Day 33 (Aug 10): A Brief Note on Healthcare

Since I was still sick and resting in bed, I present you instead with a brief note on healthcare.

First, on a somewhat related topic (but not really related, this is more or less an awesome video) I want to direct you to this video, published by the BBC, and titled, The Joy of Stats. As someone who loves studying human geography and demography, and have taken a geomatics course, this video is simply wonderful in how it uses statistics to show human progress in the last 200 years.

In general, Canadians are proud of their healthcare - publicly funded, and often quoted as being the envy of the world. Of several values, our medicare seems to unite Canadians as a concept that is a part of our nation, often with little debate along the mainstream media and population, though not without exception. Perhaps, our medicare is something that differentiates us from Americans, which is essentially what being Canadian is all about. We can feel this love of healthcare in the CBC special, The Greatest Canadian, where Tommy Douglas, father of medicare, was voted as the greatest, beating our founding father John A. Macdonald (6), national hero Terry Fox (2), famous Prime Minister Trudeau (3), and Wayne Gretzky, "The Great One" (10). 

I don't want to get into the healthcare debate at the moment, because a) I said I would keep this brief, and b) I still want to understand the issues significantly more before I start publishing opinions, but I have this to say.

Canada's healthcare may have been the envy of the world at some point, but currently it is riddled with inefficiencies that are being compounded as the baby boomers age. We need to get out of the idea that our system is superior, or that our system is great because it is Canadian, because countries worldwide have gone through healthcare reform and have updated their medicare systems for current world. Many Canadians, myself, seem to immediately dislike the idea of privatization - regardless of whether the system is two tiered, partially, or fully private. 

Taiwan's healthcare system has a mix of public and private providers. I don't understand the system in detail, but the existence of a competitive market for health has helped shape Taiwan's healthcare into a system that rivals those in developed countries, including Canada. And in terms of wait times and options, it's simply great, addressing issues that plague our Canadian systems. Of course, Taiwan's healthcare systems have problems of its own - I'm not saying that privatization is right, or even good, but we shouldn't reject an idea simply because it's not Canadian. Just as Tommy Douglas introduced it to us, we can make any healthcare ideologies Canadian - just as long as we insist it's the world's bestest. 

Day 32 (Aug 9): Sick once again.

I am sick for the second time during my trip in Taiwan, and I spent most of the day in bed, with an exception of a quick trip to a doctor to get some pills to help put my fever to rest. Needless to say, today wasn't too eventful, but just for the sake of incorporating a graph, here's one!:

A Health vs. Time graph for my 10 nights in Tainan. The graph is an overlay on my summary of events on the Taiwan page,with the amount of text per row being approximate to how eventful my day was. An outline of the text in each row is a good approximation of how sick I was.

That's it for today!

Day 31 (Aug 8): Father's Day

In Chinese cultures, the number 8 is lucky, as its pronunciation in Cantonese is similar to the pronunciation of wealth and prosperity. By association, August 8 tends to be a lucky day. There's even a dim sum / sushi buffet in Hamilton called August 8. In Taiwan, August 8 is also known as Father's Day, because the number 8, is also pronounced like the word for dad. To celebrate, I joined my second aunt's family, including cousin Mark, his wife Sophia, and his grandfather, for a lunch at a vegetarian buffet.

Vegetarian food is very popular in Taiwan, often from religion reasons but also due to health purposes, and this restaurant proved it. The incredibly large room was packed, and there was plenty of food to choose from. Besides the regular trays of food, a salad and dessert bar, and lots of various soup items, you could also create your own hotpot and choose a plate of vegetables that they could fry for you. 

What I appreciated most was the fruit juices they made right in front of you, with fresh watermelon, guava, and lemonade drinks. I also thoroughly enjoyed the warm almond tea, which, along with a high consumption of Vitamin C and other nutrients at the vegetarian buffet, was probably a good idea as I coped with a worsening sore throat and a growing cough, but unfortunately, not enough. The sudden onset of sickness was a bit too much, and by mid-afternoon, I was in bed at my second aunt's home with a fever, perhaps a relapse from the Loveboat sickness, and would stay at their house until the night before leaving Tainan.

Day 30 (Aug 7): Tainan Culture

After a long night's rest, I was up for brunch... aka lunch with some breakfast food, because I slept through breakfast. Tainan is a very cultural city, Taiwan's formal capital, with countless parks and statues, and is also famous for its markets and vendors. Earlier, my grandma bought some pork buns, and for lunch, we went to get Peking duck - right down the street, just steps from home. 

Peking Duck Takeout!

Left: The vendor. You can see that a whole duck is 400 NT, or about $13.60 Canadian.
Right: Ducks... but if you look behind them, there's a statue in the park just across the street.

 Below's a close up.

Later in the day, I went to get a much needed haircut at a nearby barbershop recommended by my uncle (mom's eldest brother to be precise - Mandarin and Taiwanese is so much more precise with relative labels). The owner was very nice and friendly - you don't have Taiwanese speaking foreign university students coming for a haircut too often. =) Cost for cut and wash? Well under $5 Canadian.

I took a detour on the way back to my grandma's house, gazing at the house numbers at attempts to fully understand the numbering system in Taiwan (of alleys, lanes, and sections, of roads) and stopping by at the 7-11, to buy one of my favourite drinks in Taiwan - HeySong Sarsparilla - HeySong being one of Taiwan's most famous drink makers, while Sarsparilla refers to drinks made from the Sarsparilla plant. It's a bit like root beer; some say it's like root beer and Dr. Pepper, and others say it has a small aftertaste of minty toothpaste. It's a bit of an acquired taste I suppose, but I like it =). It's also supposedly good for a sore throat. Most of all, it's great as a refresher on a hot day in southern Taiwan. If you want to try some Hey Song Sarsparilla, you can usually find some at T&T Supermarkets in Canada.

For dinner, my third eldest aunt and uncle brought me to a dim sum place nearby their home. Coming from Toronto, one of the world's most multicultural cities, I'd say we have some pretty awesome dim sum places that rival other places worldwide - though I'll save the comparison with Hong Kong itself after I visit. As for Taiwan, the food was good, as always, but the highlight was the addition of fresh seafood items on the menu. And I, for one, love fish.

Back at my grandma's home, on the third floor, I was back on my computer. Here, I take the time to add a very important thank you to my second uncle, who lent me one of those internet sticks early upon my arrival in Tainan. Needless to say, though my grandma is up to par with her cellphone and satellite TV, she has no need for wireless internet. Opening the doors to the internet allowed for me to continue working on a backlog of posts, and to keep in contact with friends in Canada, loveboaters, and the daily sporcle challenge. And of course, a thank you to my grandma and second aunt for opening the doors to their homes and lives so that I could rest and enjoy Tainan.