I now live in a house with 46 stairs going up 5 floors. My house literally changes in atmospheric pressure from the ground to the fifth floor. One of the wonders of Taiwan is that all houses grow taller rather than wider, as is common in Western countries. This, of course, is due to a lack of space and this space crisis manifests itself in a number of ways.

Taiwanese are thin. Being fat in Taiwan is a national security violation. There just isn't enough space to cope with an over-abundance of overly abundant people. Fat people are therefore discriminated against. They are taunted, giggled at and worst of all, no clothing stores stock their sizes. Hence, over-weight people are rarely seen in public, as they have no clothes to wear and so spend most of their days hiding naked in their houses, the slim houses themselves seemingly a constant reminder of their patriotic duty to lose weight.

A further manifestation of this real estate dilemma is that Taiwanese are small - some would say slightly built. Everything about a Taiwanese person's body is structured as an exercise in space conservation. Have you ever noticed their ... no, I was going to say noses. They have no bridge to their noses between their eyes. This may not seem a particularly significant development until one considers that the extra centimetre of nose space, multiplied by 23 million people, equals 230 kilometres of longitudinal space, which is equal to half the length of Taiwan.

Which point quite naturally brings me back to my house. The ground floor consists of a pretty big living room with a space for a small dining room of sorts, a long, comparatively spacious kitchen, a laundry and a cute, albeit baffling, Japanese tea room. The first floor (15 steps up) is a guest bedroom, which has been elevated in stature to serve as my study, in which I am currently writing this literary masterpiece. The next 8 steps rise to the guest bathroom and the main bedroom (en-suite) with a balcony and another climb of 8 steps takes one to another bedroom. Venturing a further 8 steps leads the intrepid clamberer to a small study room and an outside patio kinda thing on the fourth floor. For those not yet airsick, a climb of 7 steps gets one onto the rooftop for a stunning view of the neighbours' rooftops.

This is my Taiwanese home, guaranteed to be a place of the warmest welcome for anyone considering a visit.

18 April 2002

Dion Marc Delport

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