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How well do five recently issued publications help tourists make the most of their time in Taiwan?
BY BRENT HANNON
After years of being neglected by guidebook publishers, Taiwan is suddenly a very popular guidebook destination, with four brand-new or newly updated Taiwan guides hitting the shelves this spring alone, plus a fifth book that was published late last year.
Bradt Taiwan (published October 2010) and Michelin Green Guide Taiwan (January 2011) are both entirely new Taiwan guidebooks, while Lonely Planet Taiwan (March 2011), National Geographic Taiwan (March 2011), and the Rough Guide to Taiwan (April 2011) have all been freshly updated.
What should a would-be visitor to Taiwan – or a Taiwan resident who wants to see more of the island – make of all these guidebooks? A better question might be, what is the purpose of a guidebook, and how well do these new books fulfill that purpose? First, a full disclosure: I wrote large sections of the new Michelin Green Guide Taiwan, and many years ago, I wrote some of the essays that still appear in the updated National Geographic guide (more on that later).
Back to the question: what is the purpose of a guidebook? According to the godfather of guidebook writing, Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler, a guidebook should accomplish three things: it should educate, it should be fun, and it should save a traveler’s life. In the book Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story, by Tony and Maureen Wheeler, the author explains what he means by “save a traveler’s life.” He notes that “on those occasions when you emerge from the railway station in an unknown town at midnight the guidebook should say, ‘turn left, walk two blocks and you’ll find a good, reasonably priced place to stay. Turn right, and you’ll get mugged within a block.’”
That requirement, however, does not apply in Taiwan. A traveler emerging at midnight from a train station in Tainan, Chiayi, or Hualien, or anywhere else in Taiwan, would not get mugged. At worst, if he or she turned the wrong way, it would take a little longer to find a hotel. Taiwan is not Papua New Guinea or Detroit, so Taiwan guidebooks need not be concerned with saving lives, except maybe to issue common-sense warnings against swimming in strong currents, or climbing carelessly up the cliffs of Taroko, or walking unprepared into the central mountains.
That leaves two requirements: a guidebook should be fun, and it should educate. As I see it, a guidebook’s sense of fun flows from a writer’s enthusiasm, from his or her love of a country’s food, people, scenery, and culture, and from a more general joy of travel. As any guidebook writer will tell you, this enthusiasm is hard to maintain in the face of relentless fact-gathering, and the presentation of those facts. After all, how much enthusiasm can a writer muster, after a month on the road, for yet another garden-variety tourist sight?
The answer to this dilemma is to highlight a country’s key virtues, and describe them at length and with passion, or what Wheeler would call “fun.” The National Palace Museum is ten times more interesting than the Sheng Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines, for instance, and it merits ten times more text and far more enthusiasm. Other key Taiwan attractions include the High-speed Rail, Chung Tai Chan monastery near Puli, Taroko Gorge, Shihlin Night Market, and eight or ten temples (Lungshan Temple in Taipei; Zhushi Temple in Sanxia; Da Tianhou, Dongyue, and Chenghuang Temples in Tainan; Lungshan Temple in Lugang; Zhenlan Temple at the start of the Mazu pilgrimage in Dajia, and several others).
Depending upon the writer’s tastes – and these will vary – Taiwan’s “A-list” of tourism virtues might also include Kenting National Park, the beaches and sights of the southeast coast, the hikes and scenic drives in the central mountains, Alishan Forest Railway, the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage, Taipei 101, the unique lantern festivals held in Yenshui, Pingxi, Taitung, and elsewhere, the night markets in the west coast cities, and the dazzling variety of bird life.
More broadly, the island’s virtues include the excellence of its cuisine, the friendliness of its people, and its remarkable multi-party democracy and attendant freedoms of speech, assembly, religion, and media. A good guidebook must identify these virtues, recommend them to travelers, and explain them at length.
Wheeler’s last requirement is that a good guidebook should also educate. “It’s remarkable how a little knowledge can make simple sightseeing much more interesting,” he writes. As an example he cites the Hindu temples in Katmandu: a trident is the symbol of the god Shiva the destroyer, and because Shiva rides a bull, a traveler can always find a bull in the temple iconography. Just this nugget of knowledge adds to the enjoyment of Katmandu, writes Wheeler.
The “education” aspect of a guidebook exists throughout the book, because the standard format, followed by all five of the new Taiwan guides, is to offer essays on a country’s history, cuisine, culture, geography, sports, religions, and so on, while the meat of the book then consists of detailed descriptions of the attractions of a particular city or region, usually accompanied by brief explanations of its history, geography, and local culture, followed by hotel and restaurant listings.
