Some Taipei Election Posters

Updated with more photos!

I've been collecting photos for this post for awhile, and after being deeply amused by David's roundup of Taizhong posters, I've finally decided to publish them.

Mine are mostly leaflets and other thingoes rather than street posters, but street posters are also represented.

I love the one above, which is hawking a candidate and yet made to look like a piece of traditional-style calligraphy for one's door.

I can't get enough of Wang Zhengde's avatar - a bobblehead cartoon Popeye. If you see the free notepads he's giving out, there's a woman (I don't know who) in the likeness of Olive Oyl. NO JOKE. What strikes me about this is how it would never go over well in the USA. It would be considered downright infantile.

I am ashamed to admit that I don't know who the older woman here is - the one that Wang Xinyi is bowing to like she's the reincarnated Confucius. Anyone?

I've already posted this but because it's THE MOST HILARIOUS THING EVER, I'm posting it again.

Photo by Brendan

Yeh Linzhuan has apparently disavowed his earlier slogan of "Take the love and send it out" (a pun on his name - 把愛傳出來). Apparently being the KMT Hippie wasn't working out for him.

His old posters really were something - not only did he use "Take the love and send it out" as a slogan, but they were generally covered with rainbows, a smiling Yeh looking off into the distance, and occasionally a butterfly or flower or two.

Underneath his poster is Chen Yumei, who is probably KMT considering the blue color of the poster, but it doesn't actually say. The pink and the feminine, demure pose with sweet smile are also things that wouldn't work very well in American politics.

I have to say I admire one thing about Taiwan in particular this election year: in the USA, when women run for prominent offices they get tarred and feathered by every sexist comment one could conceive of (see: Clinton, Hillary and Palin, Sarah - though the latter deserved what she got. Regardless of her gender, she's a dangerous lout). Hillary got called "fat", "ugly" and "a battleaxe", or "riding on the coattails of her husband" (which was, y'know, somewhat true though not so much anymore). She was attacked as a woman, as a candidate and as a mother. Sarah Palin got the MILF and "I'd hit that" jokes.

That doesn't happen here, at least not in any significant way - not in any way that makes it into the newspapers. Nobody cares if a candidate is male or female; people may not like Tsai Ying-wen but those who dislike her do so on the basis of her party and her positions, not her genitalia. There is no question that if a woman ran for president in Taiwan, she may or may not be elected but if she doesn't come up triumphant, it won't be because she's female.

Of course, tell that to the high profile female names in the Taiwanese business world - they get the sexist treatment aplenty (except, notably, in finance, which I plan to cover in a later post).

Li Dahua is running with the Qingmingdang (People First Party) and we received this in the mail from his campaign. We get a lot of election mail - clearly they don't realize or care that we can't vote.

Notable things about this are as follows:

1.) OMG adorable KITTY!

2.) The People First Party still exists? Wow. Does anyone actually vote for them?

3.) That kitty looks like my kitty, except my kitty is more corpulent by several orders of magnitude.

4.) So he's trying to win votes by posing with an adorable kitty. Really. What's funny is that in Taiwan, this may actually work. In the USA not so much.

...

5.) I'm ashamed to admit it but I kept this flier because the kitty is adorable.

(from XKCD)

Yeah, yeah.

Notable about this green candidate's poster (she's photoshopped here with Su Zhenchang and Tsai Ying-wen, but I am fairly sure she's Taiwan Solidarity Union) is the background of gentle peaches and pinks with peach blossoms. Again, in the USA, no female candidate would run something like this.

A Taiwan Solidarity Union (Tai Lian) paper flag with a giant-headed brown ant screaming about how they want to serve the people. I love how the Japanese children's cartoon (as opposed to Japanese cartoons that are definitely not for children) aesthetic is so prominent in Taiwanese politics, of all places. "Yeah, let's stick an adorable bobble-head ant on it. People will vote for us! We could use an adorable kitty, but Li Dahua's already doing that."

Zhou Ni'an (周倪安), below, is on the other side of this flag. Her slogan is "Zhu Ni An" - which is a pun meaning "Wish You Peace" (祝你安).

I'm sorry, Zhou Ni'an (周倪安), but you look like a character from South Park. Specifically, your expression reminds me of Butters.

Moving on to the poster below of Tsai Ying-wen:

This is another one I've already posted, with pink and hearts and a cutesey slogan and all that, which I rather respect about Taiwanese politics. They can come up with posters like this, which look like they got vomited on by an elementary school Valentine's Day card exchange, and still get elected.

