Dana Blankenhorn

Taiwan in a box

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Think of this as Volume 12, Number 23 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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This is my second straight week in Asia. I write while you sleep, I sleep while you work.

I am covering the CompuTex show in the capital of Taiwan, Taipei. You can read my coverage at ZDNet Open Source and at ZDNet's new blog, SmartPlanet, where I co-write the Smarter Tech blog and solo on their Smarter Health.

Here, however, I want to talk about what I have learned about Taiwan, about what differentiates it from Chengdu, and what that may say to the rest of us.

My first impressions of the place were dirty. The overpasses are older, the buildings all older, than on the mainland. Taipei has been a modern city for over half a century. This should not have been a shock. But after all the construction of new highways, office towers, and condominium complexes in Chengdu it was.

The Taipei air is also dirty. You can't get along on a bicycle here. You're either in a car or on a motorcycle. A motorcycle is better, because you can park it on the sidewalk. With a car you need to find a lot, which is expensive. Every light change is met by the roar of dozens of motorcycle engines. Many people wear masks against the soot, but that is of no help against the other pollutants they are making.

Mad Men

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Think of this as Volume 12, Number 22 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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Many Americans are familiar with “Mad Men,” about Madison Avenue and life in the early 1960s.

Today's China reminds me a lot of that show.

My son and I just completed a week in Chengdu. It is a nice city, situated in a bowl on a plain that was also the home of one of the first Chinese Kingdoms .

But in most ways it is brand new.

Like the rest of China much of its modern history dates from 1979, when the country began opening up economically. The differences between then and now are stark. The old city is nearly destroyed – there are just litle bits here and there – and a city much like New York has taken its place along wide avenues placed by Chairman Mao. (A huge statue of him directs traffic in the center of town.)

“Mad Men” is a show in which everyone lies to themselves about their inner reality. Everything about the 1960s is just below the surface, waiting to explode. Chengdu is much the same. All the various revolutions of the 1960s are waiting to appear, they are just below the surface, yet the citizens are completely wrapped up in their external prosperity.

The Chengdu Boom

I have become a student of booms.

I grew up in the boom of New York's Long Island during the 1960s. I moved to the Houston boom of the 1970s, joined the PC boom of the 1980s, covered the Internet boom of the 1990s, and watched the housing bubble of this decade.

I know what booms look like.

Chengdu is a boom town. (To the right, an image of Brazilian soccer star Kaka hawking Chinese-made throat lozenges in Chengdu's Airport.)