“Education” is therefore essential to both the essays and the practical information, and in practice, it is a complicated combination of text, photography, maps, and presentation that requires accuracy, straightforward writing, and a user-friendly layout. It favors facts over opinions, and detailed observations over generic descriptions.
In addition, “education” means writers should concentrate on a country and its people, not on themselves. Nothing mars a guidebook more than first-person quips and comments that are meant to be witty, but in reality are just annoying. And when the quips and comments pile up, as they sometimes do, the annoyance level increases until it is hard to concentrate on the book. That’s the tipping point at which a naval-gazing writer becomes more important than the country in question.
With Wheeler’s suggestions in mind, here are the five new Taiwan guidebooks, in order of publication. The ratings are on a scale of one to 10.
Bradt Taiwan
Fun Rating: 4
Education Rating: 6
Map Quality: 6
Total Rating: 16
In many ways, the new Bradt Guide is a pleasant surprise. It doesn’t spend much time on essays about culture, cuisine, history, or nature, and instead gets straight to the meat of the book, where it presents a wealth of comprehensive how-to travel information. The layout is straightforward and non-demanding, and the information is thorough. The book’s chief virtue is breadth: virtually everything is here.
Bradt Taiwan is a deeply personal guidebook, as the author – a long-term resident with genuine knowledge of Taiwan – digresses in some unusual directions and discourses at length about some unusual topics, while giving short shrift to a number of highly notable attractions. For example, in the Sun Moon Lake section, he barely mentions the new Sun Moon Lake Ropeway, the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village, or the remarkable Chung Tai Chan Monastery. On the other hand, he writes rather extensively about Paper Dome, a large tent made partly of paper that was donated by a Japanese village to commemorate the 9-21 earthquake that hit Nantou County in 1999. These are curious choices, but the author really does seem to prefer Paper Dome to Chung Tai Chan.
The Bradt guide’s level of enthusiasm stems more from its choices of coverage than from its prose, which is refreshingly straightforward. In terms of voice, the author avoids first person, thank goodness, and instead prefers second person – the “you” construction – which has the effect of turning him into a tour guide.
Look at the Bradt guide that way: the author is a knowledgeable tour guide with a taste for unusual sights and a penchant for aboriginal culture, the natural world, and temple life and religious festivals. Your personal tour will miss some landmark attractions, but you will see many smaller sights that few people see, such as the Formosan Macaque Ecosystem Education Hall and the Endemic Species Research Institute, both on the Jiji Branch Railway near Sun Moon Lake.
One shortcoming of the Bradt book is that many of the place names do not include Chinese characters, which could make them hard to find, and that the maps also lack Chinese characters, a failing that is shared by all five guidebooks. A final sour note is the cover, which features a grumpy old aborigine who looks like he had just been refused payment when he asked the photographer for money.
Michelin Green Guide Taiwan
(no rating due to bias)
I happen to think this all-new guidebook is excellent – please take that for what it’s worth – because I know how Michelin operates. They use multiple writers to cover a destination, which ensures that each writer thoroughly covers his or her own turf, and they require those writers to be “on the ground” in their respective regions for a minimum of 15 days right before the publishing deadline, which ensures that their facts are up to date. With the new Taiwan guide, five writers did the bulk of the reporting and writing.
The editing and fact-checking are thorough, the layout is classy and helpful, and the photos are plentiful and of decent quality, considering that most were taken by the writers. Actually, none of the new Taiwan guides has first-rate photography, a failing that seems to be a guidebook tradition.
The Green Guide essays on history, nature, art, cinema, and so on are impressively detailed and highly readable, although the quality of writing, reporting, and photography in the area chapters varies somewhat from region to region, depending upon who is doing the work. Overall the book’s voice is consistently third person, its enthusiasm level is high, and it is intelligent and does not talk down to its readers. The maps are superb – by far the best of any of the five new guides – and all place names and most addresses are accompanied by Chinese characters (but not Hanyu Pinyin).
One of the book’s strengths is the Michelin “star” system, in which writers rank the most important sights, and write about the worthiest attractions in great detail. Each section also includes a “don’t miss” portion, while the maps also include the “starred” sights, a system that ensures that travelers do not miss the island’s key attractions. A newcomer to Taiwan who picked up this book would know exactly what to see and why.
Lonely Planet Taiwan
Fun Rating: 6
Education Rating: 9
Map quality: 3
Total Rating: 18
Perfunctory photos, plenty of text, simple “mud maps,” and youthful backpacker-style writing – where would we be without Lonely Planet? And thankfully, this iconic brand’s new Taiwan guide is much improved from its 2007 version; it is more professional, and it has fewer of the smart-aleck asides that marred the previous book. The layout is better as well, with blue headlines and information boxes that make it easier to navigate, and the cover is superb, a stylish and colorful photo of a temple lantern.
