Letters from Taiwan

Not Taipei: A trip to Keelung City

On a visit to Keelung to see the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, I took the chance to have a quick peek around since this was my first time in this north-east harbour city.  First impressions right out of the train station weren’t brilliant (that sign lights up red at night): 

It seems the weather is quite variable here because minutes later I could take this wide shot of the harbour.  I noticed fish jumping out of the water which I cannot be sure was a natural phenomenon or just because they wanted to escape the grimy dirty water.

At least three large Taiwan R.O.C Coast Guard cutters were docked up.

This one below was undergoing repairs after having been used in a childish game of ‘provoke thy neighbour’ …

Apparently, it’s the job of the Coast Guard to be used to support the ahistorical and fabricated claims of the government to the sovereignty of islands it has never actually administered.  I guess that I need to read up on Maritime Relations 101.  

Back in town I stumbled on a couple of wholesale stores.  This one sold sugar. Big big bags of sugar.

Whilst outside this sprawl of wiring serves as a pretty good analogy for a fairly grimy, concrete hell hole of a harbour town, presided over by an allegedly grimy mayor.

This contrast made me smile.  In poor neighbourhoods you tend to find more gambling shops.  Here noted Taiwanese TV and movie star 豬哥亮 (Zhu Ger-liang) encourages locals to play the national lottery.  The irony is that he needs all the work he can get to finish off paying off gangsters and loan sharks … for the gambling debts he accrued.

Of course we went to the local famous night market spot for dinner, seen below:

This spread of items is boiled in a spicy soup.  It’s called 滷味 (lu-wei) and goes well with noodles apparently.  Also available everywhere in Taiwan.

A nicely laid out presentation of the death of the oceans …

More wasted life on display …

Who knows, maybe one day soon those prices below will be more like one for NT$3000 and three for NT$5000?

To some a banquet - to me a morgue.

This guy summed up how I generally felt about central Keelung …

Even the petal pr0n was covered in dirt from the motor vehicles …