Eating The Valley (The Southern Bits)

As I've said before, when I do travel posts I try to focus on some specific thing of interest rather than just publish an itinerary. Most recently, I focused simply on how much the KMT sucks in relation to a trip to Green Island. That's relevant to this post: that trip was the second half of this one.

This time, I want to talk a little bit about food. 

I noticed when looking for places to eat in the East Rift Valley that some of my friends knew a lot of great spots, and others none at all except perhaps that famous railway bento at Chihshang -- which I've still never tried. Most food recommendations seem to be for the northern end of the valley, closer to Hualien, not the southern bits.

The Hualien side also seems to be where most of the well-known Indigenous cuisine is. As you head south, the Hakka cultural influence becomes stronger, which is reflected in the large number of Hakka restaurants. (The other side of the mountains, where the coastal road runs, seems to have been overrun from Donghe to Dulan with foreigners, so that's where you should head if you want Western food). 

So, I thought it would be useful to talk about our driving trip through the southern reaches of the valley mostly through the lens of places to eat. Sadly, I did not actually take any food photos so you'll just have to settle for scenery. 

The view from our hotel room at the Luminous

We started our trip at Taitung Station, which is fronted by pretty good ice cream and tea shops selling locally-inspired products such as red oolong and hibiscus teas and custard apple ice cream. We used Avis/Budget through the KKDay app to book a rental car and drove to Luye (鹿野), about 30 minutes to the north.

In theory most of this trip -- minus Liushidan Mountain -- would be doable without a car. There's a train line running through the valley with local stops all the way up, it's a popular cycling route (and some of the more tourist-oriented towns offer bicycle rental) and there are public buses, though they don't seem very frequent. You'd have to be prepared to walk a lot. I recommend a car, but you don't need one unless you want to go up into the hills. Even the Luye Highlands are accessible by bus and tourist shuttle.

We'd been to the famous highlands of Luye before and didn't feel a need to return, but I'd booked us a few nights at the Luminous Hot Spring Resort & Spa. The hotel itself was nice -- I appreciated the balcony and in-room hot spring bath with mountain views -- though parts of the architecture were reminiscent of a public school. If you intend to forgo a rental car and just take the shuttle there and back, you'll be stuck paying resort prices for everything. We picked up breakfast for the next day at Family Mart, but we were fine with paying for one dinner at the extensive buffet. I was surprised with the quality of the sashimi; Brendan spoke highly of the braised pork rice. 

On our other night in Luye, we went to Ai Jiao Yi Dim Sum 愛嬌姨茶餐廳, which isn't actually dim sum at all. This friendly local restaurant serves tea-infused dishes (usually as part of a set menu but there's an affordable option for two people). I loved everything from the simple mountain greens braised in tea to the fried tofu with tea-infused dipping sauce. 

On the Monday evening when we ate there it wasn't crowded, but I do recommend calling ahead on weekends or during the high season. 

Ai Jiao Yi also grows their own tea, and you'll likely be invited to sit and try a few kinds if they're not busy. We came away with a packet of honey-scented oolong (蜜香烏龍). 

Our plan gave us one day in the East Rift Valley, and having driven around that area before, we weren't sure what precisely we wanted to do. After a leisurely coffee-drinking session our balcony, I suggested we check out the Japanese shrine in the lower part of town and then pick a spot for lunch that would require us to take a scenic drive. The shrine, by the way, is lovely -- it was built for the residents of what was at one point a Japanese village and has been restored -- and the fields surrounding it are pleasant to walk around. There isn't a lot of traffic on these village roads on a Tuesday morning in May.

The Japanese shrine in Luye

I had to move to Taiwan to figure out that's how pineapples grow. I"m not joking. 

I considered trying to eat at Mipu Hakka 米舖客家小館, a Hakka restaurant we'd tried years ago in Guanshan. It was truly excellent and they make their own kumquat sauce. However, they're really set up for larger groups, and were gracious the last time we stopped there with just three diners, despite not really having a menu for such a small number. Tongxin Dumplings 同心餃子館 was also recommended by friends.

Instead, we ended up at G九屋特製私房菜 in Dongli, which I suppose could be translated as G9 House Special Private Kitchen (?) in Fuli. This brought us into the southern reaches of Hualien County on the valley side, but still a bit south of Ruisui, whose scenic roads I've been meaning to get back to for a nice drive-around. 

One lovely part of getting up here were the opportunities to turn off Highway 9, which runs through the valley (and is barely a highway in some parts) and just meander through the countryside. A lot of people are nervous about driving on those tiny roads between fields as many don't seem like they can handle two-way traffic, but this is one of my favorite things to do. I'm scared of urban driving; even the dinkiest, most overgrown rural road is cake.  

G9 is another truly excellent find. They too have set meals, there's no real menu. We were served cold crab and vegetable spring rolls in rice skin, an absolutely delicious dish of local greens with black tree ear mushroom and bacon, a unique dish of fish slices in steamed tofu served in a bright green sauce made from local vegetables, Thai-style fried chicken, and a simple but tasty soup. The rice comes with pork oil so you can make a Hakka-style 豬油拌飯. 

Although it was still just a bit too far north for us, Our Cafe 我的咖啡館 in Guangfu (a bit north of Ruisui) comes highly recommended as well. 

After our meal at G9, we finished off our tea and discussed what to do next. We weren't far from Chihshang, which offers both scenery of the East Rift Valley itself, but also a highway that crosses the mountains and drops you off at Donghe on the coastal side. It's famous for both scenery and having a troupe of Formosan macaques.

We did both on our last trip, however, and decided to beat the usual tourist crowds by driving up Liushidan Mountain 六十旦山 instead. This area is packed with sightseers when the famous tiger lilies are in bloom across the hillsides in August and September (a similar tiger lily mountain can be found near Taimali). In early May, just a few buds were beginning to show, but the scenery was still gorgeous and there was hardly another soul around. In my opinion, the perfect time to go. 

The drive up to Liushidan Mountain from Dongli is somewhat terrifying, with more switchbacks than the drive down the other side at Dongzhu, but that's the sort of driving I'm actually good at and there was no traffic whatsoever, so I didn't mind. We stopped at as many beautiful lookout points as we could, watching low clouds and patches of sun wind their way down the valley below. In most cases, we were the only people there. The drive down was just as lovely, and we took our time as there was no one around.

(Downside: all the shops that seem like they're usually open in the tourist season and would typically have restrooms were shuttered, so I had to pee behind a bush.)









When we felt ready to head back into the valley, I suggested we look for a cafe with nice views to relax and recharge before heading back to the hotel. We found the perfect destination in No. 9 Gourmet Coffee 池上鄉九號咖啡館 in Chihshang. The massive windows offer a lovely vista of the fields and mountains, and the coffee, which comes with a small pudding-based dessert,  is good too. 

There's no parking to speak of, but in this part of Taiwan you can just sort of pull over. 

The view from No. 9 Gourmet Coffee

My goal had been to take the scenic (as in, farms and fields) route back to the Luminous, but we lingered so long at No.9 that dusk began to set in and rain was coming, so we just drove directly back along the highway.

The next day we dropped off the car at Taitung Station and had a few hours before our flight to Green Island...or thought we did. With much of Taitung City's culinary scene closed during the exact post-lunch hours we needed to kill or off on Wednesdays, I searched for places that would welcome two people killing time (like a cafe) but also served food (like a restaurant) and found Taimali Culture and Creative Cafe 太麻里文創咖啡館.

