STRAP IN - THIS IS A LONG ONE.

From Borneo, we flew 3 hours north to yet another island nation, Taiwan, which sits off the eastern coast of China.

Quick history on Taiwan 🇹🇼 

You may be wondering what all the fuss about Taiwan is since it’s mentioned in the news a lot. Here is a quick history for some context -

Taiwan = part of China from 1683-1895. China partially lost in a war with Japan, so Japan took over Taiwan in 1895. In 1927, a civil war broke out between the Republic of China (ROC), which was the controlling republic in mainland China at the time, and the newly formed Chinese Communist Party (CCP). When WW2 broke out, Japan invaded mainland China so the ROC and CCP stopped the Civil War and fought together to maintain their land. When WW2 ended in 1945, Japan was made to cede control of Taiwan to the ROC. Swiftly after, the Civil War resumed. By 1949, the CCP had won the civil war and took over all of mainland China. The ROC retreated to Taiwan and made Taipei their government capital. Today, the ROC is Taiwan, and the CCP is mainland China. The CCP became recognized as the controlling republic of mainland China and replaced the ROC in the United Nations etc. Between 1950-1990, Taiwan was largely under Martial rule by the controlling party of the ROC - the KMT. Since 1991, other political parties have been allowed to form such as the DDP, which first won the presidency of Taiwan in 2000. The ROC has recently regained status on the global stage, becoming part of the World Trade Organization (WTO). They are still not part of the United Nations (UN).

The US always supported the ROC over the CCP due to their desire to suppress communism across the world following WW2. There was a mutual defense treaty signed in 1954 between the ROC and the US and that has never wavered.

Taiwan’s political status and ownership have long been debated, so Sam wrote about a critical reason why (semiconductors) that’s included at the bottom 📱

Taipei 🏙️ 

Arriving in Taipei I quickly felt a different energy from other Asian countries we’ve visited over the past 2 months. I ignorantly asked Sam, “Wait, are we still in Southeast Asia?”. He shook his head no whispering “bloody Americans…” LOL.

Taiwan immediately displayed a culture of cleanliness, modernism, and order. The airport bathrooms are pristine and the water fountains are consciously designed to allow two bottles to fill at the same time.

When purchasing our train tickets, the ticket counter stewardess handed us a trendy tea packet along with our train token. Once we boarded the clean train, we were greeted with widely spread-out seats to make room for luggage. I’m not sure if it was the sleep deprivation talking, but I was BUZZING (it felt like was walking into Disneyland as a kid).

We explored Taipei, the capital city, for 8 days and have since awarded Taipei the most livable Asian city that we’ve visited to date (dare we say it’s a contender to move to someday…? 👀 ). At just over 2.6 million people, it’s a compact and walkable city with an amazing metro system. It also briefly held the world record for the tallest building in the world, Taipei 101, until the Burj Khalifa took the crown a few years later! The city is surrounded by sprawling green mountains in every direction, allowing residents to escape the city’s hustle and bustle easily.

Taiwan just does things SO RIGHT. A few of my favorite observations:

• Train station lockers to store personal belongings 🎒 

• Rentable umbrellas at every train station ☔️ 

• Organized single-file lines when boarding trains, with priority for pregnant women and elders too 🤰👵 

• When a train approaches, the most calming joyful instrumental music plays on the overhead speaker to take the stress out of commuting 🚄 🎶 

• Public bathrooms with both Western and Eastern-style toilets. Take your pick!! Some are even equipped with fancy bidets 🚽 

• 100% electric scooters, mainly Gogoro brand, with a convenient battery swap system for quick and efficient recharging (Revel scooters in NYC need to take a page out of their book…) 🛵 🔋 

• Citywide bike-sharing stations and a strong cycling culture 🚲️ 

  

  Eastern and Western toilet options, water fountains, rentable umbrellas

Many neighborhoods have charming, winding lanes shaded by trees, filled with cool cafes, bars, and vintage shops that give off a Nolita/West Village vibe in NYC. There were tons of hip, slightly grungy-looking yuppies wandering around. Taipei feels like NYC in some ways, but it's incredibly organized and surprisingly calm (no crazy chaos here, haha). 🚕 

What's unique to Taipei compared to other cities is that it has an extremely strong creative, entrepreneurial spirit. We didn’t feel that in Bangkok or KL.

