by Adam Tervort
How can these costs be so cheap? It isn't because we have huge insurance payments every month. We pay $20 US per person per month to the National Health Insurance program, between $3 and $5 to visit a doctor and get medicine in clinics, and between $10 and $30 to go to the emergency room. (Ambulance rides are free.) We buy additional private health insurance, and that reimburses us for nearly all hospital fees we have experienced. We actually made a little money when each of our kids was born. We can also go to see Chinese doctors (as in Chinese medicine, herbal treatments and traditional chiropractors like Brother Jiang who tried to pull my head off) and western chiropractors under the system for the same basic price as a clinic visit. The government in Taiwan provides this excellent benefit to everyone who legally resides in Taiwan for just $20 per month. There are no political issues; no one says that healthcare is a privilege not a right. Healthcare is a basic human right. It makes me ashamed that the USA, a country with so much, cannot provide this for all Americans. Are the doctors in Taiwan sub-par? No, most of them trained in the US. Do they make significantly less money than doctors in Western countries? No, a bit less on average, but not much less and the overall cost of living is low here. There is little litigation against doctors so they have much lower insurance premiums than American doctors. The doctors here work longer hours than American doctors, but that translates into faster service for patients. I have never waited more than an hour for medical attention in any clinic or hospital in Taiwan. Never. No one has ever turned me away because I didn't have the right kind of insurance. Even if you are completely uninsured you can still see a doctor at a clinic and get a prescription for less than $20. This includes dental as well.
Why is this possible? Healthcare is a priority to Taiwanese. No one in the government tries to alter the system so that insurance or pharmaceutical companies are taken care of, the people are taken care of first. It works. Why can't America do this too?
Chapter 8 - But it's not all roses
Living in a foreign place can difficult. Living without a lot of the things we take for granted like culture, food, and sports can leave you strangely empty on the far side of the world. The first time I returned to the US after two years in Taiwan I almost broke down in the middle of the supermarket when I saw how many different kinds of mustard there were. Taiwan has mustard, one or two kinds in any store. There seemed to be 500 different kinds in the local supermarket that my folks took me to. The thing I really miss now living away from the US is the public library. There are so many good things at the library, and it seems like the types of things you can check out increase as time goes by. I heard that some libraries now let you check out art, along with your DVDs, music CDs, and audiobooks. (And paper books, don't forget about those.) I still check things out from my parent's local library over the internet every week; they have a great program that lets you check out audiobook files over the net, that's where I get most of my listening material from. The libraries here are just not like that. They have lots of books, mostly old ones, sometimes in order on the shelves. Not many English books. I miss the library quite a bit.
I also miss holidays. Christmas is never very exciting in Taiwan. There are no big sales leading up to Christmas, and Chinese people tend to just give cash as presents anyways. For the past few years I haven't even taken a day off on Christmas. Three years ago I did, just on principle, because I am American and Christmas is an important holiday for me. The schools I had classes at that day said it was no problem, they would find substitute teachers for my classes. I stayed at home doing nothing, thinking how Christmas didn't feel the same when you were the only one celebrating it. Since then I still go to work on Christmas but I only allow students to talk about Christmas and we play the white elephant game so that it at least feels like Christmas has come, despite the fact that those celebrating with me are doing so because I have forced them to.
The national day in Taiwan is on October 10th so the 4th of July is also a no-show. Barbecue is no fun here. My first weekend in Taiwan happened to fall over the October 10th holiday weekend, so everyone had a day off. I was invited to attend a barbecue, I was so excited about it. Even if they only have hot dogs, I told myself, I will be content with that. I won't even ask for a burger because I know that they won't have that, but I'll feel really happy with just a hot dog. No dice. First of all, there were no proper barbecue grills, only puny little hibachi things. The charcoal kept going out in some of them, so we were half starved by the time anything was ready. The first thing off the grill? Corn. OK, a bit different, but I like corn. Second thing? Oysters. I'm from Missouri, I think I had seen oysters before but never eaten them. They were slimy, but I ate them. Next course? Squid on a stick. Not just tentacles, a whole squid, complete with eyes still looking out at me, pleading with me not to eat him, even as he burned to death on the hibachi. I must have been staring a little too hard, because the guy in charge of charring the squids gave me the first one off the grill and told me to eat it while it was hot. I was horrified. Never in my life had I anticipated that I would need to eat something that could look back at me while I masticated. Because I was freaked out and didn't want to taste it, I inhaled it and swallowed without chewing as much as possible. The chef watched me consuming his creation with such gusto that he decided I really liked it. As soon as I finished it he held up a second squid and said "I've never met an American who liked barbecued squid so much! Have another one!" I took it from him and went away to try and find a stray dog who would appreciate the cold stare of the poor squid impaled on the stick in my hand. I made sure I found a garbage can far away from the crowd to throw up in later on.
