there
later in the morning. When we left the museum in the middle of the day, about
20 large buses were in the parking lot, all on tours organized by gigantic
cruise ships in the harbor. The exhibits in the museum by that time were uncomfortably
crowded.
HOTELS
AND TRANSPORTATION
During our trip, a large comfortable bus (built by MAN, a
German company) took us everywhere in Taiwan. We stayed in
first-class hotels there and Hong Kong, except for one in a national park in
the mountains of Taiwan, which is run by an indigenous tribe and was slightly
less luxurious. It is known for serving a dish of meat of farm-raised wild boar,
Taiwan spotted deer, wild pheasant, and rabbit. We all much enjoyed the
barbecued boar.
All
hotels we stayed in served great breakfast buffets with dishes for both Chinese
and Western guests. I did not become a fan of Chinese breakfasts, but Helene
did.
The
Grand Hotel in Taipei was home for nine days. It is one of the grandest hotels
we have ever seen, no less stayed in. Its design is based on a Chinese palace
with decorations in red, gold, and purple, which were used traditionally in
palaces of Chinese emperors and many temples.
The
hotel was built in the 1950s, has 12 floors, a 10-lane swimming pool and four
tennis courts, overlooking Taipei from a small incline. It can hold 600 guests
in very large and modern rooms with gigantic porches. It has a very large dining
room. The decoration is classic Chinese, with as we were told, over 210,000
images and sculptures of dragons of all sizes.
We
visited a tunnel that was built to allow Chiang Kai-shek, who lived
there for many years, to escape in case of a Chinese invasion. Photos along a
wall show the many celebrities who have stayed there in the past, Eisenhower,
Lee Quan Yew, Elisabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, just to mention a few. On a
weekend we witnessed the wedding of 50 couples who were employees of Taiwan’s
largest telephone company, an event sponsored by the company and taking place periodically.
The company has a supply of Western wedding dresses that are used for the
purpose.
Ting
took us to lunch regularly in large restaurants with sometimes more than 300
seats used by Taiwan’s flourishing tourist trade. We sat at turning tables
large enough for all 13 of us. The many dishes from a pre-set menu were good,
even for my Western taste.
I think
that the set menus unfortunately usually provided more food than we needed.
CS explained the reason for this. The Chinese feel that if there is any food left
over, not enough was served and they are ashamed for not having given guests
their money’s worth. I have learned that in fact left-over food is usually
packaged and sent to the less fortunate but is destroyed for sanitary reasons
if it has been picked over.
Evening
meals, most of the time, were arranged in more sophisticated venues and served
more reasonable amounts of food, along with wines and the usual, good Taiwanese
beer, which is brewed
using German recipes that first reached Asia in the early 19th century.
The
best evening meal was served in the China Club in Hong Kong, where we had our
farewell banquet. It is an old, British style colonial club that did not allow
Chinese patrons until after WWII and is now owned by the Bank of China. CS
somehow managed to get us invited. The food and drink were excellent, the
club’s décor transported us to the 1930s with interesting historic pictures on
the wall, (many showing Mao), the waiters wearing colonial style uniforms and a
small band playing Western music. The food and drinks were a nice fusion of
Chinese and Western cuisine.
THE
COUNTRY AND ECONOMY
Taiwan
in an island the size of the Netherlands with a population of 23 million, 95
percent of which are ethnic Han Chinese, 2.5 percent are native and 2.5 Pacific
Islanders, the same stock of people as the indigenous New Zealand Maoris and
the Malays.
The
climate is tropical-to-temperate with average temperature of 18 degree Celsius
in January and 29 Celsius in July, when day temperatures can be in the upper
30s with high humidity. Portuguese sailors from Europe visited the island in
1400s and are believed to have named it Illa Formosa, the beautiful
island. The land outside the cities and cultivated areas are covered with a
thick growth of tropical vegetation.
Taiwan
is on the Pacific ring of fire and has many earthquakes, which explains why all
larger buildings and the many elevated freeways have concrete columns that are
one to two meters thick, and very deep foundations reaching bedrock. The
collision of the earth’s plates is responsible for a high mountain range that
covers the eastern third of the island, with the highest peak reaching 3,000
meters, occasionally sporting snow enough for skiing.
