Fever! Taiwan's Love Affair With The Motorscooter

Fever! In the morning,
Fever all through the night. -E. Cooley/J. Davenport 1956

Though China's booming economy is so often celebrated in the news these days, often to the exclusion of everything else, Taiwan's industrial rise as one of the "Asian Tigers" followed a similar trajectory in the 80's and 90's. As living standards rose, families quickly abandoned their bicycles and took to the road on motorscooters.

Public transportation was slow to respond to the new demographics, and people needed a practical way to get to their new economy jobs in the city. The scooter was the answer.

Public transportation, with the exception of a high-speed rail system connecting Kaohsiung and Taipei, and the MRT light rail systems of each city are still trying to catch up with the transportation needs of the island. Gasoline has been heavily subsidized as a stop-gap measure, and as the economy continued to grow, so did car ownership. The government-owned China Petroleum Company recently lifted its cap on fuel prices after the presidential election in May 2008, once again sending people back out on the road on scooters in greater numbers than ever before.

As an American man, my natural instinct is to look down on scooters. First off, they're for girls, as the stereotype in the West goes, and no real man would ever be caught "riding bitch" as Taiwanese men so commonly do. Secondly, and more objectively, the poor handling characteristics which derive from its tiny wheels and high sprung weight make it uncomfortable and unpleasant to ride.

Taiwanese love them for their carrying capacity and simplicity of operation. It's not uncommon to see a whole family on one. In fact, I've counted up to five people on a scooter at the same time. Mothers take the kids to school on scooters, or If you're a farmer, you can put a slaughtered pig on the footboard and bring it to market. You can carry a tv on the back.

From what I've seen, dogs love scooters too. Lap dog owners might put their little poopsies in the basket at the front, or have them stand on their lap with their paws on the dashboard. Larger dogs can stand or lie on the footboard, jumping off and on as they prefer. Best of all, dog owners can use a scooter to "walk" their dogs without the inconvenience of actually having to walk themselves!
The drivetrain of a scooter is a CVT, a simple automatic transmission consisting of a belt and two pulleys. This means that you can ride your scooter with one hand on the throttle and talk on the phone at the same time. You can ride, talk on the phone and smoke at the same time, too. You can also ride, talk on the phone, smoke, and chew betelnut at the same time, keeping the plastic cup which serves as a spittoon on the footboard or between your knees. Furthermore, You can ride, talk on the phone, smoke, chew betelnut, spit, and ride two abreast with another scooter as your passengers smoke, chew betlenut, and bellow out a conversation to each other.

An important part of the scooter-borne demographic which should be mentioned is the "scooter punk". For reasons of it's low power and atrocious handling characteristics, the scooter should be the least obvious choice for high-performance or racing enthusiasts.

I seem to remember someone telling me that scooter racing from Japan is televised here, but I'll need to ask my fact checker about that. Despite all this, the aftermarket accessory market thrives. Popular modifications include louder, higher flow exhausts, transmission mods to increase accleration, and lights, including flashing strobe lights. Taiwan-based Kymco even offers several stock "racing" models which have larger displacement engines, more agressive styling, and disk brakes. Mirrors are specified in the Taiwan motor vehicle code, but removing them to achieve a racy look is the most popular modification. It's also the cheapest.

Youthful enthusiasm and indiscretion account for lots of stupid and agressive driving behavior everywhere, as we all know, but this is especially true in Taiwan, where law enforcement is apathetic at best. There's a national helmet law, which was partly inspired by a national epidemic of scooter-related head injuries. Here in Zhao Ming hardly anyone wears a helmet. Scooter commuters to the city will often stow a helmet onboard, and then simply plop it on their head, straps flying, once they have reached the city limits.

I've been told that people in Taiwan have more freedom than in the US. Huzza! Enjoy your freedom! Get all the freedom you can, and don't worry about where yours begins and others' ends.
Until next time, stay safe and count your blessings, every one.
-Jie Ke

Special Mother's Day Edition: Mom Spends a Month in her Pajamas

Shu-Chuan and Jin Fen together at the sit month center, January 2007.

Once again dear readers, let me rewind to December of 2006 when our daughter was born. Jin Fen arrived happy and healthy on December 18th, 2006 at the Siaogang Municipal Kaohsiung Hospital. My mother in law was there with me on that sunny and warm Monday morning to greet the new arrival and to help out in any way she could. After greeting me at the operating room waiting area with a can of Mr. Brown coffee for me to drink, and a surgical mask for me to wear, we waited together for Jin Fen to be rolled out in an incubator.