Don't let the name fool you -- it's in downtown Taitung, not Taimali. The food is at the higher end of typical cafe fare, but it's in a restored wooden Japanese building with a beautiful inside-outside feel, and they have cats! 

Of course, something had to go awry. Our flight to Green Island was canceled due to a sudden rainstorm and we had to spend the night in Taitung (we took the boat the next morning). I was in the mood for something in the general category of yakitori, so we ended up at Kasugabe Japanese Home Cooking 春日部日本家庭料理, in a lane which also boasts an interesting-looking Italian restaurant, a highly-rated super-modern Thai place, and a funky cafe that I would have happily checked out if we hadn't wanted to be in bed early. 

Kasugabe was far better than its mediocre Google ranking. I was pleased with everything, though the spicy mentaiko cheese potato sticks in my memory as particularly great. I commented that they seemed to have laced it with pure unadulterated crack, and Brendan commented that it was probably just all the butter. 

Although it's a little far away, Seasonal 漁采時令料理 is another friend-approved, highly-recommended Japanese restaurant, but it was a bit too far from our hotel and we had already turned in the car. 

The bad weather had cleared by next morning we were finally able to head to Green Island, so that was the end of our East Rift Valley adventure! 

Please enjoy some more photos: 

I'm frustrated too, but don't freak out

Just a travel photo of a hilly path on Liushidan Mountain

My Taiwanese students, trainees and friends seem to be handling Taiwan's new reality pretty well. "We'll get through this!" "Safety first!" "We can flatten the curve together!" "We'll do what it takes to fix this problem and get back to normal!" 

Okay, they don't sound that jingoistic, but there's more or less a spirit of cooperation and belief that we can handle what's coming. They're all staying home, and we are too -- I venture out once a day to get some sunshine, do electro-therapy on my back and buy fresh vegetables. The work I still have is online.

Contrast that to the news, which makes it sound like Taiwan has been botching it all along, their epidemic prevention strategy was never as good as the world believed it was, and they made so many mistakes that now the house is on fire and the roof is caving in.

Many of these articles are pretty bad (sorry Bloomberg and BBC, but they are). They twist Taiwan's difficulty in getting vaccines as some sort of complacency on the government's part, rather than international issues of vaccine hoarding compounded by China's alleged efforts to stymie Taiwan's acquisition of vaccines while bloviating that they could have bought Chinese vaccines this whole time (not that anyone would be willing to take them, and frankly I'd be surprised if they didn't just send Taiwan sugar water).

I don't recommend you actually click that Global Times link, by the way. It's a train wreck. They always are.

Many reports spin out one big mistake -- allowing unvaccinated pilots shortened quarantine and not paying enough attention to hotel safety protocol -- and make it sound like the country's pandemic prevention strategy was riddled with holes. They throw around the word "complacent", but most people were reacting naturally to the low threat level that existed in Taiwan for months. This is normal human behavior.

The pilots who caused the outbreak were not complacent so much as deeply selfish. The government did attempt to get as many people vaccinated as possible by opening up the self-pay program, although perhaps those eligible for the free vaccine should have taken the offer more seriously.

On top of that, they pile on Taiwan because their excellent defense, which kept the country safe for over a year, faltered slightly after holding the line for so long. And why did we have to hold that line for so long? Because the rest of the world couldn't get its shit together. 

So it's not that the government didn't make a mistake. They did. But in every other respect they've been doing an amazing job and the news coverage making it sound otherwise is simply not fair. I suspect there's a smidge of schadenfreude, where the rest of the world might be feeling like ah, so now you finally have to experience what we've been going through for the past year. Except not, because although some people are more locked down than others, we're not actually in a lockdown.  

And yes, the threat level has changed. We should be careful, but please, don't freak out.

Certainly you should stay home as much as possible, mask up when you do need to go out and wash and sanitize frequently.

Still, don't freak out. I don't mean "don't feel anxiety", I feel it every day. I take medication for it! I mean don't freak out. Don't let headlines that make it sound like TAIWAN HAS FALLEN scare you; they're hyperbolic. We are not going to resort to a zombie apocalypse in which we must run each other down with souped-up scooters to survive. 

I want to point out some data points that I hope will calm everyone down. 

As of the time of writing, our new daily new reported cases went up terrifyingly quickly over the course of a week, but then flattened out somewhere in the 200s, down from a high of 333 new reports in one day just a few days ago. Note that these are not new daily infections but infections we've found. I won't try to interpret this, I'll just point out that I personally expected a week of much more quickly escalating numbers of daily reported cases. This is pretty acceptable news, relatively speaking. The CECC has also reported that they do not anticipate needing to go to Level 4 (a real lockdown). 

What I'm trying to say is, the growth is not as terrifying as it could have been. It's a good reason to stay home and take extra precautions, but not a good reason to lose your cool. It's even a good reason to prepare just in case there's a Level 4 lockdown, but preparation doesn't mean panicking.

Here's the second reason not to freak out: we know everything the world didn't know a year ago. We know masks work. We know staying in place works. We know sanitizing and contact tracing works. The government hasn't been perfect about this (I don't think those acrylic table separators in restaurants do any good at all) but they have a system for when to implement what protocols, and mostly the decisions seem to be swift and based on good science. We're in the best hands we could possibly be in. No government is perfect, but there is no government I trust to handle this more than Taiwan's. 

Although I've heard instances of people not wearing masks, not using sanitizer and not social distancing when outside, I also do believe that in general Taiwanese citizens are more likely to do what the government asks. Not because of Confucius or whatever, but because they've seen what happens when you don't, and most of what we're being asked to do makes sense. 

A third reason: compare it to what's happening in the US. 

I wrote this post a few days ago, so my data is a few days out of date, but I think the overall point is the same.

News from my in-laws is that Maine is starting to open up. Restaurants are re-opening, people are visiting each other, and mask mandates are being loosened, often in very unclear ways. For example, the rule is supposed to be that vaccinated people can take off their masks in some situations, but there is no clear way to check who is actually vaccinated and this is often being left up to individual businesses, who have an incentive not to annoy or turn away customers.

And yet, on May 14th, Maine had more overall daily reported cases (278) than Taipei did when it hit 188 the next day. Maine has a total population of about 1.3 million -- that's half the population of Taipei City alone. One county in Florida had more daily cases on the 14th than Taiwan's terrifying current peak of 333, but they're opening up too. (Florida's overall population -- not just that one county -- is a few million lower than Taiwan's.) 

More new cases, fewer people, and they're opening up -- not locking down. 

I don't think this is smart, and I don't think Taiwan should follow their lead, I'm just pointing out that Taiwan, with a dense population equivalent to that of Australia, is escalating its response quickly to a number of cases that, per capita, is still lower than what the US sees as a harbinger of better days ahead.

This means we're taking the threat seriously. That's a good thing, and it probably means we'll defeat it. The US certainly didn't do that in the early days, and yet Taiwanese are being called "complacent"? Come on.

Finally, we will soon have something the rest of the world did not have when this began: vaccines. Granted, they're not here yet. And yes, the vaccine rollout program has hit some bumps, many of them due to the overall lack of threat until very recently -- but we should be on track by July. So, there is at least the hope of a clear endpoint, a goal toward which we can focus our outbreak containment efforts. We may be in this for awhile, but at least there's a clear way out that we can measure in months, not years. 

