Auld Acquaintance

A big reason that motivated me to come to Taiwan (because let's be honest, who goes to Taiwan?) was to see my friend Steve. We had met six years ago when I was travelling in western China and have stayed in touch ever since. One of the advantages, and also disadvantages, of a travelling life is that you end up having friends all over the world, however you rarely get to see them. Luckily with the wonders of the internet it is possible to easily keep in touch. But if I am at all close then I will certainly make the effort to meet up.

My view for New Year's Eve. Impeccable view of the fireworks from Taipei 101.

Getting To Taiwan The Slow Way

My dream is to be able to complete my trip, travelling round the world, without needing to resort to flying. It will be difficult to accomplish, and almost certainly be more expensive and take longer than if flying, but I feel that airplanes have somehow trivialised distances so that we no longer really appreciate how far away places are. And when travelling by plane from point A to point B you do not see what is between them, how the land changes, how cultures, traditions and people connect the two. Furthermore flying is also the most polluting form of transport (per kilometre travelled) out there. (And in one of the world's ironies/hypocrisies, it is also the form of transport that is taxed the least, thereby benefitting the most affluent as well as the most profligate polluters.) The dream may not work out, but I will certainly try.

The fearsome Taiwanese army, ready to fight off any invasion from Commie China ... OK, maybe not. But they did help me cut my way through the bureaucracy of buying a SIM card in a 7-Eleven on Matsu.

Big Trouble In Little China

Over the course of this and previous trips I have spent about four and a half months in China. A long time perhaps for a single country, but not that long when you consider its size, history, and the fact that it is home to one sixth of the world's population. In my time there I have mastered the use of chopsticks (well, perhaps not mastered, but I certainly won't go hungry), picked up a smattering of Mandarin, speaking as well as reading, developed a liking for red bean ice-cream (and red beans in general) and learnt a good deal about it. I now feel pretty comfortable travelling in China, which has a surprisingly comprehensive rail and bus network, finding accommodation, buying food and generally being a tourist. I can even ask some basic questions, although I will rarely understand the replies unless they are accompanied by hand gestures. I have come to really enjoy the (street) food and find it hard to let a day go by without satisfying my hunger for baozi. All in all my impression of China is very positive, yet there are some things that grate on me and (I feel) are intricately linked together.

In China's breakneck growth many have seen their quality of life vastly improve, but there are also many that have been left behind.

Hidden Stories Of Fujian

One of the things I love doing when travelling is finding little-known, obscure vestiges of history. Places that hark to a past that is not talked about, forgotten or, better yet, actively suppressed. I'm not really sure why, perhaps out of a desire to witness a truth that is being denied and thereby keeping it alive, or perhaps to satisfy my own curiosity about disputed pasts and to make up my own mind. Whatever the reason I am drawn to the forgotten stories, even though there is often little there to actually see. Some examples include the multitude of Armenian remains scattered throughout Turkey, many of which were actively destroyed, damaged or converted by successive regimes to deny, or at least reduce, a historical Armenian presence; or Palestinian towns within Israel that have been removed for the same reasons; Jewish remains within the Middle East or the Pale of Settlement where there had been communities for centuries but no longer today; or Communist-era follies in eastern Europe.

The Great Helmsman has a lot to answer for. The omnipresent cult of personality is gone, as is his Little Red Book (which is surprisingly difficult to come by in China, although, oddly enough, pretty easy in Hong Kong), though a number of statues still remain. This one in Fuzhou is one of the most conspicuous.

The War For Drugs (And Tea)

Today's post is a little different from my usual ones. It's not about my travels as such (and there are no photos), but instead is about a piece of history that I have learnt whilst travelling that I didn't know and thought it important to share.

Although the most important factor making Hong Kong such a stress-free destination is the fact that most people speak English to some degree, and many often well, thanks to Hong Kong's past as a British colony. Many people like to pin all the world's ills on colonialism and its legacy, whereas I believe that is too easy a cop-out. Colonialism was often racist, mercenary and exploitative, but it also helped less developed societies to leap forward. Hong Kong would probably be the poster child for positive colonialism: a rich, dynamic and open society that is now ploughing its own furrow. Of course, what is often forgotten, is just how Britain came to possess Hong Kong and how China opened itself up to the outside world. That little episode in history is known as the Opium Wars, and is one of the darkest passages in Britain's history, and one that gets very little air-time.

