Post #1: 搞什麼鬼！

Thumbnail: the old mining town of Jiufen, in the mountains east of Taipei (timeout.com)

History is often unkind to places like Taiwan, exceptional small places near expansive larger ones—Cuba; Ireland; Hawai'i. When it appears in the news these days, Taiwan is cited either as the source of the world's highest-end semiconductors, or as the fulcrum of military tensions between the world's two superpowers, China and the USA. Yes it is both of these things—but also well known as a nation (as most will dare to call it) that is socially progressive, culturally rich, and highly modern, an economic powerhouse, with a strong sense of its own identity.

In writings about Taiwan, fiction and non-fiction, the identity shines forth, in references and self-references to being Taiwanese—not Chinese or Taiwan Chinese but Taiwanese. This often means island roots centuries old, and usually ability to speak the language called Taiwanese or sometimes Hokkien, evolved from the Mandarin dialect spoken just across the strait in Fujian—brought by pirates, agricultural conscripts, and opportunity-seekers from the 16th to 19th centuries. These, living alongside and intermarrying with at least 26 indigenous groups, became the Taiwanese.

Taiwanese identity is shared among a people who survived an endless succession of colonizers and their successive ousters, each by the next—Ming Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, Qing Chinese, "Tungning," Qing again, British, American, Japanese, and Kuomintang. Finally given a chance to run their own island—exactly 40 years ago this coming week, with the end of martial law and one-party rule—the Taiwanese built one of the world's remarkable democracies, with universal healthcare, LGBTQ rights, freedoms of every kind, and stable recognition for the indigenous groups.

Ironically, as the first colony of an industrializing and expansionist Japan—1895 to 1945, until Japan grew too greedy and brutal—Taiwan benefited from advances in education, healthcare, and infrastructure. Not all of the modernization was bombed away in the war, and all the benefits remained within the Taiwanese people. Equally ironically, at war's end the Taiwanese were treated not as alienated subjects to be wooed home but as vanquished enemies, under brutal governor Chen Yi from 1945 to 1949, then under generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's displaced Kuomintang dynasty.

Growing up in post-war America, we were told half-truths about the Kuomintang or KMT. These were the Nationalist Chinese who lost to Mao Zedong's communists in their civil war, which was interrupted by the global war and resumed afterward. The KMT retreated to Taiwan, two million strong, in 1949, presenting themselves as the legitimate government in exile for all of China. For this exercise the Taiwanese people only stood in the way. When the Taiwanese rose up against this latest oppressing colonizer, Chiang killed 30,000 of them and imprisoned thousands more.

Martial law, begun in 1949, became known to Taiwanese as the White Terror. Freedoms were curtailed, and the prison system was expanded and richly populated. Following Chiang's death and his son's succession in 1975, through overreach, shameful extrajudicial killings, and continuous pressure from Taiwanese self-determination activists, the final end of martial law came, in 1987. KMT became a party within the Taiwanese democratic system—initially the party in power, with the Democratic Progressive Party or DPP, representing all the forces of self-determination, in opposition.

Although the DPP finally won the presidency in 2000 and has mostly held it since, including Tsai Ing-wen from 2016 to 2024 and Lai Ching-te since then, the KMT has proven to be the gift that keeps on giving. It is said today that in 1971, when the United Nations voted to recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC) and to de-recognize the Republic of China (ROC), Chiang's enterprise on Taiwan, the U.N. could have been persuaded to recognize both but for Chiang's stubborn unwillingness to accept such a result, which he saw as humiliating. It was a massive mistake.

In perhaps the ultimate irony, ever since Xi Jinping came to power in the PRC and has steadily ratcheted up the level of pressure and threat to execute the "One China Principle" first codified in 1971—that Taiwan "is and has always been" a part and a "province" of mainland China, which is a political fabrication—it is the KMT, now in opposition in Taiwan, that has seen it fit and in their own interest to treat with the PRC and lobby for unification. This is the remnant of the same KMT that carpet-bagged it to Taiwan, murdered a generation, and swore one day they'd retake the mainland.

The standoff today, which could last a year, a decade, or a century, is very ugly. Xi and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have been actively building up a military designed to take Taiwan. Taiwan has a geographic advantage and—under Tsai and Lai at least—builds its defensive capability. Autocratic nations tend to back Xi, and democratic ones Taiwan, especially since the pandemic when global need for Taiwan's semiconductors spiked. Meanwhile the U.N.'s positions are dominated by the PRC, leaving the U.N. impotent to move the needle, and Taiwan in diplomatic limbo.

