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Page 17March 1, 2007 CHARLESTON MERCURY

BY ROBERT MAGUIRE,JR.Special OverseasCorrespondent

Five months ago, when Ifirst dragged myself fromthe sweaty mouth of the

rickety China Air dirigible thathad catapulted me from Tokyoto Taipei, I had been travelingfor 27 hours — and had sleptfor half of one of them — start-ing at five o’clock in the morn-ing at the CharlestonInternational Airport onSeptember 11 and finishingright there in the shiny new ter-minal of the Taiwan TaoyuenAirport at eight the followingnight.

The fact that I hadn’t hadany prolonged sleep in days,much less that I didn’t reallyknow what day it was or whattime it was, was of little con-cern for me.

I’m in Taiwan, I repeated inmy head.

Taiwan.For many people, the name

itself conjures duplicitousvisions of a worldly paradiseand of the wrath of GodHimself. From the pristinemountain monasteries inChiang Mai down to thecoastal backpacker meccas ofKo Samui and Phuket, there arefew places that rival beauty likethis.

At the same time, this travel-er’s playground is no stranger todisaster. No one will forget thecarnage caused by the tsunami,which laid waste to manycoastal areas, killing thousands,in late 2006.

To many, this is Taiwan —land of contrasts, a beautifuldisaster — and that’s becausethey’re thinking of Thailand.

So, let me get this straightfrom the get-go: I’m inTaiwan. It’s the island the

Portuguese called Ilha Formosa,or “beautiful island.” Roughlyhalf the size of South Carolina,it rests nestled up against therump of China at about thesame distance Cuba is from thebeaches of southern Florida.

As I walked down the spot-less, florescent tunnels thatpromised me a baggage claimand, hopefully, my girlfriend, Ihad dreams of my new life inAsia. This is where it’s all hap-pening, I told myself. This iswhere imagination is realized,where people walk robot dogsand robots walk real dogs,where cell phones can makehotel reservations and tell youthe future, and where your taxesare done while your accountantsleeps back in the U.S.

Taiwan is no exception. It’san Asian tiger. This is the homeof Taipei 101, the world’s tallestskyscraper, for God’s sake! AsThomas Friedman put it in TheWorld Is Flat:

Taiwan is barren rock in atyphoon-laden sea, withvirtually no naturalresources — nothing butthe energy, ambition andtalent of its own people —and today it has the third-largest financial reserves inthe world.

Hot dog! That’s what I’m talk-ing about, I thought as Idreamed of Taipei — the city ofthe future. As I waited for mybags, I had visions of thesmooth glass façades andimpeccable architecture of thecityscape at night reflectingthousands of colors from thelights in the streets. Before mymind’s eye, I saw New Tokyo— its modernity, its innovationand its energy, just like ThomasFriedman told me.

At least, that’s what Ithought he was telling me.

Of course, I thought about

her, too. Fanfan, the beautifulTaiwanese girl waiting for me atthe gate, was the reason I washere. (If you pronounced thatlike “fan” — as in “You need tofix the ceiling fan in my room”— then you’ve got it all wrong.Her name is French, so it’s bet-ter pronounced “FonFon.”)

We met three years ago inthe small town of Angers, aboutan hour and a half west of Parisin the Loire Valley. We were inthe same class studying Frenchtogether. That June I went backto Clemson to finish my senioryear, and she moved to Paris forcultural exchange and to get amaster of art history degree.One thing led to another, andthe following July I was inParis.

We were two poor students

in one of the most expensivecities in the world. I spent theyear studying la philosophie —sure, I’ll wait for you to stoplaughing — during the courseof which I learned mostly aboutthe decrepit state of the Frencheducation system. We both leftParis with the sad realizationthat beautiful places are nice tovisit for a week or a month, butafter a while it gets hard toignore the dirt you see in thedark corners that tourists mightnot see — even in Paris.

We left for a better place. Aplace we would both have jobsand, thusly, money. What abeautiful dream that was.

When I saw her at the gateat the Taipei airport, it hadbeen two months since we hadseen each other last, since I had

stopped over for an extendedvisit in Charleston to work a bitand recoup some of the moneyI lost in gay Pah-ree.

For the first time in our rela-tionship, only one of us was aforeigner. Also, for the first timein the two years we had beentogether, I was going to meether family. She had met myparents during a visit they madeto Paris about a week before weleft, but I had never so much asspoken to her family on thephone.

To add to the normal jittersthat accompany first time ren-contres with “the fam,” her par-ents and her little sister don’tspeak English or French. To beclear, they only speak Chinese— Mandarin and Taiwanese, adialect of Chinese. Luckily, herbrother speaks English, too.

I wasn’t concerned, after all.I had already had pretty goodluck with parents, and in anycase it would be a couple ofweeks before I would head outto see them. It would take awhile to get settled in, get overa serious case of other-side-of-the-planet jet lag, and startworking. For the time being, Icould just enjoy being withFanfan, soaking in my newhome in New Tokyo.

As I watched the city lightsgrow brighter through the rainsoaked windows of the bus thattook us back into Taipei, I start-ed to ask myself where all of theskyscrapers were. Pulling intothe Taipei Main Station in themiddle of the city, I stepped offthe bus, and looked around atwhat seemed to be more like agiant, dilapidated train stationsurrounded by morose coloredhigh-rises.

This certainly doesn’t looklike New Tokyo, I thought, andI don’t see one robot.

We hailed a taxi, and Iwatched in disbelief as the cityunfolded around me. It was

surreal to see a world that wasso incredibly foreign to me. Icouldn’t read any of the neon-litpanels, the banter on the carstereo was incomprehensible,and every street made the cityseem larger and more unfamil-iar.

And I loved it.“Ils font quoi là?” I asked

Fanfan as we waited at a redlight. There were hordes of peo-ple everywhere, dressed in red,chanting. She explained thatthey were protesters who werecamped in front of the presi-dent’s office, demanding he stepdown. As the car jolted for-ward, I saw a musician playingon a stage, an impromptu mar-ketplace of red tents and anangry mob.

As the taxi pulled up to mynew apartment building, I feltlike I had stepped straight intoa picture I had seen in NationalGeographic as a child. Thebuilding looked like it wasmade in stages, modified by itstenants with corrugated steel orplastic here and there, withcaged windows and a collapsingstairwell.

Inside, my apartment wasparadise. It was about threetimes the size of my apartmentin Paris, for about half the cost.I had air-conditioning, Internetand cable. For now, I thought,this will have to do. I’ll test mydreams of New Tokyo once I’veslept off the trip here.

To be continued …Robert Maguire, Jr. is studying

Chinese at the National TaiwanUniversity in Taipei. He runs thesite The Only Redhead inTaiwan, where you can see pic-tures and videos from his timethere. Robert may be reached atrmaguir@yahoo.com.

A New Home in New Tokyo

PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDEDRobert Maguire, the only redhead in Taiwan, at least one of the very few inTaipei.

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