One day, we stumbled upon a bubble tea spot (Taiwan's bubble tea is legendary!) that turned out to be much more than that. Instead of traditional black pearls, they used these yellow, jello-like cubes made with small-batch artisanal tea leaves and added botanicals for a twist. The place had a Japanese minimalist vibe and was meticulously designed. What was meant to be a quick drink stop became a whole hour-long experience. They even won the 2022 Taipei Bubble Tea Award 🧋 🤠 

We also hit the jackpot when figuring out where the young kids hang out (thanks Will and Eloise for the recs!): South of Dongmen Station, North of Zhongxiao Dunhua Station, West of Linear Park, Chifeng Street, and Dihua Street are all amazing areas! 🌳

Young Taiwanese social life aligns with Western norms: happy hours, brunch, casual day drinking (sort of), exploring modern hip spots, and enjoying daytime strolls (a rarity in Asia's heat, LOL). They also love a speakeasy, with many restaurants/ bars hidden behind unassuming doors, up staircases, or tucked away in alleyways. Western tourism was at a minimum so we felt like we managed to live the everyday life of young Taiwanese yuppies. 🍸️ 

We wish we could have explored their music scene though- Taiwan supposedly has amazing concerts and festivals! 🎶 

Taiwanese Food 🥟 🍜🍚 

The food was delicious, although we weren’t too keen on the actual Tawainese food itself. We stuck to our beloved Chinese and Japanese staples (which heavily influenced Taiwanese cuisine) like pork buns, soup dumplings, scallion pancakes, mochi, and bubble tea. By the way, Sam was so eager to bite into a baked pepper bun (pictured below) that the juices burst out and gave him a huge lip burn that's now scabbing (fingers crossed it doesn’t scar!).

We even made a trip to the original Dai Ju Feng, the famous go-to spot for the best soup dumplings, and picked up some insider tips on how to eat them properly. The soup dumplings were great, but the spicy wontons stole the show.

To satisfy our sushi cravings, we visited Aquatic Addiction Development- part high-end grocery store, part fish market, part fancy sushi stall/ restaurant. Imagine Eataly… but for sushi. It becomes buzzing on the weekends and makes for a casual yet lively date night. A must-visit in my book. (They also had Buena Vista Social Club playing in the background, my family’s go-to Latin music for dinner parties, which was extremely random for a sushi restaurant, but made me smile nonetheless). 🍣🥢😀 

Hiking Yangmingshan & Taroko National Parks 🌲 

We ventured to the outskirts of Taipei to explore Yangmingshan National Park. On the subway, we received some unexpected scolding from not one, but TWO elderly Taiwanese ladies for bringing our coffee cups onboard. One of them went all out with finger-wagging and an 'x' gesture, catching Sam just before he took a sip. Lesson learned: no eating or drinking on the trains (they mean it!) – Take note for any future travels to Taiwan!

Yangmingshan is in a volcanic region that has now formed various mountain ranges and sulfur-smelling volcanic steam baths. Sam, like a cheeky-9-year-old boy, couldn’t resist blaming the rotten egg smell on me 🙄 

Due to the volcanic activity, there are natural hot springs scattered everywhere. But it was 85 degrees, so we figured this activity would be more enjoyable if we visited in the cooler months.

The park was BUSY. Taiwan has an extremely strong hiking and cycling culture, especially among people 65+. On our trails, the older Taiwanese women were decked out in head-to-toe hiking gear, mainly to protect themselves from the sun. As we trekked to the highest peak in the park (and Taipei), it was truly inspiring to see elderly grandmas and grandpas, despite their frail appearances, hiking alongside us. 🏞

After soaking in Taipei, we hopped on a 3-hour train ride to Hualien, a city on the east coast of Taiwan. The night we arrived, we stumbled into yet another night market where we ate some of our favorite street food to date- pork bao buns and crispy pork that tasted like Mexican chicharrones. Before heading out, we went for a cheeky bevvy (shock) and crossed paths with our new friend, Issei. 🍻 

Issei is a recently retired 65-year-old Japanese man from Hiroshima (which made for an interesting conversation) who was visiting Taiwan solo. During his career, he traveled the world, but now, in retirement, he’s living out his dream of wandering and embracing the freedom it brings.

Issei’s English had a slight southern twang, which he picked up in 1982 while attending a small university in Georgia.

What struck me most about Issei were his mannerisms and body language, which mirrored my dad's in a crazy way. The way he spoke, with his arms crossed around his chest, then with a hand on his hip while perched on a stool, and later with his hand resting on his chin, was so reminiscent of my dad (Pops, Papi, Rod). They even shared the same hand gestures. And when Issei spoke about the joys of life, his eyes sparkled with a similar light that I often see in Rod’s (right down to the identical glasses!). Issei and my dad are both happy, hardworking, and proud men who share a genuine enthusiasm and curiosity about life.

