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LIFE IN TAIPEI
by Lynn Groves, Junior

I don't really know what I first expected of Taipei. I guess I thought of it as a romantic, exotic island with dark, sinister alleys, bright red Japanese lanterns, with the pungent fragrance of burning incense surrounding it.

It's a funny thing; people in my New Jersey hometown could never believe or imagine Taipei as it really is, and yet, I wasn't terribly impressed, even from the very beginning, with it. Now, when I look back, I wonder how I could have taken it in my stride. Taipei is modern and it is primitive. It is a fusion of ancient and modern civilizations. Along the modern streets can be seen new streamlined cars, and alongside them can be seen pedicabs, ox-drawn carts, and men carrying the same bienbas across their shoulders that their great ancestors carried. Right now, from my back window, I can see thatched roofed shacks, with smoke curling through the holes in the roofs. My electric light is sending out a glow around them. One of the shacks has left its sliding paper doors open. Inside it, there is a young man, a girl, and an old woman with bound feet. They are eating rice out of bowls with chopsticks. Their lighting is supplied by candle in the center of the table. The room from which I am looking is as modern as any American home in the states.

I think I actually saw more of Taipei the first summer I was here. I remember my first evening. I took a walk downtown, and saw fairly modern stores, bakeries, and movie houses. In front of them, lay many people sleeping. Their beds consisted of a thin straw mat; their home was the sidewalk. The abject poverty and evidences of disease on their emaciated bodies repulsed me.

My first weeks in Taipei were spent in going to Chinese opera, Chinese dinners, and a Chinese temple. There is nothing so storybook Oriental as a Buddhist temple. An old priest greets you when you enter, and before you start your tour, you are offered a glass of tea, clogged with tea leaves. The brightly coloured carved dragons are real works of art. The many antique figurines of gods are also beautifully done. Their array of colours, and the expressions carved in their faces are hideous, yet fantastically ornate. The too-sweet smell of incense is sickening, but without it the temple would lose some of its exotic atmosphere.

Taipei itself is filth and noise. The dust, the smells, the clanging of bells on pedicabs, the screechy off-tune Chinese music, and the constant calling of wares, aren't just part of Taipei. They are Taipei. However, people her say that if you look up above the city squalor, you will find beauty. This is perfectly true, for rising in and around the city are mountains that are breathtakingly beautiful. They are beautifully 
carved, perfectly molded, adorned in the pale green and soft brown of vegetation. Not in any movie or picture have I ever seen a sight more beautiful than a sunset on Yang Ming Shan. The whole monotonous valley below is converted. The rice fields in the crimson light are soft green or golden yellow, depending on the season; and the ugly dirty Tamsui river is transformed into a magnificent silver streak.

If a Taiwanese had written this, it naturally would have been different. This is their home and their life. If a Chinese had written it, it would have been different still. This is probably only a temporary home for them. While for most Americans, Taipei is the end of nowhere; to the Chinese it is the beginning of somewhere - the mainland, they hope. I have written this as I see Taipei, as an outsider looking in.