Taipei, Taiwan
Bangkok, Thailand
Doha, Qatar
Johannesburg, South Africa
Flying from Taiwan to South Africa is pretty simple. We took Thai Airways from Taipei to Bangkok, then Qatar Airways from Bangkok to Doha and a separate flight from Doha to Johannesburg. It was supposed to take 24 hours.
Our first delay was in Bangkok. We spent nine hours at Suvarnabhumi Airport. They never told us why. As other passengers were put onto other flights, we waited. We were a larger group, so it was probably more difficult to find something for us. I am not normally a fan of waiting in airports for nine hours, but something interesting came out of it. Our original Bangkok to Doha flight was supposed to be on a Boeing 777, which I have flown on plenty of times. Our new flight was on an Airbus A380, which I had never flown before. The A380 is that double decker plane that was supposed to revolutionize air travel and replace the 747. Except it never did. Airbus built fewer than 300 planes in 18 years, compared to more than 1,500 planes in 50 years for the 747. Airbus lost money on the A380. Boeing made a fortune on the 747.
We finally left Bangkok at three in the morning. Because of time zones and that whole spinning of the Earth thing, our seven hour flight landed just before six in the morning. Hamad International Airport in Doha seems to be pretty popular. It wins awards from organizations that hand out awards to airports. The first time I went to Hamad International Airport was on my way to Barcelona. That flight was also delayed, so I spent ten hours in the award-winning airport in the middle of the night when all of the things that won the awards were closed.
This time, we spent almost 15 hours at the airport, starting at six in the morning when everything was closed. The advantage to being in a larger group was that the airline put us up in one of the airport hotels. The last thing they wanted was for any of us to leave the airport, not that we had any visas for Qatar. I was the only one in our group with a passport that could get me out of the airport without any extra paperwork. Since I only had 15 hours, and I am not wild about spending money in a country where being gay is a capital offense, I thought it best to stay with my group and take a break in that free hotel.
After dinner, we took an eight and a half hour flight to Johannesburg on a Boeing 777. Our 24 hour trip from Taipei took 44 hours.
We arrived in Johannesburg at four in the morning and were at our hotel before six. Another good thing about being in a larger group was that we could check into the hotel as soon as we got there. Solo travelers usually have to wait until the normal check in time, which is nowhere close to six in the morning. The Johannesburg Marriott Hotel Melrose Arch was a standard business hotel just like every Marriott I have ever seen anywhere in the world. For some reason, I assumed all of our hotels on this trip would be similar. They were not.
Melrose is a more upscale neighborhood of Johannesburg. The Melrose Arch is a new office/retail development that looks absolutely nothing like most of the city. It is how business leaders want Johannesburg to look and how community leaders know Johannesburg will never look. I do not and should not have a dog in this race, but if I had a vote, I would say the city should try to keep its traditional feel and not look like a pedestrian shopping mall. The entire Melrose Arch area reminded me of the outdoor pedestrian part of the Southpoint Mall in Durham, though only in appearance. Johannesburg feels nothing like North Carolina.
One of the first things I noticed about the Melrose Arch was the overt security presence. One thing we had been warned about before leaving Taiwan was the high crime rates in South Africa, especially Johannesburg. From what I could tell, it was all private security. That did nothing to make me feel safe. I know nothing about South African police training, but anywhere else I have ever been, private security companies do not generally hire the best of the best. In Jerusalem's Old City, you sometimes see armed soldiers. If you want safety, they are the way to go. Their training is some of the best in the world. Any job that pays the bills is something to be proud of, but mall cops are not going to take a bullet for you.
Not that we ever needed anything that extreme. Johannesburg was like New York or Los Angeles. There are some neighborhoods you might want to avoid at night and some you should probably stay out of altogether. Most of the city is perfectly safe for anyone not walking down the street waving large wads of cash. To the Taiwanese, none of that made any sense. You can walk any street in Taiwan at any time with the Hope Diamond in your gold crown and no one will look at you twice. Unless you are a foreigner. Then they will stare at you all day, without any violent intent. I never noticed anyone staring at us in South Africa. Then again, Johannesburg has the largest Chinese population in all of Africa, and people who look like me are nothing special.
We were two to a room in the hotel, which was not a problem at all since we spent most of our time either at work or visiting some tourist trap. I can barely remember what the room looked like. There was a lot of gray and beige. I suppose those are the fashionable colors right now. By South Africans standards, it was exceptionally dull and lacked the vibrant colors we saw all over the country.
The biggest disadvantage to traveling with a large group of Taiwanese is that they love guided tours. The larger the group, the better. When I go somewhere new, I want to wander around and get a little lost. The things I have accidentally stumbled across are far more interesting than anything some stranger booked in advance. When Taiwanese go somewhere, they want to shop, see the most popular sights in the travel guides, and eat at mostly Chinese restaurants that have been approved by previous Taiwanese tourists.
Since Johannesburg was our first stop on this African Tour, and I am a supervisor of sorts, I chose to stay with the group more than I wanted. In between rehearsals, shows, and all the driving back and forth, we piled into a charter bus when we had some time off and saw tiny slivers of Johannesburg that taught us almost nothing about the culture or its people.
We went to the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, which looked more like a park than a botanical garden. Apparently, they used to have a nursery, but it closed a few years ago. Its biggest selling point is a small waterfall that flows from a hill where some eagles live. I never saw any eagles, but we were in South Africa. Plenty of animals were right around the corner.
We went to the Old Kromdraai Gold Mine, one of the mines during South Africa's gold rush that put Johannesburg on the map. They still call Johannesburg the City of Gold, but only on brochures. No one actually called it that in person. While the history is important to South Africans, no one in our group was especially impressed by rusty old mine carts and the dirt entrance of a tunnel.