We said bye to Issei after sharing a couple of beers and it brought tears to my eyes as I reflected on that moment. It felt as if I had shared those beers with Rod right here in Taiwan. We promised Issei that we'd visit him when we travel to Japan, whenever that might be. I now want to convince my parents to join us, so they can meet Issei and share more beers together (consider this seed planted, Mom and Pops!!!).

The following day we went to Taroko National Park, famous for its stunning marble gorge and a deep, narrow canyon carved by the Liwu River over millions of years. The water filling the gorge is a bright turquoise blue; so blue I initially thought it was dyed.

You technically aren’t allowed to go swimming in the gorge, but with water that clear - how could we not?!

When we finally reached the end of the trail, we stumbled upon a hidden cove, disguised behind giant boulders. BINGO.🪨🪨

It was HEAVEN. The water was so refreshing and the surroundings were some of the most naturally beautiful places we’ve ever swam. For a few minutes, it was just me and Sam, floating in the water staring up at the giant boulders with curious fish nibbling at our feet.

Soon after, we caught the attention of tourists who took it as an opportunity to break the rules and join us in the water. We swam around the boulders to a more exposed spot and had attracted quite a crowd, mostly Western tourists and a handful of Eastern tourists who took their hiking gear off to go for a dip.

As Sam and I left, the rest of the crowd was still enjoying the water when a Taiwanese woman on the trail began shouting and mimicking a phone call, clearly unhappy about people breaking the rules. I couldn't help but laugh, joking with Sam that she was probably calling the cops. Sure enough, within 10 minutes of our hike back, a police officer zoomed past us on a motorcycle heading toward the crowd. OOOPS…. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (can you tell Taiwanese are strict rule followers?!?).

We returned to Taipei with the hope that my visa for Vietnam would be approved, but it ended up taking longer than expected. With the delay, we enjoyed more time in Taipei and even ventured to a hillside town with winding streets for a night (read: TOURIST TRAP). The town, Juifen, has a similar vibe to Sausalito or Pier 39 in San Francisco. Sam said it reminded him of the touristy villages in Italy (also true).

With my visa taking longer than expected, we changed plans and booked flights to Cambodia instead, where tourists can get visas on arrival. We landed Sunday and are excited to explore this country for the next two weeks!

We can’t wait to visit Taiwan again, perhaps in the fall or winter months to enjoy the various hot springs and national parks we have yet to explore. It’s a great, affordable place for a holiday (not as affordable for budget backpackers..), but we highly recommend it if people are looking for a vacation with city and nature spots. As for its geopolitical standing... well, I’ll let Sam dive in below on what makes Taiwan just a wee bit important to the world 😆 

Sam’s deep dive - Semiconductors (Chips)

Chips are the secret circuit of our modern world. It’s the resilient underbelly that generates trillions in economic value per year, dictates and guides politicians in their every move, and has coddled almost every human on Earth into a daily reliance none of us can truly understand (until we try and complete any menial task without our phones). This commodity has shaped the world in an unfathomable way over the past 70 years. In 2021, there were 1.14 trillion chips manufactured, with 37% of those being made in Taiwan. They exist in almost everything imaginable. The average car holds 1,000 chips, an electrical vehicle 2,500. Dishwashers, watches, aeroplanes, satellites, fridges, security cameras, digital signs, missiles, rockets - it’s safe to say if it contains electricity, it has a chip in it.

What even is a chip you may ask? And why is this relevant to Taiwan? To describe chips according to my minuscule knowledge (& please any computer scientists/engineers help me out here); it’s a tiny piece of silicon with a load of wires on top that can transfer electrical current by being turned on or off (called transistors). The swipe of your thumb or scroll of your mouse while reading this requires a chip inside your computer or phone to complete a series of successful computations (transistors being turned on or off) for the action to take place successfully. The greater the number of transistors, the more powerful actions the technology can complete. Following?

Ever wondered why streaming Netflix on your phone has only become possible in the last few years? The different chips in your smartphone have only recently reached enough transistors to complete the millions of computations required to make it work.

To put it into perspective, the combined number of transistors produced on those 1.14 trillion chips in 2021 was one quintillion (18 zeros). That is a greater number than the combined quantity of all goods produced by all other companies, in all other industries, in all of human history - and that’s just in one year.