I won't say we have nothing to worry about. Anxiety is normal. I'm frustrated too. I'm angry at the selfishness of the pilots, and angry that they were not mandated to be vaccinated before they could be approved for shortened quarantine. I'm angry that the international media is treating Taiwan's situation like it's apocalyptic when frankly, it's all relative: the US went through an actual apocalypse, so several hundred cases a day in their state or county is an improvement. You're still probably safer in Taiwan. I'm slightly worried, because I've lost a lot of hours and my summer teacher training schedule is in jeopardy (we'll make enough to get through and are grateful for that, but certainly it'll be tighter than usual in the Lao Ren Cha household). Taiwan is just now figuring out how to improve its long-term epidemic prevention strategy, and there will be bumps. 

By all means, of course, if you're a worker who's seen their hours shrivel or feel like the government is just telling you to figure out an impossible work/childcare situation, complain loudly and push for improvements.

We can get through this, and the experts guiding us have done a good job so far. We're doing more to contain the spread than the US is while their daily caseload is still higher than ours. With some exceptions, people are taking it seriously. 

So be prepared, but don't freak out. 

Gorgeous Views (and the KMT Sucks): Our Green Island Vacation

The Three Sisters on Green Island: it was said that when inmates reached shore and saw the Three Sisters, walking under the natural stone bridge near them, that they would know where they were going: the infamous political prison. Over time, they have become something of a symbol of the need for transitional justice from the Martial Law era.

Just before the pandemic came to Taiwan for real, I was lucky enough to have taken a weeklong vacation to the East Rift Valley, Taitung City and Green Island. Because everything else is doomsday news about the escalating case numbers, I thought a peaceful retreat into one of the most beautiful parts of Ilha Formosa was in order, to calm ourselves and think of days ahead. 

I don't post about every trip in Taiwan, because I don't always have something to say (what more is there to cover from yet another weekend getaway to Tainan?). But when I do, I try to focus on a particular thing -- usually history, geography, old houses, or itineraries. 

This time, my only real focus is on just how hard the KMT sucks, because Green Island is home to their infamous White Terror-era political prison.

In a future post, I'll offer up more photos with an emphasis on food and cafe recommendations for the southern portion of the East Rift Valley -- stay tuned. 

So, please enjoy. I hope these will transport you away from your worries for a moment:

While on Green Island, we stayed at Waiting Here B&B. It's in a funky little house off the main road sandwiched between what looks to be a fancier (but not open) hotel, and a banquet-style restaurant for local tour groups. Some rooms have no windows, but they're decorated in a kitschy retro style. Ours was a "no window" room but indeed there was one window; it was high on the wall and afforded little light. However, this helps to keep the rooms cool and I didn't mind. They have a friendly dog named Shu-fen and the owners are lovely people. There are seats and a water machine with coffee, tea and candies in the common room and a refrigerator for guests' use on the 2nd floor. There's an additional, very reasonable fee for breakfast, which is always a unique combination. I liked it! 

The owners can help you rent a car if you don't want to rent scooters, and will meet you at the airport or ferry terminal where you can also pick up or drop off your vehicle. 

Though the B&B itself has no view, it's right by the sea wall. Walk up the sea wall steps. Bring your morning coffee, but do this before 8am by which time it's too hot -- and enjoy your breakfast drink of choice with a sweeping view of the Three Sisters (the cover photo for this post). 

The guesthouse with the best view is probably Green #32 Houses, but we didn't stay here, so I can't review it. It's not near town, so you'd have to drive to get just about anywhere.

For food, we recommend 只有海 Our Ocean Restaurant, which is on the scenic side of the island and serves up excellent sashimi and don (Japanese rice bowls). Make reservations several days in advance -- they're very responsive on Facebook.

We also liked maunmaun 漫漫, hidden down a path from past some construction from the main road -- it's impossible to see from the road, you'll simply have to park and walk, and the sign pointing to the correct path is easy to miss. They have great fresh fruit smoothies, creative cocktails, an artsy-youth oasis in the jungle vibe, and good food (although only the green curry was available when we went). Nearby, you can grab a snack at SeeSea Toast, which has a friendly cat and sea views on the top floor. Our preferred cafe is right next to the airport, and is connected to a hostel (you don't have to stay at the hostel to stop at the cafe). 

What else is there to do on Green Island? Mostly drive around and look at scenery. The Taiwan-facing side of the island is developed, and the open ocean side is the 'scenic' side, offering many viewpoints where you can stop and enjoy the volcanic rock formations, cliffs and vast ocean scenes. In particular, the scenery around the prison, the two pagodas at the "Little Great Wall" (emphasis on "little") are worth your time, as is the viewing platform and grassy field above Zhaori Hot Springs (closed for renovation when we visited, but friends speak well of them), Youzihu 柚子湖 and the road that leads to the Sika Deer Ecological Park. The park itself was closed when we visited, but the road affords some lovely views. The area around Dabaisha 大白沙 is also stunning. Guanyin Cave isn't much on its own, although it is a good place to stop for some shade, bathrooms and cool drinks. Butterflies and lizards abound here, and there's also a gift shop. 

In fact, there are clean public bathrooms scattered along the circular island road, so you're never too far from one. 

There is a cool story about a shipwreck on Green Island that I'd like to tell you here.

In 1937, the SS President Hoover was diverted from Hong Kong to Shanghai to evacuate US nationals living there during the Sino-Japanese war. Despite draping a massive US flag draped across the deck to identify to both sides that they were a neutral US ship (they were at war with neither side as of 1937), the ROC air force mistook them for a Japanese ship and bombed them, wounding 8 and killing 1. The ship aborted the mission and returned to San Francisco for repairs. The Americans were evacuated by other ships, as this Transatlantic Accent Guy will tell you.

Wondering who could be so stupid as to bomb the President Hoover, Chiang Kai-shek vowed to execute whomever had given the order. Apparently, this wasn't because it was a US ship so much as that it was owned by Dollar Lines, and Chiang had known Robert Dollar. This was strictly a "you hurt my dead rich friend's toy, and I am also rich!" sort of anger. 

Robert Dollar, by the way, not only seems like he looked and acted just like a robber baron, but here's a quote for you:

He travelled himself all over the Orient, seeking products to take back to the US in empty timber ships. In doing so, he made friends with all the key people in business and politics. One observer said that the ordinary people of China idolised him and that on one of his trips a three hour procession of thousands of men and women passed by his hotel to honour him! “A power in his own land, he was all but a god in the Orient”.

BARF. 

Anyway, it turned out that the person who gave the order was Claire Lee Chennault, who had been hired by Chiang's wife Soong Mei-ling just months prior. So, instead he paid him a bonus! My opinion of Soong is highly unfavorable, but instead of harping on how bad she was for Taiwan, let's take a look at how unqualified Chennault was instead:

Poor health (deafness and chronic bronchitis), disputes with superiors, and the fact that he was passed over as unqualified for promotion led Chennault to resign from the military on April 30, 1937; he separated from the service at the rank of major. As a civilian, he was recruited to go to China and join a small group of American civilians training Chinese airmen.

It seems he got a little better at his job later on, but at this point he was basically a dude who bumbled into his job and mucked it up. But "well, my wife hired you, so here's ten thousand dollars" was just how Chiang rolled. Seriously: instead of executing him, Chiang paid Chennault a $10,000 bonus. That was 10 months' worth of his regular salary!