After Shu-chuan had spent the following week recovering from giving birth by cesarean section, I packed all the bags and drove my girls to a "sit month center", two blocks from the Love River waterfront in downtown Kaohsiung, Where Shu-Chuan would spend the month of January in her pajamas, recovering and resting in the company of several other pajama-wearing new moms, learning the basics of caring for a new infant.

Sit month is a Chinese tradition of some antiquity. The main idea is that a new mother requires total rest, for a full lunar month, to get back to full health. According to Chinese medicine, a mother should neither wash her hair for a month after giving birth, nor should she go outside, because she might catch cold, and certain kinds of food are prohibited, while others are encouraged. In Chinese medicine, food often is medicine, and foods are described as having a 'hot' (yin) or 'cold' (yang) temperament. Especially during the first few weeks, sit month mothers eat a lot of fish: two fish per day is the prescription. Other ideas about sit month are that the month after birth is a window of opportunity to correct any defects of the yin or yang elements in the body, and to increase chi flow. Sit month is meant to be total rest with uninterrupted sleep at night, and the new mother is fed special foods which encourage healing and lactation.

Traditionally, the care of the new mother and baby is the responsibility of the father's mother. Though many households in Taiwan are still extended families headed by the eldest male, this arrangement is not always practical or convenient in a modern industrial democracy. As Taiwan society changed, A new marketing opportunity arose: the sit month center. It's a fully-fledged industry in Taiwan, and the custom of sit month is still firmly entrenched in the culture as well: Taiwanese mothers are horrified when they hear how quickly western mothers are sent out of the hospital, and about how little support most western mothers have during the first few weeks of the newborn's life.

Sit month centers are licensed by city governments, and like almost every other kind of company, they get a lot of their business through referrals, that is by guanxi.
Baby product manufacturers often partner with local conference hotels to offer seminars on products and services. Shu-Chuan attended several of these day-long seminars, and though they were a bit tedious at times, there were some products that came to her attention this way, and best of all, there were lots of freebies, such as clothes, bottles, baby shampoos, and samples of formulas to be had. The sit month centers have a presence at these conference-cum-infomercials too, though it might be little more than a table with a few business cards.

In the end, Shu-Chuan took the recommendation of a friend, and for NT $100,000 (USD $3200) booked a room at the Cisian road Sit Month Center. It's located on the ninth floor of a typical downtown high rise apartment building, and has a view of the Love River and Shou1 Shan1, aka 'Monkey Mountain'.

The center accommodates up to eight new mothers at a time, with meals, laundry, and full-time baby care provided. Once a day, the Laoban (boss or owner) wraps the mother's abdomen tightly in a long linen wrapping to support the internal organs, and to help bring the belly back to normal shape. This practice must be thousands of years old.

In plan, the sit month center looks like a pleasant bed and breakfast, the only obvious difference being the large glass-walled baby room next to the TV lounge.


The Laoban cooks all the meals, and they are served in a small dining area with a table setting for each mother. There's a special Chinese wine that is used for cooking many of these dishes, and the smell of the cooking wine is strong in the air when you enter the center. The food consists mostly of different soups and broths and some meat, vegetables and fish. Shu-Chuan found it all to be tasty and satisfying.

The baby room, which looks like a miniature of a hospital baby room, is staffed by two full time nannies, who look after the infants when the mothers eat or sleep.

On Mother's day this year, Shu-Chuan, Jin-Fen and I happened to be in downtown Kaohsiung for a family meal at a downtown hotel on Cisian street, so we walked a short distance and paid a visit to the sit month center after our meal. Jin fen was greeted warmly by her former nannies, who certainly remember her. Her smile says that the joy of recognition is mutual.

Even though Taiwan is bombarded with images of westerners in general, and American and European pop idols, Hollywood movie stars and TV celebrities in particular, there's a strange fascination with "foreign babies" here. In fact, Taiwanese people are race-conscious to a degree that would be unacceptable in the West, and Filipinas or other darker-skinned Asians, like Jin Fen's nanny in the picture above, are frequently looked down on or ill-treated by the Taiwanese.

A different standard is applied to white foreigners though, and Jin-Fen gets a huge amount of attention wherever she goes, much more than "Taiwanese babies" do. Technically she's not a foreigner at all, as she is both a Taiwanese citizen as well as an American citizen. Though I'm often perplexed and even annoyed by the way Taiwanese people single me out because of my race, she clearly loves the attention, and somehow that makes it ok. Everyone calls her a "wai4guo2 xiao3 hai2zi" (foreign baby) or "Mei3guo2 xiao3 wa3wa1" (little American baby doll).

Jin-Fen sits in the lap of a pajama-wearing sit month mother, while Shu-Chuan chats with the woman and her sister. Shu-Chuan is a first-time mom. During her stay, she had constant interaction with the staff and some other, more experienced mothers, which was very helpful. The center is a very social place, but if mom is feeling tired, she can retire to the quiet of her room at any time, with or without her new baby.

