From one island to another

Taiwan is a place that‘s too good to be true. Fairly small, but still big enough to be able to spend weeks there discovering new spots. Fairly cheap, and yet very developed so you don’t have to lower your sights on hygiene or infrastructure. Fairly Chinese culturally, but extremely welcoming and very easy to explore, even without knowledge of the language. Full of people and yet never exhausting or too fast-paced. Not to forget the tropical climate, beaches, beautiful mountains, fantastic food and traditional culture and religion that is, unlike in China, still alive.

Big temples just pop up in Taiwan, even when you're in a small village
far from Taipei

The week was the most relaxed that I had in quite a while. It’s just very easy to have a laid-back lifestyle in Taiwan, with breakfast stores open until noon, night markets and 24/7 convenience stores. Pavel lives in one of the centers of Taipei, right next to a night market, in one of the semi-legal rooftop apartments that are typical for the city. In order to generate some extra rent, landlords build some extra rooms on top of their four- or five-storied, flat-roofed buildings. They’re usually illegally built, but tolerated. The disadvantage of having to climb all the stairs every time is offset by the rooftop views and atmosphere. Since I was arriving just in time for the semesterly swap of exchange students, there was an entirely vacant room in the flat where I could squat temporarily.

3 days after leaving, I already start to forget the details of what I was doing that week. Mostly it was visiting places I already knew and wanted to revisit for the feels (and because they’re great), like a bubble tea shop, a night market, a rice bowl place etc. As you can see, my travel habits have asianized considerably. While Germans would usually name landscape, sights, culture… as their major reasons to travel to a place and food as a nice side benefit, for Asians it can literally be the reason to travel. If you frown upon this, that’s clearly because you haven’t had enough exposure to East Asian food yet. Taiwan, with it’s historical ties to Japan and migrants from all parts of mainland China is a great place to try many different types of it.

Another thing Taiwan stands out for in East Asia is its contemporary art scene. While I was visiting, one of Asia’s biggest art events was hosted in Taipei for the first time, the Taipei Dangdai (Dangdai is the Pinyin Transcript of 當代, which means contemporary). While I didn’t make it to the fair, I made sure to visit at least one of the many art museums. Taiwan is not the only place in East Asia to have a flourishing modern art scene, but I feel like it has the most uncompromising, radical and innovative artists at the moment. Maybe that’s because the country itself is a very young democracy and people are experimenting with their newly gained freedom.

KAWS art can be considered gimmicky but how cool is it to put
his huge statue right in the memorial park of the Taiwan's (problematic)
founding father?

Cool filter, right?

Friday noon I then took a flight to the one country in East Asia that I haven’t been to before. I always told myself that before going to Japan, I was gonna wait until I had some money to spend without worrying and optimally until I knew someone there who could guide me a bit. Now luckily both conditions were fulfilled, thanks to Charlotte, a Japanese Taiwanese that I also know from exchange in Taiwan two years ago.

Tokyo is a global metropolis and it’s not hard to get around without a local, but then you’d miss out on all the local peculiarities (of which Japan has quite a few) like how to properly use a high tech toilet seat or find out about your fate at a temple (my fate is really crappy). Also, speaking to people. I don’t know why, after all it’s a rich country, but English proficiency in Japan is lower than even in China, let alone Taiwan. Chinese is also of very limited use. For conversation it is entirely pointless, because the two languages don’t share any phonetic vocabulary. However, Japanese has three different alphabets that are combined in its script. Two of them are purely phonetic, very much like our latin one, but the third is a limited set (I think about 2000) of Chinese characters. While their pronunciation is completely different here, the meaning of the characters more or less remains the same, though not exactly. In praxis this means I often get a vague impression of what signs or menus are about without really knowing it (e.g. I know a dish contains chicken and potato, but not in which style). It would be the same if I used my phone and wrote a Chinese sentence to show it to a Japanese person.

Pristine and serene, that's about it

A preconception that is very true is that Tokyo is a expensive place. Except for food, which can be a surprisingly good deal, things are easily 1.5 times the prices of Germany. You could probably travel on a budget if you wanted, but it really wouldn’t be fun. At this point I’m still on the fence if I should get the world’s best steak (Kobe beef, an “orgasmic experience surpassing everything I’ve tasted before” – according to a friend) for a ridiculous price or not. You’ll know about my decision next week.