Anyone who thinks a guy like Chiang was a brilliant military strategist against the Communists is sorely mistaken.

Anyway, the President Hoover returned to Asia and was headed to Manila for business reasons later that year. Due to the Sino-Japanese War, they avoided the Taiwan Strait and coast of China, instead sailing down the unfamiliar east coast of Taiwan.

There was a heavy mist and monsoon wind, and the Japanese had turned off the lighthouses due to the war. The Hoover struck a reef about 500 meters off Chungliao Bay (where the main town is located). Attempts to right the ship and get people to shore included offloading cargo -- but the cargo was oil, so that just covered the beaches in oil. Great thinking, Captain Yardley! 

Reports are that two lifeboats capsized more or less due to the incompetence of the crew. Nobody died, but many passengers suffered from hypothermia. 

Fortunately, the US and Japan were not at war yet, so the Japanese and local villagers assisted the evacuating Americans (a German ship was also nearby but couldn't get close enough). While this was happening, please enjoy this little tidbit from Wikipedia:

According to Time, while the passengers were being taken ashore a small number of the crewmen aboard President Hoover plundered the ship's liquor supply.

According to Dr. Claude Conrad, a missionary official of Washington, D. C.: "A majority of the ship's crew came into camp more or less incapacitated and abusive from the effects of free indulgence in the ship's liquor stores. Out of control of officers partially in the same condition, many of the crew men continued most of the night terrorizing passengers and natives." However, when the liquored seamen began hunting for women passengers sleeping in scattered houses ashore, some officers and other passengers formed a vigilante group to protect them. There was no actual molestation. There would have been no disturbance at all ashore, said some of the passengers, if the Hoover's officers had been permitted by Japanese police to land with their guns."

Other witnesses reported that some of the passengers also got drunk.

Heh. Liquored Seamen.

Anyway, the passengers were evacuated, the ship was torn up for scrap and by the time it had been fully broken down, Dollar Lines had ceased to exist. 

Other popular Green Island activities include snorkeling or diving, which you are advised to do in groups, as the waters are treacherous and the currents deadly. We didn't go on any of these excursions, as I'm used to snorkeling in calm waters in Southeast Asia on my own. The last time I tried in Taiwan, on Orchid Island, I got seasick from the choppy waves and a fellow snorkeler kept whacking me in the face with her fin, oblivious to my attempts to get her attention. I was happy to give it a miss this time. 

Overall, I prefer Orchid Island for its scenery, size and unique local culture. I haven't been in almost a decade but when I visited, there was far less tourist infrastructure than Green Island. That's probably changed, but I hope not too much (even as I admit I am just such a tourist). 

It is a shame, however, that Green Island was also once home to Indigenous people: a group of Amis, who called the island Samasana. By the time the Japanese came to Taiwan, however, reports are that the island was entirely Han. How many Amis were massacred and how many married into Han families? I have no idea. 

However, Green Island boasts one thing Orchid Island does not: no, not the political prison, though it has that too. We'll get to that in a moment. 

It offers safe places to get in the water, even if you aren't going snorkeling.

At Dabaisha, if you arrive at high tide (this can be Googled), the water just about touches the rough white sand. There are flat sandstone boulders at the surf line, as well, and you can sit on these and enjoy the ocean safely. There's also a walk out to the edge of the shallows where you can stick your feet in regardless of the tide. It washes over a little at high tide, however. In low tide, pools of clear water to one side of the walk can be snorkeled without a guide, but you'd need your own equipment (no fins necessary). I do not recommend actually attempting to swim at high tide, as the currents are worse than ever. 

You can also get in the water at Youzihu, which is down a winding road off the main circular road (there is parking, but it's quite rough). Here, a natural inlet allows ocean water to come into a shallow, rocky pool but protects you from the deadly currents. It isn't very deep, but you can feel like you've actually reached the sea.

I also hear there are shallows at the lighthouse, but we didn't make it there. 

Now, it's time to talk about the prison. 

Just north of the main town, near the Three Sisters, the prison is free to visitors and pamphlets in a number of languages are available. There's a small shop just beyond, mostly selling books. It's now a human rights memorial and pulls no punches in clarifying how horrible -- how unforgivably vicious, cruel and authoritarian -- the KMT were. 

The "Oasis Villa" and "New Life Correction Center" -- named as a form of doublespeak to make it sound like the political inmates jailed there were oh-so-benevolently cared for by the KMT dictatorship, helped to re-shape their thinking and put them on the "correct" path to a better life as a docile supplicant to their brutal regime -- are infamous in Taiwanese political history and older activist circles. 

After arriving on Green Island, prisoners were not only subject to brainwashing sessions (and surrounded with pro-ROC political slogans), but routinely tortured. Stories abound of the "Great Wall" (not the same as the "Little Great Wall" viewing platforms mentioned earlier), a series of coral-stone squats that prisoners had to build for themselves, "water cells" at the sea line where chained prisoners suffered under the sun at low tide, skin burning and cracking, and then could barely lift their heads out of the water enough to breathe at high tide. One torture, called "ants on a tree", had guards pouring sweet syrup over inmates so that ants would swarm over them. They were pushed into forced labor and "voluntarily" received tattoos of anti-communist slogans. 

Although a robust black market grew and prisoners traded everything from cigarettes to writing materials, many were not allowed to talk freely during the brief exercise time they were allotted twice a day.

Cells ranged in size -- we guessed the larger ones were likely for sharing -- and quality. The prison had many solitary confinement cells which some prisoners found themselves in for years at a time. Many of these were padded, used for prisoners that the regime felt would attempt suicide by bashing their heads against the wall. Such cells had almost no natural light.

In the fictional novel Green Island, this is the kind of cell that the protagonist's father spent ten years in. 

The prison was in operation until the end of the White Terror, and was the site where writer Bo Yang was held. The Malaysian guide I met at the Jingmei Human Rights Museum is also mentioned in the informational placards. 

It is no exaggeration to say that there was probably not a single person imprisoned here who deserved to be (not that I think anyone deserves that kind of treatment, but most were political prisoners who, in a just world, would not have been punished in any way). 





This is the kind of Chiang Kai-shek bust that can and should stay where it is: it's at the entrance to an old prison block, and serves as a historical reminder. Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on the other hand? Time to remove his statue and re-purpose the space for something better suited to the needs of a democratic nation free of his literal reign of terror. 

Two things stay with me after visiting these sites. 

First, to anyone who makes the argument that we need to keep statues honoring Chiang Kai-shek around, or that the China-centric names of Taipei streets should remain "so we can remember history" or "to avoid erasing the past": 

Fuck you. 

No, sincerely. Fuck you. 

There are many ways to remember the past. Books are good. Preserving historical sites -- not honorary statues or hagiographic "memorial halls" -- are also a good way to accomplish this. 

Anyone who visits this prison, the Jingmei Human Rights Museum, the 228 Museum, the statue park and tomb of Chiang Kai-shek at Cihhu, the old execution ground at Machangding, or any of the other numerous sites where the horrors of Taiwan's past can be remembered, can see that you don't need a statue honoring a soulless power-hungry mass murderer that his surviving victims and their descendants have to look at on, say, their commute to work to remember the past. 

You have all of these actual historical sites for that. They are informative, they are imbued with sadness, and they ground you in the real places where these events happen. 