The
country’s economy during the last 50 years or so thrived under democratically
elected governments and free markets with protected property rights and wise
public investment in infrastructure, education, science, and technology. It has
137 universities and colleges with 172 thousand students in Masters, and 29
thousand in PhD programs. According to the Ministry of Education, the country’s total
number of doctoral degree holders in 2015 was estimated to be over 130,000. This number has grown steadily over the past decade.
Several
important indicators of free markets and the success of its government policies
encouraging the development of science-based industries are that the country
ranks 6th on Economic Freedom and 7th on Competitiveness in
the world; its per capita income is equal to that of Poland and Sweden, per
capita income adjusted for PPP is equal to that of Austria and the Netherlands
at US$59,398. In the second
quarter of 2023, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) recorded a
market share of 56.4
percent in
the global semiconductor foundry market. Taiwan
ranks 14th in global trade, 4th largest trading partner for Canada after the
United States, China, Japan, and South Korea.
Cars on
the road in Taiwan are about half each from Japan and Korea, with a few German luxury
cars. The traffic is heavy during the day and very congested during rush hours,
despite an abundance of freeways, some subways and many public buses. The
traffic is disciplined. Blowing horns are rarely heard.
We
noted one interesting technical innovation guiding traffic. A tunnel through
the mountains about 10 kilometers long was opened recently. Every 250 meters, a
sign indicates the minimum speed of 70 km per hour. Ting told us that
cars travelling at a slower speed are reminded of their violation over a
loudspeaker at the next sign. The purpose of the system is to maintain the tunnel’s
optimum flow-through. Maximum speed limits are not posted!
Taiwan’s
downtown streets are lined with small stores serving many goods and services. One
of them has a large sign in front saying GOD. I was unable to discover what it
was selling but we have a photo of it taken from a distance. The 7-Eleven chain
of stores in very large numbers meets most of the public’s demand for groceries
and simple meals. McDonalds and Pizza Huts also operate some restaurants. We
saw signs advertising Amazon and Costco.
One of
my interests as an economist is in the way countries organize their universal
public health care systems. Canada has one of the costliest systems operating
with the longest wait times for diagnostics and treatment. In Taiwan and Hong
Kong our guides told us that their populations were satisfied with the services
they received from their systems. For me, the most important difference is that
these countries charge patients modest visiting fees while Canada does not. This
information is available in relevant publications but I found it interesting to
have people with actual experience using the health care systems report how it
works and how it affects them. My belief in the benefits of user fees received
another boost.
VISITING
TOURIST SPOTS
During
the first two days after our arrival in Taiwan, we were deliberately treated to
sightseeing trips that put little burden on our brains and energy and allowed
them to recover from jetlag caused by the long hours of flight from Vancouver and
the 8-hour time difference.
The
mountains in the north-east of the country are spectacular with slopes so steep
that in the Alps they would cause serious avalanches. In Taiwan they cause
raging floods during the monsoon season and occasional typhoons. We visited
some places where the sides of the mountains were near vertical, some hundreds
of meters tall and close together, creating most spectacular canyons through
which rivers rage with tremendous force during the rainy season. During the
current dry season, we saw many large white boulders at the bottom of the
rivers. They are marble, which used widely in construction and artwork. We saw
many varieties of beautiful birds and butterflies that exist only in Taiwan.
The
tallest building by far in Taipei is the “101”, an office tower, you guessed
it, 101 stories tall and for a while the largest building in Asia. We rode to
the top in a fast elevator and had a good view of the city, but the facilities
were much the same as in tall towers in other cities of the world. The only
difference was that, because of Taiwan’s frequent earthquakes, near the top of
the building a huge ball made of iron was hanging there to keep the building
steady when the earth shakes. At the end of our trip, we visited Macao, whose landmark
tower boasts the world’s highest bungy-jumping facility, which we watched with
interest as the jumpers flew past our window at free-falling speed, with the
mouth open, probably emitting a long scream we could not hear. No one in our
group took the opportunity to acquire bragging rights for having done the world
record bungy jump. We all lived.
Another
tourist spot visited was a small coal-mining town that lost its industry and
was about to be abandoned, when someone came up with a very profitable idea. Produce,
and for $20 sell paper bags about four feet tall and two feet across, use a
small frame to keep them open, put some flammable material at the bottom of a
frame to keep them open, light the flame, see the bag bulge with hot air, rise
and get carried away by the wind.
