Trifter

In the late Nineties, I spent a great deal of my life traveling around the world as an automation consultant. The following article is composed of journal entries I made during one such trip that stands out as my most interesting, frightening, and apparently cursed trip ever. Bear in mind that it was written a decade ago, so some of the observations may seem a bit dated…

Part 1

Tuesday, 5 PM

Taiwan, you say? That’s where they make the electronics, isn’t it? Oh yeah, and China keeps threatening to invade them for some reason or other, don’t they. You want me to go there? Well, it has been almost a year since I last visited Asia, and I’ve never been to Taiwan… Sure. Why not?

Thus begins the story about to unfold. Never one to turn down free airfare to another country, especially one I’ve never visited before, I make my travel arrangements, clear my calendar, and get ready to go.

Thursday, 3 PM

One week to go, and I get the news that Taiwan has had a massive earthquake, a 7.6, the largest Taiwan has experienced in recorded history. 2,000 dead, 80,000 homeless, and nationwide power failure decidedly do not leave me sanguine about the prospect of this trip. I inform my customer of my reservations and reach the agreement to wait and see, as one of their employees (an engineer I’ve worked with before) is going four days before I do, and will inform us of the conditions on-site. In the interim, Taiwan has three more quakes, the largest of which is a 6.8, doing nothing to help my peace of mind.

Tuesday, 9 AM

Two days to go, and the word comes back, that the area we are working in was barely touched by the quakes, not even so much as an overturned computer monitor. The advance team tells me that all is well with water and power systems, as well. The trip is on!

Wednesday, 5 PM

One day to go, and the portents blacken a bit. My basement just flooded, and the plumber is going to turn off my water all night to fix it. In the meantime, I have four loads of laundry to do before my flight tomorrow morning, so I guess I’ll be spending my last night at home in the laundromat…

Thursday, 9:00 AM

I scramble to the airport and just catch my plane, desperately trying to convince myself that only having gotten an hour’s sleep is a good thing, since I’ll be able to sleep on the flight and reset my body clock for the other side of the planet. A more disturbing omen pops up when I check my watch during the flight and discover that it stopped dead at precisely 9:00 AM, almost exactly the moment my airplane lifted off. I shrug off this superstitious thinking as a product of sleep deprivation.

Friday, 9:40 PM

25 hours (37 clock hours) later, my plane has just landed at Taipei’s international airport. Another adventure in the Far East is about to begin. I burst off the plane, eager to see another new country, the legendary island of Formosa. Baggage claim and customs go smoothly, for once, and I’m out into the main terminal in less than ten minutes.

Having left home in a hurry, I take the opportunity to change money and check my voicemail (which doesn’t work, because the phones with English instructions only take credit cards, and the payphones where I can presumably use my calling card only have instructions in Chinese). Flush with cash, but going into information withdrawal, I move deeper into the terminal.

My instructions are to meet two of my colleagues (whom I’ve never seen in person) in front of the Ritz-Landis counter. After some sign language and careful enunciation, I find someone at the information desk that speaks English and will show me to the counter, where I prepare to wait for my escort. Unfortunately, I discover, these counters aren’t actually for the hotels whose names they bear, but rather they are run by limousine companies who will drive you to these hotels for approximately twice what you would pay a taxi for the same trip. First, I have to spend ten minutes getting the point across that I don’t want a ride to the Ritz-Landis, since I’m actually staying at an entirely different hotel. Then I have to spend another ten minutes fending off the team from that hotel, trying to explain that I’m staying there, but someone is coming to pick me up and take me, so I don’t need a limo.

The limousine packs finally (but only temporarily) at bay, I wait for my ride, all the while cursing myself for not having learned any Chinese before coming (not even getting a phrasebook). Every Asian country I’ve been to previously was once a British colony, and so English signs and speakers abound. Not so Taiwan. I decide that a phrasebook is first on my shopping agenda when I get out into the city.

I wait over an hour for my ride, limousine drivers massing in my general vicinity like swarms of enormous, obsequiously smiling mosquitoes waiting to pounce upon me should I let my guard down. Unable to contact my colleagues by phone as the earthquake has apparently scragged a large number of cell towers, causing spotty coverage, I decide to take a taxi to my hotel. I get the nice lady from the information desk who helped me before to write the name of my hotel and its city on a piece of paper in Chinese, and I head for the taxi stand. My arrival sets up quite a din of somewhat angry sounding chatter among the five or six drivers present, but finally they come to some agreement and I am shown to a taxi, which takes me to my hotel.

