Traveling in Taiwan : The Israeli perspective

How many Israelis travel to Taiwan every year? Not many, at least judging by the amount of resources available for Israelis on Taiwan. While China is slowly becoming a hot spot in the Asia tourism, Taiwan is still far behind and there are very few Israeli websites that cover Taiwan.

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Lately, a new big travel website has been launched, supported by a well-established Israeli brand Masa-Acher (loosely translated as "A different kind of journey"). Masa is known to most Israelis as the number one travel magazine in Israel.

I was relieved to find out that Masa had a few short articles about Taiwan. The first one was written in 2001 titled "Ghost month" :

"In Taiwan's Ghost month, occurring on August, you don't buy houses, you don't get married and you don't travel much. On this month, dead spirits come to collect their due from the world of the living : money, food, attention, revenge. The opening ceremony is broadcasted on all TV channels, and the sacrifice includes beer and coca-cola, anything to keep the ghosts happy."

Second and last article is from 2002 with a title I'm not sure Taiwanese greens would like -  "The other China" :

"Just like Israelis, Taiwanese pride themselves as being the only democracy in their region with slogans like ‘a small country surrounded by hostiles' having a long holiday season that starts with the Chinese new year and lasts till the Lentern festival".

The website also hosts two short clips about Taiwan : Lantern festival and Taiwanese Tai Chi .

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YNet's Hebrew Lonely Planet section offers a bit more :

"… It's the country where you buy traditional noodles in 7-Eleven, the aboriginal girls wear mini-skirts, and a day of traditional ceremonies will conclude going down a waterslide. Human hordes will threaten to drown you, but if you leave the cities you'll soon find out why the island is called 'Ilha Formosa' - ‘The beautiful island'…"

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The Israeli Hebrew based Wikipedia still refers to Taiwan mainly as the "Republic of China" :

"ROC's (Taiwan's) current status is quite complicated. In reality it's an independent country, but it has never declared independence and isn't reconigized as such by the international community. Lately there's a lively debate about declaring independence, as China threatens to attack Taiwan if it will do so…"

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Lametayel, an Israeli travel-gear chain that hosts a wonderful travel community has a very small section about Taiwan (The tips section, usually very busy in other categories, is left empty with only a few tips from a guy called fiLi) :

"Taiwan, like many other countries in Asia, has a blend of technology with deep roots into past and tradition. This beautiful island hosts a chain of bustling cities next to high mountains…". 

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Not much, eh? I know, that's too bad. A few months ago I've had a famous Israeli TV show "Masa olami" (meaning "world journey") writing me asking for a few tips about Taiwan, so I'm hoping they would feature Taiwan sometime soon and boost things up a bit.

 
tags: Asia, Asia-Israel connections, israeli_websites, Taiwan, travel_website