In the morning, I tried to go for a run again. I wanted to reach the artificial wetlands of Fuzhou, but it took three attempts, twice I was stopped by dead ends, and the third time I used the bike path to get anywhere.
So, if I were to take this opportunity to point out potential improvements in Taipei, they would be reducing the number of noisy motorcycles in favor of electric motorcycles and (E-)bikes, making it more pedestrian-friendly where necessary, and better waste separation. By the way, I always wonder how difficult it is to find a trash can and how clean the city still is.
It was another day off, one I hadn’t found in the holiday list. This is because a holiday that would normally fall on a Sunday is moved to Monday. However, the contrast between holidays and weekdays is smaller than in Austria, as many shops are open, traffic is still heavy, and even Glenn went to the office to do some work he couldn’t finish on Friday because of the basketball tournament.
For dinner, I invited Li and Glen to the Czech restaurant Divadlo. The Czech Republic had been standing continuously to Taiwan when other countries switched sides and succumbed to Chinese pressure. The food was Czech-“inspired” but seemed to be adapted to (assumed or actual) Taiwanese tastes. (In Yunnan, we Austrians lamented daily that the Chinese food in Austria only remotely resembled what we enjoyed during our Yunnan days.)
At home, we watched a video of a Taiwanese band competition. You could hear the bands playing but also interviews and some pithy commentary. The subtitles were sometimes too fast to read for me and distracted from watching, but overall, I got an idea. All over the world, it’s becoming more difficult for bands to assert themselves in the market. The technical level is high; creating an image that isn’t just a copycat; being cool, funny, and unusual; creating your own musical style and writing unique songs in this long musical history is a challenge. And then these people are still young—how are they supposed to know if something already happened 20, 40, or 60 years ago?
