My Travels with Tintin – Taiwan
I have a few Chinese language editions, but the Traditional Chinese album I have in my collection that represents my trips to Taiwan is “向日葵教授綁架案” (The Calculus Affair). Translated by Wang Bingdong, it was first published in Taiwan in 2011 by the Commonwealth Magazine Co. Ltd.
Tintin’s publication in Chinese can be difficult to get a handle on. Not only are there numerous pirate editions spanning decades, but there are also various language editions published in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong – sometimes referred to (erroneously) as “Mandarin or Cantonese” (which are dialects) instead of “Simplified or Traditional” (which are writing systems). Regardless, Tintin’s official publication history in Taiwan is one of the longer ones. The first licensed series appeared in the mid-1990s from the China Times Publishing Company. Another Taiwanese publishing major, Sharp Point Press also published the series in the 2000s following the popular 3-in-1 format that many modern Tintin publications seem to have been embraced worldwide.
My beautiful hard cover copy, published by the Commonwealth Magazine Co. Ltd., is the seventh printing (2015), and at 22 x 29.5 cm it’s more or less the standard Tintin hard cover size. It was also one of the easier ones I was able to find “in country.” I literally just picked it up off the shelf at the Eslite Bookstore near the Taipei 101. I figured (correctly it turns out) that, given the size of the store, if I couldn’t find it there, I wasn’t going to find it anywhere. There were a couple of options on the shelf, but since there wasn’t really a “Taiwan perfect” choice, I just decided to grab The Calculus Affair mainly because I didn’t already have it in any other foreign language edition.
My trip to Taiwan:
I’ve only visited Taiwan once, from September 14 to 19, 2016, but it was memorable for several reasons. First, the Chuseok holiday in Seoul gave us the opportunity to take a quick family vacation in Taipei. I knew (based on our trip to Shanghai the previous year) that we’d likely be visiting during Mid-Autumn Festival and might be challenged on a few activities, but if opportunity knocks, you need to answer.
The second… was the weather.
I remember sitting with my wife and 7-year-old son at Gimpo airport watching the news on the Super Typhoon Meranti blasting Taiwan… images of shipping containers being strewn around like children’s toys… just as we were getting on a flight to Taiwan. The weather reports were starting to say that the worst of the storm had passed, and we were only going to Taipei, which was on the northern tip of the island and was not really in the path of the storm anyway… but it was still more than a bit unnerving. Still, it was too late to cancel, so I just kept telling myself I was confident we wouldn’t have too many problems.
The flight itself was uneventful, but I certainly remember the landing at Taipei’s Songshan Airport. It’s one of the few times that I’ve been involved in an aborted landing attempt where we were just a few metres off the ground. The winds were coming in strong, so the pilot declared a do-over at the last possible second. I won’t lie, it was a bit scary, but I told my wife, “don’t worry… it’s my birthday… people don’t die on their birthdays…” and hoped that was a real thing. On the second landing attempt I was staring out the window wondering why I could see the runway lights stretching out in front of me… shouldn’t they be in front of us? We were pointed so far into the wind that we almost landed sideways. Despite that, the touchdown was actually quite smooth. An amazing bit of flying by the pilot there.
Luckily, after that, the weather cooperated for the most part. It rained quite a bit, but at least we weren’t fearing for our lives, right?
The next day (Thursday) was a bit quiet. Of course, it was a holiday morning, so the quiet streets were to be expected. We wandered around the hotel area in the morning, and found a quiet market and a sleepy little temple – at first I assumed it was Buddhist but, I think it was one of the Chinese folk religion temples that seem to be a bit of a mish-mash of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.