Cultural observation #1:

The Taiwanese like neon and flashing lights. A LOT. As we pass, I see dozens of clear enclosed stands at the edge of the crowded streets, each with neon and/or flashing red police car lights proudly displayed atop them. At first, I put it down to street vendors hawking their wares, but after 15 miles or so, I actually take notice of one and look in as we pass.

I am surprised to find that it, like all the ones that I examine thereafter, contains a single, extraordinarily scantily clad young lady. I’m baffled. Prostitutes? Certainly the red light fits, but they’re just a little too blatant for even the most corrupt cop to pass by, and I’m sure I would have picked up on legalized prostitution while researching Taiwan’s political system and laws in preparation for my trip…

The next day I will inquire, and be told that these stands sell something whose name translates as “beetle nuts”, and that the women are simply a gimmick to bring in customers. With a name like beetle nuts (which I purposely do not pursue for a more detailed description), I’m not surprised they need to show people naked women to get them to buy them, but I’m still amazed by the ubiquity of the stands.

Saturday, 1AM

Exhausted, frustrated, and dejected, I check into my hotel. My mood is brightened a bit by the fact that the man at the desk speaks English well. Certain things will look better in the morning, I unpack quickly and fling myself with abandon into the waiting bed. Travelers’ Note: Do not fling yourself into a Taiwanese hotel bed. It is roughly akin to slamming one’s body onto a block of marble that someone has thoughtfully wrapped with industrial grade grip tape. Bruised and beaten, I nonetheless sleep the sleep of the dead.

Saturday, 7AM

A ringing phone awakens me. It is one of the colleagues who were supposed to pick me up last night, calling to see if the other one came to get me at the airport, and how long it will take me to be ready to go to the plant and begin work. Fortunately, I am just too tired to vent the incoherent rage that he has just caused, and I settle for telling him in a sleepy murmur that I should be ready in about three hours. I hang up. Sleep welcomes me again into its warm, comfortable embrace.

Saturday, 12 PM

On the way to the plant, our driver hits a motor scooter because the traffic light was not working. The scooter driver seems shaken, but not badly injured, and no insurance info is exchanged. My impression is that car insurance is more of a luxury for the rich than a requirement here. The scooter wobbles off down the road, and the trip continues. I’m starting to think someone or something really doesn’t want me to do this job…

We arrive at the plant under a glowering sky that threatens a downpour at any moment. We’re just in time for lunch. This is fine by me, as I’ve had no food in 24 hours. I amaze my companions, foreigners and Taiwanese alike, by choosing Chinese style food, using chopsticks, and eating my own body weight in foods I’ve mostly never even seen before. They say hunger is the best sauce.

We get back to the office and begin working. At 1 PM, the lights go off. Apparently, someone forgot to mention to me that Taiwan is under power rationing measures because of damage caused by the earthquakes. It’s no big deal, though, because the computers have uninterruptible power supplies to keep them running, for an hour. Unfortunately, the air conditioners do not. Oh and by the way, Taiwan is tropical. By 3PM, my clothes, and those of my co-workers, are soaked through, and I am discovering that oppressive heat and humidity cause me to have a good deal of trouble breathing. Time to go home. At least the cab will be air-conditioned.

Saturday, 4:30 PM

Back at the hotel at last, the lobby is positively smothering. I bolt for the elevators, eager to reach the deliciously cool luxury of my room. The elevator gets underway, and then makes some strange noises. The lights flicker, then dim, then vanish completely. The muzak dies the slow tortured death it so richly deserves. The car coasts to a stop, and the fans cease their soft whirring. So this is how it ends; alone in a foreign country, in a claustrophobically small, utterly dark box, with no air, in 97 degree heat. Or maybe it already ended, and this is hell…

Or perhaps I’m just being a bit dramatic. After a minute or so (it seems more like a half hour) the emergency power kicks in and I continue on my merry way. Welcome to staggered power rationing. This is how everyone in Taiwan will live until all power grids are restored to full function. I’d like to point out at this point that I believe 7-10 hours a day without power to be somewhat less than “all’s well” as I was assured the water and power systems were before I agreed to take this job. You can be damn sure I’ll only be drinking bottled water…

Part Two of ‘A New Yorker’s Adventure in Taiwan’