Welcome to the third installment of these jottings from Taiwan. For the first two installments, go here and here.

This particular morning, Taiwan is awoken by an earthquake — at about 5. And the earthquake is a 6.5. It lasts 30 seconds, which is a longish time, when an earthquake is in progress.

No harm, no foul, though.

‐Mountains ring Taipei, or so it appears to me — and Taiwan itself is a very mountainous place. I’m told that three-fifths of the country is mountainous, and not really habitable. The country’s 23 million people are bunched in relatively small areas. Taiwan is the size of the Netherlands, I understand. Or, if you prefer, the size of Maryland and Delaware combined.

‐It’s wonderful to have a fresh guava in the morning. (Not that I’m knocking chocolate Pop-Tarts.)

‐In a restaurant — a large one — a waitress or hostess runs toward me, so that I don’t have to wait a second longer than absolutely necessary. I find this terribly embarrassing.

What can you do?

‐The people of Taiwan have a reputation of being very, very friendly — particularly to foreigners — and, out on the streets, I find this completely true. It’s like they’ve all been ordered to be on their best behavior during Be Kind to Foreigners Week.

‐Taiwan is a great maker of gadgets and electronics at large, and they are, by the visible evidence, great, great users of gadgets.

Hang on, let me quote you something interesting from Professor Rigger’s book (which is all interesting, really): In 1999,

a power transmission tower on a remote mountain in central Taiwan toppled, blacking out the island’s high-tech industry for a day. The interruption nearly doubled the world price of memory chips and the supply of TFT-LCD flat screens took six months to return to normal.

‐On the streets, I see many a New York Yankees baseball cap. I see none from any other team.

‐As at home, I see girls with tattoos around their arms — like bracelets, higher up. Such a strange style.

‐Up and down one boulevard, there are signs for a Natalia Gutman recital. Gutman is a Russian cellist (and widow of Oleg Kagan, a violinist). I’ve never heard of her giving a recital in New York. Interesting that she appears here.

‐In the bright sunshine, lots of people sport umbrellas — I mean, girls and women do. More than one person explains to me why this is so: Women like to be fair, considering it more attractive, and men have the same preference, where women are concerned.

Is there any society, anywhere, that is not completely effed up on the subject of skin color?

‐I’m glad to see baseball played, in this baseball-passionate land! In America, it seems that the baseball diamonds are grassed over for soccer fields . . .

Good to know baseball is someone’s national pastime.

‐A foul ball bounces toward me, and I throw it back. It is . . . not a real baseball. Too rubbery. Strange. Never seen such a ball.

‐Some Westerners think that Chinese-speaking people always sound mad when they talk. That’s not true, and it’s a terrible slur: Sometimes they sound merely perturbed.

‐From a distance, I see a road sign, and the name on it looks like Roosevelt. Getting a little closer — I see it is Roosevelt.

‐People will tell you that Taipei’s not very attractive. I don’t know about that. But I will say this: It’s a city made for living in, made for business, not made for looking at.

Which is fine.

‐China’s emperors collected a whole lotta art. (That’s the way the most sophisticated historians put it.) This collection was placed in the National Palace Museum in 1925. The Nationalists brought about a quarter of the collection to Taiwan — the best pieces, apparently.

The pièce de résistance in this collection, according to my (very knowledgeable) guide, is a cabbage — yes, a “jadeite” cabbage, with a couple of insects on top. It is the Mona Lisa of the National Palace Museum. People come from far and wide to see it. They crowd around it, vying for position.

And it is indeed a remarkable thing. (Again, as the finest art historians would say.) If you’d like to see it without budging from your computer, go here.

‐In the museum, I see very few Americans or Europeans — almost none. Thirty-five to 40 percent of the museum’s visitors, throughout the year, are Chinese. That is — just to be clear — they come from the PRC.

This is the way Chinese tourism to Taiwan works, as I understand it: If you’d like to come as an individual, you have to reside in one of nine cities. Big cities. The PRC doesn’t want any rustics coming to Taiwan. They would be tempted to stay.

“Once they’ve seen the lights of Paree, you can’t keep ’em down on the farm.”

You can come on an organized group tour no matter where you live. But the tour organizers have to buy insurance. They may well screen you — in order to be sure you’re reliable. If a tour member decides not to return to the PRC, the organizers are in trouble.

How big this trouble is, I’m not entirely sure. But trouble with the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party, unchallengeable ruler of the great and ancient land of China) is trouble you don’t want.

‐One thing Chinese tourists do is stay in their hotel rooms and watch television — political talk shows, of which there are scads here in Taiwan. As Shelley Rigger and others say, Taiwan has two national sports: politics and baseball.

The Chinese tourists see Taiwanese, on television, blasting the hell out of Taiwanese politicians. They rub their eyes, check their ears: This is not the kind of thing you can do at home.

I’m reminded of Arabs — Palestinians, Jordanians, Lebanese — who see and hear the Israeli media, and see and hear legislators, including Arab legislators, in the Knesset: You can do that?

In some places, you can.

‐A Taiwanese tells me, “I have nothing against any individual Chinese — ordinary Chinese people. Nothing at all. But their regime is something else. How can you roll over unarmed students with tanks? And they have 1,400 missiles pointed at my country. Why?”

He continues, “I don’t want to go there — don’t want to go to China. My ancestors are buried there. I don’t care. I don’t want to go. I’d sooner spend my money in Japan.”

His fondest dream, he says, is a republic of Taiwan. “I’d like China to forget about us — not to think about us at all. Just let us go our own way.”

That is not the only opinion held by Taiwanese — the people here hold a variety. But that is certainly one of them.

‐Shall we end this installment on a light note? Boy, do I meet a lot of people named Chen. I think of a story told about Adenauer. At some point during his chancellorship, he was introduced to a CIA man named Smith. That was the man’s actual, honest-to-goodness name.

Der Alte muttered, “Smith, Smith, it’s always Smith with you people.”

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