We took a walking tour of Sophiatown, a cultural and artistic haven at the beginning of the 20th century, much like Montmartre in Paris or Dashijie in Shanghai. At the time, artists of all races and backgrounds could mingle, drink too much, and discuss all the vast intricacies of life. Unfortunately, most of the original buildings were bulldozed when it became a white neighborhood and the black population was violently relocated to the Soweto township.
One of the better guided tours was the Alexandra bicycle tour. We rode bicycles around the Alexandra township, which is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Johannesburg and borders Sandton, one of the richest. There was a bit of a history lesson, but our guide mostly ignored the poverty around us and the fact that what we paid to ride bicycles could have bought books for a few families.
The best and worst guided tour we took in Johannesburg was in Soweto. With a population of over one million people in two hundred square kilometers, it is by far the largest township in South Africa. The tour covered a small area while the tour guide tried to cram a lot of history into a short presentation. Most of my Taiwanese colleagues were completely unaware of South Africa's history. Apartheid was never something they studied in school, but it was a word they heard a lot in South Africa.
Our tour guide told us that Soweto was essentially a ghetto for black people, many of whom were evicted from their homes and forced to live in the township. They could only legally leave when going to work in the mines or other parts of Johannesburg. Someone in our group asked how the white people could control the black population that outnumbered them six to one. The convoluted answer was a long history of colonization and oppression by my ancestors. By the time Apartheid was the law of the land, the black majority was used to being treated like criminals. As the only white person on the bus, I did what my people have always done. I oversimplified a complicated situation for my Taiwanese colleagues and told them the whites had all the money.
As the only person on our tour group who knew anything about the history of South Africa, albeit not nearly enough, I was not at all surprised by anything our tour guide told us in Soweto. What surprised me were the living conditions. I expected a Hooverville of tin shacks with dirt floors, which do indeed exist. I thought Soweto would look more like Alexandra. But there were also plenty of paved roads, wood framed houses with tile roofs, lots of garages for all the cars, and ample electricity and indoor plumbing. At least in the daytime. Nelson Mandela's house is a small but sturdy brick and mortar building.
When I saw a tour group of white people strolling through the township, I wondered if their tour guide was showing them the real Soweto or the tourist version we were seeing. I never felt guilty while I was with Taiwanese people who had nothing to do with Apartheid. Had they lived in South Africa at the time, they would have been classified as Coloured, which sounds terrible where I come from and was even worse in 20th century South Africa. I could not help but look disapprovingly at the white tourists who were treating this home to a million people as some kind of tourist attraction, even though I was doing the same thing. My internal defense was that I never wanted to go there. I wanted to explore Johannesburg's vibrant present, not learn even more about its appalling past. When I go to Hiroshima, I visit the Peace Park, but I spend most of my time in the mix of near future and distant past.
In Johannesburg's present, we ate a great deal of food. That is unavoidable if you travel with a large group of Taiwanese. If they love anything more than shopping during their travels, it is easting. The food in South Africa was something I was not looking forward to at all. Most of the time, in my daily life, I can ignore the fact that I have no sense of smell and cannot taste flavors. When I go somewhere I have never been, especially somewhere as famous for its cuisine as South Africa, that reality hits me in the face at every meal. Had I been able to taste anything, I probably would have eaten like a Taiwanese.
Most of my colleagues wanted to try the local Chinese food. There was a basic, all over the place “Chinese” restaurant near the hotel. None of their dishes were familiar and no one was impressed. It never stood a chance anyway because it was not in the travel guides. Not the most adventurous people in the world, my traveling companions were really only interested in eating pre-approved food.
Luckily for them, not so much for me, Johannesburg has more than a few shopping malls. They reminded me of every shopping mall everywhere in the world, except for the metal detectors at the door and private security guards checking bags before anyone could get in. The one mall I might remember in years to come was the Oriental Plaza, just down the M1 from our hotel. I thought the name was interesting because where I come from, it would be seen as insulting to the Chinese. The Chinese shoppers I was with could not have cared less. They were there for deals. Unlike most malls, shoppers could haggle on prices at the Oriental Plaza. Taiwanese love to haggle, even though prices are set at all malls in Taiwan. As for a taste of the Orient, nothing in the mall reminded anyone of home. They were mostly disappointed that it was run down and looked like it had seen better days.
Further east is China Town, several blocks of restaurants and shops that did not look the least bit Chinese. But there were Chinese signs all over the place, which I found strangely comforting, and most of the shops were owned and operated by Chinese immigrants. My colleagues loved it because they could speak to people in their language and eat food that was far more authentic than any of the upscale “Chinese” restaurants in town.
There were plenty of extremes in Johannesburg. We went to the poorest neighborhoods and some of the richest. We drove past car dealerships selling Maseratis and young men standing on the side of the road selling cell phone cases and plastic toys. There are roadside stalls selling fruit in Taiwan, but usually in rural areas. The most you will see in the city is someone selling flowers. In Johannesburg, larger than any city in Taiwan, you can buy anything at a stop light. Which are called robots, for some reason.
We also did some work here and there, but Johannesburg was more about adjusting and adapting. The work was nothing new. The audiences were, and they seemed to enjoy a look into a culture very different from theirs. Johannesburg will always be my gateway into Africa, which is probably not the best position to be in. I vividly remember my first visit to Tokyo, but the Ginza was sensory overload. There was too much to take in all at once. I get the feeling Johannesburg will feel the same way a few years down the road.
I took thousands of photographs in South Africa. It is going to take a while to sort through them all. But since I will be describing some photogenic places, it feels wrong to not show any pictures. I will use placeholder photographs until I can replace them with my own, and give credit to the photographers when I know who they are.
