Fun facts about Taiwan

Read in a magazine the other day that Taipei has 5.16 square feet of greenery per person, which is less than Beijing and Seoul.  Seems like that can't be true, everyone knows Beijing is a shit hole that gets spattered with mud rain, and Seoul is about as glass and concrete as you can get.  My mom told me I should put up some info about Taiwan for people who know next to nothing about it.  Like my customers while I was bartending, the ones I mentioned my new job to that perked up and told me, "Oh, you're going to love Thailand!"

Life here is very different than China.  This being a tropical island, you'd think people here are really laid back, and as a whole people here are less high-strung.  At the same time, people work the shit out of themselves in the city, often putting in long hours, and only getting one day off a week.  The weather is understandably hot and muggy, and right now we experience flash downpours that last at most 10-15 minutes, but that can do a lot of damage if you get stuck in one.  When I came here during the tail-end of the winter the temperature was just right, though it rained nearly every day (think Seattle), which made hanging laundry challenging.

Cost of living, while cheaper than the US, is nothing compared to China, although you don't have to worry as much about the things you're consuming containing lead or other cost-effective materials.  Or do you?  The top news stories are always about food, some new trend, or health study about a favorite snack, or some hazardous materials supposedly found in anything from tapioca balls to meat products...the Taiwanese love their food.  I've ranted before about how people will stand forever in line, because if something has a line it means its good!  Or they'll even plan trips to certain locations just to try the local specialty.  For someone like me, who appreciates good food, but looks at it mainly as a means of sustenance, this is faintly amusing.  I would never go somewhere to sample dishes when I could be taking in Taiwan's natural beauty.  Sorry, I got off on a tangent.  Anyway, where a dish in China might cost anywhere from 60 to 80 cents, in Taiwan it's going to run you more in the area of $3.  I know, you guys are rolling your eyes at me, but it adds up.  A bottle of water in China would usually cost 12 cents, but here it's more like 60 cents to a dollar.  I've ranted about fruit before, depending on what season it is and what you get it can be more expensive here than back home, especially for more exotic fruits like cherries and blueberries.  By the same token, tropical fruits like mangoes and pineapples are far cheaper (guavas are dirt cheap), and you get access to some native fruits (wax apples,  custard-apples) that you'd never find back in the States.

Definitely a lot less spitting and random defecation in public, but you still find the odd drunk person pissing in a small alley, not that you wouldn't find that in Downtown Seattle somewhere early, early in the morning.  People like to spit out their betel nut pulp all over.  Funny, since I never catch anyone in action, just the physical remnants of said act.  Mosquitoes are supposed to be a plague when summer proper sets in, but as of now they're a minor nuisance.  I've seen more ants and cockroaches than anything else, and like the papayas here, the cockroaches are enormous.

The money system here is pretty straightforward.  Official name is the Taiwan New Dollar, but people here use the term 'yuan' (unlike in the Mainland, where they say 'kuai').  Coins come in denominations of $1, $5, $10, and $50 NT (there are $20 NT coins, but they are very rare), and $100, $500, and $1000 NT notes (likewise, there are $200 NT notes you'll see as often as you might see a $2 US bill).  The $1 coins are mostly a pain in the ass to carry around, like our pennies, but have a bit more spending power.  $50 NT coins are hefty gold-hued coins, and actually useful in daily transactions (has the equivalent spending power of around $2 US).  What cracks me up is the other American guys seem to like them, but then spout shit about how $1 coins in the US are a stupid idea that will never catch on.  No, what's a stupid idea is circulating them together with $1 bills.  Of course they're not going to catch on then you fucking morons, not with the weight of tradition against them.  They'd much rather spend a significant portion of our mint budget replacing $1 bills after their 4.8 years of service, so it'll save the added encumbrance in their pockets.  

Obviously Canadians feel right at home using them.

What pisses me off about the currency is not its facility in every-day life, but rather its numismatic capabilities.    None of the coins in circulation are older than Taiwan Year 70 (year one commemorating the founding of the republic).  The current year is 102 (subtract 1911 from the Gregorian year), making no coin older than 1981.  Yawn.  The coins themselves aren't anything special, featuring Chiang Kai-Shek and Sun Yat-Sen, as well as some old bald dude I'm unfamiliar with.  I've been told by my students that there is precisely 0 chance of finding ANY older coins in circulation still, they've simply been expunged.  At least in China you'd randomly come across some of the older (and far more aesthetically pleasing) notes still chugging along.  But Taiwan is a numismatic wasteland, at least when it comes to the functional money.

Ok, I've got to take down my laundry in case it rains over night.  I'll try to put another one of these up.  They're not very easy to write though, I have to think about what might be interesting even though I've long since become accustomed to it.