It's the kind of story one often sees in Readers Digest or Life magazine, about a miraculous escape from the jaws of death or surviving a two-day blizzard atop Mt. Everest. In this case, the story is about Taiwan and a capsized fishing boat off the coast of Tamshui, and while it has a happy ending for one man, two men died and one remains missing and presumed drowned.
For 41-year-old Wu Chien-cheng (吳建成) and his three crewmates Chen Tai-shan (陳泰山), 35, Hsu Shen-chuan (許神全), 32, and Wu Hung-chih (吳宏志), 30, it was an ill-fated fishing trip.
The four men were aboard the Shengshangfa II (
"I was trapped in the overturned fishing boat and didn't know where the others were," Wu told a reporter for a Chinese-language newspaper yesterday. "It was terrible."
The next morning, with the sun up and the seas a bit calmer, Wu began the longest swim of his life. For nearly two hours, he followed what he believed to be an ocean current and made his way toward land.
Taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, Wu was reported to be in good condition, considering the ordeal he had just been through.
That's the good news. The bad news is that Wu's fellow crewmen, Wu and Chen are dead, and Hsu remains missing and presumed drowned, according to maritime police.
"I hope he made it to land, too," Wu told reporters from his hospital bed yesterday afternoon.
A lesson for Taiwan's tourism industry?
The trip from CKS International Airport in Taoyuan to downtown Taipei is not the most picturesque way to introduce foreign visitors to Taiwan's "charm." You've seen it yourself; everyone knows, including Taoyuan County Commissioner Annette Lu and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou.
But Taiwan is not the only place with this problem. Japan, our northern neighbor known for its beautiful views of Mt. Fuji and Kyoto temples, has its own airport-to-city problem in the Chiba-Tokyo region.
Yumiko Miyai, writing recently in the English-language Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, put it this way: "The 68-kilometer journey by expressway from Narita International Airport to the heart of Tokyo after a long flight might be enough to make many tourists regret having chosen Japan as their vacation destination."
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