Scratching my head in wonder

A not-too-successful attempt at carving our very own Halloween Jack-o'-Lantern. Wait till next year, which is something I hope the Texas Rangers won't be saying after tomorrow's Game 7. 

I came across an article this morning in the Taipei Times about the push to have Yushan 玉山, the highest mountain in both Taiwan and East Asia, declared...well, I'll let the opening two paragraphs speak for themselves:  

"Local non-governmental organizations (NGO) were lobbying yesterday for the public to vote for Yushan to become one of the world’s 'New 7 Wonders of Nature.'

The organizations urged the public to cast their vote, asking people to treat the finals of the competition even more seriously than the upcoming presidential election."

Yushan as one of the "New 7 Wonders of Nature"? I realize that many Taiwanese are only dimly aware of what lies outside the confines of the Chinese-speaking universe, but this is being carried to ridiculous extremes. Yes, at 3,952 m (12,966 ft), Yushan is an impressive piece of geologic uplift for this corner of the planet, but there are innumerable mountains the world over of much greater stature and grandeur (and as the Wikipedia entry points out, Yushan is only the fourth highest mountain on an island). Even in relation to East Asia, Taiwan's mightiest peak can't match the aesthetic beauty or iconic status of Japan's Mount Fuji 富士山, which has been venerated both spiritually and aesthetically for centuries. But Fuji-san, for some odd reason, isn't on the list of finalists. What is going up against Yushan is...well, to quote the Taipei Times article again:

"Wang [Chun-hsiu 王俊秀, who organized the Vote-for-Yushan campaign] said that the last thing Taiwanese would want to see is Yushan losing the contest to South Korea’s Jeju Island - the only other natural landmark in northeast Asia that has made it as far as the finals.

'Yushan is and will be the president of the Republic of China 中華民國 - forever,' Wang said.

'Winning or losing in this race matters much more than the upcoming presidential election,' he said.

Wang, in collaboration with the Central Taiwan Sustainable Development Alliance, urged Taiwanese both at home and abroad, and all Chinese people, to go online and cast their vote for the breathtaking landmark."

Jeju Island is a Natural World Heritage Site that has the gall to be under Korean administration. Many Taiwanese are obsessed with South Korea. As with many Japanese, South Korean TV dramas, pop stars and fashion are popular, but for people here, South Korea is also a hated rival, one that has to bested in any and all competitions, whether it be sports, economics or, as in this case, a pointless public relations contest. And if it takes overly emotive appeals to pan-Chinese nationalism to put those former vassals back in their rightful places, then so be it.

In all fairness, Koreans are hardly known for their pragmatic responses in matters of national pride - Dokdo Island and the "East Sea" are just two issues in which South Korean "patriots" frequently make fools out of themselves. But for most people in South Korea, Japan is the object of obsession, and the rival that must be beat, not Taiwan. While many here work themselves up in a lather over those dastardly Koreans, the latter most likely don't pay that much attention to how they're viewed by the Taiwanese. For those in Taiwan who fret over how this island is "losing out" to South Korea, I'd just like to say that the rest of the world really couldn't give a rat's ass care less about how the R.O.C. ranks in relation to the R.O.K. It's time to get over this asinine fixation.

As for the "New 7 Wonders of Nature", rather than leaving things up to online voting (with all the ugly nationalism and attempts at ballot box-stuffing that will inevitably result), why not just appoint an international committee of experts to settle the issue? Fill it up with scientists who can analyze the geologic and physical facets, and artists, poets and writers who can provide an emotional perspective on the different sites, and let them come to a consensus.

Or better yet, just drop the whole damn thing so that Mr. Wang can apply all that energy of his towards something that's actually useful.

Happy Halloween!

Say what?

According to this article in today's Taipei Times  New York Yankees pitcher and son of Taiwan Chien-ming Wang (Wang Jianming) 王健民 has been named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the year. Good for him, but there was one quote in the story that bothered me:

"Author Bette Bao Lord, the Shanghai-born wife of former US ambassador to China Winston Lord, wrote the introduction for Wang on the magazine's Web site, comparing him to the first black American to play in the Major Leagues, Jackie Robinson...She said that Wang, like Robinson, is 'chipping away the culture barrier.'"

(Lord's piece can be found here)

What I don't like about this comment is the comparison of Wang to Jackie Robinson. How can she possibly connect the two? Can you even begin to compare whatever difficulties Wang has faced playing in New York with the hardships Robinson went through while breaking down the color barrier in baseball back in 1947? For example, has Wang been the object of racist abuse from fans and fellow players? Has Wang received death threats because he is Asian? Has Wang ever been denied a seat in a restaurant or a room in a hotel solely on the basis of the color of his skin? I'm pretty sure the answers to these questions are "no". Not to take anything away from Wang, who is an excellent pitcher (for the Yankees, unfortunately) and a decent human being from the looks of things, but he is no Jackie Robinson, not in any way, shape or form. To even begin to compare him to Robinson only serves to cheapen the latter's accomplishments, both in baseball and in American society as a whole.