The
four sides of the balloon carry requests written by the buyers: Happiness, Riches,
Babies etc. that their launch is expected to fulfill. Helene and I can report
that all our wishes were met. And we are glad to know that residents of that
town are paid for finding and returning the scarred remains of the balloons from
where they had landed, preventing pollution of the environment. Many tourists launching
balloons are saving the town from oblivion.
A trip
to the coast north-east of Taipei brought us to spectacular geological
formation shaped by the ocean but also to a spot with a disturbing history – a
recently abandoned copper mine with some of its buildings still standing. The river
flowing from the mine site into the ocean is so polluted with mine tailings
that it discolors the water over a large area. The discoloring attracts many
tourists for which a tall viewing stand has been built at the water’s edge.
Apparently, no plans exist to clean up the mine-site.
Equally
memorable is one part of the mine’s history. During the Second World War, the Japanese
government used prisoners of war to produce copper needed for the war effort. 1,600
prisoners became mine workers, only 200 left the mine alive. The rest died from
hard labor, illnesses, and starvation.
TAIWAN
INDUSTRY
One day
we visited Hsinchu, the region about an hour drive southwest of Taipei in which
the semiconductor industry is located. CS arranged for us to get there by a
high-speed train, which left us impressed by the sophistication of Taiwan’s
transportation infrastructure, much as he had planned.
Our bus
had driven to the local train station and took us to the area in which the
semiconductor plants are located, the most prominent of which is TSMC. The landscape
is flat and served by a large network of roads used by few cars. It is
dominated by large, cube-shaped buildings set wide apart, virtually without
windows and built of the concrete seen everywhere in the country. Grand
driveways lead to imposing entrances.
The configuration
of these buildings is dictated by the need to produce semiconductors in rooms
where the interior air is 20 times cleaner than ambient air. The production of each
of these electronic marvels in this super clean air takes about 10 to 15 days
and involves embedding millions of tiny transistors in as many as 100 layers of
silicon. They are in great demand by industry around the world, including
weapons manufacturers.
The
production process requires much electricity and water, but most important, highly
skilled workers. The high income of these workers explains why fancy passenger
cars from Germany are seen much more often than they are in the rest of the
country.
Our
group visited a large, gleaming, modern office building housing the Hsinchu Science
Park. The director of the institution told us about the key role played by
research and development in the maintenance of the local industry’s global
leadership. This work is coordinated by the institution he heads and is financed
by the independent chip producers and by the government.
Brought
up was also the important role played in the success of the industry by the
availability of highly trained scientists, many of which have PhDs in science
and engineering. Despite large university training programs and opportunities
for study abroad, the industry is booming so much that seemingly there always is
a shortage of workers.
It is
interesting to note here an abbreviated account of the role played by Morris
Chang in the creation of TSMC and the semiconductor industry in Taiwan. He was
born in China in 1931 and emigrated to the United States in 1949 where he
studied at Harvard, MIT and Stanford. He earned a PhD degree in electrical
engineering at the last university. He was employed by Texas Instruments, where
he became the head of the engineering division. In 1987, after having served as
the leader of a government sponsored research institute in Taiwan for a few
years, he founded TSMC, drawing on his research experience and work with Texas Instruments.
The outstanding, global success of the Taiwan semiconductor industry owes much
to Morris’ leadership.
The
importance Taiwanese society attaches to high levels of education became clear
to us as we had the privilege to have a meeting with the mayors of Hsinchu and
Taiwan. The former is a woman with a PhD in electrical engineering from the University
of Cincinnati. The latter is a man with a law degree from the University of
Pennsylvania and a PhD in Business from Drexel University. Both spoke
informally in perfect English, but interestingly, during the formal address,
they spoke mandarin translated into English for us, which according to CS is
practice commonly used in all Asian countries.
While
it was interesting to see the meeting chambers for city politicians and observe
the ceremonial process around their talks, as well as their skillful handling
of questions, the substance of their talks was not particularly informative and
more suitable for possible investors and future residents of these cities than for
me and most in our group.