Then we met Lian, a work colleague of mine who was gracious enough to join us for lunch even though a) I wasn’t there on business, and b) it was a holiday. With Lian doing the ordering at a local restaurant, we enjoyed our first real taste of Taipei – delicious! Afterwards, Lian guided us over to the Taipei 101 – a giant skyscraper and the city’s most famous landmark, and then left us to our own devices at the Eslite Bookstore. I, of course, was looking for (and found) my coveted local Tintin edition, but with a “bookstore” that spans 7 floors plus 2 basement levels, and sells everything from books and stationary to toys, clothes, home furnishings, and more… well there was plenty to keep the whole family occupied.
Friday we awoke to a truly beautiful day and we decided to head for the National Palace Museum. Typhoon? What typhoon? It was a glorious blue-sky day, not a cloud in the sky. The museum was enormous – according to Wikipedia, it holds a permanent collection of nearly 700,000 pieces of artifacts and artworks, primarily comprising items relocated from the Beijing Palace Museum and other institutions in the mainland China during the government of the Republic of China’s retreat to Taiwan. So, there are a lot of ancient Chinese artifacts on display that you simply can’t see in mainland China.
My seven-year-old son did quite well at the museum, he’s always been a great traveler and is up for just about anything, but since the day was so nice we decided to spend the afternoon at the Miramar Entertainment Park, in the Zhongshan District. I think we thought it was more amusement park than entertainment park – which really meant more of a large shopping mall than anything else, but the big draw is the 70-metre tall Ferris wheel, so that was enough amusement for us. We had to wait for a while before it opened – more time for shopping I guess – but I think it was worth the wait. Since the weather was cooperating so nicely, we got a great view of the Taipei cityscape – including the famous Taipei 101 tower.
Unfortunately on Saturday we discovered that the typhoon had reared it’s ugly head again. I’m not sure if we’d been in some kind of “eye of the typhoon” the day before, but the rain and the warnings returned and we found a lot of the city attractions “closed due to typhoon”. The weather wasn’t that bad, so I suspect it might’ve been a good excuse to take an extra day for the Mid-Autumn festival recuperation – but better safe than sorry I guess. We mostly spent the day walking around the Taipei City Mall an underground shopping center (that felt the safest option!) located under Civic Boulevard. It’s 825 meters long, and has 187 shops covering clothing, electronics, and food so we weren’t bored.
By Sunday although most of the warnings had lifted, the rain was worse, so we decided it was another “indoor day”. This time we checked out the National Taiwan Science Education Centre – the kind of thing that is always a hit with our family. It did open a bit later than expected… so we did have some time to kill, but once we got inside it was exactly the kind of place to take a seven-year-old who was “shopped out.” There were tons of amazing interactive displays, but the one that stands out – and that my son loved the most – was a square-wheeled bike exhibit where visitors can ride it on a specially-shaped road surface. It looks impossible, but is actually quite clever. We could had ridden that all day!
Afterwards, on our way back to the subway station, we stumbled upon the Kuo Yuan Ye Museum of Cake and Pastry. It was pretty quiet due to the rain, so we more or less had it to ourselves. We learned a lot about the history of Taiwanese pastry and ceremonial traditions, but unfortunately the “hands-on” baking experience wasn’t being offered that day. I blame the typhoon. We did get to eat some yummy snacks though
On Monday it was time to head home, but we still had the morning and early afternoon to tour Liberty Square. It’s an impressively large plaza near the city centre and it’s flanked by 3 major landmarks – the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the National Concert Hall and the National Theater. There’s also a park that surrounds the plaza. We took a peak at all three, but spent the majority of our time at the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. We must have come at the right time, because we were able to witness the elaborate changing of the guard ceremony – an impressive show of military precision and marching. The hall itself also features a lot of museum-style exhibits of Chiang Kai-shek and gives visitors a lot of insight into both the man himself and the founding of Taiwan. Personally, I remember thinking that if just a few incidents had gone a different way, it might’ve been Chiang and not Mao who would’ve united the mainland – and imagine how different the world would be if that had happened.
All in all, despite the weather and some of the holiday inconveniences, we had a great trip to Taipei. The food was great, the people were friendly, and there was lots of interesting things to see and do… what more could you ask for?
