Taiwan, the two faces of the 'curvy' island

A small island the size of Holland, commonly associated with cheap electronics and counterfeit bags, is probably not among the most attractive destinations for the Italian traveller. There are other Asias, on paper more appealing: the wholly original modernity of Japan, or millenary China, or Indo-Chinese cultures. Why Taiwan? First of all, because of the kind invitation received from WASBE (the World Association for Symphonic Ensembles and Bands), on the occasion of the international meeting in Chiayi, a city of two hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants in the south-central part of the island. And then, I mean, why go for the obvious choices? How many of your friends have been to Taiwan?

A good place to start, after leaving the sumptuous Longshan Temple, could be the night market, especially if you have just arrived in Taipei with your biorhythms still messed up from jet lag. That's the only way to appreciate the olfactory shock of dried squid, battered seafood, deep-fried and refried batter, black eggs floating in black liquids, sausages, pork, chicken and other less interpretable meats, when you're not sure whether you want breakfast, lunch or dinner.

If you are brave enough, you can try to get a piece of snake in the Snake Alley: the food - or gut bacteria - that will change your life could be here. In a country where a full lunch in the average restaurant costs the equivalent of four to five euros (as much as a beer in a bar, or a ten-minute taxi ride), people eat at all hours. At a relaxed pace, unexpected in a metroli tingling with life.

On the other hand, the modernity of the island coexists with the culture of tradition in a serene way: the two worlds - the traditional/eastern and the modern/western - are tangent. It is opaque, aged, smog-stained modernity; close in some ways to the more recent, and already decadent, modernity of the Middle Eastern metropolis, but here it is the mountains - very green - that suddenly appear when the haze clears. The houses follow one another in architectural styles of unclear provenance, amidst friezes of auspicious dogs and improbable Doric columns; the dirty neon of the all-night 7Eleven buzzes around the temples, and ritual music mixes with the sounds of pinball machines and candy trucks. Western-dressed kids consult the gods, leaving Taiwan Beer (a pretty clear one, not only the gods like it) on offer.

Sometimes the East-West encounter materialises moments of pure surrealism. For example, it is pointless to wonder why the music pub recommended by the hotel, where five guys play local pop and seventies-eighties classics, has a tricolour flag and the outline of Italy as its logo and is called 'Calgary' (not 'Cagliari', just 'Calgary': Sardinia does not even appear). Or why a Thai restaurant (excellent, by the way) should only play Abba songs. Or why, back at the market, a stall of colourful toys should coexist with a stall of equally colourful noodle cups and one of colourful vibrators...