If Ms. Lord wishes to celebrate the achievements of a pioneering Asian athlete in the United States, she should have chosen to write about Hideo Nomo 野茂英雄, though he can no longer be thought of as a currently influential person. Ironically, most of the abuse that Nomo had to put up with came from his fellow Japanese, many of whom felt he was a traitor for leaving Japan to play in the majors, and who confidently predicted he would fail in America (of course, when Nomo turned out to be a great success, many of these same people turned around and praised him for bringing glory to Japan, but that's another story).

But Nomo is Japanese, and there's the rub. Ms. Lord is Chinese, and so is Wang (in an ethnic sense, anyway). I don't think she meant to insult Jackie Robinson in any way, but perhaps if Ms. Lord felt a little less pride about being Chinese ("He's a member of my tribe"), she wouldn't be inadvertently denigrating the memory of a true pioneer.

Tourism 観光旅行

A Japanese restaurant here in Fengyuan (Fongyuan) 豊原（とよはら）. The restaurant's name in Japanese is "Sano" 佐野. The characters to the right of the name are "Lamien (Lamian)" 拉麺, meaning "ramen"; and 食べ處. Ramen is usually written in either hiragana らーめん or katakana ラーメン in Japan, where it's thought of as being "Chinese-style noodles". In Taiwan, however, people think of Lamien as being a part of Japanese cuisine. The second set of characters are what caught my eye, however. 食べ處 could be read as "tabesho", and would literally translate as "eating place", so Sano is advertising itself as a ramen restaurant. The use of the kana べ is an obvious attempt to give the restaurant a more authentic, Japanese look to its name. However, the character 處 is rarely used in Japan, so you would be unlikely to see this word on a restaurant sign. A ramen restaurant would probably appear as ラーメン屋.

The editorial in today's Taipei Times was entitled "Chinese tourists blur the focus". It basically criticizes the emphasis being put on attracting tourists from China to Taiwan, "apparently at the expense of the rest of the world's travelers". It goes on to call "Taiwan's tourism chiefs and entrepreneurs ...lazy and incompetent and have filled the country with substandard facilities and poorly trained, monolingual staff". And I couldn't agree more with this statement from the editorial:

"...Taiwan has so much to offer to tourists from the rest of the world -- but the message is not getting through".

It concludes by making several suggestions to improve the situation here, such as by making visas free, and expanding them to three months for most nationalities, and "...employ(ing) more fluent and competent speakers of English and Japanese to buttress (tourism authorities') multilingual resources. Here, here!

To put it simply, this island does a terrible job when it comes to promoting itself to the outside world, and to seeing to the needs of foreign visitors once they're here. While there are a number of excellent web sites devoted to individual localities, the official Welcome to Taiwan website is dull and not very helpful (and not even working tonight when I tried the link). The English page for the Taiwan Railway Administration is difficult to navigate, while the page for the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (台湾の新幹線) doesn't tell you how or where you can purchase tickets, or how to get from the THSRC stations (which in many cases are on the outskirts of major cities) into the centers of places like T'aichung (Taijhong) 台中（たいちゅう） and T'ainan (Tainan) 台南（たいなん）.

In Japan, many localities both big and small maintain tourist information offices, usually in or near a major train station. Even if you don't speak Japanese, these offices are very useful - they usually have plenty of free maps and pamphlets (often in foreign languages like English), and they can assist in finding accommodation. Leafing through the Lonely Planet Japan guide, for example, you can see how often local tourist offices are mentioned.

The situation in Taiwan, by contrast, isn't very good. I'll be the first to admit that Fengyuan isn't a major tourist attraction, but a first-time visitor here has only a map on a signboard in front of the station to let him/her know what to see and do in the area (and no information on how to get to these sites). Taichung has a TIC, but good luck trying to get there unless you have a car. It's not even remotely within walking distance from Taichung station 台中駅 (I have no idea if any bus lines serve the area where it's located), and is nowhere near any sightseeing spots or accommodation options. Except for T'aipei (Taibei) 台北（たいほく）, it isn't easy for the non-Chinese speaking visitor to get around Taiwan to see the sites.

Which is a shame, for Taiwan has a lot to offer the visitor from abroad. I'm not comfortable living here, but I really enjoy traveling in Taiwan (it helps that I'm married to a native who has her own car!), and I wish more foreign tourists could see what's here. And making Taiwan a popular Asian tourist destination would go a long way towards promoting Taiwan to the outside world and reducing its isolation. Unfortunately, as the Taipei Times wrote today, "...no one in government seems to think this is an issue of concern".