Chinese backwaters

We are back in Taiwan again after a great trip.  Despite my affection for this island, I can’t help the feeling that I’m returning to a Chinese backwater.  The mainland is where the real action is; where the creative people are creating, the smart people thinking and the rich people making ever more money.  Taiwan, by contrast, is a provincial place.

It wasn’t always thus.  For decades the people in Taiwan were the lucky ones, the ones who escaped the horrors of Communism.  In the 1980s they would go back to the mainland as representatives of success and modernity.  They would bring expensive gifts to impress hard-on-their-luck relatives.  Slow to catch up on the flip-flopped relationship, Taiwanese are still bringing the same presents, but now they can easily be bought in any Beijing shopping-mall.

There is a particular kind of cultural excitement that comes from living in a happening place.  This is why people in London or New York are cool in a way people in Leicester or Hoboken never can be.  Yes Beijing, not to mention Shanghai, is a far cooler place than Taipei and far, far cooler than little Xinzhu.

I feel the attraction of the mainland very strongly, but for now anyway there are more important things in life than cultural excitement (such as a steady job with a decent salary, and a good place for our daughters to go to school).