Stumbling off the hazy tarmac at Kaohsiung International Airport are a dozen bleary-eyed members of the Taipei Foreign Correspondents Club. Some of the correspondents are not actually foreign, and most of the rest are not in fact correspondents. They are nonetheless a species of journalist, and their professional pride is affronted by the early hour. Their moods are foul, their hangovers intense, their halitosis unrepentant. You wouldn't want to be the individuals dealing with them.
The individuals in question are Melissa from the Kaohsiung city government's Protocol Office, and Jason, special advisor to Mayor Frank Hsieh. Jason and Melissa, speaking in near-flawless English, project sunny enthusiasm and impossible competence. They both seem destined for high political office, and are very good-looking to boot. It's precisely because of their virtues that I have assigned them the pseudonyms "Jason" and "Melissa." People as nice as Jason and Melissa don't deserve the rough treatment they are likely to receive in this mean-spirited article. For that matter, they don't deserve two days in a bus with the likes of me and my colleagues, but many things in life cannot be remedied, and this article is one of them.
Jason and Melissa are charged this weekend with two nearly impossible tasks. The first is to keep the Taipei journalists sober during daylight hours. The second and yet more daunting job ¬ one that might depend on keeping the journalists drunk as lords in the evening ¬ is to instill in their visitors the impression that Kaohsiung is a clean, prosperous, modern, vibrant, and ¬dare we say it ¬ hip city. I am betting big money, as I stride testily through the terminal, surrounded by my equally misanthropic cohort, that Jason and Melissa will fail at task number one and fail very miserably at task number two. Because it's Kaohsiung we're dealing with here. The all-time dingy port town. Ground zero for the collapse of a nation's industrial base. A city of faded yesterdays. The Newark of the Orient. What gay face can Jason and Melissa possibly paint on this gray city? To what depths of disingenuousness will their project force them to sink? Will we witness the ruin of their souls this weekend? Yes, I almost hope it. Settling into my seat on the bus, I am eager for a gruesome show.
All shook up
We drive into the city over a manicured route that, one may assume with a high degree of certainty, is not representative of greater Kaohsiung's roadways. That is, the streetcleaners' work is evident, the palms are tall and uniform, and the sod is green and fresh. Even so, one catches glimpses of barefoot men operating bulldozers, children running rampant on abandoned construction sites, and wild dogs standing guard over vacant lots. And here, in one of the flower beds, lies a crumpled motorcyclist, his bike a smashed wreck. I look up and down the bus for someone with whom to share my alarm ¬ but Melissa is skillfully distracting the group with updated information about our scheduled lunch with Mayor Hsieh. I realize with a small surge of excitement that no one but me has seen the dead man. Score one for Kaohsiung's public relations operation.
Now, before we can meet the mayor, we must proceed to a drafty City Hall conference room, there to endure an hour-long briefing on the World Games, which are to be held in Kaohsiung in 2009. The question of the moment for the media contingent is what the World Games actually are. The answer is that they are an elaborate device for keeping sports like fin-swimming segregated from the proper Olympics. So what do the World Games mean for Kaohsiung? They mean lots of attention from the world? korfball enthusiasts ¬ who, as of this writing, are still waiting for their pet athletic endeavor to gain the international prestige now conferred on flatwater kayaking. We media representatives, who wouldn't bend down to pick up a korfball if we found one gift-wrapped on our doorstep, pepper our hapless briefers with uncomfortable questions on cross-Strait politics and sewage connection rates. And we're growing hungry for our complimentary lunch.
Half an hour later, in a hotel banquet room, the mayor is telling us about Kaohsiung's future as a "wireless city" and its prime location on the "New Ocean Silk Road." This isn't what the journalists have come to Kaohsiung to hear, however, so we are staring malevolently at our first course of food, which happens to be mayonnaise-encrusted scallops. But now the mayor delights us by announcing that he'll handicap the upcoming legislative elections. Ears instantly perk up, frenzied pens scratch weathered notebooks, and Melissa leans in to tell me that the mayor has a reputation for predicting election results with a high degree of accuracy. That's when the earthquake begins.
The magnitude at the epicenter is 7.0. We're far from there, but this quake is still big enough to slosh our beverages and shake our chandeliers. The hard-bitten journalists cannot hide their alarm, and the city representatives exhibit the frozen smile of helplessness. Except, of course, for Mayor Hsieh, who appears a rock of calm ¬ thus burnishing his leadership credentials in the eyes of the international press. "Oh!" he shouts cheerfully when the quake lurches us to the left. "Hey!" he exclaims when it lurches us back to the right. I must admit that he calms me slightly. This is probably unprofessional.
But despite the mayor's heroism, the quake has upstaged him. Yes, we note his every statement, but we've got an anticlimax on our hands ¬ and the luncheon's final courses are mostly a matter of counting down the minutes till Mayor Hsieh presents us each with an ocarina. Which, it turns out, is a small tuneless wind instrument. Ours are shaped like Taiwan, with Kaohsiung as the mouthpiece.
I love this river
Jason and Melissa, I regret to report, are successful all afternoon in restricting our alcohol intake - I for one am miserably sober during an endless visit to a chip-testing facility. At dinner, however, as I feed prodigiously from a free buffet, I manage to consume an entire bottle of shiraz, notwithstanding that the wine was laid out for my table's shared enjoyment. Thus I gain the resentment of my colleagues but improve my mood enormously.
