Taoyuan Nights

Are you Taiwanese? Are you slightly shocked by the heading of this post? If you are, then keep that shock in mind, and keep reading.

My Taiwanese friends often find it very strange that I go outside to enjoy typhoon weather, wearing little more than jeans and a T-shirt. They have this impression that typhoons are very deadly and very scary.

I find this quite interesting. The typical typhoon I’ve seen since arriving in Taiwan is certainly far more pleasant than the kind of weather I would go outside to play in, as a child in the UK. Gusts of wind? No problem! Warm, comfortable rain? Excellent!

Compared with bitter, icy blizzards; or fierce, icy cold rain that leaves you frozen to the bone within a minute, it has seemed rather pleasant to walk around in a Taiwanese typhoon - providing you keep away from the scooter drivers who seem intent on falling off their bikes.

I find it strange in some ways when my Taiwanese friends become shocked that someone could enjoy a typhoon. They are even more shocked to learn that I find earthquakes quite exciting, as do most of my western friends. They often comment ‘but don’t you know that typhoons/earthquakes kill lots of people???’

Of course I know that. So what? The fact that people are killed by something does not necessarily make all experiences of it unenjoyable. Wouldn’t they have fun playing in snow, if they travelled Northwards to Japan, China, Europe, or Canada?

Yet snow is far, far more deadly than a warm, pleasant, 1-day typhoon. Typically in Taiwan, perhaps 0-100 people are killed or injured by a typhoon. Sometimes, these people are doing silly things, such as walking around by the sea front, driving scooters in strong winds, or getting drunk in the midst of bad weather.

Compare this with the UK, where the snow and cold weather kills 25,000 old people over the winter (December-March) - every single year! (Reference).

Or how about The United States? There, more people are killed by snow and frosty weather than by leukemia, murder and liver disease added together! Snowy, frosty weather kills around 1% of all Americans every year.

So this is why I find it so surprising that local people are almost offended that someone could enjoy their bad weather or geological events ‘when they kill people’.

Don’t they have fun with alcohol, despite it being involved in the deaths of 100,000 Americans every year? (never mind European, Russian, and mainland Chinese deaths…)

Wouldn’t they go on a ski-ing holiday, or have fun building their first snowman, despite knowing that the same weather is killing so many hundreds of thousands of people every year worldwide?

In any event, this evening’s typhoon turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. The downpour was about as fierce as spending a few minutes standing under a warm bathroom shower, with a pocket fan blowing warm air in your face. My socks aren’t even wet :-(