The book is surprisingly up-to-date, too, just managing to record that the High Speed Rail system is up and running at the end of a paragraph that refers to its imminent operation, plus the effect it will have on the nation, in the future tense. It's also very intelligently written, making it rare among guidebooks. The authors can observe, for example, that Taiwan's national parks' strict conservationist laws "are at stark odds with time-honored Aboriginal hunting practices," while remaining pro-conservation in their general tenor.
They can also be ironic without being condescending. The Spring Scream festival is an occasion for "unbridled indulgence," and the officials on the island of Nangan (南竿) have thought fit to render the Chinese slogan "Sleep with one's sword ready" into English with the more anodyne "Always on the alert." But no one is blamed, simply smilingly indulged.
The numerous Internet links throughout the book are also a major plus. Other plusses are the inclusion of Chinese characters relevant to what's being discussed in convenient boxes alongside the text, and accurate and up-to-date information on prices in general, plus train, bus and flight times. There's also a mass of detailed background material, on subjects ranging from the Landlocked Formosan Salmon at Wuling Farm (武陵農場) to Hou Hsiao-hsien's (侯孝賢) 1987 movie City of Sadness (悲情城市), and the fact that there were at least 15 Japanese POW camps in Taiwan during World War II, as background to Jiufen (九份) and Jinguashi (金瓜石).
There's little doubt that these two writers must have felt as jaded as the rest of us when revisiting well-known sites such as Yangmingshan or Taroko Gorge. But they still manage to describe them, and how to get there, with accuracy and enthusiasm.
They also have a good word for Taiwan's media, described as exhibiting "a level of openness that is almost unheard of in Asia's other Chinese societies, including Hong Kong and Singapore." The authors are both journalists, so the praise is understandable. But they're also writers who clearly love Taiwan, and it shows.
This guidebook won't only be a godsend to visitors to Taiwan from abroad - it should also be an essential possession for all English-speaking Taiwan residents. If it only leads you to catch one long-distance bus on time, or to climb one high mountain you'd never have considered before, it will have been money well-spent. But the reality is it will do a very great deal more as well.
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