Ingeniousity.net

This one came to me last year after reading an article by a guy who had come to Taiwan to experience a real live super typhoon . He managed to get his story onto a fairly major news channel, but it was a terrible story. At least, if you care about how people perceive Taiwan it was a terrible story.

 

Consider this: Chasing storms in the US we use high-speed internet in the car to look at radar and satellite images from space in order to understand the storm, but here we had nothing.

 

What garbage! If you can't get online in Taiwan then you can't get online anywhere. And what's wrong with walking into 7-11 to look at the track on the display on the cash register?

 

And this: Looking at the map there was nothing that would offer us protection - save for a few coastal fishing communities.

 

How quaint! He didn't notice the nuclear reactor? Or the multi-storey carparks that I've used. I know he wants to make a story out of this, but it isn't good for Taiwan that he did.

 

The first and last comments further cement the image of Taiwan as a third-world country at the mercy of the elements: What struck me immediately was the lack of preparation..... Taiwan dodged a bullet that day - if the typhoon had not made that last minute turn back out to sea and weakened then the island would have taken the full brunt of the storm and the damage would have been terrible.

 

Honestly, this kind of sensationalist reporting doesn't help anyone. And the correct thing to do is to put the record straight.

 

I propose that this guy makes a contingency plan to come to Taiwan the next time there is a super typhoon on the way. He should be assisted in doing his homework by the ex-pat community (eg forumosa.com) so that when he arrives he knows how to get online and where to look for weather information. Maybe hecould even be met at the airport by someone who can show him around and explain what's going on?

 

Maybe he could report about how people look forward to typhoon days? Comment on the total preparedness of most people? The fact that there is rarely much structural damage and few deaths? And, best of all, maybe he should send live reports using his phone to his website and from there to whatever media channels think it's cool that you can stream live video from the middle of the most destructive weather systems on Earth if you're in Taiwan. 

 

That would be good media, good PR, and a fun technology project. If the foreign community put something like this together it would also earn a few brownie points with the GIO, tourism authorities, etc.