The resilience to be Taiwan
Ring of fire, aging society, damper balls, military jets and the tenuous existence of Taiwan
Like all logarithmic scales, the Richter scale can be a bit of a mind-fuck. An earthquake measuring 7.5 is a hundred times worse than an earthquake measuring 5.5. A 5.5 is a bit of shaking whereas a 7.5 means things are about to come crashing down.
Three days before N and I were to fly to Taiwan, on April 3, a 7.4 quake hit Hualien, a smaller town on the eastern coast of Taiwan near the gorgeous Taroko gorges. We were supposed to be in Hualien on April 9.
In the true fashion of a selfless globe trotter, my first thought was ‘Should I cancel my trip?’ before I started reading reports of how badly the epicenter was affected.
We did make it to the trip barring Taroko which I was looking forward to very much. Instead, we visited the cities on the west coast - Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, and Kaohsiung. I loved them all. I liked Taiwan so much that I felt that this was a place where I could consider living.
However, this post is less of a travelogue and more of a theme that struck me throughout the trip. It was this thought that the Taiwanese must be amongst the most resilient people on the planet.
Earth is old and yet so sprightly
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
The Earth, much like me after eating spicy Thai food, holds a raging cauldron inside that just wants to get out in fiery, explosive ways. There’s nothing solid about ‘solid ground’ which is just a badly fit piece of a constantly moving jigsaw puzzle.
The burning asshole of Earth is a 42,000-kilometer horse-shoe-shaped stretch. It goes all the way up from New Zealand, takes a scenic detour through Papua New Guinea, and then to Java, up to Philipines, Taiwan, and Japan, and crosses the Bering Sea to hug the Pacific coastline of the Americas.
It has a perfect name - The Pacific Ring of Fire.
It’s the home of all the greatest hits including 450 volcanoes (75% of all volcanoes), 90% of all earthquakes, and 80% of all Tsunamis. It’s a party here, all the time.
Every so often, things get going here (After the Hualien quake, Mount Ruang erupted in Indonesia on April 19). Every time this happens, the world collectively stops for a second and think about how fragile it all is.
They saw this place and said, “Ok fellows, let’s build a civilization here”
The Hualien shake, Taiwan’s most powerful earthquake in 25 years, caused quite a bit of property damage and disruption to life. As of date, about 13 people are dead and several still missing. But considering the intensity, the low fatality count is a testament to Taiwan’s earthquake resilience.
For instance, the Sichuan earthquake in China in 2008 which measured 7.9 (remember 7.9 is still three times more powerful than 7.4) left 90,000 people dead.
Taiwan exists right in the ring of fire. Its mountainous nature exacerbates the shakes with landslides, monstrous boulder falls, and collapses. Being surrounded by the ocean, there’s always the cheery prospect of a tsunami or two. Many typhoons and hurricanes sweep through the island. To round out the list, Taiwan also houses some smoldering volcanoes of its own.
Cool, cool, cool. Who wants stability, right?
When the big quake hit Hualien, Taipei felt tremors too. Portions of newly constructed elevated rail tracks were damaged. But there was no loss of life. Within minutes, life resumed and kids were attending school.
In the immortal words of RHCP,
…earthquakes are to a girl's guitar, they're just another good vibration
When another quake shook Tainan (a city in South West Taiwan) in 2016, only one major building collapsed. Unfortunately, it was a 17-storey high rise which led to the death of dozens of people. Five people, who were involved in the construction were imprisoned for negligence. Taiwan takes this shit seriously.
In schools, kids do quake drills regularly. So do employees. Regulations are constantly updated as science and technology evolve. Building codes are maintained and monitored diligently.
If you’re going to live in the ring of fire, you better be prepared.
Tuned Mass Damper
In Taipei, after hemming and hawing, we decided to visit Taipei 101. The 101-floor building (no points for guessing that) is iconic in the skyline and is built to look like a traditional bamboo pagoda. It’s elegant, simple and it’s tall.
I did wonder if should we be visiting a 101-floor tall tower just days after a major quake in the country. To be fair, it was probably the safest place in Taipei that we could be in if an earthquake hit.
For the purpose of this article I tried perusing through a paper titled “Structural Design of Taipei 101: The World’s Tallest Building”. It’s just the 11th tallest building in the world today but the paper was written in 2004. Now, my structural knowledge ends with me looking at buildings and saying shit like, “that’s a nice shape”. Still, propelled by an unjust confidence in being able to understand any written word, I read through this paper.
It had gems like this:
“A continuous reinforced concrete mat 3 to 4.7 m (10 to 15 ft) thick transfers load from discrete column and shear wall load points to a distributed pattern of 380 drilled piers….”
And
“Taipei 101 core and supercolumns are steel boxes up to level 90, built up from steel plates 50 to 80 mm (2 to 3 1/8 in) thick with full penetration welded splices that took 16 hours with six welders working simultaneously to balance shrinkage effects.”