Another poster for her in Xizhi shows a re-imagined map of the MRT Blue Line, with the last stop being Xizhi (in big letters), reiterating a campaign promise to extend the MRT to Xizhi. Which is not a bad idea, really.

And finally, another culprit in the Attack of the Bobbleheads. Hou Jingsheng is a DPP candidate (clearly) who has been giving out these nifty key fobs with pictures of his Bobblehead avatar that are powerful magnets, so you can stick your keys on your fridge, metal door or desk. I have one. It's pretty cool. A much more imaginative gimmick than a pad or pack of tissues (I never understood the tissues - so you can think of the candidate as you symbolically wipe your butt or blow gunk out of your nose?)

I don't have any photos yet, but Lee Denghui has been posing on posters for this guy as well as candidates in both the DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union.

His headband says "Hot Blood" on it - even folks who lean blue will often readily admit that the DPP has cornered the market on passionate displays of political vitriol, and Hou is definitely playing up that side of his party's reputation.

Hee hee! He totally looks like he'd slap a few blue legislators in the Legislative Yuan.

So now we've seen some of the key features of Taiwanese election campaigning: 1.) Little cartoon avatars with impossibly large heads; 2.) fist pumping galore (don't have a strong platform? Make a fist and look determined!); 3.) clunky-cute puns on candidate's names and 4.) When none of that works, go for adorable animals and odd movie references.

Here are a few more bits and bobs I've come across recently:

Photo by Brendan

We keep seeing these tanks rolling around Taipei; I actually don't know what party they're from but I'd guess KMT. Err, given the KMT's history of military oppression, is this really the best symbol, the gimmick that says "elect me! I won't kidnap you in the night and shoot you down by Machangding and not tell your family what happened to you for decades, if ever!"? Really?

Gimmicks! This one, from a DPP candidate, says "We listen to what's in Taipei's heart" and indicates that he's campaigning in Da'an and Wenshan districts. It's a children's school folder - yet another useful gewgaw for me (KMT gewgaws are much less imaginative, and anyway I don't like the KMT). There's a flier for the candidate inside.

See? Now you can give your kid one of these and Little Johnny can take it to school and show his friends, who will go home and tell their parents to vote for this guy. Smart!

Keeping in the "cute animals" theme: Zhang Honglin is campaigning in the Green Party - 綠黨 - not to be confused with the "Green" faction led by the DPP and usually consisting of other small parties with similar ideologies, like Tai Lian. (The Green Party, like the Qingmingdang - the Green Party still exists? Wow).

It seems all the underdog parties have been employing adorable animals to try to get votes. Since Li Dahua got the ADORABLE KITTY, Ah-Hong clearly gets the OMG HAO KE AI FLUFFY DOG! The dog's name is Apple, and Apple says, basically, "Hi, I'm Apple. Cast a ballot for me!"

I wonder if Taiwan would be much different if we elected a Fluffy Dog to a representative office?

And finally, this grainy iPod Touch photo (sorry, the camera quality really is crap) of an awesome procession of drummers, reminiscent of Taiwan temple fairs...actually, I am pretty sure that's exactly where they got the drummers - by calling up one of the organizations that trains drummers for temple festivals and hiring them out for political work.

If you saw the Taipei Times photo of a ba jia jiang (the guys at temple fairs in face paint and costume who do martial arts demonstrations as symbolic guardians of the gods) selling goods at Carrefour a few years ago, you'd know that this is totally fine and cool.

Pasta'ai 2010

Yesterday we went up to our 2nd Pasta'ai - a festival held by the Saisiyat tribe of Taiwanese aborigines. The festival is held in two locations: "North Side" in Da'ai Village, Wufeng Township, Xinzhu County, and the other in Nanzhuang, Miaoli County.

While the event in Nanzhuang is more accessible for those without private transportation, we always make the effort to go to Wufeng as, being harder to get to and less well-known (most people assume we're going to Nanzhuang until we tell them otherwise), it's almost certainly less touristy.

My first post incorrectly stated that it was held in the "Jhu Family Village" - it's near that village, but actually in Da'ai village (大隘), about an hour or less from Zhudong, and maybe an hour and a half from HSR Xinzhu Station.

