Taiwan: A Love Letter

Taiwan has much to teach the world in terms of economics, social policy, and cuisine.

The eastern shore of Taiwan. As far away from the Commies as you can get. // photo my own

I sure missed Taiwan.

The last time I was there, it was 2010.

Over the past holiday season, I returned with my family to the birthplace of my parents, the island where my grandparents fled, as the China Civil War flared. It's where all my cousins on my mother's side reside and by the time we get to my son's generation, there will be very little connection left.

It's an island with a complex history, with indigenous people, Portuguese and Chinese settlers, occupation by both China and Japan at various points, to the modern state, which for all intents and purposes, is an independent country. When the Japanese Army invaded Nanking in World War II, Chiang Kai Shek's army went to defend the country from the invading force while Mao's army sat back and rebuilt after slowly losing the civil war. After the war, Mao's army swept Chiang's depleted army and Chiang fled to Taiwan with his nationalist Kuomingtang army. Taiwan's economy was initially very shaky under Chiang's authoritarian thumb. However, as he allowed property rights, Taiwan's economy started to grow, unlike Mao-controlled China which didn't allow property rights. Certain industries grew quickly, more than others, due to subsidies following Chiang's orders of preferred industries. This likely created some drag effects in the areas outside of the preferred industries, but nevertheless, the economy began to grow quickly at approximately 8% per year.

Despite this, disposable incomes did not really start taking off until the middle of the 1980s and particularly the 1990s, as the market freed, following Chiang's death in 1975. It wasn't until after his death that the market really began to free up with the government stepping back from Chiang's interventions. My father left the island nation in 1978 to study in the United States, having grown up in poverty, with my mother following a year after, due to outward immigration laws. I was able to have a glimpse of where my mother grew up decades ago, a meager one-story house with the entire family packed into one room. It is now some high-rise. After a few years working in the United States, my father was able to send some money home to get his two brothers to immigrate to the United States and eventually his parents. Following a lifetime of hard work, they no longer have to worry about money. They are a true immigrant success story.

I asked my father about life after he left and he said living conditions became drastically better in Taiwan during the 1980s, observational evidence that market reforms will always beat out central planning, even if the central planner happened to get the focused industries correct. 

The market reforms didn't stop in the 1980s. In the early 2000s, Taiwan enacted spending freezes and in 2010, cut its corporate tax rate to 17%, among the lowest in developed countries. What resulted was a continuous upward climb in GDP, despite the worldwide recession in 2008. Despite all the buzz around China's economy and newspapers tirelessly reporting that it's the second largest economy (yeah, it's home to 1.4 billion people while Taiwan holds 23 million, geniuses), it's really the economy of Taiwan that has been the beast in the region. 

The numbers for China are probably also cooked to show more growth than there really
was. // chart from the Mises Institute

Unlike Singapore whose residents enjoy great economic freedom but horrible personal freedoms, Taiwan leads Asia in social freedoms as well. In the Human Freedom Index by the Frasier Institute and the Cato Institute, Taiwan in 2020 ranked twelfth in the world, the top spot for any Asian country. In fact, the only non-European country that beat Taiwan was New Zealand, and New Zealand likely took a beating in its score following its COVID response. Despite the region's still conservative social values, Taiwan was the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage in 2019. Then again, Taiwan still has defacto slavery in the form of a one-year mandatory military service. Well, so does Switzerland. Still, progress. My father was forced to serve two years in the military and martial law was lifted in 1987. My mother couldn't come to the United States at the same time as my father, forced to wait a year before being able to reunite. Immigration is far looser now.

In perhaps an odd segue to the actual trip, we nearly didn't make it to Taiwan, as the country still had quarantine rules when we were planning it in the fall. Without the abolition of the rules, we would not go. What's the point of flying to Taiwan to stay in a hotel for two weeks before flying back? Thankfully, the government came to its senses and lifted the quarantine, to which we booked ridiculously expensive plane tickets to fly out there. The COVID restrictions were pretty annoying, with the mask mandates (which have proven to do nothing) with high compliance rates and several areas with temperature sensors at entrances robotically stating "體溫正常" every time someone walked in, to inform nobody in particular that body temperatures were okay.

It was a pretty nondescript flight out there, for having a four-year-old in tow. Upon exiting the plane, the airport had the same general feel as it did my entire life going there. Dull and uninteresting. It's perhaps evidence of the spending freezes, being operated by a government-owned corporation. Hey, it does its job, and that's about it. 