Bright Lights And Big Bets

At the mouth of the Pearl River, on either side of the estuary, lie Macau and Hong Kong, former colonies of Portugal and Great Britain respectively. And although they were returned to China (in 1997 in the case of Hong Kong and 1999 for Macau) they still remain administratively and politically separate from mainland China under the "one country two systems" policy and are classified as Special Administrative Regions. They are free of the all-pervasive Chinese censorship; travelling abroad is far easier; they tend to speak Cantonese rather than Mandarin; and use traditional Chinese characters to write rather than simplified characters. In fact in some ways they are more Chinese than their mainland brothers as they have retained some traditions that were purged during the tumultuous years of Mao's China. The ex-colonies are also easier to visit for foreigners than for ordinary Chinese who need a special permit to visit the SARs.

A small shrine outside a shop where incense is burnt and often a food offering (e.g. an apple or an orange) is left is a common sight in Macau and Hong Kong, but almost extinct in mainland China.

Where Can I Buy 4000 Pairs Of Shoes?

I finally made it to Guangdong province on China's southern coast. The palm trees are here, as are the bananas, but the warm balmy weather is still eluding me. The name Guangdong may sound unfamiliar to Western ears, as it is more commonly known as Canton. During the 18th and 19th centuries when the Western powers were expanding their influence around the world their main point of contact with the Middle Kingdom was through the various ports in the province, particularly Guangzhou (which was also, confusingly, named Canton). This is the Chinese region that has had the greatest contact with the outside world and has always been more open to foreign influences, which is easily evident both in its people and its places.

A poignant reminder of China's bygone openness to the world. This minaret stands in the grounds of a mosque in Guangzhou, built in the 7th century AD, and therefore one of the oldest mosques in the world. There is still a significant Muslim population throughout China that traces its history back t those early days.

Chinese Landscapes

I remember, as a child, seeing traditional Chinese landscape paintings. I remember thinking to myself that they didn't look real: they were permanently misty and the mountains looked like caricatures, sort of ideal mountains that a child would draw, but far more "mountainy" than any real mountain. They didn't look like anything I had ever seen in Europe and so I simply dismissed them as fantastical make-believe landscapes ... how wrong I was.

Yangshuo's iconic karst scenery and idyllic rivers make it one of China's most popular tourist destinations, and for good reason.

Winter Migration

Zhengzhou was getting too cold for me, with nighttime temperatures plunging uncomfortably close to freezing and the hazy days faring little better. Exacerbating the situation was the lack of indoor heating that prevails in most of China - people just put on more clothes when they're at home in the evenings. There was only one solution: I bought myself a train ticket, direction due south. The scenery rolling past the train (when you could see through the endless mist) was one of small, steep hills with isolated villages surrounded by paddy fields, now denuded and home only to stubble and the odd, rather lost-looking, water buffalo. As soon as I stepped off the train in Wuhan I knew I was headed in the right direction and I was even able to take off my beanie, which had become a permanent fixture on my head since returning to China.

Like many large Chinese cities Wuhan is undergoing a boom that is seeing a rise in local investment and consumption. So far 4 of the cities I have visited have metro systems under construction and many are also building swanky shopping and leisure districts such as the one above that has regenerated an old canalside.

Cradles And Graves

500km inland from Qingdao lies Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province. The province's name means "south of the river", in this case the Yellow River, and is without a doubt the cradle of Chinese civilisation. Within a relatively small radius lie the remains of over a dozen capitals of previous dynasties and kingdoms, most of the buried under countless layers of silt deposited by the continuously flooding river. For archaeology buffs it is the region to visit in China.

Zhengzhou itself is a large, hectic city of over 8.5 million people (more than Greater London) that, despite its long history, has little to show for it. But as a major railway junction it is a handy base from which to explore the surrounding region and travel back in time. If you want to work chronologically your first stop should be Anyang to the north of Zhengzhou, a rather nondescript and drab city, but sitting atop the ruins of the ancient Shang capital. Dating back to 1400 BC the ruins represent the very start of Chinese history as well as the origins of the Chinese writing system. Thousands of bones and turtle shells have been unearthed bearing the characters that would give rise to modern hanji script, and although most of them are too far removed to be recognisable, the few that have traversed the millennia almost unchanged elicit goosebumps as you feel the ancient world communicating directly to you. The succeeding Zhou dynasty moved the capital to Luoyang, west of Zhengzhou, where the historic remains include more than just excavated earthen walls and tombs with ritual sacrifices. The most noteworthy are the Longmen Grottoes, stretched out along either side of the Yi river. Here generations of Buddhist monks carved shrines and temples into the rock, from the tiny to the grandiose, with the central Buddha reaching over 17m, over a period of 300 years. Most of them survived unscathed until the beginning of the last century when the combined effects of Western collectors, Japanese invaders and the disastrous Cultural Revolution defaced the majority.



The main temple of the Longmen Grottoes with its 17m central Buddha carved from the cliff face.