Last year, we met the owner of our homestay, Ah-Q Mama, in Zhudong and drove up with her. Her husband does all the driving. This year, her husband was laid up with recovery from surgery and they were unable to help us get to Wufeng. As we've been doing recently whenever we want to go somewhere, we've been lucky enough to have friends with Taiwanese or international licenses who are also eager to go (not that we invite them because they have licenses - we've been fortunate that they've been happy to drive). So this time, we took the wonderful HSR down and rented a car at CarPlus.

Before leaving we got directions from the tourist info desk at Taipei Main Station, and I printed out a series of maps from Google between the HSR and the site, as well as the site and the homestay.

We got a little lost in Zhudong, but not anything too serious. The drive up was pleasant, as Eduardo, our friend behind the wheel, is a conscientious driver who, being Venezuelan, is used to crazy traffic. His skills are equal to that of our friends Emily and Drew, though he's less aggressive on the road and isn't one for high speeds. The road up from Zhudong is narrow and windy, but not very high up.

There seemed to be more attempts at tourism to Wufeng this time - fabric flags lined the road up from Zhudong with "PaSta'ay" written in Papyrus font.

We arrived just after dark and parked next to a "house" that people apparently lived in, despite it not having a roof. Oookaaay...all in all parking seemed to be much more difficult to come by this year, and we had to drive quite a ways from the site before we found a suitable spot. Maybe it was just as bad two years ago, but we weren't driving ourselves so we didn't notice.

Before we could even get into the building where spirit-protecting grass is tied around your head or arm as well as all cameras, a group of dancers and torch-bearers came out of the main site, singing a chant-like melody.

First the torch-bearers came through..

Then a line of dancers, some with back accoutrements with beads and metal chimes, came out, moving and chanting in unison.

I covered the origins of this festival in my post two years ago by linking to an online site on the Pasta'ai - you can read it here if you are interested. Basically, a long time ago there was (or may have been) a tribe of dark-skinned pygmies called the Ta'ai living near the Saisiyat. The two groups were intially friendly, but after some time, the pygmies began taking the Saisiyat women for reasons you can guess at, as well as stealing food. The Saisiyat attacked and killed the Ta'ai...but it turns out the Ta'ai knew sorcery and cursed the Saisiyat, who now have to hold the Pasta'ai as an offering at the end of the harvest season to atone for the massacre.

Anthropologists agree that the Ta'ai may well have been a real tribe in ancient Taiwan, and that the Saisiyat may well have killed them. Clearly they were not magical beings as the Saisiyat legend claims, but there is quite likely a historical basis for the story.

I asked a local if the designs had any special meaning: she said they did not, just anything the owners found aesthetically pleasing. Buddhist swastikas (a Buddhist symbol before it was a Nazi one), curved mirrors and embroideries of surnames are common design elements.

Making the chimes tingle in unison looks very painful for one's backside. Tired dancers with chime plates could often be found sitting gingerly with the audience while on break.

Then we entered the sacred grass-tying area.

...and waited in line with tourists and Saisiyat people alike. This year we saw more children than last time in traditional costume and encouraged to participate in their tribe's customs. We also saw more foreigners than two years ago - apparently a foreigner who married into the tribe sent out a large Facebook invitation and many people did end up coming. How they get to Wufeng, I have no idea.

Then we all got our sacred grass...

...and watched the festival from above the main area for awhile. As you can see, the dancers go in an arc or circle, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. When they go quickly, they often rush to the middle and chant excitedly before fanning out again. The dancers themselves don't seem to know what they're doing - I learned from one participant that any Saisiyat in traditional clothing can join, not just experienced or trained dancers (the chanters and people with chimes on their back plates clearly know what they are doing however - and the chime beaters dance separately from the main group).

The facilitators in yellow vests clearly knew how it was all supposed to work and were guiding the dancers, many more of whom were young Saisiyat children this year.

Before heading to the main area, we went to the row of food stalls nearby to get dinner. We started with a traditional Saisiyat dish...

Ah, nothing like old fashioned aboriginal food!

...of grilled muaji (rice gluten) covered in chocolate and rainbow sprinkles. (I was being sarcastic about the "traditional" bit).

Then we got our main dinner of mountain pig, cabbage and "rice wine chicken soup", which was so potent with rice wine that I'm pretty sure it had more alcohol in it than broth. As Joseph said, "it's like eating a bottle of vodka". I liked it, but none of us could finish it.

This year the rules about taking photos of the front of the dancers (thereby standing in front of them in what I had thought was a "sacred area") were relaxed.

I also noticed an investment in Christmas lights to decorate around the area (look above the heads of the dancers).