At the centre of all this is of course smartphones. Chips are a $660 billion-a-year industry (estimated to topple a trillion by 2028). Smartphones now account for a quarter of that. The iPhone specifically contains a dozen chips. Its most important chip, the microprocessor that runs its operating system (OS), is the most advanced chip on earth. The latest version had 11.8 billion transistors carved into it. 60 years ago, the latest cutting-edge semiconductor had 4. This monumentally complex manufacturing task is solely fulfilled by one small factory, owned by one company, located off the west coast of Taiwan. This is the only place on earth that is even remotely close to successfully fulfilling Apple’s needs and requirements. Undoubtedly, Apple is completely beholden to the innovation and advancements that happen in this factory.

So, the next time you’re able to whip open your phone and stream an episode of The Office in 8K, take a moment to recognise how sensationally abnormal it is to own something that can do this for the same monthly cost as a top-shelf martini.

Rather ironically (or not), this unassuming factory sits directly on the coast of the Taiwan Strait, a body of water that currently holds more political and military importance than arguably anywhere else on Earth. Ever wondered why the hell Joe Biden and the US care so much about Taiwan? And why does the CCP (China) still want to overthrow an island that their party has never technically owned? From those few paragraphs, you can probably start to see why.

So, how did the chip industry end up so influential in the first place? And how did Taiwan put itself at the centre of the greatest race for political and technological advancement we’ve arguably ever seen in humankind?

It all started with the ever-growing obsession and need for accuracy. WW2 dutifully uncovered humans' shortcomings when it came to mass computation. Let’s design and build a bomb that we can drop from a moving plane at 200MPH, while 10,000FT in the air, that can accurately land within a 100M radius landing zone. Pretty difficult to do with a piece of chalk and a blackboard.

Humans had to be removed from the equation when it came to computation. Some of the world's top physicists and engineers had some breakthroughs, and not long after, they were pieced together to create the first semiconductor (chip). By the early 60’s some of these individuals, based in the South Bay of SF (hence the ‘silicon’ in Silicon Valley) had formed semiconductor businesses. They were outrageously expensive to make, so they needed a willing customer with deep enough pockets and a large enough need for mass computation.

First came NASA (the Apollo program), and shortly after the US Military (more accurate missiles during the Vietnam War). Both of these naturally had a huge need for running complex computations and a boatload of money. Rockets and missiles never looked back, and neither did the United States. America’s political dominance in the decades preceding WW2 can almost squarely be aligned with its unequivocal superiority in the adoption and use of semiconductors in its military weapons.

If you don’t believe me, have a guess where Russia first announced that the Cold War was over? Silicon Valley. Why SV? Russia wanted (needed) to buy chips from them.

For the founders of the semiconductor industry, however, military contracts were never the end game. They knew the power of their creation and they understood its ability to become the beating heart of the rapidly growing consumer electronics market (watches, calculators, etc.) in Japan.

To scale mass production they needed consistency and cost reductions. To achieve this, they turned to women and Asia.

The process of manufacturing chips in the early days was essentially adding wires to silicon through a microscope in a painstakingly delicate and accurate way. Women were blowing men out of the water when it came to their dexterity (no surprise). Businesses figured out that women were willing to accept lower wages than men and quickly replaced them on the assembly lines. Even that wasn't enough to keep production in America. Businesses needed it to be cheaper and more precise, so turned to Asia.

Chip companies started building factories and hiring labour for 1/10th of the cost ($0.05-$0.25 an hour) in Asia. By the mid-70s, pretty much all US chipmakers had assembly lines there. It helped Asian countries bring millions of impoverished farm workers out of poverty, and most importantly, it provided them with United States military protection. In the 70's, you could put a map of American-owned semiconductor factories in Asia on top of a map of US military bases and there would be a startling resemblance. Asia needed America - and no country exemplified this more than Taiwan. They needed the US to keep protecting them from China, and what better way to do that than to become integrated with one of America’s most important industries - semiconductors

The first semiconductor factory was built in Taiwan in 1965. By 1980, its billionth Chip had been shipped. Taiwan was officially in the game.

Then Mr. Bill Gates came along. In 1981, IBM hired him to help with a new product they were building called the Personal Computer (PC). This personal computer needed a microprocessor (a chip) and hired Intel to build it. This microprocessor (also known as a logic chip) was the first of its kind and kickstarted a whole new category of chips that were the building blocks for the PC and smartphone.