So what does the new dad do during sit month? He's welcome to stay the night, and to visit as long as he likes. However, eating, sleeping, and washing facilities are limited, and he has to provide his own meals. Being a full hour away by motorcycle, I would visit on afternoons and evenings after class, and then return to the house in Zhao Ming at night.

I feel that I missed out on a lot of things by not having my girls with me for the first month, in addition to missing their company. I missed out on most of the one-month practical baby care course that the sit month experience provided to Shu-Chuan, and for a short time, it seemed as if Jin-Fen felt closer to Mom and her nannies than she did to me. In the end, the benefits far outweighed the drawbacks, perceived or otherwise, and this impression quickly passed. For Shu-Chuan, having a baby in Taiwan the traditional way was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

The Idiot's Guide to Ghost Month

A 10-foot pile of ghost money burns beside a park as two men in lawn chairs look on.


Money is added continually during the day, and the blaze lasts until late into the night

Many of you, who are logging in from abroad and reading this blog in English, are familiar with Halloween, or All Soul's Eve. In pre-Christian times, this was believed to be the one day every year when the world of the living and the world of the dead were closest. Nowadays, Halloween is a secular holiday mostly known for costumes and kids collecting candy, or for other decidedly earthly highjinks.

In Taiwan, Halloween lasts for the duration of the seventh lunar month every year, usually covering most of the month of August. It's called Ghost Month. It begins today, and it's nowhere near as cuddly and kid-friendly as it's Western counterpart. It's serious. For a month every year, the ghosts of the not-yet reincarnated dead are released from the underworld to roam the earth, and these are not jolly ghouls. "Hungry" ghosts especially, those whose relatives have neglected to maintain their other-worldly standard of living with the proper sacrifices such as ghost feasts and ghost money, may wander the earth begging sustainance, and sometimes creating deadly mischief, venting their wrath upon anyone who happens to cross their path.


A ghost feast


The same ghost feast with a small ghost money offering

Superstitions about ghosts are remarkably pervasive in Taiwanese culture (L.A. Times article), and during ghost month especially, certain activities and behaviors are discouraged. Weddings, vacations, surgical procedures and large purchases are commonly put off during Ghost Month.

So what's the best advice for safe and happy trick-or-treating? Two that I've heard pesonally are as follows. Don't whistle after dark, because you will attract ghosts, and for men especially, resist the urge for public urination... which is practically an institution in Taiwan... because you might be peeing on someone's deceased ancestor who is roaming around in the dark.

Swimming, or spending time on or around water is highly discouraged. Many ghosts are unhappy with their plight and are looking for someone to replace them in the underworld. These ghosts may lurk around ponds, rivers, and the seaside and drown unwary swimmers or passersby. This superstition in particular is interesting, because it seems to correlate with a traditional disinterest in watersports and recreation among Chinese, and among Taiwanese in particular.

When I moved to Taiwan, Shu-Chuan and I had to move into a new house during Ghost Month. This is a serious no-no. A number of special precautions had to be taken, all of which were orchestrated by my mother inlaw. The only one that I recall in any detail was that we had to leave a light on in every room of the house, for the entire month. Of course, here in Taiwan, there is a huge market for specialty products relating to Daoist observance. It turns out that the flourescent light fixtures in our house have a special, smaller light bulb which is used for ritual purposes such as this.


the ghost light is on

Here in Zhao ming, there are at least 7 or 8 stores whose entire inventory consists of different types of ghost money. Other stores specialize in ghost money burning barrels, fireworks, and incense. The habit of burning ghost money is so widespread that it is beginning to cause environmental concerns about air quality. The rising standards of living and increases in disposable income among the living seem to have translated into rising standards of living for ghosts as well. Ghost money burning releases hundreds of tons of particulates and toxic gases into the atmosphere annually, and the resultant ash presents a waste disposal problem. Ghost money burning is currently banned in Taipei, the nation's capital, and the local government here in Kaohsiung has started a number of initiatives which are aimed at eventually curbing the impact of this practice. Last week, an article appeared in the China Post and the Taipei Times, the two leading English-language national daily newspapers, about this issue.

The initiatives focus on "creative alternatives" to ghost money, as well as "replacing money with good deeds". In recent years, as Taiwan's economy has been in transition away from heavy manufacturing, there has been an increase in environmental awareness and promoting tourism. Standards of living and vehicle emissions have risen dramatically since martial law was lifted in 1987, a rise almost as dramatic as the one currently underway in the People's Republic of China. Nearly every household owns at least one scooter, and car ownership is on the rise. More and more people in Taiwan are coming to see the environmental effects of ghost money as incongruent with a modern industrial society that already faces challenges from other, less easily mitigated sources of air pollution.