We
visited two successful businesses that were started about 40 years ago by courageous
local entrepreneurs. One produces Scotch whisky sold under the Kavalan label. The
production facilities are modern and large. We saw enormous stainless-steel
vats and rooms filled with hundreds of barrels containing aging whisky. Sales
of the whisky are in Taiwan and mainly other Asian countries. This commercial
success is explained officially by the factory’s access to a reliable supply of
good water flowing from the large mountain range nearby. Helene and I bought
samples of whisky from barrels of different age and wood at rather high prices,
but since we are not connoisseurs of the brew, we could not decide that the
company’s success is based on superior quality. Still, we were impressed that a
semi-tropical Asian country could become as successful as it did in an essentially
Scottish industry.
The
second factory we visited also was founded about 30 or 40 years ago. It
produces carvings made of jade and marble, stones which are found readily in
the nearby mountains. These stones are used in jewelry and in artistically
stunning figures of animals, buddhas, other humans, vases, and furniture. The
color of the carvings ranges from the deep green of jade to multi-colored,
mostly white marble.
These
carvings are displayed in large showrooms and many of them are of a quality
suitable for museums. Their prices are not displayed but we discovered quickly
that we could not afford any of them, no less pay the cost of shipping them
back to Canada. The parking lot for the show room is very large, the staff is
numerous, well-informed, and courteous. The commercial success of the firm is great
and obvious. I wished I knew who the buyers are and where they live. Nouveau riche
from China, who came to Taiwan in large numbers before the development of recent
political tensions?
MEETINGS
WITH POLITICIANS AND CIVIL SERVANTS
I
already described our meetings with the two politicians who serve as mayors of Hsinchu
and Taipei. After we left the meeting in Hsinchu, we learned that its mayor was
under investigation for corruption, allegedly for having her husband on the
payroll for work he was not doing. Her demeanor did not reflect her troubles,
which are alleged to reduce her chances to becoming a major player in national
politics.
Mayors of
Taipei have several times in the past become the Presidents of Taiwan. The appearance
and manners of the present mayor who addressed us suggested to me that he may
well end up in this highest political office.
We had a
meeting with several employees of the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
former, now retired ambassadors to Canada. They told us about the country’s
achievements and challenges. I was much impressed by their accounts, but the
most fascinating topic discussed involved the threat of invasion by the PRC.
The important
conclusion I took away from these discussions is that highly educated and
sophisticated people cannot agree on the seriousness of the threat. On one
extreme is the view held by some that no invasion will ever take place because
the costs to the PRC would be too high and the returns not worth it.
On the
other extreme is the view that an invasion could take place if China suffers
major domestic problems, which cause its leaders to use foreign conflict to
rally the population, as political autocrats have done many times in the past.
This conclusion was given weight by the observation that China currently suffers
serious problems in the housing industry, slow economic growth, and youth
unemployment at around 30 to 40 percent.
All
commentators suggested that, at any rate, the government of Taiwan would be
wise not to provoke China unnecessarily with domestic and foreign policies that
challenge the status quo.
In the
end, I did not learn anything that was new to me concerning the basic issue,
but the widely differing views expressed by people who should be well informed
about it led me to appreciate, more than before, that we live in a complicated world
of great uncertainty and many risks, and to be sceptical about the wisdom of
anyone who thinks he or she knows when and how it all will end.
TRIP TO
HONG KONG AND MACAO
Hong
Kong is two hours from Taipei by plane. We flew there on November 4th
and were once again met by a competent professional guide and a bus. The HK
airport is as impressively large and modern as I remember it from previous
visits.
We were
taken to the Harbor Grand Hotel in Kowloon, a recently renovated, modern
high-rise building at the edge of HK harbor with a great view of the city and
ship traffic. It is a couple of kilometres from downtown Kowloon and was chosen
by CS because the rooms cost only $300 rather than the $500 there.
The
city was much the same as it was during my last visit, when Jimmy Lai took me
for a ride on his yacht for a lunch, swim, and discussions with a group of
prominent local politicians. I was saddened knowing that Jimmy was now
languishing in a Chinese jail, accused of subverting some laws China had passed
to control its politics and development, and that his publishing empire had been
destroyed.