Not only is nobody suggesting we do away with these, the intent is to preserve them, so as not to erase history. And by doing so, we ensure that we don't need some goddamn statue of a goddamn massacre-happy maniac in the middle of goddamn Taipei to do it. 

You know this, and yet you make your disingenous bullshit arguments again and again and again and again. You keep making them as though repetition will breathe sense into them. It will not.

It's almost like you don't actually care about "not erasing history". You just want to...I dunno. Score points? Stall change? Whitewash history by twisting an argument about 'historical preservation' around to defend a statue meant to honor a butcher and destroyer of human lives? 

Your argument is bad, and you should feel bad. 

Back to the prison.





The second thing I came away with was a renewed sense of just how impossible it is to ever truly forgive the KMT for their history. 

I often hear the argument that what they did was "in the past". They're a party competing in a democratic system now, and the White Terror is over. The government apologized (which Lee Teng-hui did do, at least on behalf of the government, though I can't find evidence that he specifically apologized on behalf of the KMT as a party).  Let it go, these voices seem to say. Move on.

I'm not Taiwanese. My ancestors barely survived a genocide that the government of their homeland still refuses to recognize, however, so I understand why burying the hatchet is not so easy. I completely empathize with the victims and their descendants refusing to bow down to those who want them to forget their history because it is inconvenient to some. 

But the KMT remains corrupt. They continue to attempt to undermine the core Taiwanese belief that Taiwanese identity, history and heritage are very real and quite distinct from China. They fight transitional justice at every turn despite insisting they will confront history "honestly". They're slow to open records. They try to keep money they stole generations ago by plundering Taiwan's resources and diverting it all to their pockets or patronage networks.

And they still let their members get away with saying White Terror-reminiscent crap like allowing one of their city councilors to call for Health Minister Chen Shih-chung to be executed. 

I see no reason at all to forgive them. I won't, and if I had family affected by their actions, I certainly wouldn't. As far as I'm concerned, the only just path forward is for them to become so unpopular as to be rendered irrelevant in Taiwanese politics, and for new, better opposition to the DPP to take their place, preferably in a more multi-party environment.

In other words, their history is so brutally unforgivable that I think it would be better if the KMT simply ceased to exist as a political entity. There is nothing they could possibly do to come back from their past. They committed these atrocities, and they knew what they were doing. 

I don't mean ban them. I mean abandon them. That is what they deserve. Not the execution block -- the trash bin.

There is more to say about the prison itself: the "defeat the communists, reclaim the mainland" graffiti, the murals, the Bagua Building, the art installations that evoke memory through creative expression. The many placards (all in English) about the history and inmates there. 

You also get a sense of why the prison was on Green Island at all. Think about the choppy boat ride most people take to get there from the Taiwan mainland. Could you imagine trying to swim that and surviving?

However, I recommend that you go see it for yourself. 

One of the strangest things about Green Island, however, is the number of prison-themed entertainment venues. In the main town of Chungliao, I counted at least for establishments -- some bars, at least one a shaved ice shop -- with this theme. At least the shaved ice shop offered something of a pun (冰, or ice, sounds like 兵, or soldier), and had some localized flair -- those cartoon guards have KMT sun symbols on their helmets.

People and cultures process trauma in different ways, including using humor, so I'm not going to pass judgment on this. But I skipped these establishments. 

I don't want to end this post on a sad note, as it's been a week of bad news. So I'll end with this: 

One might land on Green Island and immediately turn their nose up at how touristy it is. And it is! Almost all of the businesses on the island are geared towards tourism. Every third storefront is a dive shop or restaurant for tour groups. 

But here's the thing: this isn't for foreign backpacker crowds, though some foreigners do come. Taiwanese built this tourism infrastructure for themselves. Most of the tourists there are local, not foreign. This isn't like a Thai island. This isn't Palau (though I've heard it jokingly referred to as "Budget Palau"). It doesn't seem to have the same foreigner contingent as Kenting.

This is a beautiful part of Taiwan, developed so Taiwanese could enjoy their own country. Foreigners are welcome as well, but it's not for them.

I like that.

Now, some information.

I strongly recommend you visit Green Island in the shoulder season -- just before or just after summer vacation, when it gets packed. Don't go on a weekend, plan a weekday trip instead. It won't be hard to get accommodation or avoid tourist crowds on, say, a Wednesday in April, May or September. Even though we did just that, however, there were still several tours and diving groups about. 

This not only gives you a more chilled-out vacation with less traffic and fewer crowds, but enables business owners on the island to earn more money outside peak season. However, I'd advise aiming for spring rather than fall, as September is still typhoon season and many travelers' Green Island trips have been cancelled for just that reason. 

There are two ways to get there: plane and boat. The plane takes about ten minutes, and can be booked in advance through Daily Air. It's a ten-minute flight on a positively tiny craft. It's also prone to cancellation -- our flight was cancelled due to a rainstorm, and we had to take the boat the next day (fortunately it is fairly easy to refund half of a round-trip ticket). 

The boat can also be reserved in advance, and most accommodation on Green Island will help you do so. It takes about 50 minutes, and leaves throughout the day. These also get cancelled in rough seas sometimes. 

I recommend you hit up a local pharmacy in Taitung and tell them you plan to take the boat to Green Island. They'll give you the strongest anti-seasick pills you've ever had. Mine knocked me right out and I slept through the trip. Although we sailed on fairly smooth waters and it didn't seem as though many people puked, they provide generous barf bags and expats have dubbed it the Green Island Vomit Comet for a reason.

How long you should to spend there depends on what you want to do. If you like just chilling out around great scenery, you could spend days here. If you want to check out the main sights and maybe go diving, one full day or two days will be sufficient. 

Either way, I do recommend you go. Just not at peak season.

Self-funded vaccine program suspended: here's everything I know

Update 5/19/2021: Every person who has reported back to me has said they are being turned away for vaccine appointments. This is true for every hospital I've heard reports about. This is to be expected, and in my opinion nothing to be upset about. The vaccines are being redistributed to where they are needed, and we should support this. As of now, if you have a vaccine appointment before June 8th, you may as well assume it is cancelled. If you are not sure or want a clear confirmation, call the hospital where you made the appointment.

Update 5/17/2021: According to the Liberty Times, even people with vaccine appointments before June 8th are "strongly encouraged" to reschedule them for after that date. Hospitals are also beginning to suspend all non-essential medical clinics.

At least two people have reported to me that people they know either showed up for a previously-booked vaccine appointment today and were turned away, or had their appointments cancelled by the hospital. For those with appointments after June 8th, we'll just have to wait and see. 

Do you have a vaccine appointment between now and June 8th? Leave comments here or on my Facebook page to tell me your experience, especially if you tried to actually get the shot. Were you turned away? Was it cancelled by the hospital?

It's not often that I go into "basically translate an article in Mandarin-language news into English" mode, but I think this is important. Some of it, however, is my own commentary.

As the number of new cases increased exponentially today, the CECC has suspended self-funded AstraZeneca vaccine appointments (previously you could get one "with a reason", but pretty much anyone could claim one, with no need to prove it).

Health Minister Chen Shih-chung announced a few hours ago that the self-funded appointment systems would be suspended, however, anyone who already has an appointment can keep it and will get their shot. I do recommend you check with the hospital where you booked, however. This is true for dose 1 or dose 2. 