The dancing and chanting is to call forth the spirits of the Ta'ai, and appease them. The big tinsel and light-up things are made by different families - each family makes one. One woman told me that usually, the children will help decorate it, so as to teach them about their culture and heritage. I couldn't determine any pattern for the holders of these giant talismans, though they did dance and did seem to somewhat follow the arc of dancers. When the dancers would rush to the middle and excitedly chant, these were always in the very middle.

I was told that the semi-conical shape was...well, I couldn't really understand the woman clearly but either to bring the Ta'ai spirits down like water through a funnel, or to broadcast the families' participation to the Ta'ai, like a reverse satellite dish or suntanning mirror. It had something to do with calling souls. Note the sacred grass affixed to the top of each.

This was the friendly woman who answered my various questions about the event details to the best of her ability and to the best of my limited understanding.

Another view of the conical things.

By about 9pm, people were starting to get seriously wasted on traditional millet wine. As it was with the last Pasta'ai, you don't just buy and drink your own millet brew. You buy some, share it with others, and get glasses of others in return. We tried to minimize this, or at least sniff what we were about to drink this year, but it can't be helped to some extent. The two non-drinkers among us managed to actually not drink, though - which surprised me. It was impossible to avoid two years ago by the time 10pm rolled around. Forget teetotalling. By 9:30 we had plenty of new 酒肉朋友 (drinking buddies).

Who's this guy? No idea. He invited us to cone stay with him in Zhudong, though, and treated us to much of his millet wine - which had an aftertaste redolent of gasoline.

Some random people dressed up Brendan and Eduardo in traditional clothing - I had a touch of grease from *something* on my lens but still wanted to post these.

This year, the participation rules were also relaxed, probably in another attempt to promote tourism. Last year you could not participate until midnight. This year, you could join the dancers at 10pm.

With an election looming, even though Xinzhu isn't an election hotspot this time around, we expected a bigger showing of politicians. A few members of the DPP showed up, looking...well, like quintessential members of the DPP.

As usual, there was a not-too-quiet place for exhausted dancers to rest.

This guy'd been drinking for awhile.

Loving the Christmas lights.

Plenty of traditional aboriginal food was on offer - including these roasted birds (tiny quail? Pigeons? We had pigeon in Egypt and this tasted different.) They cut it up for you so it's easy to eat, but I'd forgotten that they give you the head with everything else. Before I knew what it was, I'd bitten into the brain. EWWWWW. I am pretty openminded about food, but I do not do innards or brain. I chucked it at a pile of accumulating garbage, missed and hit some poor woman's coat.

Oops.

What happens at Pasta'ai stays at Pasta'ai is all I can say.

We also got some amazing sweet potato fries and one drunk guy gave us stinky tofu (YUM!) and onion pancakes.

More dancing above, and a detail shot of the conical family talisman things below. The carrier had been hitting the betel nut pretty hard. Along with millet wine, buckets of energy drink in brown bottles and betel nuts were for sale everywhere.

So, at 10pm we all started dancing - not that we knew how. Last time, women would come around with wooden buckets of millet wine and ladle it into your mouth as you danced. This year that was not so common, and they had plastic pitchers of wine with shot glasses for dancers - but there was less going around. Boo.

On the upside, I didn't get heinously drunk this year (yes, I know my family reads this thing, but I gotta be honest. I got really drunk last year. It's an aboriginal festival - you can't not get drunk the first time or, for that matter, any time). Fortunately the homestay owners were not drinking and could make sure we all got back safely. It was the worst hangover I've ever had - you don't want to know the full story about the next morning. Let's just say that when the worst of it hit, only my sister was awake to hear it, and she'll never think of me the same way again.

But that was last year - when I would drink whatever was offered without making sure it wasn't, you know, grain alcohol, paint thinner, energy drink and Coca-cola mixed together...or maybe not that but not tasting much different from what I imagine that would taste like.

This year I kept my head on a little better - partly because I didn't want to feel half-dead today (I'm writing this the next day even!) and partly because we didn't have Ah-Q Mama to get us home safely. I had to help Eduardo navigate, though Mark (another friend who came with us) had biked the route and took over for me.

At one point while I was dancing, though, someone gave millet wine to Mark, Joseph and Brendan, who all surreptitiously threw most of it out as it was "not fit for human consumption" according to Brendan.

I felt bad for the woman walking around selling it from a basket on her back. She was selling it for cheaper than the stands, and clearly making money for her family, but we had some from another spectator who bought it, and it really did have a gasoline-y aftertaste. Ew.

