Bridges

This morning I got up early to do something I hadn't done in a while - go for a long ride on my scooter with a group of people. From our meeting point in downtown Fengyuan 豊原, my friends Michael and Roddick, along with Michael's friends Drew, Augustin and his charming wife Chou, plus yours truly, took off on four scooters (and in one car). We went through the town of Dongshih 東勢, up into the hills and past the Liyutan Reservoir, and finally down to the site of the Longteng Broken Bridge, located in the town of Sanyi 三義. From the parking lot near the site of the viaduct ruins, we started to walk along the abandoned railway tracks:

Eventually, we came to a 726 meter-long (2382 feet) tunnel, which served to remind me that I had neglected to bring along a flashlight:

 

Emerging from the tunnel, we saw our first crowds of the day as we came to the old Shengsing Station 勝興, part of the former Western Trunk Line 旧山線. Built in 1911 to reflect Shengsing village's role as a center of the camphor oil industry, it was once the highest train station in Taiwan, sitting at an altitude of 402 meters (1319 feet). Originally named Shi Liu Fen 十六分, Shengsing Station was shut down in 1998 with the completion of a new Taichung Line 台中線. There are other, arguably more attractive old train stations in Taiwan dating from the Japanese era, but Shengsing has been discovered by the weekend tourist hordes, and the street in front of the station was full of souvenir shops and Hakka 客家 restaurants, not to mention thirsty Westerners on the lookout for Taiwan Beer:

After the beer break, we headed back towards our parked scooters (and car), only this time walking on the road instead of on the train tracks. According to one of my guidebooks, the distance between the station and the viaduct is 6 kilometers (3.7 miles), though it didn't seem that far to me. Before getting on our scooters, I took a couple of pictures of the broken bridge. Constructed in 1905, it was destroyed in an earthquake in 1935, and the picturesque ruins are all that remain today. There was a time when the Long Deng Viaduct was unknown (along with Sheng Shing station), but in the wake of the leisure boom that took off in Taiwan with the introduction of the five-day work week in the early part of this decade, it has become a local icon:

Saying "adieu" to Sanyi, we headed in the same direction as we had come, stopping off in the town of Jhuolan 卓蘭 to have lunch. Much to the amusement of Augustin, we ate at a place that called itself Rive Gauche (the Left Bank). The food was hardly French, but it was surprisingly good (and inexpensive). And, yes, more Taiwan Beer was consumed. My standards are definitely slipping!

Back in Fengyuan in the mid-afternoon, it was time to for everyone to part. Perhaps inspired by the ruins in Sanyi, before heading home, I once again rode out to the Tachia River 大甲渓 to see if I could get a look at the collapsed Houfeng Bridge. This time I was able to find a dirt track that led directly down to the riverbank (and under the bridge itself, a worrisome proposition), where I was able to get a good look at the destruction from last weekend's Typhoon Sinlaku:

I wasn't the only one out there this afternoon looking at these ruins, but this was one sight I hope never becomes a tourist attraction.

From this morning's Taipei Times, a newspaper not as good as the China Post (unless you like your news to be factual and unbiased!):

Peng tells details of escape from KMT 

"Democracy pioneer Peng Ming-min 彭明敏 and those who helped him escape the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) 中国国民党 regime in 1970 to seek political asylum in Sweden gave detailed accounts of the well-planned journey at a press conference in Taipei 台北 yesterday."

It's an interesting article of how one of Taiwan's foremost proponents of democracy during the martial law era was able to escape to Sweden, and eventually to the USA, with the help of two Japanese nationals, who were both present at Saturday's press conference. That's just the kind of interference by Japanese colonialists in Chinese domestic affairs that boils the blood of any true blue KMT die hard!

ニュース

From Saturday's edition of The China Post, a fine newspaper (if you believe in Greater China fantasies, that is):

Taiwan, Japan to mutually recognize each other's driver's licenses 

"Holders of Taiwan driver's license will be eligible to apply for a Japanese license without taking a test, and vice versa, starting Oct. 1, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) 中華民国外交部, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) 中華民国交通部 and the Interchange Association (Japan) 交流協会 jointly announced yesterday."

Despite recent tensions over the Senkaku Islands 尖閣諸島, relations between Japan and Taiwan continue to grow closer at the tourist level. Last year the two governments agreed to mutually recognize driver's licenses from both countries, with the provision that Taiwanese drivers needed to get copies of their licenses translated into Japanese (and vice versa for Japanese motorists in Taiwan). This latest initiative means drivers will be able to obtain licenses in the other country without having to take a test (other than a physical exam). It is the latest action (starting with the decision made by the Japanese government a couple of years ago to waive visa requirements for Taiwanese tourists) that recognizes the fact that 2.5 million people travel between Japan and Taiwan every year. I'd like to see an article in the future on whether or not Taiwanese drivers are obeying traffic regulations in Japan, the latter being a place where drivers actually stop for red lights, and (gasp!) let pedestrians cross the road without trying to drive around (or over) them first.

