Taiwan’s guilt export

The world was watching a war. Missiles over the Middle East. Very serious stuff.

And our delegation’s first crisis in Taiwan? A lunchbox. With pork. It thought it could outsmart Taiwanese pigs.

Not even my pork, by the way. I want that made very clear. Totally innocent. The pork belonged to another guy in the group. Looks responsible. Laptop on vacation, the whole thing. One of those guys who seems to read the rules.

Not, apparently, Taiwan pork rules.

We’re already on the bus. Everyone relaxed. Suddenly our tour guide Michelle starts checking the list.

“Who’s Juan?”

Nobody knows Juan. We’re looking around. No Juan anywhere. Suddenly the phone rings. Juan. Customs stopped him.

Immediately your mind goes to dark places. Drugs. Something explosive in the luggage. Big international incident.

No. Sausage.

Happens all the time, Michelle said. One tourist brought moo shu pork once. “Very delicious.”

Also very illegal.

Never seen a piece of meat command so much authority. Absolute respect for the pig. Bring a Subway ham and cheese, suddenly you’re basically smuggling missiles.

Somewhere in Taiwan there’s a government officer proudly telling his family: “Honey, today I stopped a man with a ham.” Hero of the nation.

You hear about the fine, and you begin to notice something else.

Taiwan is spotless.

Not our kind of “clean.” You know the one. Mayor plants one tree, suddenly we’re Pasig Green City. Very proud. One tree.

This is a different clean. Streets look ironed. Like they’re watched, even when nobody is watching.

Cleanliness isn’t enforced the way you’d expect, but suggested by the eerie absence of mess. Which is somehow worse. Silence is very persuasive.

It’s a strange thing to envy — vsidewalks. Has a way of making you whisper. At once you feel it on a quiet pavement in the evening, scrubbed, air oddly calm; not fear exactly, more like the sense the city has been carefully arranged, and you have arrived slightly underdressed for the occasion.

Up in Alishan, I asked where I could smoke. Staff said simply, “outdoors.” The word carried a great deal of faith. Outdoors is a large territory. Forest is outdoors, Antartica is outdoors. I walked some 200 meters down a slope in the dark like a monk punished for an abominable habit.

I finished my cigarette and discovered that I was holding the only piece of garbage in Taiwan. You start looking at the pavement like a man who just said something stupid in a very quiet room.

You expect a Taiwanese grandma to appear. Not yelling — staring. In the quiet way that says I’m not angry; I’m disappointed in your entire civilization.

The cigarette is not the issue. The problem is the small, barbarian object that remains afterward, the physical evidence that pleasure always produces residue. Taiwan has no place to hide that residue.

Michelle tells another story. A tourist finishes a cigarette outside her hotel. Won’t discard the butt on the sidewalk. Very respectful. So she puts it in her pocket.

Later she goes back to the room. Something happened there. Maybe the butt burned the carpet.

Next thing she knows. Fine. Amazing journey for one tiny cigarette. In most cities a cigarette butt travels about six inches. Fingers to pavement. Story over.

In Taiwan, it travels much farther. Street. Pocket. Room. Bill.

It’s a special panic being the only messy object in a very clean country. For a moment you almost hope the feeling follows you home.

Because we arrived in Taiwan trying to import pigs. Somehow we left exporting guilt.