Taiwan has strong supporters in the U.S. legislature and even the Trump administration, but actual and likely U.S. support are seen as weakened by the Iran war, by focus on domestic economic issues especially in advance of the midterm elections, and by Trump's unpredictability—to say nothing of his admiration for Xi. Some see the good old KMT's overtures to the PRC as the greatest threat to Taiwan's continuing survival as a self-determining nation. Others see enough deterrence, military and international, as capable of seeing Taiwan through to a more forgiving age.

At the inescapable level of great-power politics, the ginned-up stakes are enormous for the PRC and the U.S. in terms of power and position, influence and respect. For Taiwan, having enjoyed 40 short years of self-determination following 400 of domination, losing it now would be just terribly tragic.

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I was aware of basically none of that, except the prominence of the long standoff, when I bought my plane ticket to Taipei on the first of August. It removes an innocence with which I'd approached the trip, but adds a welcome need to pay close attention. The details were gleaned from recent articles and several books, notably Ghost Nation by Chris Horton, Taiwan Travelogue by Shuāng-Zǐ Yáng, and Green Island by Shawna Yang Ryan.

It's hard to say just when the idea for the trip formed—possibly as early as 2022, the last time I solo-walked abroad, but definitely by the end of 2023 when it starts to show up in correspondence. Curiosity about Taiwan goes back further though. As a graduate student—in cosmopolitan LA!—I wrote about Indonesia, had a Korean dorm-mate who fixed me ginseng tea and made me sing for his friends, a Pilipino friend in my apartment building who invited me to her family functions, and a Taiwanese colleague at my Deloitte and Touche day job. But I did not travel to Asia then, nor have I since, ever in my life, which seems a serious omission. And the historical ignorance is appalling.

Those were the places I wanted to go: Indonesia, Korea, The Philippines, Taiwan. Honestly Taiwan emerged early as a first destination because of romantic imaginings and geographic curiosity. Typical! How could a place so significant to the U.S. be so utterly unknown to me? The oldest imagined images float back to me now ... all city up there ... restaurants in vast connected neighborhoods ... a place of commerce and geographic variety ... cosmopolitan and accessible but very different ... a place people come from. And a place utterly unknown—there was the appeal.

In subsequent years an image or two. The 1994 film Eat Drink Man Woman, which I watched in 2019 or so. Then at some point the realization that the island had a walkable length. In April 2024 I met Josh Brown, through an old friend, and bought a copy of his and his partner Stephanie Huffman's charming book Formosa Moon, which I read this year. Josh was encouraging about the idea of a walk. In 2025 I ran across this remarkable video by Harmen Hoek, full of images to dream on although I tend to prefer country roads to wild trails!

And so here we are. My plan, for all the world to chuckle at, is to land in Taipei (on the 40th anniversary of the DPP's founding as it happens), get myself on public transportation to Laomei near the island's northern tip, and start walking south. Once planning began in earnest, exactly a year ago, it came to mind to cross the central mountains on the Batongguan Traversing Trail, but the trail is closed this year due to landslide risk, so I will make up a different route.

By next week, temperatures in the Taipei area will have dropped to 85° and humidity will be 80%; this will be daunting, an enervating business, so holing up until the cooler season starts in earnest is a possibility. Language issues will need to be worked out! I took exactly four one-on-one Mandarin Chinese language lessons, back in early Spring, and bought all the books, to have at least a rudimentary understanding of tone, speech, and writing—however I will rely on translation apps and chanced-upon English speakers and will be challenged by this element of the unknown.

For the trip within this trip, on October 10th I'll interrupt the walk to return to Taipei and fly to Tokyo, Japan, where I'll meet my old friend John (we walked the Tour du Mont Blanc together in 2022) and go walking on the northeast coast of the main island of Honshu. After that, back to Tokyo, back to Taipei, and back to walking. See you over there!

Dear family and friends: packing today, with bad nerves for weeks now, I was finally able to take pleasure in winnowing gear to the lightest possible collection, looking forward to walking in the familiar self-contained way. The goal this season, as many of you know, is walking the length of Taiwan—with a side trip to Japan. Taiwan is a tropical island, at about the same latitude as Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The cool season is approaching but not here yet. This will be a trip different from others before, for the climate and bioregion, the high language barrier, and the personal isolation. It will be a civilized walk in a very civilized place, but different again for the mounting fraughtness there. Presumably nothing major will occur in the next two months, but that may not dispel a certain charged atmosphere—and that too is new for me. Before saying more about the walk and the walker I feel a duty to give space to Taiwan and its dilemmas.

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