Kenting is a small beach resort town on the southernmost tip of Taiwan. It is on the western side of the island and is blessed with beautiful, picturesque beaches and hills abundant in greenery. There is a sense here that Taiwan, with it's drab, polluted, industrial grayness, is another country. Little wonder then that Taiwanese from all over the island will travel for upwards of nine hours to get here ... for a single night's stay.

Kenting's inhabitants seemingly have the confidence of natives in a country in which everyone else is a tourist. They regard all the outsiders with a degree of mild amusement, mixed with a sense of resignation that they have to put up with these intruders in order to maintain their town and the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.

Their apparent ease of life, however, is belied by their dark brown suntanned skins, a physical attribute not highly sought after among Chinese. They spend endless hours in the unrelenting tropical summer sun catering to the needs of flocks of equally weary fun seekers. The menu of activities includes swimming, surfing, jet skiing, sailing, snorkeling, scuba diving, horse riding, cycling, go carting, and of course, shopping and eating. At times Kenting feels like one huge stomach, heaving and gulping down tons of food, punctuated with burps of activity.

At least once every ten minutes on Fridays and Saturdays a bus arrives from Kaohsiung with more tourists, who tumble out and immediately rush to the nearest shade where they will sit for most of the day complaining about the heat. It's at night that the town's streets seem to be edging further down the coast as the tourists move in a continuous flow up and down the single main street of the town, stopping at food, gaming, and curio stalls, popping in and out of shops and restaurants, or simply browsing the variety of offerings. One lane on each side of the road is entirely taken over by pedestrians overtaking the cars that crawl along in the remaining lane allowed them.

In Kenting every visitor is equal. There are no bosses, workers, rich or poor. And the huge number of foreigners even made me feel normal.

30 July 2002

Dion Marc Delport

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