With new vaccine shipments arriving soon, Chen said that while the self-funded program would be suspended for at least a week -- in other words, those seeking appointments can't make them this week, but may be able to try again next week -- they do believe they will have enough vaccine supply to ensure everyone with an appointment can get a shot, and "not to worry". 

If you are in one of the categories who is eligible for the publicly-funded vaccine program, you can still make appointments. If you are eligible, I suggest you attempt to do so.

This surely means that all those healthcare and emergency workers who'd thought there was no rush to get vaccinated are going to be lining up now, and the elderly and those with medical conditions may still qualify (as I don't qualify, I never looked very deeply into the tiered eligibility system). This is good policy, and it should be supported without complaint. 

To this end, although Chen himself should be getting his second dose next week, he's not intending to, saying he'll wait for the next shipment. This is surely a PR move intended to calm those who are worried about the escalating situation. 

The big question is the dose 1/dose 2 appointment system. The issue is that it's different for every hospital. 

In Taipei, at NTUH I was handed automatic appointment for 8 weeks later to return for dose 2, and other friends had a similar experience. If you have such an appointment, by all accounts you should be able to keep it.

However, not every hospital follows this protocol: friends in Taitung or who had appointments at Mackay Memorial Hospital (in Taipei) were told by the hospital there to make an appointment for the 2nd dose on their own. It wasn't done automatically. Operators on the 1922 hotline also reported that they simply did not know. 

There is no news on whether such people will be able to book their 2nd appointments, and I suppose the government itself doesn't know yet. If the government intends for the suspension to last one week, it should be quite possible but, as one friend put it, the situation is...well, "dynamic". 

There is a silver lining to this stormy cloud: people will take vaccination seriously, and accept the shot they can get, not the shot they want. When the locally-made vaccine becomes available in large quantities, it should be quite easy to convince residents of Taiwan to come get their shot in a fashion about as orderly as a night market line -- that is, there will be a shape and order to it, despite very high demand and quite some wait time. 

What I want to know is this: what are your vaccine and vaccine appointment experiences like? Are you getting an appointment for a 2nd dose automatically, or not? If not, has anyone offered up answers on whether or not you'll be able to get an appointment? Are you eligible for the publicly-funded vaccine, and if so, how was it to navigate that? How are the wait times?

I'm not fishing for comments -- well okay, I am, but for a good cause! -- I just think more anecdata will help paint a clearer picture of what's going to happen in the next few weeks regarding vaccines and how we get them. 

By the way, there's been some question about the Level 3 restrictions in Taipei and New Taipei, and what they mean. Here's a slightly edited version of what I said about that on Facebook:

Taipei and Xinbei have announced Level 3 restrictions as there have been 180 new confirmed domestic cases in a day. (that's in the whole country, not one city). 

That's a huge escalation from the teens, to 29 (yesterday) to more than 6 times that number today. Most of these seem to be in the tea house/Novotel/China Airlines clusters but still that's a huge uptick. The coronavirus going around now is the UK variant, not the original strain. 

This Level 3 is unique as it does not apply to work or school, which are still in session (though I bet most workplaces are online now). Cram schools can also remain open. While travel is allowed, Taipei and Xinbei residents are urged not to travel unless absolutely necessary. You must wear a mask at all times when you leave your home, and you should wash/sanitize your hands as much as possible.

Level 3 is not a lockdown, but it's close. Public venues and adult entertainment will all close (sports centers, libraries, bars, KTVs) and essential businesses can remain open but need to register visitors. I was outside earlier, and even non-essential businesses were still open. Grocery and convenience stores are all open, but night markets and traditional markets seem to be closing for the time being.

Indoor gatherings are limited to 5, outdoor to 10. Masks must be worn at all times outside the home. Restaurants may remain open but open businesses must register customers. 

So you can still go to the grocery store and leave your house, 711 will still be there etc. Even cram schools may remain open. But if you are in Taipei or Xinbei, you should stay home as much as possible and try not to travel.  

There may be restrictions on movements of people in certain areas such as the Wanhua 萬華 Trapezoid of Doom where outbreaks have been clustered, but I'm not sure yet. 

The new regulations are in effect until May 28th.

I'd like to add that there is truly no reason to panic. The Ministry of Health and Welfare has clarified that there are sufficient medical supplies, including masks. Because businesses can remain open, you don't need to rush out and pick the supermarkets clean. Although there is a possibility that there will be a stronger lockdown in the future, it's highly unlikely to be tomorrow, or even the next day. Even in the strictest lockdown, I am fairly sure essential services such as grocery stores will still be open, though they'll surely have strict entry policies. 

Stay home as much as you can, don't freak out, and you can still go out for now, just mask up. I trust the government to get us through this unprecedented escalation (although I'm quite mad that they didn't quarantine pilots carefully enough for business concerns). I still think this is a safer country to be in than pretty much any other right now.  

Although it does feel like we're just now experienced what has terrorized rest of the world for a year, let's remember that the actual situation is not as terrifying as it is or was in many other countries. 180 cases seems high for Taiwan, and does demonstrate how this particular crisis can blossom at an exponential rate, but it's actually a fairly small per capita number. If we actually take the Level 3 warnings seriously and stay home, we can get through this. Plus we have a year of knowledge and incoming vaccine shipments on our side. 

In other words, this is bad. It sucks. But don't freak out. 

Although I do want to explore the various ways coronavirus in Taiwan has impacted women in particular, I do promise that my next post won't be about this. How about some lovely pictures of my trip to Green Island, or a book review of A New Illustrated History of Taiwan? Something like that.

What it's like getting vaccinated the day after the community transmission scare

Two weeks ago, we made the decision to sign up for self-paid AstraZeneca vaccines in Taiwan. We'd held off in the beginning, figuring that would give everyone with a more urgent need than us time to sign up. Although we have good reasons -- most of our close relatives in the US are over 70, so flexibility to return for family reasons matters -- we felt that there would surely be others with more urgent travel needs than ours. 

The government had also made it clear that you needed a "reason" to get the vaccine, stated orally or on a form, before getting the self-paid option.

Soon, however, we started hearing reports of the opposite problem: lots of AZ doses and not enough people signing up for them: there was a fear that many doses would expire before they could be used.

Anecdotally, it seemed people didn't want the AZ vaccine when seemingly more "effective" (or at least more popular) options such as Moderna and Pfizer are going to be available soon. With low coronavirus risk in Taiwan, it felt to many that they had the luxury of waiting. 

We decided at that point to go for AZ. That we were not stepping on anyone's toes, a real travel need, and the looming prospect of long waits for more "popular" vaccines all informed our choice. Plus, this informative video linked by Kerim Friedman dispels myths that it's worth waiting for a "better" vaccine: all are good at preventing serious coronavirus symptoms, the kind that kill you. The best shot is the one you can get, and my main aim here is to not die.

By the way, you can try to sign up at any of the hospitals linked here. It doesn't need to be in your city. I recommend choosing your hospital carefully -- perhaps be willing to go out of your way, though how far you want to travel when community transmission is a reality is up to you -- and trying at exactly midnight, when the system refreshes. 

I've heard some reports of hospitals who refresh their appointments at 9pm, so that's another time to try.

People are saying women who have taken oral contraceptives in the last 28 days are currently being turned away. The forms they give you say it's "not recommended", but only mention oral contraception. In theory, if you have an IUD or some other form of contraception, you should be fine. Be aware, however, that there are healthcare professionals in Taiwan who don't necessarily understand that there is a difference. 