Anyway.

We stayed and danced until about 3am before walking back to the car, after which time the eminently sober Eduardo drove us to Ah-Q Mama's with Mark's help (as Mark had biked there earlier and knew the way).

I recommend Ah-Q's homestay, "A-mue", as highly as I did last year. With a delicious homemade breakfast, great view, friendly owners, warm blankets, adorable pets and rustic setting not far from Guanwu (entrance to a national park), the residence of Zhang Xueliang, Dabajianshan and the Pasta'ai, it's a great spot for a rest if you have your own transport.

We got there at 4am - they'd left the rooms open for us - and collapsed into bed.

I awoke at 7am with a headache, took some Panadol and slept again until about 10 or 11. The coterie of dogs from two years ago was nowhere to be seen, but in their place, they had a pile of kittens.

O.M.G. 好可愛喔!! How cute is this pile of adorableness?

Pretty darned cute.

They pretended to like Brendan because they were hoping he'd open the door to the kitchen area for them. We visited for a bit, drank tea, ate breakfast, enjoyed the view, played with the kittens and puppy, and they reminded me of how ridiculously hungover I had been last time. (Also, apparently they understand my Chinese now.)

The view from Ah-Q Mama's.

Because we don't know if or when we'll be back in that area or when we'll have our own transportation, we had a look a few kilometers down the road to the former residence of Zhang Xueliang who you can read about on Wikipedia. Pretty nice place to live out your days under house arrest...

...and anyone who managed to kidnap Chiang Kai-shek is someone I can't dislike too much, even if the Mainlanders think he's a hero.

The entire experience left me with four lasting thoughts:

1.) That picture of the nice older lady I posted above? She speaks fluent Saisiyat and Chinese, but surrounding her were her children and grandchildren (of which she had many). Not one of her grandchildren could speak the Saisiyat language, despite being in touch with their culture enough to participate in the Pasta'ai. The Saisiyat are not even the tiniest or most assimilated of the aboriginal tribes - if their own language is dying out to the extent that grandchildren cannot speak their grandparents' mother tongues, then this does not bode well for the future of aboriginal languages in general (which are commonly recognized to be dying out at an alarming rate).

On the other hand, it's fascinating to head up through these villages and realize that you aren't hearing even one word of Chinese or a Chinese-related language spoken. There are still more native speakers of Atayal, Saisiyat etc. who use it on a daily basis than one would expect.

2.) Every once in awhile I get a thought in my head that goes something like this: "What are you doing spending so much time and money traveling instead of saving, buying a home and working on a career? Haven't you noticed that people are people no matter where you go, that travel is a luxury that, when you're done with it, leaves you with no material gain? Anyway, haven't you traveled enough?" Experiences like the Pasta'ai remind me that no, people are not the same everywhere you go, and that while there may be no material gain to travel, there's a lot of gain in terms of cultural exposure, wisdom and knowledge of the world. I'm not one of those people who travels without trying to learn (and retain) something about the history, politics, economy, language and culture of a place or event - so I inevitably come away with new pieces of firsthand knowledge.

Sure, I could read about Taiwan in a book - it's pretty clear that many policymakers in the US State Department do just that. (Officers travel abroad, learn languages and have a wide scope of global knowledge, but I've noticed that actual policymakers and those who influence decision-making...well...don't - even representatives posted to the countries they're dealing with). If I had "stayed home", built a career and had a more settled life in the country of my birth, sure, I could read, watch TV shows, see movies and learn online about different people in different parts of the world, but I wouldn't really know anything tangible about them, and I would completely miss out on things like Pasta'ai. How many newspaper articles, websites, TV shows and school textbooks on Taiwan mention aborigines, let alone the Saisiyat, not to mention their festivals or really any pertinent information about them? Most people don't even know that Taiwan has aborigines to begin with.

And that right there is valuable, and it's one of the main reasons, if not the #1 reason, why I continue to travel even as pressure increases to settle down.

3.) Ten minutes at a festival like this will show any nay-sayers, fence-sitters and ignoramuses who get their opinions from scant news articles rather than real world experience to what very great extent Taiwan is not a part of China. How could anyone claim that a country with a rich mixture of heritages, which includes but is not summed up by Chinese culture? This is not only not Chinese, this is something you will never see in China, something that has never had anything to do with China. Something created and continued by people who are not ethnically Chinese and hail from an entirely different cultural tradition than anything East Asia could offer, let alone China. It's unique to Taiwan, and showcases how Taiwan is unique. And, if you'll allow me to expand on that, showcases how much a unique place like Taiwan deserves to be recognized as the self-governing nation and cultural unit that it is.