Generally, business owners will burn a small amount of ghost money on the 15th of every lunar month, just to keep the supernatural guanxi which affects their business flowing. Other observances such as god's birthdays, weddings, and funerals are times when ghost money are burned as an offering, sometimes quite lavishly. Lavish outlays are not only seen as a show of greater face to the god or ghosts, but are also a way for a family, a business, or a temple to flaunt their wealth in public.


Money to burn: a lavish outlay of ghost money at a funeral in Dong1 Gang3



Taiwan fire safety protocols in operation. Another view of the same cage placed on the shoulder of a public highway.


The next door neighbor celebrates her god's birthday with a feast and money burning...typhoon rain be damned, the god must be honored.

During Ghost Month, almost every Daoist household will burn ghost money once a week for the entire month. 2006, as it turns out, is a double ghost month. Asthma sufferers, young children, the elderly, and those with chronic respiratory problems beware... of ghosts, that is. These traditions and customs are so far entrenched into custom and the local economy that change is likely to be very slow, especially out here in the "countryside".

The PVC-pipe boats of Linyuan

detail of Kaohsiung county map, showing the Gao-Ping Xi

Finding decent maps has always been a problem here. Forget about the wonderfully detailed U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) or British Ordnance Survey (OS) maps that are easily available in the U.S. or Britain. Even those maps that are available for sale in Taiwan often concentrate on the urban centers, so here out beyond the fringes of Kaohsiung, in the "countryside", local places of interest are usually beyond the edge of the map. My local geographic info comes from a pastiche of locally-bought planimetric maps and internet map databases, including Google Earth! The local maps are all in Chinese of course, which is ok because the county highways (gong1 lu4) and county roads (xian4 dao4) are assigned Arabic numerals.
As long as the map I need is small-scale enough, I can usually find a route number that gets me where I want to go, and this approach is supplemented by a lot of backtracking. I'm mostly illiterate here, though the characters for the major cities and some of the towns in my area are familiar now. I often come home wondering what town I was in, so to locate myself I either mark a waypoint on the GPS or take a picture of a road sign, to have my wife read to me later. Often I get frustrated and simply have to return to search for my destination another day.
Finding the harbors and dockyards in Linyuan was, as usual, the result of intuition and a lucky turn. It was the low-res satellite photo from Google Earth, in fact, that alerted me to the existence of the two harbors in Linyuan in the first place.


Colorful fiberglass-hulled fishing boats in Linyuan Harbor

The fleet here is split between more conventional types of boats, and what I've been calling PVC-pipe boats.


Quayside in linyuan



PVC-pipe boats at Dong Gang

They are essentially rafts, constructed of PVC pipes lashed together with polyester strapping, onto which a wood framework, a deck, a pilothouse/engine compartment, and steering gear is fitted. The larger version of this particular craft is about 30-40 feet long and powered by a shaft-drive diesel.


A fishing boat under construction quayside in Dong Gang, PingTung County



Detail of the teak framework which supports the deck and net gantries


The steering gear housing and rudder post (aft)


Engine, engine bed stringers and propeller shaft.


Another boat with its deck removed. Note the stainless steel
net gantry in the foreground.


There's a considerably larger plant on board this one!

I can only speculate what these boats are used for, probably inshore fishing in the Gao-Ping Xi, or for day trips in the Taiwan Strait. Many fishermen set up fish weirs in the Gao-Ping Xi, and use their boats to tend the weirs and get the fish to market. Many of the larger boats I saw were fitted with fine mesh nets, and I presume were engaged in shrimping.


Nets and net booms with pvc-pipe floats on working boats at Linyuan. The refinery complex can be seen in the background

Other boats are engaged in fishing estuaries where fish weirs are set up.


Anchored in place, a boat uses prop-power to drive fish into a weir.

fish weir in the foreground, boats return to their moorings on the Linyuan side of
the Gao-Ping Xi at nightfall.

I've also seen a smaller, outboard powered variant of this type of craft. Here is one that I saw under construction at a village near Dong Gang, on the East side of the Gao-Ping Xi, in Pingtung County.


Profile view of an outboard-powered PVC boat under construction


Access for an outboard motor

Bow detail, showing teak frame and nylon cord lashings

Here is a photo of some completed and working outboard boats at the fishing harbor in Linyuan. The construction is slightly different, probably reflecting local building preferences. Note the upswept stern tubes on the the center boats.



This boat has a tender made from what looks like scrap pvc. I've seen several of the larger boats having damaged sections of pvc removed, and new sections installed. There's a lot of scrap lying around unwanted for projects like this.