Anyway, all of that was two weeks ago, when appointments were still fairly easy to get. 

In the meantime, many of our friends got vaccinated, and reported short wait times, staff that was not overly rushed, being asked for reasons but not pressured for proof of intent to travel. It seemed very much like a "no big deal" situation.

Then Tuesday happened, and Wednesday after that.  Community transmission was announced in Taiwan, and yesterday there was discussion of entering Level 3 restrictions due to a record-setting number of new infections. Level 3 is fairly close to lockdown (we are currently at Level 2). As there is community transmission in my neighborhood which made the news, if this happens we are likely to be restricted from leaving the immediate area. Heath Minister Chen Shih-chung's repetition that this was "critical" and "not a joke" has elicited anxiety and a sense that we need to keep fighting.

I had never been more overjoyed that I'd booked my appointment two weeks ago! I felt lucky to have an appointment at National Taiwan University Hospital, because it's not particularly far from my home. 

So here was what it was like: 

Forget everything you've heard about there not being crowds. It was packed. The healthcare professionals making it all run smoothly were absolute heroes. People seemed nervous, and you could tell the recent announcements were having an effect. 

This is entirely rational, of course. A week ago everyone thought they had the luxury of waiting, so many chose to wait. Many weren't even sure they could get a self-paid vaccine, as they didn't have a "reason". Now, the situation is more serious and people are changing their thinking accordingly. They'll take the vaccine they can get. This is smart, as I keep hearing that once other options arrive, one will not be able to choose which vaccine they receive: this is a public health drive, not a hat boutique. 

And it makes sense that now more than ever, any pretense of needing a "reason" to get vaccinated no longer matters. What Taiwan needs is shots in arms, as fast as possible, before things can get truly serious. Your vaccine is not selfish; you're helping to control the potential spread. 

I showed up at the main entrance of NTUH, and the workers checking everyone's ID there directed me to an information desk, where a friendly volunteer led me to the vaccination area. Once there, someone at the front will give you the forms you need, and there are English speakers who can tell you what to do (I'm perfectly capable of doing all of this in Mandarin but it was easier to just let it happen in whatever language the workers chose.) 

You are given a number which is not the same as your registration number -- that's only for making it easier to identify registered individuals. I was happy I printed out my online registration as it made finding my registration easy. Then they take your blood pressure and temperature. Mine was a bit high because I was, well, nervous! You have to sign a few things, but they mostly fill out the forms for you. You do have to check that you "agree" to receive the vaccine and sign that part.

Then you're asked to take a seat, and you just wait. They call people in groups of 5 or so, and it took about an hour and a half for my number to come up. 

I was led into a comfortable seating area with my 'cohort' (the five people whose numbers were called with mine). A friendly Italian man who seemed to be a senior citizen said he had not registered online; he'd just shown up after reading the news and was able to get a spot! I have no idea if it actually does work that way or he was an exception, or you can do that if you're over a certain age. I'm not judging him, of course -- in his shoes, I would have done the same.

At no point was I asked about my "reason" for getting the vaccine, despite my having one! I don't know if this is an NTUH thing or, with new community transmission announcements, perhaps hospitals are dropping the pretense of requiring a reason they would never follow up on. All I can say is that for NTUH, it seems to be shots in arms, no questions asked. Get one if you can. 

Of course, I'm an obvious foreigner. It's possible they didn't ask me because foreigners are assumed to have reasons to travel. I don't know what they asked locals, and I only saw 3-4 other foreigners among hundreds of people waiting. 

The actual procedure first takes you into one room where they scan your NHI card and prepare your yellow "vaccine passport". You're handed an appointment date and number for the next shot in eight weeks so you don't have to sign up on your own, and an information sheet (English is available) for what to expect after getting vaccinated (all the usual symptoms, and they tell you to drink a lot of water).

Then you're taken into the next room where it's all business: they sit you down and the shot goes in. I think they asked me to sit still, but honestly it happened so fast that I don't remember.

Then I was up and out, and the next person was getting their shot before I'd even reached the register. 

Obviously, it would be this way. Who could expect different? But after a year-plus of coronavirus horror stories, the dramatic rollout of vaccines, the race to contain the virus before it can mutate again -- it has all been very cinematic (not in a good way). With all that high-stakes drama, I suppose the final stage, where you step in and finally get the vaccine turns more ceremonial in one's brain. But of course, there was never going to be a symphonic accompaniment. 

It's just a shot. It hurts a little. Most shots do. 

Because the power plant malfunction happened just before I got the shot, the hospital computer system wasn't working well. But, of course, being a hospital they did not lose power. To keep everyone moving, I paid my NT$600 and agreed to receive a receipt later, once they got the right systems running again. 

To ensure that you stay for 30 minutes after getting vaccinated, they don't give you your 'yellow book' immediately. 30 minutes later they'll call your name and hand you your book. Someone brought me a receipt for my payment, as well. 

Once you have the book, you can go! Just remember to bring your yellow book, NHI card and appointment sheet on the date you are given. 

It's been a few hours now and I feel fine. I thought at first that my arm was a bit sore, but it doesn't hurt now. I feel perhaps a bit fatigued, and I bet you anything my prose is wooden and I'll cringe at this post later. I'm drinking lots of water and planning to take tomorrow off. My husband is getting his shot tomorrow; hopefully if we both experience after-effects it will be a day apart and we'll be able to take care of each other. 

It's also a psychological burden lifted. There's still worry for the country and the world, but it helps a little to ease personal stress. I know one shot doesn't confer sufficient immunity, but the news this week had me on edge. I hadn't turned to anti-anxiety medication in months but found myself taking it these past few days. Knowing that I still have to take all the usual precautions but I'm on a path to immunity has helped me calm down. 

Update: I felt more tired than usual after dinner and draining my water bottle. I refilled it and went to bed, only to wake up around 4am with aches, cold-like symptoms (something weird going on in the area behind my nose and mouth) and a headache. No fever, if anything I wanted the room cooler. I took some ibuprofen, rubbed on some Tiger Balm and drank down my water bottle again and managed to fall asleep for a few more hours. 

I woke up with a sore arm, fatigue and another headache. I took more medicine and have been resting. Ice packs help. It feels more or less like a hangover, and not as severe as I expected. 

The Chinese invasion question should not be a binary

Regardless of what the future holds, preparedness is smarter than complacency.

There's been renewed interest recently in the question of whether China will invade Taiwan. That's not particularly interesting in itself; this debate pops up every few years, people duke it out, and we go back to living our lives. But what has caught my eye is how binary the whole conversation seems to be: either China will invade or it won't. 

I wince at this rhetoric, even if on that spectrum I fall closer to the will end than the won't. I also see that the wills are, in fact, talking more about likelihood and preparedness than actually beating the war drum. The wont's seem to think the situation is concerning but ultimately not dire, and more a projection of US fear than reality.

So, it also worries me that the won'ts seem to be getting more press and are painting the wills as warmongers who think Chinese boats are coming next week, when they're not and they don't. I don't think the two sides are equally problematic, to be honest.

Regardless, the whole debate is pointless.

Both sides seem to think the other is doing Beijing's work for it. "Stop fearmongering that an invasion is coming because Beijing's entire goal is to drum up just that fear" and "failing to take Beijing seriously just helps them prepare for an invasion while we're all on a picnic" lines are two sides of the same coin. 

