Middle-aged in Middle-Earth
If there were any truth-in-advertising statutes here in Taiwan - and I do not believe there are, the Taiwanese version of Ralph Nader having yet to make the scene - there would be a huge banner permanently installed at CKS International Airport reading "Welcome to Taiwan, charter member of the Calamity of the Month Club".
It's not nearly so bad as Bangladesh, of course. Croikie! (As they say in l'Angle-terre.) That place is permanent disaster zone. Can you imagine the actuarial tables for life or flood insurance in Dhaka?
I thought not.
But Taiwan has its share of natural catastrophe. If it's not super-typhoons (One was named 'Super-typhoon Doug'. Pretty cool.) and the accompanying land-slides, it's inundating floods followed by droughts. (Nature's wrath may have gotten some help on that from bureaucratic bungling.)
World-class earthquakes? We got 'em! You betcha! Taiwan sits right smack dab on the 'Ring of Fire'. Fault-lines run through this island like gristle through a cheap slab of beef. Two years ago, the entire nation/renegade province came shaking to a stand still. Thousands perished. Tens of thousands were left homeless for months. Some still are, by some accounts. (Where's Johnny Cash when you need him?)
Now, the island is swept up in the paranoiac hysteria of severe acute respiratory syndrome - SARS. Temperature checks are de rigueur upon entering public buildings. Surgical face-masks have been made a mandatory fashion accessory. Isopropyl alcohol is going to be rationed to prevent hoarding. Huge caches of surgical masks have been raided by special police detachments. Restaurants pin hopes on offering secret recipes with SARS-killing ingredients to boost sagging business. Tea-bags dangle in the steam of air conditioners to 'kill SARS' - don't ask.
So, you might be wondering why I'm still here. I've wondered that myself - on an almost daily basis for nearly fourteen years. This place drives me crazy!
Deep breath...
But, all in all, Taiwan been berry, berry good to me. Got a good wife. Got a good job.
Gotta get out-a-here!
But how?
For most ex-pats - at least those of us not on the clock with a vast multi-national conglomerate - that is the crux of the biscuit: How does one who has long since crested the hill of middle-age successfully up-root and transplant oneself back to one's country of origin without suffering financial ruin?
One wonders, one does.
It takes some extremely long-ranged planning synchro-meshed with blind luck to pull it off. It's not impossible to accomplish but it's no walk in the park, either. Quite the contrary, it's a daunting prospect to voluntarily leave one's place of employment, pack up one's clothes, books, furniture and all the myriad what-nots which are absolutely indispensable to one's routines. Especially when one has never been known for one's aptitude or proclivity for planning of any sort.
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