Insight Guides: Taiwan

by Daniel Reid, Paul Zach

To the thousands of settlers who sailed here from mainland China, it was Bao Dao - Treasure Island. To the ancient Portuguese mariners, it was Isle Formosa - the Beautiful Island. To the modern magnates of industry and trade, it's known as Taiwan, Inc.

In fact, contemporary Taiwan measures up to all three of its nicknames. The treasures that are China's culture, art and religion have been preserved in Taiwan's museums and temples, and continue to flourish in its cities. The beauty of nature is on display in valleys and on golden beaches. And Taiwan's hardworking people produce a cornucopia of merchandise that makes the island one of the world's great shopping emporiums.

In mroe than 320 pages of brilliant color photography and scintillating text, Insight Guide: Taiwan captures all the treasures and beauty of this unique island. Her, Apa Prouctions team of scholars, journalists and photographers put an end to the mysteries and miscconceptions that surround Taiwan.

Genres: Travel

354 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 1984

About the author

Daniel Reid was born in 1948 in San Francisco and spent his childhood in East Africa. After completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley in 1970, and a Masters of Arts degree in Chinese Language and Civilization at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in 1973, Reid moved to Taiwan, where he spent 16 years studying and writing about various aspects of traditional Chinese culture, focusing particularly on Chinese medicine and ancient Taoist health and longevity systems. In 1989, he relocated to Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he continued his research and writing until 1999, when he immigrated with his wife Snow to the Byron Bay region of Australia, where he now makes his home.

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much a product of its time — back before the opening up and ascendancy of "Mainland China," when Taiwan was still very much the economic powerhouse of East Asia — this book hasn't aged very well, but skimming through it again, boy does it bring back memories.

Just looking at the "by way of introduction page" I see head writer Dan Reid, an erstwhile acquaintence who led an alternately ascetic/sybaritic life in his remote Yangmingshan aerie; Dan Rocovits, with whom I cooperated in my last project in Taiwan, a revamp of EVA Airways inflight magazine; and Andy Unger, son of the last U.S. Ambassador to Taiwan and a gifted artist who I've since lost touch with but who I am frequently amazed did not go on to considerably greater fame (I'm looking at one of his prints as I write this, but can find no mention of him online more recent than 1985)...

As to the book itself, lot of nice pictures from back in the day, and while parts of the island down south might not have changed a whole lot, the Taipei of 1984 is absolutely unrecognizeable from the city it has since become. Of course, the same can be said for almost any major Asian city looking back over the last nearly-half century — Saigon, KL, Shanghai, Beijing, Chiang Mai, Singapore...the sole exception (at least based on my personal experience, from first and last trips in 1986 and 2014) being Kathmandu, which in large part has hardly changed at all...