But there are a whole host of more important issues that more people should be taking seriously outside that binary.

Worry more about the overall likelihood than the timeline

First, that China probably is intending to invade -- not tomorrow, next week or even next year, but someday and likely within our lifetimes. The reason why there's so much uncertainty is that not even they are sure when it will happen. There is active intentionality if not a clear timeline, and they'll do it whenever they feel they need to, and think they can.

It's likely that China is intending to subjugate Taiwan but is planning on mostly unconventional warfare: through cyber-attacks aimed at destabilizing the government and economy. The painful truth is that they're already behind most current attacks, so there's ample evidence they will continue and even escalate in the future.

The 'now' matters more than hypotheticals

It doesn't matter whether China is actively planning an invasion with a clear timeline and capacity agenda. They are engaged in massive military buildup, aggression in the South China Sea and towards Taiwan. Therefore the will they/won't they talk is pointless: we should take their current actions seriously in their own right. Their future plans matter less than the fact that they are a bully now, they are aggressive now, and they are trying to claim the world hegemony title now. 

And if you hate US hegemony, oh boy wait 'till you see what China as top dog would be like.

Therefore, whether China actually invades or not, Taiwan and its allies need to be very clear that any attempt to invade will be catastrophic. The only way we can be fairly sure they won't is through deterrence. This means not undermining Taiwan's confidence in itself -- for deterrence to be successful, there needs to be a clear willingness to fight back. It also means ensuring that Taiwan is valuable enough to the world that others will come to its assistance.

Military invasion may be a future issue, but the increase in military aggression, the cyberattacks noted above and some very serious espionage cases that in at least one instance posed a direct threat to President Tsai's life are all pressing issues now.

but China's ability to terrify enough Taiwanese voters and possible international allies into going against their own interests is an issue now. This is where you get weird outcomes like voting against asking the IOC to let Taiwan compete as "Taiwan" even though no one likes "Chinese Taipei", blaming Taiwan for the end of Chinese tourism even though that was Beijing's decision, or turning the whole issue around and pointing at the DPP as troublemakers "angering" China when in fact China's the one choosing to throw strategic fits.

Invasion or not, China is still a huge problem

The main issue isn't necessarily figuring out how active China's invasion plans are, but that we have no idea because nobody knows anything about China. The lack of transparency, in and of itself, is reason enough to be concerned. In countries with deep systemic issues (which is all of them) the key difference is whether we know about them or not. In more transparent societies, the issues are known, debated, protested, and although it's an agonizingly slow process with almost as many steps back as forward, the tools exist to shed light on problems and work to solve them. None of that exists in China, so rather than worry about "what they're going to do", we should simply be worried about the fact that we can't possibly know.

Incidentally, you can tell that this is the case because there are still ignorant people out there who deny the existence of the Uyghur genocide, but nobody denies the existence of the situation at the US border. The closest we get are Republicans who acknowledge the situation but don't think it's a problem. This is because we have the tools to quickly and accurately know what's happening at the US border; uncovering genocide in East Turkestan has required more digging.

Whether China 'can' invade is not the point

It doesn't matter whether an invasion of Taiwan is a good idea, or whether China has the capacity to follow through. 

As a friend said on Twitter, Xi Jinping is clearly high on his own supply, and that makes Supreme Leader Winnie the Pooh a bad news bear indeed. And when you get someone that cracked up at the top, with that much power, you get situations where subordinates who know better will still say and do what they need to (literally) keep their heads from rolling. That could mean an ill-advised invasion of Taiwan, and the "when" and "if" matter less than the fact that the conditions are there, and they are roiling. 

On a related, terrifying note: it may be currently to Taiwan's benefit that China keeps misjudging how its actions will be received, such as the pineapple import ban or the end of Chinese tourism in Taiwan. However, that China doesn't seem to be aware, or to care, how its actions reverberate -- they genuinely don't seem to understand how deep Taiwanese identity runs, for instance -- means that they don't care about international reactions and may be badly misjudging how quickly they can subjugate Taiwanese people. That's what happens when you smoke your own crack, and don't think this scenario hasn't played out before. 

Tellingly, China doesn't care what the world thinks. Its "wolf warriors" exist to pump up nationalist sentiment among Chinese citizens; they were never to convince anyone else of China's rightness. It makes deflated attempts at soft power, but they aren't very good because the people at the top don't care much if they fall flat. The shitty rap videos don't need to be good; the people who finance them just need to report that they exist. 

And if a country has a leader whose lackeys will do anything to please him and doesn't care what anyone else thinks, then the will they/won't they talk on invading Taiwan is completely pointless. 

Why? Because that situation is scary right now.

When someone tells you who they are...

What does all this mean? Frankly, whether or not China has concrete plans to invade matter less than their signaling a clear intention to do so at some point. That signal is being sent now, so we should take it seriously...now.

These are all things we should be more worried about than a will or a won't -- a binary question better suited to a sitcom romance. But the fact is that these simplified perspectives generate good headlines that publications love to run. 

I said in the beginning that I lean more on the will than the won't side, however. Let me offer an explanation. You know that old saying -- when someone tells you who they are, believe them?

China is telling us who they are. There is plenty of evidence that they're willing to fight a war to subjugate Taiwan; the CCP has literally said exactly that. There is nothing underpinning the claim that it's mostly hot air; the best one can do is show that it might not happen particularly soon. Yet even that is unclear. 

So it makes sense to take China at their word. It makes sense to talk about Taiwan's willingness to fight. We should be preparing for all of this -- and for any and all contingencies. Preparing sends a signal which may or may not act as a deterrent, and also ensures that, well, we are prepared. Whether China will or won't invade matters less than the fact that it's still a threat, and the answer to that is never complacency.

I'm not worried that a harder line will simply inflame them more. They're already planning for this. They won't attack because they've been provoked; they'll attack because they want to and think they can. 

And it's not necessary to be a will to believe Taiwan should be prepared. All you need to understand is that China is scary now, and that's a clear and present danger in its own right.

The wills hope they're wrong

I understand the desire not to buy any of this, however. One sleeps easier at night thinking it's not a real danger. It gives one room to say that we should focus entirely on domestic issues (a position I'd love to agree with, but cannot -- China isn't the only issue but right now, it's still the primary one). 

It allows one to ignore all of the ways listed above, short of outright invasion, in which China is still a threat. That means not having to deal with complexity. So tempting! It means not having to wrestle with the righteousness of fighting for Taiwan for its own sake, versus the fact that the world doesn't have a great track record of getting involved in virtuous fights and Taiwan will indeed need to make itself valuable to the world if the world is going to support it. That feels gross; it feels realpolitik. It's hard to merge it with one's ideals. I've struggled with it too. 

And, of course the won'ts have every reason to desire that their predictions be correct. The wills very much hope they are wrong. 

It doesn't matter, though. Will or won't matter less than intention, and I don't have to believe that China will invade to believe that we should understand their intentions. The future matters, but not as much as the present. They matter less than all of the horrible things the CCP stands for and the fact that Beijing is an enemy we don't and can't understand: they are intentionally opaque. 

The CCP is a threat now. They are engaging in aggression and espionage that threaten the core of Taiwan's democracy now, and their crackpottery and opacity are creating problems now. 

They've told us who they are. We should believe them.