From the airport, we would be picked up and driven to the car rental agency, where I would share the dreaded task of driving in Taiwan with my wife. I had flashbacks to years past of constant streams of mopeds, cars trying to cut each other off as much as possible, and generally ignoring dividing lines, stop signs, and traffic lights. I took the first leg and it was surprisingly okay. Even getting out of the car rental agency off the curb cut, following the car driven by my dad, a car...let me in. This was a practice in Taiwan completely unobserved by human beings before that exact moment in time. What was going on? On the highway, headed toward Taichung, people...stayed inside their lanes. I remember in times past, seeing people drive in between lanes to block others while they tried to decide which lane would be faster. None of that happened this time.

We arrived at the National Taichung Theater, one of Toyo Ito's masterpieces that I dragged my entire family to, because I am an insane architect with no regard for other people's time. It was indeed a fantastic building, almost completely rectangular in footprint, but with major undulations in form, as music cutting through a block form. This building appears as a succession in his Boolean subtractive fluid forms through a building mass, from his earlier Mediatheque in Sendai, Japan.

Add, add, subtract. // photo my own

An interesting amphitheater, unfortunately tucked away in the back corner. // photo my own

Late that afternoon, we arrived at the hotel, which was facing some alley to another building. Climbing out, I smelled the familiar, but faint, scent of a sewage line. This is when I realized I had not yet smelled this on our trip, and yet a scent that I remember frequently filling my nostrils in the large cities of Taiwan when I would visit. I would not smell this again for the remainder of my trip, even later on that night, leaving the hotel for the night market, with the wonderful aromas of street food filling the air.

The delicious ordered chaos of a street market in Taichung. If only Skid Row in Los Angeles could look like this instead (see the paragraph below the Pepper Pie photo for the reference) // photo my own

Scallion pancakes from an unlicensed street vendor. Yum! Number of people in our group food poisoned: zero. Number of people harmed: zero. Number of people benefitted: all parties involved. // photo my own

I wanted to return that night, following dinner, to see the building lit up, but nobody in my crew had the energy to do so. I had actually passed out before I was startled awake to remember my quest. With no one to go with, I was faced with the dilemma of whether I should drive by myself in the third largest city in Taiwan. I eventually decided I would never forgive myself if I didn't have the courage to do so, and fired up the Toyota, armed with my camera and my phone. Google Maps didn't speak Chinese, so it just told me to turn in however many meters ahead. Meanwhile, mopeds zoomed past me and pedestrians walked closer to the street than was comfortable, as they tried to navigate the night market. After a correct turn onto the wrong part of a road threw me into a 10-minute detour including two prescribed U-turns for my misdeed, I finally arrived at the theater after 20 minutes of driving, which seemed like a three-hour ordeal.

The lighting was a bit underwhelming.

Okay, it wasn't bad, but for the heartache of driving in urban Taiwan by myself, I was expecting a laser light show, drone swarms, and a Vegas-level electricity bill. // photo my own

The next morning, we set out for Alishan, up into the mountains. On the way, we stopped by a randomly selected roadside hole in the wall for lunch. It was good food. Not great. Not bad. We had noodles and meat dishes. We ordered something called tianbula, literally translating to sweet, not spicy. It's something I liked from childhood though hadn't had in ages, and the name is curiously phonetically translated from "tempura", but it tastes nothing like tempura. We also ordered pig's blood cake, which I actually kind of liked. It's the first time I actually liked pig's blood. The entire meal that filled the bellies of six adults and two children, was a bank-busting $20. That is...$20 total. That much feeds one and a quarter people back in San Francisco, for a cheap place. The average salary in Taiwan is well over one-sixth of the United States. This is the result of a food industry with very few regulatory barriers. Simply amazing.

For all the talk, I honestly still don't understand Alishan. We got up early to see the famed sunrise. The weather did not cooperate, as there were no clouds to bounce the light off of. Still, I've witnessed the sunrise in the Grand Canyon when the weather didn't cooperate either and it was still amazing.

The rest of Alishan was nice. We saw the three generations tree, some monkeys, and rode a train back.  But I wouldn't rank it in maybe even the top fifty most beautiful places I've been.