We visited
some local tourist spots and had an emotional ceremony at the Canadian War
Cemetery a few days before Canada’s Memorial Day. The highlight of the Hong
Kong visit involved a trip to a small, remote fishing village known as Po Doi O
in Cantonese, located in the New Territories, at the end of a windy road to a
small scenic bay.
We
reached this place driving through an area in which are located some
single-family homes on a single lot, resembling conditions found in North
American cities. We walked a short distance from the end of the road to a wild set
of small buildings seemingly in need of repair, surrounded by fishing gear and
boats. In the center of the village are two restaurants. They are totally
untouched by the modernity of Hong Kong and operate large aquariums filled with
live, locally caught fish, lobsters and mollusks thriving in a heavy flow of
water from the bay.
These
creatures were the main ingredient in an unforgettably tasty menu of seafood in
one of the two restaurants, served in a simple room open to the flow of air
from the bay. The restaurant’s reputation is warranted, and its commercial
success was obvious to me when I saw a large rack of wine bottles imported from
Europe, obviously for many guests like us rich enough to buy them. A few
bottles of these wines complemented the outstanding dinner dishes. The simple
environment was a nice change from that in the more sophisticated and efficient
restaurants we had visited in Taipei and Hong Kong. Special thanks to CS for taking us to this
place.
Richard
Wong, Professor of Economics at the University Hong Kong, who earned a PhD in economics
from the University of Chicago, a few years after I had left there, and whom I
had met on several occasions at international gatherings of economists. He gave
us an informative talk about conditions in Hong Kong while we all ate breakfast
at the Harbor Hotel. The highlight of this talk for me was his explanation of
the existence of a labor shortage in the country, which is responsible for the
shortage and high cost of local hotels.
He
blamed the labor shortage on severe restrictions on immigration from the
mainland, which in turn have been imposed to limit the shortage of public and
high prices of private housing. Efforts are under way to remedy the housing
problems using a unique strategy.
All
land in HK is owned by the crown. Private builders are invited to develop
building projects that involve the construction of two 30-story (or more) towers
for public housing (mostly 150 square feet per apartment), and the construction
of one such tower for private apartments, which the developer can sell in sizes
and at prices determined by free market competition. The government does not
charge the developers for the land but expects them to use the profits from the
sale of the private housing units to pay for the cost of constructing the
public housing. Richard stressed that while this model works in HK, it cannot
work in other jurisdictions where suitable building land is owned privately.
A major
cause of the labor shortage in HK is rooted in its history. According to
Richard, some years ago, when it became possible, many unmarried HK male
residents travelled to China and married young women, most of which lived in
rural areas. The newly married couples lived in public housing. Recently, the
husbands in these marriages have died of old age and left the wife the owner of
the apartment, which they are unable to sell for a profit under existing
regulations. These women pay very low rents, enjoy a public pension and income
from assets left by their deceased husbands. They do not have to work. Richard
considers them to be rentiers. The labor shortage is also increased by the fact
that many young people are working as real estate agents, where they are
earning high incomes, living also like rentiers.
One
morning while in HK we travelled to Macao, a former Portuguese colony, now a
part of China but with limited autonomy and borders controlled by the PRC. A
few years ago, I had visited Macao, travelling there from HK on a high-speed
ferry. This time the trip was on a bus using the world’s largest bridge, which
is 52 km long with a few tunnels constructed to allow the passage of vessels going
to and from Chinese harbors.
The
hour-long drive was boring but the infrastructure serving bus passengers at
both ends of the drive is very large and modern. Macao government agents deal
with visitors and returning citizens in a hall in which 50 customs agents can do
their work, facing possible line-ups of thousands of travellers.
Alas,
this facility was virtually empty. Covid had stopped all visits. Our guide told
us that we were the first group of more than ten visitors his company has
serviced since the end of the epidemic. However, the many casinos with names
indicating Las Vegas ownership appear to do well. They now charge visitors $100
even if they just wish to see the gaudy facilities. We skipped that
opportunity, which during my visit a few years ago cost nothing.
The
tourist part of town is small and very touristy around the ruins of an ancient
church and Portuguese fortification. An ancient temple turned out to provide most
interesting experience. Parked outside in a no-parking zone was a white Bentley
with a driver at the wheel. The car was probably owned by an actor involved in
filming in the plaza in front of the temple.
