Taiwan is such a High Tech powerhouse...but not

Taiwan is a global leader in many high tech industries, like Semiconductors (IC design, mfg, pkg & testing...), LCD displays, Contract manufacturing of PCs, iPods, PS2s, Xboxes, connectors, cables, and almost anything digital.

However, why is so much of Taiwan itself still so low-tech?

• Public buses are ancient, smoke-spitting, gas-guzzling machines, that are harming both the environment and its people. I don't know when the last time the buses were upgraded, but it's definitely overdue. They do have 2 LCD TVs in each bus, and most also have digital displays of each bus stop in English and Chinese. However, it's outweighed by the smell and smoke that they spew. It's extremely obvious when you are waiting at the bus stop, because you have to inhale this toxic air many-a-time before your bus comes. I'm also not sure of why they set up the bus stops the way they do. There are probably 10 buses that can come to an average bus stop. Which ones go where you need to go? Well, you have to check the sign...I mean, the route signs. Similar to what'd you see in the US as a No Parking on Sundays sign, Taiwan has one of these route signs for every 1-2 (sometimes 3) bus routes that come to each stop. Therefore, there are 5-10 of these signs, spaced out at about 4 feet in between. (If the stop has a US-style sitting area, then they should have all the bus routes on one glass wall, behind the bench). This means that it takes you awhile to figure out which buses you're looking out for. If you can't memorize all the bus maps, you have to run to each sign as each bus comes. It's a big pain.



• Scooters - same pollution situation as above, but a bigger problem, as these seem to outnumber cars.

I'm just so sure that if the government or a consortium of high-tech companies invested a fraction of their profits into improving Taiwan's environmental conditions, they could do so in a relatively short time. Think of it as pro-bono. Further, I believe that better, environmentally-friendly technologies for buses, scooters, etc. are already in exisitence in the US and Europe, so it could be just a budgetary matter.