Though I would not judge anyone who says that Taiwanese culture is strongly influenced by Chinese culture, and much of it originated there, I stop short at accepting that the entirety of Taiwanese culture was imported from China. As you can clearly see here, it was not - at least not entirely. This goes beyond the case for the divergent cultural evolutions (and Revolutions, har har har) of China and Taiwan - this is at the core of things, a fundamentally Taiwanese cultural facet that evolved long before there even was a "Taiwan" and a "China".

4.) There is really something to be said for having your own vehicle and the skills to drive it. I wish I had those skills (or rather, I have them but I wish I had the experience and confidence to use them in Taiwan). The freedom of being able to visit these places and participate in these festivals - and one thing that sets Pasta'ai apart from the Taiwanese temple fairs is that the audience can participate - with your own transportation is a great feeling, and I wish we had more access to it. Which means more practice for me.

I *heart* Next Media

"Don't Touch My Junk"

Check out the Kung Fu Nun.

it's iPod Touch Photo Day on Lao Ren Cha!

Ahem. Uh. Guys. Yeah, guys? So. We need to talk. I hate to tell you this but...YOU ARE NOT COOL. You are not 'hip', you are not 'with it', you are not 'all that', and this is a 'fail', not a 'win'. Eric, you are not and never will be James Bond. "New Taipei City So Happy?" Really? Couldn't you have taken the money you threw away on those sunglasses and paid an English editor, perhaps?

Oh yeah. And guys? That stance and the sunglasses makes me feel a little too much like you're about to have me shot for political subversion. Y'all have kind of a *history* with that if y'know what I'm sayin'.

(Photo by Brendan)

Considering the interesting comments on my last post about women and marriage in Taiwan, my next long post is likely to be about men and marriage in Taiwan. I'm no sociologist, but I have been asking around in a very informal, unscientific way (and a way appropriate for class: basically having them read a current events article on birth rates/marriage stats in Taiwan and having it be a discussion question) and am collecting a fair number of Taiwanese men's views on marriage here on the island.

I'd just ask friends, but I seem to have this thing where my expat friends are quite varied by gender (that is, I have some of both), but my Taiwanese friends are almost exclusively female.

Anyway. I'm still working on that because I have to do actual research so in the meantime, please enjoy some fun iTouch photos from around Taipei, including some of election-related gems.

Some of these were taken on Brendan's gadget, but only one was taken while I was not actually there.

Oh, and I cheated with two - the photos that are actually of decent quality were taken on a real camera. But they're still funny.

Domo is gonna eat the kitty. Clearly he likes his meat marbled and fatty.

Young boy on the stairs at an oddly deserted Taipei Main Station, around 11:45pm.

MONKEY! Monkey monkey monkey monkey. Took this one in Nicaragua.

"No Frills Seasoning" kind of scares me.

Jurassic Jewelry...home of the renowned T-rex tooth necklace.

Run of the mill campaign ad, but look at his little cartoon guy in the bottom left. He's Popeye! For real!

This is my favorite guy, the siphon brewin' coffee guy at Drop Coffee House (I mistakenly called them "People Say" but it's Drop). Go spend exorbitant amounts of money on their amazing coffee, and enjoy sitting in a restored Japanese house! Go now!

Taiwan overtakes Japan in living standards

http://www.economist.com/blogs/asiaview/2010/11/taiwan_and_japan

Fascinating article from The Economist on living standards. I agree with it for the most part. The Japanese make more, but thanks to high prices they can afford less. Neighborhoods look nicer (and are so clean you could eat off the streets) but living spaces are tiny and housing prices are so high as to make Taipei's somewhat shabbier neighborhoods* be a far better deal at a fraction of the cost...for more space.

And it's true that if you go out for a good meal in Taipei, even for Japanese food, you're looking at maybe $10 USD per person, possibly $15. The grand total for a bill for 3 is $30-$45. (We're talking a "good meal", not a "super expensive hotel buffet" meal, which isn't even all that good most of the time.) You'll spend that per person in Japan on a good meal, and get less food.

But I disagree with the swipe at stinky tofu. I love sushi but come on. Stinky tofu is WHERE IT'S AT. What-ever, Economist. You just don't know good food when you try it. The more like ripe gym socks it smells, the better it tastes. End of debate.

