I'm back in Taipei now after having been away from a computer for a few days, and lots of emails from concerned family/friends about SARS. SARS has made its way into big, big news here in Taiwan, especially with the quarantining of medical staff at Heping Hospital in Taipei. Hospital staff there were REALLY ANGRY and began protesting when they found out they couldn't leave the hospital; many of them have refused to even treat SARS patients for fear of infection, and four of them were videotaped making a daring escape out the window of the hospital. Taiwan has promised harsh punishment for those found violating quarantine.
Taiwan has still kept SARS pretty well under control, and one reassuring thing is that they've been showing a neat chart in the news detailing how each case was related to each other, something they definitely don't have for HK. Unfortunately, Taiwan hasn't been receiving any help from the WHO, because as a "renegade province" of China, it's not a member! What a great time to kowtow to the same leaders in Beijing who have royally screwed up on SARS. Taiwan was able to finagle its way into the WTO, so maybe there's some hope yet.
Open any newspaper right now and you'll find a big 4-page spread on just SARS news; TV news is the same too. Yesterday I only noticed two or three masks on my train, but today from Taichung to Taipei about half of the passengers were wearing masks. Today I put one on for the first time since I arrived in Taiwan. The smell reminded me of Hong Kong, actually, in a perversely nostalgic way. I checked my temperature this morning and I'm officially SARS-free, having been in Taiwan for an entire incubation period now without a fever.
Touristy stuff: Yesterday morning I woke up at 3:30am to go see the sunrise at Alishan. It was really nice apart from the group of Taiwanese tourists and their bullhorn-carrying leader, who kept a monologue going for the entire half-hour leading up to the moment of sunrise. After the sunrise they all raced to the next stop on the tour, pausing to take photographs of dandelions (these are rare in Taiwan I suppose) and look at moss growing on a tree stump and ask "What is this?"
Once I split away from the crowds, though, it was marvelous walking through the forests of great big 1000-year-old red cypress trees, with the occasional temple dotting the trail. It reminded me a lot of Muir Woods, and the temperate climate at 2000m elevation was a great break from the sub-tropical weather below. On the train ride up there was actually a sign delineating the border between sub-tropical and temperate climate zones, but you could just tell by watching the banana and palm trees give out to bamboo forests, which were then replaced by big evergreens and cypresses.
Taichung was nice but I only stayed the night and checked out the Tunghai University for lunch to see what Taiwanese college kids are like. One promising fact: many Taiwanese college boys are as skinny or even skinnier than me, and they wear t-shirts and shorts without any shame of exposing their lanky limbs. I watched a bunch of them play softball and basketball and they were, well, pretty bad, but what can you do.
Flying back to Hong Kong tomorrow. Sure, all the news has me scared, but apparently the number of cases is supposed to be going down or something. I'll take the necessary precautions and things should be okay, but I've got an eye towards getting out of HK soon -- I'll play it by ear right now.
Posted by cce at April 27, 2003 09:34 PM | TrackBack