519: Taipei tips, both Chinas' only hero, and Pokemon folklore origins
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Just landed in Seoul! Here’s my Taiwan tips - it is honestly not as appealing of a travel destination as others in Asia. Book on Klook for the best rates.
Taipei doesn’t have a lot of tourist attractions other than the Taipei 101 tower and the night markets (Shilin was best IMO). The Modern Toilet theme restaurant had honestly delicious toilet shaped food.
We did the Shiufen, Shilin, and Yehliu daytrip to get out of Taipei and see a mountain tea village, sky lanterns, and coastal rocks respectively, which was worthy. Even though Shiufen doesn’t actually look much like Spirited Away.
Taroko Gorge seems like a worthy daytrip from Taipei, although we didn’t make it out. Instead we went to Alishan Mountain Forest, which had an absolutely crazy mountain road leading to it and gorgeous calm trees atop the island.
We went south to Kaohsiung to visit an aunt, but there’s even less for the traveller there, other than the same monkey hike which appears to be available over Asia.
Here are two other friends’s lists of Taipei restaurants, etc.
Technology
Silicon Valley darling Ben Casnocha happened to be in Tokyo the last few weeks as well, and wrote up an excellent post of VC flavored impressions that ring true to mine.
Worth calling out:
“How rules/norms are enforced illustrates a key difference between Japan and Singapore: Singapore is a 58 year old country with various immigrants from across Asia who cohere into a single society. Japan is a thousands-year-old culture that’s pure Japanese from top to bottom.”
“Iyer on fitting in: “Japanese couples on honeymoon traditionally plan matching outfits for every hour of their trip. Even girls on a Sunday shopping spree often sport the same hairstyles, false eyelashes and white boots. Fashion becomes less about standing out than fitting in, at least within the micro-group of which you are a part.”
The link to Noahpinion’s breathless adulation of Tokyo as the best city in the world, which offers economist flavored impressions showing how Tokyo has invested heavily in housing and transit, with innovative zoning that allows for dense retail corridors with quiet residential streets blocks away.
The link to his previous Singapore post, which lionizes founder Lee Kwan Yew for literally seceding from post British colony Malaysia over the latter’s decision to embrace affirmative action. “The Singapore National Pledge, written in 1966, declares that Singaporeans are ‘one united people, regardless of race, language or religion’. It is recited in school assemblies, with a fist clenched above the heart.” Not to mention increasing the city state’s tiny size by 25% through sea reclamation.
Ideologies
Sun Yat Sen is one of the only men revered by both modern China and Taiwan as the father of each nation, and has a helluva life story. He spent most of his life trying to overthrow the Qing dynasty and failing, until he succeeded with the KMT, only to pass away after victory but before the Civil War. His Three Principles of the People governance philosophy honestly stand up today: nationalism, democracy, and welfarism.
Speaking of which, the Chinese Civil War was insane! Sun and Chiang Kai Shek helped overthrow the Qing dynasty ending centuries of dynastic rule, only to then struggle against the new Communists under Mao Zedong. The Nationalists were winning until Mao sacrificed 90% of his troops to escape in the Long March north and regroup, only to be interrupted by the Japanese invasion in WW2.
Chiang’s generals convinced him to ally with Mao against the greater threat, which they did, but the Communists hung back and let the KMT take 6x more casualties, which left the former in a stronger position after the war. The Civil War restarted within a year after Japan’s surrender, and Mao pushed Chiang et al back to Taiwan, unable to invade due to US intervention and the fact that the KMT took all the boats and planes.
That state of war exists to this day, and both China and Taiwan claim to be the sole true Republic of China. Now I understand the current tensions better!
Memes
I’m still untangling just how deep Japanese pop culture is entrenched in my life. Did you know that hundreds of Pokemon are based directly on ancient Japanese folklore monsters, called yokai? Many fascinating folkloric explanations of natural phenomenon in there, like the eyes that develop in un-repaired paper door holes, or creatures that live in refuse that is not cleaned.
This list describing the origins of every Pokemon’s name is eye opening as well. Pikachu essentially translates to ‘sparklesqueak’.
Zhou Shen is a Chinese pop star beloved by the ruling party who has some serious angelic pipes. Listen to him cover Frozen’s Let It go in 9 languages(!) here.