Also, sushi is not the main food staple there. Duh - most people eat noodles, rice-based dishes, seaweed, cooked salmon and tuna dishes, plus egg. Sushi is a special occasion food in Japan, so comparing proletarian stinky tofu to patrician sushi is ridiculous.

A few notes on comparisons between life in Japan and Taiwan, with a focus on the lives of female expats, if only because I'll be comparing myself and a female expat friend who lives in Japan.

Living Space

It can't be denied - Taipei residents, as much as they complain about high real estate prices, can afford more space than the average Japanese urbanite. We're talking mostly about urban life here because most Japanese now live in towns and cities and really, what is Western Taiwan but one giant unfurled length of urban areas, connected by skeins of towns and settlements? Both countries have rural areas, but urban life is the default for most residents of both countries, as is fitting for developed nations.

I live in an older apartment in a sixth-floor walkup (which I am fairly sure is illegal - shhh). It's not a "pretty" apartment although we've decorated it well. Look under the sisal rugs and you see peeling linoleum better suited to a 1950s elementary school. Look past the big rice paper lantern lights and you can see where we installed them with electrical tape, and how the ceiling above is plastic. The bedroom is quaint until you realize that it's an add-on; what was one big room was converted to a one-bedroom with, basically, painted plywood. Our kitchen is huge but is just as outdoors as in (don't ask). We did our best with the paint, using epoxy primer on tough spots, and still got wall cancer (wall cancer is that thing you see in Taiwan where humidity makes the paint and stucco bubble and flake like tumors).

My friend's apartment is comparatively nice, with a tatami floor bedroom, sturdier walls and a kitchen that can be confidently described as "indoors". She's said that, compared to most apartments in the Tokyo area, however, it's crap. It's old and ugly (I think it looks fine; clearly Japan has a different threshhold for "old and ugly").

That said, hands-down I have more space. My living room alone is easily the size of her entire apartment. In her own words, "I live in a shoebox. It drives me nuts". Plastic ceilings, ugly floors and all, my apartment doesn't drive me nuts (usually). There is more than enough space for me, Brendan and the cat. I am not sure a cat could survive in my friend's place - not that they can have one.

Her rent is stratospheric compared to Taipei rent - for all that extra space we spend a grand combined total of US $400 per month. I'm not sure that would pay for my friend's living room in Kawasaki.

I live within a one-minute walk of Jingmei MRT station in Taipei. She's a 20-minute walk from the nearest subway station in Kawasaki, outside Tokyo.

We both have convenience on our side - she doesn't have to walk up six flights of stairs, but restaurants, convenience stores and other shops abound in her neighborhood as they do in mine. I have a night market though...na naaa.

Her neighborhood is better looking, though.

I can't compare real estate because I've never looked into it in either country, but it is safe to say that Tokyo real estate dwarfs Taipei real estate in price.

Salary

Not much to say here, and it's hard to compare as she's just finished grad school and that cost a pretty penny.

She makes more. Depending on the month (I work on contract, see) she makes between 30% and 50% more than I do.

I, however, can afford more. We don't worry about price so much when we go shopping. We don't come back from a day in Taipei wondering where all our money went, clutching a tiny bag of barely anything (ah, Japan, the great Money Suck). The article is just right here - prices are absolutely punishing in Tokyo. My salary is lower but prices, in general, are an order or two of magnitude lower than that, giving me higher purchasing power overall.

You can see it in our travels, though this is not really a fair comparison: we specifically work and save to travel, and she worked and saved to go to graduate school. We jet off to the Philippines or Hong Kong because we *can*, and she's admitted that traveling just for the sake of it isn't so much her thing; she likes to live in different places and experience them in-depth.

That said, this is not a fair comparison at all. She did just work her way through graduate school at Columbia's Tokyo campus. Regardless of relative salaries and PPP she'd have less money after that - I've had no such major expense.

Quality/Price of Goods

There is a misconception out there that women are bad with money, that we're out-of-control shoppers who need to be told how to manage our finances.

My friend and I, as well as any independent expat women out there who managed to get themselves abroad and manage their finances well enough to maintain life abroad with regular visits home are a slap in the face to this theory - as for us two, neither of us overspend on "stuff" - including clothes and makeup.

I recently bought a pile of new, high-end makeup for my wedding, but with that I learned how to use it and do use it for work. My friend doesn't wear makeup. Neither of us buys clothes in bulk; neither of us can, really. I have far too many curves to ever fit into clothes typically sold in Taiwan for slender-boned, boyish-framed girls here. My friend isn't quite as voluptuous but she is tall - taller than me, in fact, and I'm no shorty. Buying clothes in Japan is just as hard for her, doubly so because everything is that much more expensive.

