Memories of Taiwan

Usham Somarendro Singh *

Yushan National Park Headquarters is located on Zhongshan Road in Shuili Township, Nantou County. Showing entrance to the Yushan National Park Headquarters
Pix Courtesy :: Wikipedia/Yiken

Visiting Taiwan was never in my menu, thanks to my association with Wildlife Conservation that my paper titled 'Challenges in conserving Himalayan Black bear in Kashmir, India' got selected in the '2009 International Symposium on Conservation of Asiatic Black Bear'. It was jointly organized by Endemic Species Research Institute, Forestry Bureau, Yushan National Park, Taipei Zoo, National Taiwan Normal University and National Pingtung University of Science and Technology.

Well to be honest, I haven't heard much about Taiwan, unlike Korea, since Korean wave struck Manipur through its series like 'Autumn in my heart' and movie like 'Classic'. When I applied visa for Taiwan, it was issued as Republic of China and that administrative and diplomatic tangle between China and Taiwan is still visible very much in the mindset of people there. I booked my ticket in Thai airways, better renowned for its excellent service and hospitality. It has a stopover at Bangkok airport, and it is wonderful to see air hostesses wearing Phanek like dresses, similar to traditional woven Manipuri Phanek.

One of the airhostesses called me 'Swatika Nongchai'; I hope I spell them correctly; the meaning I came to know later that Swatika means 'Khurumjari' and Nongchai meaning 'Tamo/elder brother'. Well, it also means that she thought I was one of' the Thais. On my right was a Thai national speaking to me in Thai language and I told him that I was not a thai, and belong to Manipur, a north eastern part of India. A wonderful lunch was offered because it was having sea food as cuisine. Once we started flying from Bangkok, we saw different kind of people——we are mongoloid and they were like double mongoloid——the

Koreans and Taiwanese - quite different from the looks of the South east Asians. When I landed at the airport at Taiwan, there were volunteers waiting for me. First their impression was a kind of surprise in seeing me, because I did not look like a typical Indian. English was very poor in that part of the world. When I asked the cab driver if he could play some song, he never switched on because, he didn't know what I was telling and I didn't know his answer in Taiwanese.

The moment I landed in hotel, first, they checked my temperature, and this temperature measuring was followed every day, because that was the time when there was outbreak of swine flu epidemic. Taiwan being a tiny island, they were taking maximum precautionary measures. They had arranged my accommodation in the 8th floor of the LeeFoo Hotel and asked me how come I am an indian and how my name has Singh. I explained to them that I belong to Manipur, a north eastern state of India. Well they somehow knew Assam and I had to explain them that we got converted to Hindu many years back. They somehow understood and found it similar to have two names for them also - a Chinese and a Taiwanese.

The next day, I went to attend the conference, only after my temperature was measured in the morning. There, I met Thomas Sharp, my co-author of the paper, from the United States. He introduced me to his American friend, who married a local Taiwanese, who also came to attend the conference. He was surprised to see my name and for the second time during my visit, he asked me 'how has your name got Singh, isn't that something related to the Punjabis?'

Well I had to explain to him again our historical past, about how we got converted to Hindus, and told him that we are not related to Punjabis. Somewhere, I felt, we, the Meiteis are having identity crisis at present. Ever since I travelled across India and abroad, I have a sense of pride of being a Meitei, a Manipuri. It is that pride that I carry along and wherever I worked, I never felt that I am lesser to anybody.

It is our forefather who secured this nation and gave us 2000 years history. They even fought against the Mighty Britishers for the love of their nation. They had fought numerous battles and created this nation and gave us this pride, until recently when it got merged with the Indian Union. Some say our Maharaja willingly signed the merger agreement and some say it was forcibly annexed and it always remain a debatable issue. We should carry forward this pride of ours, for this generation and generations to come. Because without this pride we may become weak, and I felt a bit weaker there. My stay at Taiwan is memorable a lot because after the conference was over, the organizers drove us to many parts of Taiwan- - the famous Sun-Moon Lake, the Taipei Zoo and the mountains and Endemic Species Research Institute.

