Clad in a black bikini with shining water beads trickling down her light caramel skin, the American girl with the sun-kissed hair stuck out like a sore thumb on the beach.
But as soon as she picked up her board and paddled out to sea, Jennie Miller of Texas looked like she was in her element, as did the hundred other surfers at Jialeshui (佳樂水), Kenting.
“It was love at first surf,” said Miller, describing her first encounter with the increasingly popular sport in Taiwan.
“I have wanted to learn to surf for a long time and when I saw the opportunity, I grabbed it,” said the Tamkang University MBA student at last month’s Third Annual Kenting Cup International Open Surf Contest.
Miller, who had never surfed before she came to Taiwan two years ago, was among the handful of foreigners who in recent years have discovered the thrills and spills Taiwan’s waves have to offer.
Taiwan may be considered a tropical island, but contrary to the typical image of Pacific islanders, Taiwanese are not known as water sports enthusiasts.
In fact, many adults born in the 1950s can hardly swim without the aid of a floating device.
Seeking to explain the paradox, Soochow University political science professor Luo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said older generations had been raised to dread the ocean because the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime had deployed barbed wire and gigantic cement blocks along the shores to turn the beaches into military bases during the Martial Law era.
People were not taught to swim, he said, while recreational beaches were only open to a select few.
By no means a major destination on the world’s surfing radar screen, Taiwan has nevertheless been gaining in popularity among locals and expatriates.
Comparing the waves in Taiwan with those in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Australia and the UK, Neil MacDonald, a 52-year-old Englishman and long-term resident of Kenting, touted the waves here as “world class,” albeit quite inconsistent.
“Seventeen years ago, there were maybe two or three American surfers. Six people sharing the beach was considered a crowded day,” he said.
“Now there are too many people,” he said.
Hawaiian Duggar Parrish, 49, said he relished the good old days when he started surfing in Taiwan 11 years ago.
“There was hardly anyone here,” he said. “Back then, there were only a few local boys. The surfing scene in Taiwan has definitely changed.”
Looking “cool,” Parrish said, is the main reason behind the sudden boom.
“It’s the surfing lifestyle that is attracting the young people. The surfing equipment industry in Taiwan is also pumping up the excitement. And most all, surfing is fun, relatively easy to learn and not that expensive,” he said.
Neil Narbonne, another fan of Taiwan’s waves and who grew up both in Taiwan and the US, attributed the growing popularity to the fashion industry.
“Clothing manufacturers made a big push into Taiwan, some are pure surfing brands [OP, RipCurl, O’Neill, Stussy, Billabong] while others are just outdoor manufacturers that also include a surf line [Reef, etc] tied together with the media promoting surfing as a cool sport, as well as a general liberalizing of the youth as can be seen at local night spots,” he said.
Moreover, girls today are more willing to wear bikinis and both boys and girls are more willing to try action sports, he said.
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