Taiwanderland: Return to the Ilha Formosa

What is this land of dreams, this Taiwanderland?  What is it to me?

I first traveled here in 1993 at 11 years old with my father.  Taiwan and I were both so different a quarter century ago.

Alishan Mountain 2003: The Highest Peak in East Asia!

Taiwan was still living under the Jade Curtain of the KMT (Kuomintang), which had ruled the island since Chiang Kai shek lost the Chinese Civil War and fled to Taiwan with 2 million of his friends to found the “Republic of China.”  But the tiger economy, under America’s protection, had exploded since the 1970s, and by the early 1990’s the developing capitalist machine was humming.

My dad had secured a berth for he and I on a cruise ship touring the South China Sea.  He would present to passengers about financial planning when we were at sea, and in port, he and I would explore together the metropolises of re-emerging Asia.  Now that’s a good teaching job. . ..

Taipei was our first stop, and my childhood memories have long since faded into sepia tones.  What do I remember from my one to two days there?  Bus tours from the Port of Keelung, heat, snakes, incense-infused Confucian temples, the National Palace Museum, the Mausoleum of Chiang Kai Check, urban hustle, beggars, noodles, East Asian life.  

My Chinese Language Teacher, Xiao Zhong

My personal reference point of cookie-cutter Southern California suburbs hadn’t prepared my pre-pubescent brain for the human onslaught of Taipei, and I can still point back to that trip as a watershed moment in my life, when I realized that the world was much bigger, more different, and more interesting than I had imagined. . . .

I returned to Taiwan twelve years later in August 2003, this time to live and work on the “Ilha Formosa.”  Freshly minted as a college graduate, I dodged the consulting, banking, and finance pipeline to New York City, and took up a teaching position through Princeton in Asia at a private Taiwanese middle and high school in Taiwan’s third city, Taichung.  My goal at the time was to pay my bills by teaching English, learn Mandarin, and be a sponge.

My 125 CC Kymco, Mountain Rambling in the Palms, 2004

The year I spent in Taiwan was tumultuous, as my parents split up, my college girlfriend and I did too, and I navigated the transition from a learning community of friends to a whole new world with no familiar faces in a new land with a new language.  In many ways it was the best of times and the worst of times for me. 

 But my love affair with Taiwan grew, as I fell more deeply for the country, the people, the culture, the language, the landscapes, the food, the oyster pancakes.  Riding a 125 CC Kymco motor bike, living on a leafy University campus, windsurfing the Taiwan strait, hiking the mountains, speaking a completely foreign language. . . . the sweet memories come rushing through when I open that memory box.

Sunrise Confucius Festival, 2003

I left Taiwan in June 2004 to return to America, to find my foundation again after a year of transformation.  By the end of the year I found my home in Hawaii, which is more like Taiwan than anywhere else in America.  Coincidence?

15 years have passed since I moved to Taiwan after college, and I’m returning now to this magical island.  This time I come for work, to promote my school on this bustling island of 23 million, to recruit students, and to build educational relationships.

I keep coming back to this wonderful place.  

Surf Adventuring the Taitung Coast, 2003

The first time I was truly a child, learning for the first time about how big and interesting the world is, and never forgetting it. 

The second time I was a young man, paying my way with my skills, and not just visiting as a tourist, but living as a resident. 

Now, this third time, I return as an educator.  I’m coming full circle to this special place, that somehow keeps drawing me into its orbit.  

Let the adventure begin. . .