Barbecues haven't really improved in my years here. The Taiwanese have decided that the Moon Festival (in September) is a great time to barbecue, and so the hibachis come out then. A month later they come out for Double Ten day. The last six years we have gone back to my mother- and father-in-law's home for the Moon Festival barbecue, and I have never left with a full stomach. They don't barbecue squid (or else I might not show up!) but they do barbecue green peppers, mushrooms, oysters and shrimp, and microscopic slices of meat. I suppose barbecuing miniscule cuts of pork and beef makes sense if your barby could blow away on any stiff wind, but it makes for a very unsatisfying eating experience. I once insisted on buying some steaks to barbecue and spent the whole evening waiting for them to move from raw to rare. The moon festival is spent gazing at the moon, eating moon cakes (which are quite good, by the way), and waiting for a plateful of barbecue that will never appear before it's time to go home.
Cultural activities are more widely ignored in Taiwan than they are in the US. Music, art, and drama are not encouraged as things that students should pursue because you can never really make a living that way, don't you know, and so there are few people who takes these skills to a level that makes them worthy of public performance or display. I really enjoyed playing jazz bass while I was a student and I was excited to find ways to keep playing in Taiwan. What I found was one poorly appointed restaurant with one jazz night per week that wasn't looking for new blood in the house band, they'd been together for years. The next closest jazz club is 400 km away. Most of the really good artists in Taiwan leave. Some come back to give concerts occasionally, but there isn't any significant artistic community to speak of here.
Students in Taiwan don't have many choices in school when it comes to learning the arts. If you are really committed, you need to join a music class in school. You must pass a test to get in, and the teachers and administrators expect that those students have better grades than the normal students. Even if you are a very good student, it doesn't give you a lot of encouragement if you are always criticized for taking time away from normal studies to practice your art. There aren't any scholarships to speak of for the arts, so pursuing it on your own doesn't help you to get into a better university or to get financial help at the university you want to attend. University entrance here is determined only on an entrance exam so extracurricu
lar activities aren't a factor in your favor. This makes it hard for a student who wants to learn the arts, both the society and the system don't support them.
Sports are basically in the same boat, there are not really any school sports teams after elementary school. Baseball is really a big sport here, and there are a number of Taiwanese baseball players who have made it into the Major Leagues and into Japanese professional baseball. The Taiwanese little league teams have a strong tradition of placing well in the little league world series, and the team always makes national news no matter how they perform. There is a professional baseball league in Taiwan, and it is a lot of fun to watch. Unlike the MLB, Taiwanese professionals still make some errors so there is always an element of excitement throughout the game that I never really felt watching American baseball. (Although coming from Kansas City I have seen my share of errors in MLB games as well.) Unfortunately, the baseball league is riddled with gambling. The league actually cut out two of the six teams recently because of post-season gambling, so now everyone makes it into the post-season. It takes a bite out of the excitement of the regular season knowing that everyone makes the playoffs.
Basketball is probably more popular with the guy on the street than baseball is. A lot of students are crazy for basketball and spend a lot of their free time playing. The professional league here is fun to watch and they try really hard. Too bad the tallest guys in the league would be the shortest in the NBA. Watching a whole game without a dunk is kind of like watching really good game of women's basketball. It's great if you like that kind of thing, but not everybody does.
Cycling has become very popular in Taiwan in recent years. Having two of the world's biggest bike companies on the island, Giant and Merida, helped to fuel this. As I am writing this, I'm sitting in the hospital visiting my brother-in-law. He got this glorious hospital accommodation because of a glorious bicycle accident over the weekend. He has always been an athletic guy, and a few years back he was introduced to cycling by a coworker. He bought an expensive road bike, joined a cycling club, and started to compete in road races around the island. He's pretty humble about it but from what I understand he is pretty good. Last Sunday his cycling club and a few other clubs got together for a ride. It wasn't a race, but since when does that stop men from trying to compete with each other? He broke his leg when the guy in front of him hit the guy in front of him who swerved when he went to get a drink. About the best thing that can be said for the whole situation is that he got a free ride to the hospital in the ambulance and his teammates chipped in to buy him a basket of fruit which was delivered by his coach a few hours ago. His coach talked to him about how to convince his wife to let him back on the bike (he'll be on crutches for at least three months, so sometime after that), and I was kind of impressed and disgusted by their dedication to a sport which will never make either of them famous but could land them back in a room in the hospital anytime. And they are willing to risk their marriages to do it. After the coach left, my brother-in-law told me that the coach's wife had made him stop competing after his second child was born, so maybe he was just trying to live by proxy. Or perhaps he's still in denial. But he was awfully fun to listen to as he told war stories of riding the "iron horse" around Taiwan.
TV sports are insanely popular. When Jian-ming Wang was still pitching for the Yankees you could always tell the day after a game because 75% of the men in Taiwan were exhausted from staying up all night to watch the game live in the middle of the night. When Wang won they were red-eyed and happy, when he lost they were red-eyed and determined to watch again next time so they could do a better job of supporting their hero on the mound. When he was injured they would watch every Yankees' game in the insane hope that he might by some miracle come off the injured list and pitch a brilliant game anyways. Now that Wang has been traded to Washington, the headlines from the Senators' spring camp rival most any other news that come from Washington D.C. Wang has beat Obama out of front page space more than once.