From the roof deck of our hotel. Not too shabby. // photo my own

Supposedly the best sunrise in Taiwan. It maybe ranks at #5,261,219 of sunrises that I've seen, next to the last time I saw a sunrise at Alishan. And I'm not even a morning person. Worse yet, there was some kind of tour guide at the location that seemed to think the best way to enjoy a sunrise was by blaring mountain facts and corny jokes into your eardrum with a bullhorn. // photo my own

We left Alishan and headed to Sun Moon Lake. We arrived at night and perused the local night market before checking into the hotel. As if I hadn't had enough of a jetlagged stress test already, I awoke again well before the sun came up and left with my mom to a sunrise place she had staked out. The rental car, along with every single other car on the road that I saw, had tinted driver's and passenger's side windows, which forced me to drive with the windows down since I couldn't see squat in the pitch black of the narrow, winding mountain roads. The sunrise turned out to be much better than Alishan, even without the cloud cover cooperating. The fog of the city below in the twilight was just spectacular.

Now this, even without the spectacular oranges and yellows of a superb sunrise, is still a properly beautiful sunrise. //photo my own

Following the sunrise, we went back to the lake and I saw it for the first time. What an absolutely gorgeous lake. It has the bones to be a mini version of Lake Como, but unfortunately, there is too much cheaply done modernist architecture from Taiwan's days of growing pains. It would take decades of upgrading the architecture, and the culture to accept outdoor dining, to get anywhere close to Lake Como. Still, the underlying feeling of the area, filled with people hiking and biking around the lake, was there. Plus, Italy doesn't have the original tea leaf egg lady on the south shore, nor do they have as vibrant a night market. So, there.

Beautiful Sun Moon Lake. // photo my own

One of only two buildings at the lake that I saw, whose architecture did not detract from the scenery.  Contrast this with Lake Como, where just about all the architecture enhances the scenery. // photo my own

We continued eastward in the mountains, dragging half the family to see a small chapel structurally built out of paper, designed by Shigeru Ban. We ascended into the mountains and ate at a restaurant featuring local tribe dishes. It was delicious, though we avoided the worm dish. The next day, we gazed at the immense scale of the mountains we were in, and I ate one of the best sausages I've ever had: the Taiwan sausage, perhaps second only to the Filipino longganisa. 

Just. Wow. I wish I had more time to spend here. I think I could stare at that for an hour and not get bored. // photo my own

Coming down the mountain on the east side, we entered Taroko National Park, which, for my money, has Alishan beat, hands down. We stayed in the city of Hualien, where the people driving still had some of the old school Taiwan rudeness, as people ran red lights in a stream, cutting us off at an intersection. Still, it wasn't terribly widespread. An F-16 roared overhead, reminding us of the still real dangers of a Chinese invasion. It was at the night market here, where I commiserated with my brother-in-law, remarking just how clean it was in the food markets. There was hardly a scrap of litter on the ground among the hundreds of people chowing down stinky tofu, boba milk tea, Taiwanese fried chicken, and this wonderful deep-fried pastry egg thing I have never had before. A stark contrast to the human excrement-filled streets of San Francisco.

In Taroko, we walked several canyon trails and over a newly built pedestrian bridge to nowhere. It seemed like the pedestrian bridge's sole purpose was to allow one to gaze down into the canyon below, though it would have been nice if it were connected to a longer trail.

This would never be allowed in the United States. // photo my own

A very interesting stretch in Taroko, with a road hanging off a cliff, meandering in and out of tunnels. Signs warn visitors of falling rocks. Hard hats are offered to visitors, conveniently located about a mile up the road with no signs. // photo my own

Heading north along the coast, we eventually hit our target of Kavalan Distillery, famed for beating a handful of Scotches in a blind taste test to win top marks in 2010, followed up with hundreds of awards in successive years. Even the show Billions, a show with definite culinary cred, gave a nod to Kavalan, with the Paul Giamatti character stating that the Taiwanese do whisky even better than the Scots. Though my preferred choice of imbibement is beer, the whisky was indeed fantastic. It never got quite as peaty as Lagavulin, but the complex flavor profiles are the primary draw for this distillery.