These microprocessors required a new level of complexity (and investment) and the industry struggled to figure out how to get them to market economically. Successfully running a Fab (a chip manufacturing facility), became that much harder for logic chips. In 1985, Taiwan hired Mr. Morris Chang, who was known as the godfather of efficiency in the chip industry, to help the world find that solution. Chang founded TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), and got to work.

At that time there were buyers and makers of chips. The makers - (Intel for example) designed, manufactured, and assembled the chips, before selling them to a customer such as IBM, Nikon, Sony, etc. off the shelf. By the 1990s (except for Samsung which still does today) - no electronics company had any desire to be a manufacturer.

Chang's big bet was this - chip buyers would soon want to design their own chips (which they never previously had), but not manufacture them. The introduction of computer chip design software in the 80s made his conviction in this even stronger. With this software, chip designers could do the whole process on a computer and send it off to a fab (chip factory) for production without ever going there.

By promising to never design chips, only manufacture them, TSMC opened up a whole new industry for potential chip design companies. They spread their costs, and assembly lines, across multiple customers and drove previously unattainable efficiencies.

Fast forward 20 years, and Mr. Steve Jobs had just taken the stage in Cupertino to introduce the iPhone. The most difficult part of creating the first iPhone was finding a reliable semiconductor company that was capable of producing the microprocessor they needed. They landed on Samsung for the iPhone 4, but for the iPhone 5, Jobs had the grand idea of designing their own chip. He just needed someone to manufacture it for them. TSMC and Apple hit it off, and the rest, they say, is history. Today, TSMC is the only company in the world that can produce iPhone’s microprocessors. Without TSMC, there is no iPhone. And it’s not like Apple could switch suppliers. The cost of building an advanced Fab today is $20 Billion. If TSMC went under (or got caught up in a war cough cough) - this would completely halt the production of iPhones for years to come.

Today, TSMC produces 37% of the world's logic chips and 90% of the world's advanced processor chips. In 2021, they were briefly named the most valuable company in Asia and the 9th most valuable in the entire world (based on stock price). They produce the most important and advanced chips for every major technology company and military in the world. If Taiwan were ever to be attacked, the world would lose 90% of its supply of the most advanced type of chips. And no country would be more negatively affected than China.

China never got good at making chips. They have spent more money importing chips than they have on oil in the past 20 years. They are the world's biggest buyer by a wide margin and are thus almost solely reliant on TSMC for all their advanced microprocessors.

However, they have spent the last 10 years trying to build an independent supply chain. Through a series of US embargoes and restrictions (started by the Trump administration - something they did very right), they have been restricted to second-class manufacturing technology, thus serving industries that don't require the latest cutting-edge chips. Even with this, it is expected China will surpass Taiwan and Korea in units of chips produced by 2030, accounting for 24% of global supply.

It is safe to say chips are not going anywhere. TSMC recently pledged to invest $100B into its Fab’s in Taiwan over the next 2 years. Silicon Valley startups are being funded weekly to design new chips centred around AI. All the large data centres (AWS, Microsoft, Google etc.) are knee-deep in figuring out how to design their own chips.

Undoubtedly, the world's capability to continue technological advancement relies on not a new generation of Elon Musk and Steve Jobs, but a new generation of William Chang’s. If we cannot figure out how to keep manufacturing chips at a competitive price while increasing processing power and reducing their size - the wide-eyed future promise of a carbon-neutral electrified world, flying cars, robots & AI medical devices that let us live forever, will never see the light of day.

Fabricating and miniaturising semiconductors has been the greatest engineering challenge of our time. For all the innovative R&D, political support, & combined brain power of some of the smartest people in the world - the importance of precise, reliable, and accurate manufacturing sits in a league of its own. No company in the world even comes close to doing those things better than TSMC. The world is at its mercy in a more real way than any other entity or person in the entire world. There's a good chance any political leader would only ever dare take the chance of pressing that big red button if William Chang gives them assurances he'll keep manufacturing their country’s chips afterward.

Many consider Taiwan a dangerous place to visit with the rising military tension in the Taiwan Strait. After learning about semiconductors and the importance of TSMC, Taiwan ironically feels like the safest place on Earth. Even a minor disruption, never mind an outright military attack, on any land remotely associated with TSMC would send the global economy into a dizzying spiral. And the two countries who would be most negatively affected? The same two countries parading up the Taiwan Strait acting like a pair of has-bin football hooligans who will do all the shouting in the world, but know full well an actual fight will cause a black eye they don’t want to have to explain at home.

I hope this inspiring post, sponsored by the Tourism Board of Taiwan, will convince you to book a flight to Taiwan soon! 😉 🤣