Living here can be great, but sometimes it is a little weird as well.
Chapter 9 - Those pesky singing garbage trucks
Ah, the ice cream truck, summer delight of American children. (And scene of carnage if you've read Stephen King's Cell, but that's neither here nor there.) I didn't get ice cream truck ice cream often as a kid, but I sure knew what it was. What better way to relive you childhood than cooling down with a nice icy treat?
My first night in Taiwan, feeling immensely stupid after the old man at the crosswalk incident, I was surprised to hear the distant peals of ice cream truck sound systems. Yes, more than one. They seemed to be everywhere. Perhaps people in Taiwan like to end the workday with a Popsicle? After all I'd seen that first day it seemed within the realm of logical possibility.
"Hey, do you want to wait and get an ice cream?" asked Elder Feng, another missionary in our apartment.
"Yeah, that would be great."
We waited by the side of the road to see when the truck would appear. The music it was playing was Beethoven, a bit heavy for an ice cream truck soundtrack, but what the heck? It's the other side of the world. Maybe no one told them that Beethoven is for something a bit more formal than ice cream. The sound got closer, and a big yellow truck turned the corner with a score of people chasing it. Were they in hot pursuit of the cold stuff? No, just trying to fling their full-to-bursting sacks of garbage on the back of the still-moving garbage truck. Beethoven continued to blare, the truck came closer, and garbage toting citizens started to materialize from everywhere to wait at the curb. As the truck passed, driving maybe 5 kph, folks jumped into the road to get a good angle to fling their trash into the open back of the truck. When the truck made it to the front of a big apartment building with a throng of people waiting at the curb, it stopped. The garbage man running behind the truck waved everybody back and hit the switch for the masher, and bags of trash exploded as they were crushed. It was amazing that none of the garbage flew out of the truck, but it didn't. As soon as the masher had made some room in the back, the sacks flew like rain, and the garbage truck started moving again.
"I guess this means no ice cream, right?"
"Only at the 7-11."
Now each night at 6:15 PM I listen for the sweet strains of Beethoven so I can dash down to the first floor and fling myself into the garbage-toting fray, hoping I can catch the truck when it stops and not have to chase it down the road too far. Time, tide, and garbage trucks wait for no man.
That's right, I said every night. Chinese people have the most incredible cleanliness complex. During Chinese New Year all government workers, including garbage men, get at least five days off. By the time the garbage trucks start running again everyone is ready to cry because they have had garbage in their house for more than five days! That first day of garbage pickup after New Year’s is a spectacle to behold. If you ever have the chance to come to Asia for CNY, put this on your list of things to see. The relief is palpable. Thank goodness, my house is rid of garbage! Maybe this is why New Year’s lasts for 15 days; everyone wants to celebrate for another week once the garbage trucks start rolling again.
After I left Beitou I moved to a small town called Shulin, which means "grove of trees." It was almost devoid of trees, a concrete jungle if ever there was one. The garbage truck came by our house at a really inconvenient time when we were always out working, around 7:45 in the evening. Elder Lei and I weren't very diligent about getting the trash out except on weekends, but once a week seemed fine to us, good Americans that we were. We just put the full sacks out on the patio and waited for the early truck to come on the weekend and we endured the looks of the neighbors as we rode down in the elevator with ten smelly garbage bags. (Little ones, OK, not big black ones but small sized pink ones. We weren't making too much trash, just saving it for too long.)
One week the Saturday pickup didn't come because of a festival or something, and our week’s worth of trash started to grow. It grew into two weeks of garbage, and it started
to grow maggots. Maggots are the offspring of flies, and it is easy to understand why folks in pre-refrigeration days thought them harbingers of disease. Maggots are the ugliest insects on the planet. Humans must have a built-in negative response to maggots, because just looking at them made me sick to my stomach.
Well, now we had discovered why people in this tropical country take out their garbage each day. You know the saying "when in Rome do as the Romans?" Thus we did. Every day. I hope I never see another maggot in my life.
Taiwanese are also really particular about recycling. A few years ago I was in the Tokyo-Narita airport and I was amazed to see that each set of garbage cans were divided into five or six different compartments. I thought the Taiwanese were rough making you separate garbage into three parts, but the Japanese insist on five. It made me more willing to sort my trash at home.
How do you sort your trash in Taiwan? Normal garbage goes in the any kind of sack you want and goes in the back of the big, yellow, singing garbage truck. Recyclables go into the big, white truck which does not sing but follows the yellow singing one. Your leftover foods go into big, smelly buckets on the side of either truck. Heaven help you if you don't sort, because you will get yelled at by the neighbors and the garbage man will give you a ticket for $50 which doubles after three weeks if you don't pay it. In my community we have a number of older people who make recycling their job, and they wait with bated breath to see what recyclable goodies everyone brings down to the garbage frenzy. They kindly but firmly invite you to give your recycling sack to them instead of to the big white truck, and I think it is probably a nice thing to do. Those folks are happy to help you toss your trash if there is ever a day when you can't be home when the truck comes, which feels like bartering for a garbage valet with your leftover newspapers.