I wanted to touch the gorgeous water. But the only access to water was the toilet at the parking lot. // photo my own

Oh, yeah. // photo my own

Speaking of beer, the one beer people probably know from the island is likely Taiwan Beer. And it's decent...if you're comparing it to Bud Light. Otherwise, it gets crushed by the legion of microbreweries across the world. I went to a restaurant offering bottomless Taiwan Beer and I was good after one small glass to taste. Out of all the breweries within a 30-mile radius of where I live, all of them produce beer that kicks Taiwan Beer's butt up and down the street (I use 30 miles because there is an Anheuser-Busch manufacturing plant just outside that 30-mile radius). There is a good reason for this. Taiwan Beer enjoyed a government monopoly and was actually brewed by a government entity, until 2002. Taiwan opened up its beer market and dissolved the historically evil Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Monopoly Bureau into private entities. Now with competition allowed, microbreweries started popping up. We purchased several of these beers from convenience stores. And they were terrible. Better than Taiwan Beer, and some were even innovative like some infused with tea, but they all lacked the punch a quality ale should have, tasting more like swill. We didn't, however, have the ability to stop at a proper beer bar, which may have made a world of difference.

It takes time. Look at the United States. Prohibition ended in 1934 and the beer industry was consolidated into just a few major breweries that rubbed elbows with the government to enact laws unfavorable to competition. The beer industry was devastated and the whole of the United States was a laughingstock for countries like Germany. It wasn't until 1978 that Jimmy Carter signed a law that legalized homebrewing, which would eventually spark the microbrewing frenzy. If you were lucky, you would have discovered gems like Sierra Nevada Brewing that opened the year following. But the microbrewing frenzy didn't really leave the ground until the 1990s, and really exploded in the mid-2000s when the hipsters discovered IPAs. Today, nobody makes as diverse and quality a beer lineup as the United States. Sorry, Belgium. So if Taiwan follows a similar timeline (big if), it should be hitting its inflection point right around now. You are one of the best in the culinary arts. I still have hope for you.

Following Kavalan, we went to the ever-busy Taipei, where my first task the first morning was to return the rental car. I had feared this moment ever since my solo drive in Taichung. I drove the car solo, but this time following my father. At one intersection came the scariest moment I ever had driving, except the time I nearly power-slid off a hairpin turn into the icy ocean waters two hundred feet below, joyriding on California's Highway 1. Sitting in the rightmost of two left turn lanes, I awaited the light to turn green, some ten cars back. The light turned green and as I approached the intersection, I realized the side street mopeds were turning as well, like a giant school of fish, streaming across my field of vision. Entering the intersection, my heart sank as I realized I was supposed to merge in the intersection, into the same lane with the swarm of mopeds. What could I do? I followed the cars and drove into the sea of mopeds. And nothing happened. All the mopeds went around and navigated their way around me like everything was normal. In the United States, I would have been dragged out of my car and beaten to within an inch of my life. The last moped to come around me was, of course, a mother with her newborn strapped to her chest, cruising around and positioning herself in front of me. Just don't hit that one.

Mission successful, we dove into one of the culinary capitals of the world: Taipei. Anthony Bourdain, who was an absolute treasure to the world, did a huge disservice by visiting Taiwan only once, on an episode of The Layover, of all shows. 

Despite the splendiferous multitude of dishes the small island country offers, if you ask the average American, the only thing they can name coming out of the country is probably boba, the drink that became famously trendy in the past few years. Some may even be able to name Din Tai Feng, the restaurant that popularized the Taiwanese version of the best dumpling in the world, the xiao long bao. Left off the list are some of what I consider to have a place in the pantheon of best dishes and tastes in the world: beef noodle soup, salty porridge with Chinese donuts, cold sesame noodles, braised pork bun, and the infamous stinky tofu. People rave about Hawaiian shave ice when visiting Oahu. No, Taiwanese mango shave ice is galaxies better. People talk about German bratwurst. No, Taiwanese sausage with spicy peppers and crushed peanuts are in a different ballpark. The black pepper bun, the pineapple cake with ice cream, and the Taiwanese fried chicken. Each bite is better than the last.

This is the Chinese donut. It doesn't look like a donut and doesn't taste like a donut. Why is it called a Chinese donut? Probably because the direct translation, oil sticks, makes people gag. But this is oh, so delicious. // photo my own

The popular Michelin Bib-Gourmand-rated Fuzhou Ancestor Pepper Pie is cooked in what appears to be the same clay oven naan is cooked in. It was phenomenal, but honestly, the cart next door selling pineapple buns with ice cream was better. The Michelin people missed out. // photo my own

I cursed under my breath that we could never have such vibrant night markets pop up in the streets of the United States, made completely impossible with zoning laws and onerous street vendor licenses. It took Los Angeles over a decade to finally make it legal to sell bacon-wrapped hot dogs from a cart albeit with an array of regulations. Slinging food in a Taiwan night market is so free and unregulated that it has become somewhat of a social safety net, where anyone can corral a food cart and just start selling food at a night market. There are little to no health safety regulations, but the markets are self-regulated, with customers avoiding bad stalls and adjacent vendors chasing out the bad stalls, lest that street corner gains a poor reputation.