The Taoist
temple offered an interesting contrast. It contains many opportunities to buy
and burn incense, some several inches in diameter and tall as a human. A small
oven, shaped like a pagoda, provided a young couple the opportunity to burn in it
fake paper money and replicas of a car and house. We were told that his custom
is to provide a recently deceased person with things for the afterlife that he
or she had most treasured while alive!
From
the top floor of Macao’s tallest tower, the guide pointed to concrete pill
boxes lining at regular intervals the Chinese shore of the river dividing the
two countries. These facilities were staffed by soldiers with rifles, who shot
anyone trying to cross the river into Macao. Border guards on the Macao side of
the river are authorized only to send back anyone making to their side. This
practice shows again the irony that the socialist/communist workers’ paradise with
perfect equality of income faces the need to prevent their citizens from
leaving for capitalist countries where workers are allegedly exploited by
employers and incomes are criminally unequal.
A visit
with Rachael Bedlington, Consul General of Canada in Hong Kong and a senior
member of the consulate’s staff provided us with interesting information about
conditions in the territory under the new laws imposed by China but was
unwilling to give us her personal views on the likelihood and timing of China
ending the special status of HK and annexing Taiwan using military force.
THREE NOTABLE
CHINESE CUSTOMS
I came
back from our trip impressed by three interesting, uniquely local customs.
First,
we visited the Lin Manson Mansion and Garden in Taipei. It was built in the
middle of the 19th century. Ting explained that many of its architectural
features were shaped by the desire of its owners to obey rules of Feng Shui,
which translates into Wind and Water, both important elements of life and designed
to create balance between ying and yang, good and evil, and to appease malevolent
spirits.
This
desire is alive today and, as one example, leads to the absence of the 4th
floor in our hotel, the towers we visited and other buildings. The number 4
stands for “death”. On the other hand, the number 8 stands for “good fortune,
wealth and prosperity”. I already noted the burning of paper money and effigies
to please deceased relatives.
I find
it surprising that the modern HK and Taiwanese society relies on such examples
of what I would call irrational practices when, on the other hand, it fully
embraces modern science and rational analysis of real-world phenomena. I wonder
how widespread, economically costly, and important in practice is the use of Feng
Shui in Taiwan, HK, and China and among the Chinese diaspora in Canada, where
dwellings with street numbers containing the number 4 can be found to sell for
less than comparable dwellings in the immediate neighbourhood and sometimes the
number is replaced with the permission of local authorities by such hybrid
number 3-5.
A
second surprising cultural feature of the country is that every member of our group
was presented with a gift at the end of every visit, for example attractive
wooden boxes containing cans of expensive tea, electronic gadgets, ceramic cups
and saucers, and neckties for men and scarves for women. The gifts are meant to
be enjoyed and a lasting memory of our visit to Taiwan. Helene and I had to buy
an additional suitcase to take home the loot. We are still trying to decide
what to do with it.
Finally,
Helene and I for the first time in our lives attended an event that closed with
karaoke singing. It took place in a large building of the Overseas Chinese
Association, which provides a cultural link with the Chinese diaspora in many
countries of the world, which has a common culture, and educational, family and
clan relationships. At the end of a fine dinner and drinks, the host sang a
Chinese song with recorded background music playing, and the song’s words and a
sexy dancer appearing on a 30-foot-wide screen.
We
could not sing along but felt the room’s atmosphere getting lighter and
happier. After many invitations to take a turn singing and with the
encouragement of some wine affecting my judgment, I responded by offering to
sing “I did in my way”, hoping that they did not have the song in their library.
In the end, they did, and I belted out the words appearing on the screen and
accompanied by a good jazz band. Everyone in the room joined the singing at
volumes so high that I am certain no-one actually heard my singing. My
reputation as a singer has survived.
We all
left the venue on an emotional high. Helene and I will try to get our family at
the upcoming Christmas gathering to join in a rendition of “I did it my way”,
hoping to make this Christmas even more memorable than those in the past.
We
enjoyed this CAFP study trip very much, just as we had previous trips to Malta
and Vietnam. Our experience made us appreciate even more the privilege of
living in our great country but also raised our understanding of the complexity
and richness of the world we live in, and how really small part of it we are. Some
of our current politicians in government might benefit from such a learning
experience.
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