A Taste of the East

With my previous trip to Singapore I had laid the groundwork for my later visits to some places in the world I would never have imagined reaching. In fact, after visiting that trade fair as part of my job, now the aim was to visit directly those potential suppliers with whom I could have established some business relationship. So here I am in Taiwan. While on the one hand I'm positively engaged even by these work trips, on the other I always feel a small regret. In fact, however small and isolated it may be, even a country like Taiwan will have something to offer a visitor, right?? and I always have this irrepressible desire to get to know as much as possible about the places I'm visiting.

Unfortunately during these "business" occasions time is always short and marginal and consequently you have to settle for a walk in the immediate surroundings of the hotel or in the evening......when, however, the opportunities to visit are reduced to the bone!!! These first experiences of mine in the Far East, in any case, opened the doors to a world that over time I have truly come to appreciate on other trips; their culture, traditions, faith and ceremonies are things that strike even those who, like me on this occasion, could only savour them in passing.

At the time Taiwan, and Taipei in particular, was a place in constant evolution; work was under way on the construction of a skyscraper that is today the tallest in the world; I walked through the first Eastern markets, the scents and smells disoriented me; I remember Taipei for the number of bicycles and mopeds, all with face masks because of the incredible smog; they seemed to me like scenes from a Japanese film. What stuck with me were its shopping centres; they had nothing different from many others but.....there were all those shops of dolls and comic and cartoon characters. I'll always remember Taipei for that last night in the hotel, after having been to an Italian restaurant......I felt so bad I thought I was dying and I suffered from it again at the next stop, South Korea.