This is before even talking about the upscale food scene. When I was in Taiwan previously, in 2010, its upscale food scene was already getting pretty good. My wife and I had a wedding ceremony there in an upscale hotel restaurant. Twelve courses and everything was amazing, except for one dish that inadvertently included under-washed vegetables. In years past, the chef may come out and apologize, and that would be the end of that. When I was a child, a waiter at Din Tai Feng, of all places, before it became famous, destroyed my Coke by pouring tea into it. He said sorry but never brought a replacement. This time, the chef came out, apologized, and added two additional courses to the service, which was great, though we were incredibly stuffed. Fast forward to 2018, and Michelin entered Taipei, followed by Taichung in 2020. Still expanding, by 2022, Taipei had garnered thirty-one starred restaurants, bolstered by an additional five in Taichung and two in Kaohsiung. San Francisco, with a much deeper Michelin history, has only twenty-nine starred restaurants at the time of this writing.

Some family friends took us to Shin Yeh Taiwanese Signature, who had garnered their Michelin Star in 2022. Despite the heavy French lean the culinary guide often gets criticized for, Shin Yeh is an upscale traditional Taiwanese restaurant with a modern twist. Their braised pork and chicken basil dishes were to die for and the dessert dish, a soup with sweetened tofu had a texture I didn't think tofu was capable of. It was almost mochi-like. A few nights later, we were taken to Dian Shui Lou, where I probably had the best Xiao Long Bao I've ever had, a twist with Szechuan ma la peppercorns infused into the soup dumpling. Even among the art exhibits at the National Palace Museum, the two most famous pieces are probably the Jadeite Cabbage (which was traveling at the time I was there) and the Meat-shaped Stone, carved out of jasper.

Ma la xiao long bao, in the center. Insane. In the membrane. // photo my own

Rounding out our trip there, how could one not go to the Chaing Kai-shek Memorial Hall? A tribute to the dictator of Taiwan, a country that really took off after he passed. Interestingly, this complex, like many of the other government-run places in Taiwan, still had ancient hole-in-the-ground toilets. Privately owned places all had nice toilets, many with bidets and heated seats. Ironically, on the ground floor was a museum exhibit that dedicated itself to political dissidents that risked their lives for freedom. Unfortunately, we were pressed for time and I didn't have time to explore the exhibits. Even when Taiwan gets something wrong, it somehow gets it right.

Brutalist, monumental to cater to the ego of a dictator. The biggest monuments are often of the worst people in a country's history. Do you think Ron Paul would ever get a monument like this? No, and he would be aghast if taxpayer dollars were spent on a monument this size for him like any decent person would be. // photo my own

I've never called Taiwan home, but now that I'm back in the United States, it is strange that I feel a slight bit homesick. I would fly that dozen-hour flight just to eat. It could be that I just didn't want my vacation to end. It may not be among the top tier of best countries you visit (unless you're solely focused on your inner foodie), but it is for sure one of the perennially underrated countries to visit.

All my life, I've called myself Chinese. My grandparents were, after all, from Shanghai. Ethnically, that is what I am. But where do people split? At some point in time, Chinese people's ancestors arrived in China. They weren't always Chinese. This is true for nearly every region on the planet. Even the origin spot for humans identified as a different species at some point had they had the capacity to do so. More and more, I call myself Taiwanese. I have even corrected people when they ask if I'm Chinese. On forms asking for my ethnicity, I put Taiwanese. My father had questioned people that say they are not Chinese, but Taiwanese. With all the shit the Chinese Communist Party pulls and the astronomical trajectory of Taiwan, he no longer questions this self-identification. Even my grandmother, embarrassed by the ruling government of China, now calls herself Taiwanese.

Taiwan's existence hangs on a thread. It appears to me that it will continue accelerating upward while China will begin to backslide. When China backslides and if unrest continues to pile up, the political elite may attempt a Taiwan invasion as a last-ditch effort to save their power. It would indeed be a devastating gut punch for China to destroy Hong Kong and Taiwan, two of the freest regions in the world, my wife's birth country, and my ancestral country.

So here I am, stuck between wanting to see the evil Chinese Communist Party implode, and wanting Taiwan to be spared. If I had to choose, I would choose the latter in a heartbeat.