Two worlds

The last week was full of contradictions and thus kind of exemplifies the point of life at which I am currently. I spent the weekdays in Shanghai, visiting production facilities and glitzy offices of mostly German companies, where I had the chance to learn about their activities in the Chinese market, the development of local industries and their view on the future of China. And most importantly I could get to know some people and “find inspiration” for the internship that I’m going to do from July until December this year. It was a great trip and our organizer from DAAD did an amazing job selecting companies and scheduling the visits and activities. At the same time, I was a bit overwhelmed by the business-mindedness of the Shanghai I saw. The people we met ranged from ambitious to ultra-ambitious and every second alumni of our program seems to carry the job description business consultant. Shanghai as a city is the perfect backdrop to this, with its endless malls, skyscrapers, megaprojects and lush lifestyle. Out of all mainland Chinese cities, this is the most cosmopolitan it gets. Not speaking Mandarin is no problem, as even waiters in restaurants are often fluent in English. If it wasn’t for the Chinese characters everywhere, central Shanghai might as well be New York or Sydney. The city is bustling, full of young people who want to make it to the top. There are lots and lots of foreigners, over half of the German business activity in China takes place in and around Shanghai (in comparison: Beijing has about 18%). It’s very easy to imagine working here, with all the amenities and the lifestyle one is used to from home so one can focus on doing business. But exactly that feeling of everybody working hard and meticulously planning their next steps on the career ladder irritates me. I like to have a balance in my life and cities that allow for this balance to exist. I have friends that are business consultants as well as friends that are in the 12^th semester of their bachelor and I’m always trying to find a middle ground between these extremes. I think living in Shanghai for years would almost certainly draw me towards the former group, since that’s what everybody is doing there.

The classic Shanghai skyline, now with LEDs everywhere in a
competition for the most memorable building

A normal Shanghai highway intersection

Another thing I noted was that pretty much every foreigner we were talking with was kind of ambivalent about being an expat in China. Everybody appreciates how exciting it is to work in an environment where things happen fast, the economy grows high speed and people are more optimistic and motivated. At the same time nearly everyone acknowledged that China is not and will never be a home, it’s a place where you’re going because of your professional ambitions. The Chinese government wants it to be that way, foreigners are allowed because they add value to the economy, but if they lose that ability, they’ll have to leave (I’ve heard of exceptions for mixed couples, but those visas seem to be extremely difficult to get and require endless documentation). There’s no path to Chinese citizenship for foreigners (not that many would want it anyways, but the sheer fact says a lot about the attitude of a country I think) and even the greencard (also extremely difficult to get) expires after 10 years. And of course, all these regulations and laws are only worth so much, they could change overnight or just being bent or broken with no chance of objecting to that in court. So while you usually feel welcome on a personal level, knowing that you’re always considered a temporary guest worker and possible threat by the government is not really conducive to creating a comfortable atmosphere. Some of the people I met will have a really tough time going back to Germany after decades spent abroad, possibly with kids that know the country only from visiting their grandparents once a year.

Bottom line, the dilemma every expat in China is facing is the one between curiosity/ambition (triple your salary and get to a senior position in 10 years) and the desire to have a stable life and safe future for themselves and their families. Right now I can’t imagine that one day I’ll be willing to make this trade off. Hold me accountable a year from now.

Professional af

On Friday, right after our last appointment at a headhunting agency (confirming my bias about what headhunters are doing), I took a flight to Taipei and arrived at my friends Pavel’s place around midnight. From the time I saw the lights of the island (Taiwan’s westcoast is basically one huge city as population density is thrice that of Germany) I got excited like a kid on Christmas Eve. My semester in Taiwan was among the best times in my life, I made a ton of long-lasting friendships with locals as well as Berliners that were on exchange with me. And even though Taipei is not a very beautiful place and lacking the shiny vibe of a city like Shanghai, the moment I arrived here I felt happy. The city is full of people, small shops, backyards, parks and lanes, nothing like the huge malls and office blocks of Shanghai or Beijing. Thanks to the tropical climate, everything is green and for the first time in months I’m not scared my skin cracks open when I’m bending my back. And then there are the people. The first time I walked into a supermarket to buy a beer, the cashier lady gave me a compliment and huge smile for my Chinese, had a small chat and welcomed me to Taiwan. Conversations like this one just don’t happen in China, period (they wouldn’t happen in Germany either). I think it’s fair to say that Taiwanese are the friendliest people in the world and I urge everybody reading this to go and verify that themselves.

Night market, a favorite evening pastime in Taiwan

Typical small lane in central Taipei with the 101 in the background

The change in lifestyle was fairly intense, from networking in the German business community to partying with a bunch of exchange students, artists and good-for-nothings. The big difference I observed is that the foreigners living here long-term are not doing it for their careers (it’s really the wrong place for that purpose), but because they love Taiwan. It’s a place where you can enjoy yourself and have a comfortable life with comparatively little money. It also has a considerable crowd of weird and artsy hedonists that are barely existing in China. Their lifestyle is a bit too much for me, but I like them as a symbol for a society that allows individuals to express themselves freely. I guess in the long run I could get bored here and the life of an exchange-student is probably not sustainable, but for the moment I just love to see that Taiwan is still the small paradise that I’ve had in mind. We’ll see what the future brings, I’m confident I’ll be able to continue to find a middle ground between business consulting in Shanghai and sitting on a bench in front of a club in Taipei at 5am.

Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust

Happy new year! While you were holding on for a while during that magic week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, where time seems to come to a standstill, life in China is just going its way (I took my very own holiday from blogging though). Which is not to say that people here completely ignore our holidays, they just deal with them in their own manner. That often means taking out the cultural part and focus on the looks and the commercial aspect. It might sound condescending, but I don’t mean it that way at all. I adore the ease with which Chinese adopt aspects of other cultures they like, without second thoughts about their deeper purpose or traditional significance. Christmas lights always look nice and you don’t have to believe in Jesus (it’s not like we’re all doing it) to use Christmas as an excuse to have some nice activities at work or gather up with friends. And of course, Chinese have their own kind of Christmas and New Year in one festival, called Chinese New Year or Spring Festival. While the occasion to celebrate it might be different, the manner in which it is held is very similar. Families all over the country reunite, eat sumptuous meals and presents are given to the kids (usually in the form of red envelopes containing money). Public life also comes to a standstill for the one week of national holidays and the big cities, where many residents are not native, but only for work, become ghost-towns. I spent CNY in Taipei two years ago and it felt very weird to drive on 8-lane highways that are usually bustling of cars and now were empty save for the occasional taxi. However, while the city centers might be empty, motorways across the country are overflooding with cars, trains are booked out the very minute tickets go on sale and airlines are drowning in profits, with flight prices easily tripling. I mean, imagine ten times Germany’s population needing to go somewhere and back across a huge country, all at the same time. In other words, it’s a very bad time to travel, which is exactly what I’m gonna do.

While classes continue throughout December, Chinese universities schedule their final exams for the beginning of January. Those are followed by a 6-week semester break which encompasses CNY. That means I’m just done with my exams and looking forward to extended holidays (really the only long holidays I have during this program). As of today, I got all my grades, will receive my – in reality meaningless – 1^st semester diploma tomorrow and stay in Beijing until this Sunday. Then I’m going to Shanghai for a trip organized by the DAAD, visiting mostly German companies from Monday to Friday and certainly wearing my shiny suit every now and then.

The real vacation starts after that, with a flight from Shanghai to my beloved Taipei next week Friday, where I’ll be spending a week. I wanna say I’m going to see lots of old friends from my exchange semester two years ago, but the thing with talented young Taiwanese people is, they’re leaving their country, if not after high school to get tertiary education elsewhere, then after obtaining their bachelor’s degree. My anecdotal evidence: Out of the 5 Taiwanese people that I’m still more or less in touch with, 5 left Taiwan. The people I still know there are a younger undergrad student who hasn’t finished her bachelor yet and a friend from Berlin, who’s been in Taiwan before like me and who’s now doing a one-year language program there. It’s kind of sad to see how such an amazingly livable and friendly place fails not only to attract talent but even to retain the smart people that are native to it. Part of the blame certainly goes to China, who actively lures Taiwanese to the mainland to hurt the island’s government and establish stronger ties between the people of both countries, but there’s a bunch of homegrown economic problems, the most important being that salaries are just crappy in international comparison.

The good thing about your friends moving is, you can visit them at other places, such as Tokyo, where I’m gonna go after Taipei. I really haven’t been that excited to see a new place in quite a while. I’ve never been a fan of anime or Japanese pop culture in a broader sense, but the peculiarity of the country keeps fascinating me. From stories of how the victims of the nuclear bombs in WW2 died in silence, because weeping in public, even with horrible burns, would be shameful, to the lewdness in which young girls are portrayed, I’m very much puzzled by Japan. I’m not even hoping to understand all this after a week, just curious to see it from close-up.

After a week in Tokyo, my next flight is taking me to Hongkong (I know this all sounds super posh, but given low-cost airlines and the fact that I’m staying with friends all the time, it’s not even that expensive), where I’ll spend just two short days before taking the newly opened high-speed train to mainland China, Guangzhou more specifically. That’s exactly on the first day of CNY and I’m very happy for already having obtained my train ticket. The reason I’m going to Guangzhou is that one co-scholar of mine here in Beijing is German/Cantonese and has parts of her family living there. In case you’re wondering why someone with Cantonese parents would go to China to learn Chinese, Cantonese is a regional language of its own, based on the same script, but with entirely different pronunciations of the characters. So my Mandarin won’t help me understand any of the table conversations during CNY, but I think it’ll be an amazing experience nonetheless.

I haven’t even decided myself how I’m gonna spend the last few days of my holiday and get back to Beijing from Guangzhou, but I’ll figure that out too. As you can see, this blog is once more about to turn into a travel blog (temporarily) and yeah, I missed it.