DOH: Crackers from Japan may be tainted 

"The Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday that 500 boxes of imported rice crackers from Japan that may have been contaminated with a pesticide and with aflatoxin were distributed to consumers in late June, but stressed that the health risk was very low."

The ongoing scandal in Japan involving Mikasa Foods 三笠フーズ having sold contaminated rice (from Vietnam and, no surprise, China) to 375 brewers, food ingredient wholesalers and confectionery makers, has apparently reached these shores. According to the government, a local dress company imported 500 boxes of rice crackers from a Japanese food processor that used tainted rice procured from Mikasa, to be given as presents to customers. The firm, however, denies the DOH's allegations. Japan has been hit by a number of scandals over the past year involving food safety, which has shaken the faith of many Japanese consumers.

国民健康

I'm often at odds with the way things are done here in Taiwan, but one thing I do appreciate about living in this country is its excellent national health insurance system. I've come down with a mild case of the flu, and yesterday I took the day off from work to rest my voice, and seek out some medicated relief. In the space of about an hour, my wife, daughter and I visited a pediatrician (Amber had a runny nose); an ear, nose and throat specialist (for my cough, runny nose and husky voice); and a dermatologist (in order to refill a prescription). Total cost of the three visits, including all medication (and in Taiwan you get a lot!): NT420. That's ￥1400 or $13! Compare this to when I had to see a dermatologist back in the States during a visit home a few years ago. As I was uninsured (in the USA), my visit and prescriptions (for a tube of lotion and a small bottle of pills) came to about $200 (NT6400 or ￥21,420)! The United States is the only advanced, industrialized nation without a universal national health insurance system for its people. Why is it that some of my countrymen (and their leaders) are so socially retarded (to use Frank Zappa's phrase) when it comes to something people in Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan and even Taiwan take for granted? Am I to assume that fear of "socialism" (as in "socialized medicine") is of greater importance than seeing to it that your population's health care needs are adequately taken care of? Considering our shameful infant mortality rate, for example, I don't think this is something that the ideologues should be feeling proud about.

ニュース：后豊橋のスパが崩れた

The latest news on the collapse of one section of the Houfeng Bridge linking Fengyuan (Hōgen) 豊原 and Houli 后里 is that another body has been recovered, raising the death toll to two, with four people still missing. Today's edition of the Taiwan News newspaper is reporting that:

"The Houfeng Bridge featured on the list of Taiwan's ten most dangerous bridges, and a NT$1.5 billion (￥4.9 billion/$46.8 million) budget had been earmarked for repair work. Bidding on the project was planned for September 24. The bridge had already suffered significant damage during two previous typhoons this summer, media reports said."

The bridge is only a few minutes by car/scooter from where I live and work, so this afternoon I rode over to the Tachia River 大甲渓 to see if I could get a good vantage point of the destruction caused by Typhoon Sinlaku. The only road I could find, however, that led down to the riverbank was around a bend downstream that blocked any views of the accident site (the bridge in the picture below is for trains).

I returned to the main road, went past the bridge (the collapsed section wasn't visible going by due to tree/building cover), and found another route down to the Tachia River. The best photo I could get was this one, which doesn't reveal anything as the span in question was on the other side of the bridge from where I was standing (i.e. the direction going from Fengyuan to Houli). It happened close to the paper mill visible on the left-hand side:

The BBC has a video clip of the destruction on its website (you can also see some of the havoc that occurred in other areas of Taiwan as a result of Sinlaku).

We place so much trust in our engineers and governments, and the structures they build and supposedly maintain for us. Considering our proximity to this bridge, and the frequency with which we have used it, it could have been one of us, or a member of my wife's family, unlucky enough to have been driving across when it collapsed. It is too bad that some people were not so fortunate.

The view looking downriver in the afternoon sun, as I was leaving the scene:

Mid-Typhoon Festival?

Today is the 15th day of the 8th month according to the lunar calendar, and thus is the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival 月見. One of the biggest holidays in the Chinese world, the Moon Festival (as it's also known) is a day when millions of Taiwanese will get together with their families to have barbecues, eat mooncakes 月餅, set off fireworks and look at the full moon (when they can see it through the haze of smoke wafting up from all those BBQ grills)...or would, except that this year, slow-moving Typhoon Sinlaku has chosen this weekend to strike Taiwan, thus washing out, both figuratively and literally, the holiday plans of most people on this island.