The order of the evening is a cruise on the Love River. Oh, let the bad news duly be noted ¬ that this "river" is in fact a canal, that through this black channel long flowed the excesses of Kaohsiung's mighty industry and that of its human population as well ¬ that some of these excesses flow there yet. But now the good news ¬ there's a Love River Renaissance underway.
Five years ago the riverside was rampant with gamblers and prostitutes. The city, aware that something needed to be done, held a major lantern festival and booted out the hookers. After that they built a history museum and a concert hall. Next they established cruises, and installed a facility that trains seeing-eye dogs. Now they've put up a digital clock that counts down the seconds till the World Games begin. The transformation is so complete that, according to Kaohsiung at Night ¬ a promotional booklet that Jason foisted on me despite my loud objections ¬ the canal that "was once contaminated by industrial and domestic wastewater" can now be described in the following fashion: "tempting aroma permeates the air, mixing with people's emotion."
We arrive on the waterfront and file onto the launch, a low-slung craft that sets a course into the harbor's salt breeze. It's a pleasant-enough atmosphere, and my colleagues are chatting amiably among themselves (though they are ostracizing me after my hogging of the shiraz). Presently our vessel reverses course ¬ and that's when the river begins to deliver potent packets of stench. In no time the correspondent to my left is complaining that her throat itches, and the one on my right is claiming that his entire face is on fire. This provokes another explosion of conversation about the sewage connection rate. Someone wonders if the cruises are safe for children. These are tough hits for Jason and Melissa to absorb, but they stand in the ring like tough old club fighters and take their punches manfully. They insist that there are fish in the water ¬ something I'm actually inclined to believe, for I've read in Kaohsiung at Night about the "Night Shift Aeration Team" ¬ a fleet of boats that pumps air into the water so marine life doesn't die from oxygen deprivation.
Say this, though ¬ despite the state of the water, the banks are vibrant with people. Noisy people, energetic ones, ambling and joking and having fun. People transforming a still-nasty waterfront into a hub of enjoyment, mainly through force of will. Now it dawns on me that the Love River Renaissance is after all an act of brilliance, despite everything. Because these are Taiwanese people milling on the shore, people who given the tiniest excuse will overrun any destination and make it as much fun as everyone wishes it were. They are fearless, these people ¬ they are fantastic. I wish to escape this "river" but I salute the people who enliven its banks.
Victory is theirs
Morning number two ¬ another tough one for the correspondents. Some were up all night drinking bourbon alone, others were playing poker on their expense accounts. Today's first stop, we are disheartened to be reminded, is Zuogong-Jhouzih Wetland Park ¬ which turns out to be an oppressively hot artificial swamp providing habitat for the migratory pheasant-tailed jacana while also reducing the level of e-coli in the local water supply.
To me it looks like a typical Asian lotus-pond ¬ Smurky-green and goldfish-infested ¬ but that's only because I don't know what to look for, an inability not shared by our professorial guide. Behold the floating hearts and water lilies! Admire the little egret, the common kingfisher, the night heron! Contemplate the jacanas themselves (who are not present) ¬ they lay their eggs on lily leaves! Applaud the college-age volunteers, who have given up a weekend afternoon to muck about in mud up to their thighs!
While swatting away a swarm of biting insects, I manage to scribble in my notebook that the wetland is threatened by an exotic animal species known as the apple snail. Luckily the snails are being combated by a school of vicious black carp, which are prized for their destructive teeth and gluttonous appetites. As I peer into the green-gray water hoping for a glimpse of this deadly species, a religious observance erupts nearby. This involves a massive fireworks display and a cacophony of musical instruments even more tuneless than ocarinas. The bird sanctuary has become a sonic war zone ¬ great flappings of wings, an avian evacuation. "No good," the professor sadly observes.
Our trip is winding down now, our impressions are mostly set. Perhaps that's why we're finally allowed to see a bit of the old Kaohsiung ¬ the industrial Kaohsiung ¬ China Steel. There, a weary vice president exposes us to an industrial video called A Song of Iron and Sweat. The film features a voice-of-God narrator who should be reading lines like "Two mechanized Allied divisions smashed through the Axis defenses and sent the Hun scurrying back toward the Rhine." Instead, he must humiliate himself with text like "Three decades amid sweat and hot metal ¬ testing our will to become men and women of steel."
This video simply stuns us, so when we're led onto a company bus we go wordlessly. When helmets are passed around, we don them uncomplainingly. When we're exposed to the manufacture of steel plate ¬ hiss of fire, arcs of sparks, grandness of scale, death in an instant ¬ we display precisely the awe that we suppose is expected of us. And as we're led away from the production line ¬ as we pick a narrow path among cooling plates of metal ¬ it barely registers in our minds that a single misstep could lead to a face planted on hot steel, resulting in lifetime disfigurement. Isn't this worth jotting in our notebooks? Isn't this a fat target for capital-city snarkiness? No, not now ¬ all we care about now is catching a nap on the flight home. So my congratulations go to Kaohsiung, for the city has soundly defeated a vicious enemy.
- AmCham
