ROTARY FRIENDSHIP EXCHANGE: Roger & Vicki Travel to Taiwan

In Taiwan, we were wined and dined by local Rotarians.  They arranged an itinerary that included visiting several museums, research centers, manufacturing facilities, a distillery, a hot spring spa and many other local attractions.  One of the most impressive was a tour of Taroko National Park, Taiwan's equivalent to our Grand Canyon, and it could only be described as awesome.  

We stayed with three different host families.  Our first was Lucky and his wife Li Su.  Lucky is a general contractor, who along with a couple of other developers have built over 20,000 high-rise housing units in a suburb of Taipei within the past ten years.  He is currently on his 9th condo project, a 20-plus-story building covering a half block.  These are mostly luxury units in an upscale area, with a major university across the boulevard.  Lucky and Li Su live in a double unit, with very contemporary Japanese-influenced interior design, on the 9th floor of one of their buildings.  We had a large room and luxury bathroom to ourselves and had an opportunity to use their spa and pool. 

In Yilan, our second host offered us more of a traditional Chinese family environment with three generations all living together under the same roof.  Kiwi and his wife Jenny, their three children (and one spouse), and three young grandchildren lived in three floors of a building they own.  They worked together in the family business (a distributor of Toto, bathroom accessories) and ate their meals together as a family.  While we stayed with them, we were privileged to witness the tail-end of the Chinese New Year celebration which consisted of a very colorful parade, lots of fireworks and fun, that culminated that evening with the Lantern Festival. 

Our third stay was an ocean-front bed and breakfast resort on an aboriginal reservation in Hualien.  Hanna, a former Rotarian and widow of an aboriginal, was an excellent host as well.  The ambiance was very different from either of our previous hosts--beautiful mountains at our back with a pebble beach at our front.

Everywhere, the food was fantastic, whether it was in the home of our host, a small off-street restaurant, a Rotary dinner meeting at a five-star hotel, or lunch at a world-class golf country club. And, we rarely ate the same thing twice.  We actually got pretty good at eating with chop sticks, and drank more tea in ten days than we usually do in ten months.

All in all our stay in Taiwan was fantastic.  The country is crowded but beautiful.  The people are warm, accommodating and friendly.  We left with a feeling of permanent friendships and are looking forward to hosting them in September when they send a delegation to our Rotary district.  We'll have a challenge to come up with an itinerary as well-rounded and complete as they put together for us.   

In Taishan, two hours from Guangzhou, China, we met and stayed with Vicki's relatives and saw the countryside childhood home of her father, who left for the U.S. in 1938.  It was an enjoyable and emotional experience.   Vicki's family is fantastic, treating us like royalty, insisting on waiting on us, and carrying our "stuff"  while taking us out and about to experience their country.  Fortunately, Vicki's grand-niece Selphy could speak English, and her brother knew enough that together with a little sign language we got by.  The rest of the family hardly spoke a word of English.  They lived in a small, approximately 900 sq. ft., fourth-floor walk-up apartment.  A bit crowded, with us, we were 8 adults and 2 children in a unit about the size of an efficiency apartment in the U.S.  Toilet facilities were a real challenge for us as well.  They consisted of a three-foot-square room with a porcelain hole in the floor, a faucet to fill a bucket to dump in to flush.  We showered in a slightly larger room which is also where they kept live fish in a bucket for an upcoming meal, cleaned their chickens and other food items, as well as hand wash clothes, brush teeth and wash hands.  This was next to the kitchen which wasn't much bigger than a closet, containing a gas wok and several electric cookers for rice, etc.  Next to the kitchen was a small room that had a small refrigerator/freezer, a hot water dispenser for tea, and an electric dish dryer/sterilizer.  All that aside, we hated to leave such open, friendly people, and it was hard for Vicki to leave the family that she just met.
 
China was a real contrast that we were not prepared for.  Throughout the Guangzhou area, there is massive construction in every direction and the thick smog makes it difficult to see the mountains in the background. The countryside occurs as one big landfill with trash/garbage everywhere.  In spite of the technology China possesses, water buffalo and hand tools are still used to raise crops in polluted soil and irrigation ditches.  Their open food markets are mostly dirty and unsanitary. Tap water is undrinkable, and we both were concerned about getting sick from the delicious but questionable food.  While China and Taiwan are so similar in culture, in the sense that the are primarily Chinese people, Taiwan is much more 20 or 21st Century and China's culture hasn't caught up to their economy and technology.  China's general population, while possessing TVs, cell phones and all of the gadgets, is still basically living in the 19th Century.  In both countries, motor bikes and scooters far out numbered cars and share the roads (fortunately not the freeways) with buses, trucks and cars, making driving quite chaotic. 
 
Of course, Roger stood out and was easily recognized as American.  Those who could, would say hello to him in English as a gesture of friendship. (Of course, the shopkeepers wanted him to come in and spend money :-)  Well, there you have it--a small snippet of a true experience-of-a-lifetime.  We hope we haven't bored you with our story: there is so much more we could share with you!

You can see more pictures on our website under photo albums.

Roger and Vicki