As for this 外人, I'm not too disappointed by the turn of events. For one thing, on Friday evening I had a sore throat and a touch of a fever, so this weekend wasn't going to be an active one anyway. For another, Taiwanese holidays mean virtually nothing to me, except as a day off without pay (and Mid-Autumn Festival falls on a Sunday this year anyway, though my one afternoon class on Saturdays was canceled as a result of Sinlaku), so it wasn't as if today was something I had been looking forward to (my wife is pretty blase when it comes to most traditional observations); and, finally, the environment usually takes a beating on the day of the Moon Festival from all the barbecuing and fireworks, so the while the island is taking a pounding from the typhoon, the air quality isn't.

Because of Sinlaku, the most interesting thing we've done this weekend was to go out this afternoon to buy lunch from Fengyuan's 豊原 just-opened, first-ever MOS Burger モスバーガー shop. MOS Burger is a Japanese company that is the second-largest fast food franchise chain in Japan after McDonald's, a fact alone that should dissuade some bloggers from somehow thinking there are more more MOS outlets in Taipei 台北 alone than in all of Japan :). The general consensus, among both Japanese and Taiwanese, is that the burgers are better at MOS Burger, but that McDonald's serves up superior french fries - an assessment I tend to agree with. There are four McDonald's restaurants in Fengyuan, but up until this past Friday, the only MOS Burger joints were to be found in nearby Taichung 台中. However, it seems MOS Burger pushed the opening of its Fengyuan branch ahead by a week or so, because the offerings for the time being are limited to just four kinds of set meals (no fries) - the full menu won't be available until September 19. Nevertheless, in a small city like Fengyuan, this qualifies as a major event!

Later in the afternoon, we paid a brief visit to my in-laws, where Amber demonstrated the peculiar Mid-Autumn Festival custom of wearing pomelo rinds on the head!

UPDATE: According to the news reports on TV, a section of the bridge between Fengyuan and Houli后里 has collapsed this evening, sending two cars into the Dajia River 大甲川 below. The river is normally a calm trickle, but as a result of the typhoon, is now a raging torrent. Pamela and I have driven across this bridge countless numbers of times, and it's only a few minutes' drive from our apartment building. Some bloggers have been posting things to the effect that typhoons are not such a big deal, and making light of the weather. I'm sure the families of those who were in the cars at the time the span of bridge fell into the water would strongly disagree with such flippant characterizations of natural disasters.

My daughter the gateball player

豊原のデパートで｢鳥取：日本ウィーク」というフェアを行って、アンバーは始めてゲートボールをしてみよう：

Tiger Amber?

Knocked out

Last Saturday evening, a sudden thunderstorm passed over our area. While I was working online, and my wife was in the kitchen, a bolt of lightning struck somewhere on our street. Pamela heard a crackling noise coming from outside, and almost immediately afterward, our modem connection stopped working. In fact, it wasn't until this morning that our link to the internet was restored, courtesy of a new unit installed by our ISP. In some respects, I didn't mind being disconnected to the outside world. I was still able to check my email at work, and instead of being ensconced in front a computer, I spent more time watching CNN, National Geographic and Discovery. Nevertheless, it feels good to be back in cyberspace. Here are a few things that happened while I was "out":

On Saturday afternoon, the Kaminoge family visited the Pacific Department Store in beautiful downtown Fengyuan 豊原 to check out the "Tottori: Japan Week" fair going on there. It was more interesting than I thought it would be, with a number of food products from Tottori Prefecture 鳥取県 available, as well as information on tourism, and even a representative from Tottori University 鳥取大学 manning a table.

I was pleasantly surprised to find several Japanese working at the tables, and they in turn were pleasantly surprised to find a Westerner in Fengyuan who could speak their language (sort of). I came away with a bottle of 地酒 that has gold flakes floating in it, Pamela bought some かにみそ (おいしい!) and Amber was given a トリピー doll, the official mascot of Tottori-ken. I hope "Japan Week" will be a recurring event at the department store, with other prefectures exhibiting their wares.

 

On Sunday, we drove up north to spend some time at the beach in Ciding, in the town of Jhunan 竹南. Amber had been asking to go the ocean ever since our excursion last month to Mashagou. Ciding isn't as nice, but my daughter had a great time getting splashed by the waves, and digging in the sand for shells.

And yesterday I went for a morning walk in Chung-cheng Park. My trip was delayed for 30 minutes due to an air-raid drill that I didn't know was scheduled for that morning. The police in Taiwan might be lax in so many areas of law enforcement, but they were extremely efficient in clearing the main roads of all traffic. Below is a photo I took of cars and motorcycles parked at the side of the road, waiting for the all-clear to sound.