Breezy read. I won’t even pretend I understood this but I got the vibes. Here’s what the vibes told me:
A lot of smart people who had real engineering degrees (not fake stuff like computer science) thought a lot and did a lot of sciency things to make this building an engineering marvel - one that can withstand earthquakes, typhoons and hurricanes.
It’s a building with balls of steel. Or rather, one giant literal ball of steel.
Suspended between the 88th and 92nd floors is an enormous steel pendulum, 18 feet in diameter. It exists to make the building sway less and in turn, make you a bit more comfortable when the ground is shifting. When an earthquake hits and the building starts swaying, the 660,000-kilogram pendulum swings in the opposite direction and dampens the sway of the building.
As it turned out, the day we visited, the skies were overcast and everything above floor 20 of the building was in literal clouds. So we were treated to nice white nothingness all around.
But the mass damper ball was a sight.
The physicality of it is one thing. The science of it is another. The contemplation of how human evolution, science, engineering, and a rare era of peace we live in all allowed me to stand there 100 floors above the ground in a building in a thriving city in Asia that can dampen earthquakes, is priceless. Or rather, that costs the entry fee of Taipei 101.
Old but not out
Across all the cities of Taiwan, I consistently noticed a lot more older people in public spaces. Old ladies and old men sit in parks, do taichi, and play mahjong. They also take the bus, visit the bank, go shopping, and run shops.
The volume of busy, active elderly in daily life was unique (it was true in Japan as well but I think I noticed it a lot more here).
I have some thoughts and observations on this:
The obvious reason is that Taiwan is an aged society (that’s the technical term) with 18% of the population over 65 years. By 2025, this number will be upwards of 20% and Taiwan will graduate to becoming a “super-aged” society a la Japan and South Korea. This is a glimpse of a world we are all heading towards.
Watching some of the older people move about in the sidewalks, shops, parks, and bus stops is life-affirming. Better than imagining them sitting at home alone or being secreted away for old age care. Here, they felt part of the daily life of society. I hope I can still be goofing around a city when I am that old.
It’s not all good. In some cases, I wondered if they had to do things also because they didn’t have anyone else to help them out. There were clear indicators that some of the elderly weren’t doing so well economically which made me wonder about support systems.
These aunties and uncles age excellently! They are limber, still filled with energy and sharpness. This is not the case in India where aging becomes very rapid once you cross 65 years of age and people suffer from restricted mobility and muscle weakness. Food and genetics?
The public spaces mostly support the elderly. Taiwan isn’t a poster child for accessibility but it is still way better than Thailand or India. Sidewalks exist in Taipei and often have ramps to the road. There are green spaces, buses that prioritize seating for the elderly, lifts and escalators. A society that’s designed for older people to live makes it easy for older people to live. Duh. Unfortunately, this is so badly neglected in India. I hope this changes.
The elderly stare a lot! It’s amusing more than anything else. We got stared down quite a bit by old grandmas and grandpas who looked at us much like they’d look at an odd curiosity.
Moving around Taiwan I was again stuck by that word - resilience, especially of the older Taiwanese. Those guys have seen some shit.
The little island holding out against the big bullies
In Tainan, three or four military jets boomed over in the sky every hour or so. It was loud and visceral and the jet was clearly visible screeching across the sky like we were in war theatre. “Did a war break out with China now?” I asked N. But the people in the streets continued on with their lives. Just another Monday for them.
Turns out, the PLA likes constantly probing the Taiwanese army in the South China Sea. It’s routine. They breach the airspace just that little bit and see how quickly the Taiwanese planes respond like a pugilist who’d pretend to punch to see how quickly the opponent would react. So the military jets that we were hearing every hour weren’t just drills. This was real life.
Imagine living on the shores of a massive country with the world’s biggest army and stated intentions of occupying you at some point. Imagine having to constantly show them that your defense holds up, hour after hour, day after day. Sounds exhausting!
I also wonder what it does to the psyche of the people living normal lives. The fact that they get a reminder, hour on hour, day after day, of potential war and occupation. After all, there are a lot of scars in the society.
We visited the Taiwan Literary Museum in Tainan and saw one dimension of those scars of a society constantly being at the crossroads of history. Here’s a little primer:
Mostly self-governing but without a single centralized rule before the 1600s.
The Netherlands came to rule over for a few decades in the early to mid-17th century
China took over in the late 17th century
Following the Sino-Japanese War, Japan colonized Taiwan in 1895.
Back again to China in 1945 after World War II
Now in the nebulous state of separation but not really with China breathing over its neck
Each of these changes came with a momentous impact on life and culture. Books were banned. People’s identities were uprooted. Death, destruction, and control. Religions chopped and changed and ways of life were constantly shifted.
Like I said, the Taiwanese have seen some shit.
Shaky ground. Bullying neighbor. A history of colonial subjugation and constantly being occupied.
It takes some serious resilience to be Taiwan.
Could be Worse,
Tyag
Loved this - and glad you enjoyed your trip! The engineering of Taipei 101 never ceases to amaze me. I Lolled at "burning asshole of the earth" 😂