My paper in the Conference was a poster and what I had to do was to put up my presentation, and then people came and asked me questions and I answered. Well, it was more about the attack on human by black bear in Kashmir, how the conflict has increased in recent times due to apple orchards near the mountains that provide better food, about various steps taken up by the Govt to reduce the conflict, usefulness of livestock guarding dogs in detecting the bears and then education awareness programme for the locals to reduce the conflict etc. etc. I guess standing there and answering was much easier than oral presentations.

Well Taiwan is a very neat and tidy place and much developed place. After the conference, when we were travelling inside the bus, two young girls were guiding us like an instructor. One of them spoke better English and the other spoke quite a broken-type english but then both spoke bad english. English was not a kind of culture in that part of the world. Neither the Taiwanese nor the Japanese who came for the conference spoke good English. Although my command in english was not that excellent, I could speak fluent enough to converse well with the britiish or the American. I realized this was something the Taiwanese and mongoloid people who came for the conference were admired at. They really found it interesting to see me speaking good english with the Americans. But then the ability to speak English is nothing to be proud of.

It was a long drive up in the mountains to Sun-Moon Lake. The Lake was famous and related to their folklore. It was believed that it was a good omen for the lovers to come to the Lake. We were offered lunch in one of the restaurants there, before being drove in the boat in the Lake. Taiwan also has some aborigines and they mostly lived in mountains. They performed their dance and entertained us a lot. Since their population was less we were told that special care was given by the Govt. We were put up in a dormitory and I had to share a room with a Burmese friend.

For the namesake it was dormitory, but it was so neat and clean that the Burmese friend told me that it was like a hotel in Burma. He did share few things about Burma, how it used to be a wealthy country in the past, far richer than Thailand and how Thailand has overtaken it in the recent times. He mentioned his visit to Moreh, a town in Indian side of Manipur bordering Myanmar and bought Indian products like Torch , which he thought were better. We talked for sometime and it was more like 'brother in lost just found', and I gave him respect as much as he gave me.

Then we drove amidst the greenery of the forest of, perhaps, Yushan National Park and we had a forest walk. It was an amazing feeling that you have to go all the way to Taiwan and climb a mountain there. We were looking for any sign and evidence of animals there and I did found few feathers of birds. During our lunchtime, we, the youngsters and the students were chatting with Dr. McSea of Smithsonian Institute, and gaining his big pool of knowledge from him. I was' surprised to know that he was aware of Manipur, thanks to Sangai.

He told me that he will be visiting Manipur soon since he is working on Elk's deer. Brow-antlered deer/Sangai/Thamin/Elk's deer, its sub-species is distributed from Manipur to Myanmar and extends to other parts of South-east Asian countries. This species draws much interest among wildlife biologists across the world. Our evening stay was in a luxury like hotel in the Forestry Lodge. I shared room with Dr. Dave Garshellis, Co-chair IUCN/SSC Bear Specialist Group. He was such a nice guy with great administrative skill.

During conducting and chairing in many sessions of the conference, his time-management was fascinating and then I had to share a room with him. He did ask me many questions about the Asiatic black bear and Sloth bear and particularly he took keen interest on my work on Sloth bears at Hampi, Karnataka. We did chat about how sloth bear fed on dung beetles and how the signs were left after the beetles were eaten.

Next morning, we went to Endemic Species Research Institute, one of the organizers of the conference and saw those Formosan Black bears in the captive facility and the conservation efforts being taken up by the Institute. We were offered grand lunch, enjoyed and took group photographs - - shouting 'Ni Hao'. I hope I spell them correctly. They gave us so much great stuff that we couldn't even carry all of them.

The hospitality shown by Taiwanese were commendable. They took care of their host so well and they were so thorough in taking care even the smallest thing. It's been more than 5 years but the memories of their hospitality still last.