The center of Kaohsiung is the Kaohsiung Port. From the earliest times the fishermen came to those shores to dry their fish and dry their salt in the sun. Later still the Japanese began digging up all the scenery that people have forgotten, and after that the factories came, each a satellite suspended from that busy, busy port at the southern end of an island which may or may not be a province of China.
I must have first visited Kaohsiung in the late 90s. I probably came on the train or I was driven down from Tainan. I remember thinking that the buildings were much larger there. Back then I could never find the center of Kaohsiung because we were always skirting around the port area, always avoiding the worst snarls of traffic.
So many years later and now I might finally understand Kaohsiung. I know how to go from A to B in that city. I know how to go to C, D, E and F as well. Were I not east, in the mountains, I could get around it well enough without a car or a scooter, which is not the same as saying that it's easy to get around it without a car or a scooter. The light rail forms a loop east of the port, and near the center of that loop the MRT forms a cross through everything famous, but some parts of Kaohsiung are still remote, still remnants of that time before everything from Luzhu to Linyuan was called a city.
Pingtung: that even hotter, even less dense, even less crowded, even less historic suburb of Kaohsiung. ...because that's what it is now: a suburb of Kaohsiung. There was a time when this was not so, but that time is long behind us.
Pingtung County has no center, just smaller and smaller towns radiating outward from Pingtung City. And even Pingtung City is little more than the largest of these towns. Fun things to do in Pingtung City at night? That would be a very, very short discussion.
Despite its relative dearth of history (or at least historical sites) Pingtung is getting older and older all the time. When all is said and done, what is there for younger people to do in Pingtung? More often than not they escape to Kaohsiung or other cities as soon as they're able, leaving the towns of Pingtung to tottering relatives they barely speak to anymore. These relatives, distanced by both time and opportunity, remember better days, festival days, when everyone dined together and the sound of firecrackers rumbled from the streets, but those days are now fewer and farther between.
Once upon a time I was a less cynical, less informed sort of waiguoren who never really knew where he was or what he was doing (and with whom). Back then I drove a borrowed car from Kaohsiung to Kenting, at the southern end of Pingtung, not even knowing what a "Pingtung" or a "Kenting" were. It is a happy memory, though to this day I'm not entirely sure how I made it there and back.
In the four years I've lived in Pingtung I suppose I know the county as well as I'm ever going to. I can tell you the fastest route from here to there and there to here. I can tell you places worth going to and restaurants worth visiting. Most of that going to and coming from will involve a car, because traveling by scooter from places like Donggang to Wanluan is very, very exhausting. And who needs the sunstroke? The choking dust? The aggravation?
Taitung, also known as The Place Behind the Mountain, is on the other side of the mountains from Pingtung. It has perfect weather, great transportation, no crowds (unless you want crowds), and no history to get in the way of your vacation. Or so the travel literature would have you believe.
The center of Taitung County is Taitung City, and that can be a good thing if you're getting off the train, if you've just rented a scooter, and if you're on the road, bound for some holiday destination. I marvel at how carelessly tourists attempt to ride scooters to the other end of Taitung County. For them I suppose the journey is the destination, while I'm off on the sidelines wondering at how many kilometers they have yet to go. They'd be complaining about that sun, now high in the sky, if they were in Kaohsiung, but in Taitung everything's alright, all is well, no worries. "Pass me a beer, my friend, and let me make some bad decisions."
I can remember a Taitung very different from the Taitung that now is. Back then everything there was quiet and uneventful. Back then Taitung was nothing so much as FAR. Around the year 2000 we walked around a train station that no longer exists, through unused land next to the train tracks. Back then there were oxen downtown, and the most meaningful place you could go was the nearby bus station.
I can't tell you how Taitung has changed because I'm not all that convinced that it has. Certain things yes -- but the whole, barely-known collection of towns that comprise it -- I'm not so sure. It's definitely easier to get around Taitung now, it's definitely more vulnerable to the grasping hands which seek to monetize it, but I sometimes have the feeling that Taitung will be the death of their enterprises -- it's only a matter of when and how.
I may return to it yet, I haven't decided. It might not be up to me. Don't ask me today, maybe I'll know tomorrow.
Just rest assured that I remember all of those people, places and things between Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Taitung. I carry them with me always. I didn't leave them because they didn't matter; in many cases I left them because they did matter, or because I didn't matter, or both. I often feel opposed to the person I have been in those places, while at other times I can feel that former me stretching out his arms to embrace me as a friend. Most of my roads seem to end up running back around in a circle.
There was a moment, now nearly four years previous, when I put my family of cats into a red Nissan and crossed over the mountains between Taitung and Pingtung. I was there, and I was there, and I was there. I learned to teach other children, I learned to shop in different places, and I learned how the world looks from the other side of the mountains. I made friends, yes, and hopefully I'll carry these friends forward into the future.
There may yet be a moment, perhaps next year, when I put my family of cats into that same red Nissan and drive upward into Kaohsiung. I'll be there, and I'll be there, and I'll be there. I'll learn to teach other children, I'll learn to shop in different places, and I'll learn how the world looks from a small apartment north of Kaohsiung Port. I'll make friends, yes, and hopefully I'll carry those friends forward, ever forward, into the future.
Unless, as often happens, my road leads in the opposite direction. Does it matter? Won't life continue on, in much the same fashion, regardless of the choices I make and the roads I travel?
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