So, given the fact that neither of us is a big spender, we've got a lot of cred for accurate reviewing when we do buy something.

In department stores, prices are almost the same, especially when it comes to high end goods that are popular with upper middle class women in both countries. Designer items are particularly expensive in Taiwan due to import duties. Outside department stores it's a different story.

Thanks to shoddy but cheap products from China flooding the market here, stuff is dirt cheap. When I wanted to buy a coffeemaker, I went out and bought one. It wasn't the best quality but hey, if it ever breaks I can buy a new one (not good for the environment, I know, but even the expensive ones here seem shoddy). When I need new clothes, I can go out and shop carefully, and if I find something I like I'll generally buy it without too much worry as to the price.

If I lived in Japan I wouldn't do any of these things - partly because stuff would last longer, and partly because "not worrying about price" is a recipe for disaster in Tokyo. You may as well drop your pants and bend over. I'd have to be very circumspect about what I bought and how much I spent.

So all in all - her stuff is of better quality and is longer-lasting. Mine is easy to come by and I have more leverage to buy it, but it won't last that long because it's all Made in China.

Transport

It's hard to compare transportation in Taipei and Tokyo, as both have their upsides. Tokyo is awash in transportation, with a web-like system of subways and trains that covers virtually every inch of the metro area. Public transit in the countryside and smaller cities is similarly good. Even in Shizuoka town I never had to worry about how to navigate without a car. In Taiwan, traveling to the countryside carries the question "once we're in the town, how will we get around?" You can get a bus to almost anywhere (with some notable exceptions), but once there it can be very hard to do anything. Ever tried to explore Taidong without a car? There ya go.

Transit in Taipei is cheaper though - I can afford to ride the MRT and buses because they don't cost a mint. It's easier to figure out with more English help and signage and is more logically organized in one clear system. Even the buses, which are run by different companies, are integrated. In Tokyo, without a SUICA card, you're at the mercy of the different private subway line companies. It's impossible to figure out and I've screwed up more than once trying to deal with the subways there.

There's also the fact that in Taiwan, taxis are exceedingly affordable. If the transit connection between buses or trains is too much to bother, you miss the last train for the night or you're running late, a taxi is a real option that won't break the bank. I wouldn't even try to take taxis in Tokyo because I like to not be poor.

This is the most painfully apparent in airport transit. Getting into town from Tokyo Narita costs easily $12 US per person. Getting into town from Taipei Taoyuan costs...$4 per person. For the cost of the train in Tokyo, you could get a taxi from the airport in Taipei. Lower salaries or not, this means that Taiwanese can afford to see Japan's offerings and go one better.

The cost of transportation in Japan is one of the main prohibitors for traveling around the country. Our high speed rail is half the cost of theirs. Our trains and subways, too. Our buses leave theirs in the dust cost-wise, and if we need a car, chartering a car and driver is within our budget in a way that doing so in Japan could never be, even with a higher salary.

Rural Life

As little as I can focus on rural folks in this post, it is true that the average rural Taiwanese person is still poorer on a very real level than the average rural Japanese.

Food and Nightlife

Hands-down cheaper in Taiwan, and just as good. It's silly to compare sushi with stinky tofu, but you can compare one of our favorite pub cafes (Zabu in Shida) with the little izikaya we had dinner at the last time we went to Japan.

The food at the izikaya was spectacular (except for the weird mayo-relish-caramelized onion chicken thing) and we each had three glasses of sake/umeshu. We tried chicken sushi for the first time - yes, that's raw chicken. The bill came to about $35 USD per person. In Japan that's not bad. In Taiwan we could have enjoyed the entire meal with alcohol for that. At Zabu we regularly get a selection of good food (I particularly like the salmon flake citrus rice balls) and 2 high end imported beers each, and spend maybe $30 USD in total. With food and drink that much cheaper, it's no wonder that Taiwanese can go out more.

Anyway, there ya go. With a strong bias towards Taiwan as I'm writing this and not my friend, but that's my comparison of observed expat life in Tokyo as opposed to Taipei, keeping Purchasing Power Parity in mind.

*I don't mean that Taipei looks shabby. It's just that compared to Japan, if you don't have a shiny silver robot and hovercar, you look shabby. Next to Japan, America looks shabby.