Travel

Within five minutes of leaving the station, smoothly reaching 280kmh, the scenery has already gone from glossy urban, small children watching the trains from the footbridge between department store blocks, through industrial factories, acres of intricate steelwork and plumes of steam, to the greenery of Taiwan between its cities. In the middle distance are the ubiquitous mountains, wearing clouds gathered close. The ground nearer is very flat, squares of rice growing, trees, blocky buildings....

I am sitting writing in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Kaohsiung is not somewhere people go for holidays, or as tourists. It’s not a city most people have heard of, particularly, unless they’re in shipping. If you’ve ordered goods from Taiwan, they were probably sent from Kaohsiung. Taiwan, these days, is known for high-tech chip-making, and being a potential trouble-spot. Older generations mention “made in Taiwan”, remembering cheap and cheerful items with that label from before China grew up, ate the manufacturing world, and loomed over Taiwan itself....