In the new guide, the two writers combine to present a great deal of information. Hiking and biking are well covered, and so is temple life, and the book is filled with informative, entertaining essays on a variety of topics. These include, just for example, items on shrimp fishing (the kind where people drink beer and cook their catches on a barbecue), Tzu Chi founder Cheng Yen, the Mazu pilgrimage, temple rivalries, and many more.
The hotel and restaurant listings, however, are not as extensive as one might expect. Lonely Planet was once famous for the comprehensiveness of its listings, but in this regard the other guidebooks have caught up with it, except for the woeful National Geographic book. The update also retains some flaws from the previous edition. The writing is occasionally condescending, and it retains some of its distracting quips, such as “We’re not big fans of sunrise viewings” and the observation that “plenty of horribly unfit” Taiwanese trek to the top of Yushan.
The voice is generally third person, though it occasionally veers into first or second person and then back to third, sometimes in adjacent sentences. Maybe these quips and inconsistencies don’t bother most readers very much, or maybe they are an acquired taste, like stinky tofu. That’s the best way to view this book: as a vast night market that has everything from stinky tofu to barbecue sausages to grass jelly to grilled squid, and it is up to the reader to pick and choose from among the selections.
National Geographic Taiwan
Fun Rating: 2
Education Rating: 3
Map Quality: 5
Total Rating: 10
National Geographic Taiwan is a rewarmed leftover that reads like a brochure and lacks enthusiasm, insight, and depth. All the other guidebooks were written by authors with extensive knowledge of Taiwan, or long-term residents, while the National Geographic was written by a Bangkok resident who appears to have little knowledge of the island and little interest in it.
The book has no Chinese characters, and it has few of the detailed suggestions or street-level descriptions that are the hallmarks of good on-the-ground reporting. The total word count is far less than any of its competitors, and most of the information that it does contain is generic, with little that is unique. Such an approach might have worked 20 years ago, but in today’s tech-savvy world, where writers must add value beyond what can be found on the Internet, National Geographic simply does not compare with its competitors.
I should add another caveat here: I am listed as having contributed several features to the book, which I did – eight years ago. Those essays have been reheated for the new edition, but not rewritten, a once-over-lightly approach that pervades the entire book. The days of drop-in guidebook writing ended 15 years ago, but apparently nobody told National Geographic. The book is a major disappointment, and there would be no real reason to buy it.
The Rough Guide to Taiwan
Fun Rating: 7
Education Rating: 10
Map Quality: 5
Total Rating: 22
With its rustic layout, undetailed maps, and mediocre photos, the new Rough Guide is unimpressive at first glance. But readers should ignore this book’s modest looks: Rough Guide Taiwan is actually a very impressive guidebook with a wealth of information that is presented in professional, straightforward prose.
The two writers miss almost nothing as they march matter-of-factly through every region in Taiwan, stopping occasionally to discuss its festivals, cultures, and cuisines. The book’s simple, uniform style makes it one of the easiest guides to read, and all place names are accompanied by Chinese characters and Hanyu Pinyin.
The Rough Guide Taiwan specializes in detailed basic information, such as distances between sights, travel options, walking trails, bus routes, and ticket-buying information. When it comes to providing hands-on travel information, Rough Guide is perhaps the best of the new guidebooks, as it offers extensive information on restaurants, hotels, bus routes, car rentals, airline listings, mountain permits, phone numbers, useful websites, and anything else that might be of use to a tourist.
It is possible to get lost in this labyrinth of information, and the book’s biggest flaw is that it doesn’t rank the sights very well, either by writing more extensively about the best ones, or rating them so that a reader would know which ones are most worthy. Nonetheless, its breadth and depth of detail are remarkable, and the book is a worthy addition to the fast-growing family of Taiwan guidebooks.
Taiwan: the Bradt Travel Guide
By Steven Crook
Bradt Travel Guides, UK, 2010. 344 pages.
ISBN 978-1-84162-330-6
Lonely Planet Taiwan (eighth edition)
By Robert Kelly and Joshua Samuel Brown
Lonely Planet, 2011. 404 pages.
ISBN 978-1-74179-043-6
The Rough Guide to Taiwan
(second edition)
By Stephen Keeling and Brice Minnigh
Rough Guides, London, 2011. 448 pages.
ISBN: 978-1-84836-657-2
National Geographic Traveler: Taiwan (third edition)
By Phil Macdonald
Random House, New York, 2011. 272 pages.
ISBN: 978-1-4262-0717-4
Michelin Green Guide Taiwan
Michelin, 2011. 388 pages.
ISBN 978-1-907099-26-7
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