I'm on the plane down from Vancouver to San Francisco this morning. My flight from Taipei hit Vancouver around 8PM last night, so I stayed at the Fairmont Hotel at the airport. It was definitely a special treat -- the Fairmont's pretty pricey -- but this trip has been really low-budget and I needed a lot of rest and recharge. I had a good room with a view of the airport and the city beyond.
My flight over was uneventful -- sleep, eat, Spiderman 3 -- which was good since I'd had such a big last day in Taipei. In the morning, I'd gone out to see Taipei 101, which claims to be the tallest building in the world by some standards. I think there are lots of ways to slice the "tallest building" category -- the CN Tower has a strong claim, but that's only counting the huge antenna on top. And there's an unfinished tower in Dubai that's already close to, or taller than, Taipei 101.
Regardless, Taipei 101 is a real interesting site. The elevators are the fastest in the world -- 38 seconds to go from floor 5 to floor 87. The windowed observation deck is interesting, and there's an outdoor deck two flights above it. The outdoor deck is racked by Taipei's scorching heat -- when I was there, it was 31C, up above the city's protective smog belt. The sun and empty sky make for an otherworldly experience.
After 101, I took Taipei's local subway, the MRT, to the National Palace Museum. I've found the MRT easy to get around on -- most of the information was available in English as well as Chinese -- but I got a little lost looking for the museum. I was disappointed that the information booth in the Taiwan Main Station had so little tourism information, and all of it in Chinese. (Yeah, I forgot to print out the Wikitravel Taipei guide before leaving the hotel. My bad.) But I managed to wend my way out to Shilin Station and took a cab to the museum.
It was worth the search. When the Chinese Nationalists left the mainland for Taiwan, they took with them many of the treasures of the Imperial Palace (much to the chagrin of the victorious Communists). These form the core of the museum's collection, and they're really quite amazing -- articles in bronze, ivory and gold from the Neolithic era to the modern day. While Western culture has gone through so many distinct and discontinuous phases -- Egypt and Mesopotamia, Greco-Roman, Medieval and Modern -- China's has varied much more smoothly and continuously. It's a little disconcerting to see artistic themes from 4000BC that are echoed in items for sale in the stores today.
I had to get back to the Wikimania site -- by then almost empty -- to do a GChat conference with Niko. There were a passel of Wikimaniacs still around after the conference looking around Taiwan like I was, and after consulting Wikitravel we decided to go to Taipei's most famous restaurant, Din Something Something. It's got a short menu of delicious steamed dumplings -- pork, veggie, crab and shrimp. The shop's claim to fame is the elastic skin that keeps a pocket of hot broth inside the dumplings. Hey: if you do something well, why vary the menu?
It was the best meal I've had in a long time. The dumplings themselves were incredibly good -- moist and rich with complex flavors. But the company was even better -- about 14 Wikimedians from all continents and walks of life, some of the most fascinating and important people on the planet. We were a big enough group to be stowed in our own party room, and with basket after basket of steamed dumplings piled onto the table, washed down with shared bottles of the ubiquitous Taiwan Beer, we had a crazy chaotic and fun time.
I'm so glad I took an extra day after the conference to see a bit of the city. I think there's a lot more that I missed, but I'm glad that I got a taste.
tags: taiwan taipei travel wikimania2007 taipei101 nationalpalacemuseum wiki
Wikimania 2008
Inevitably the conversation at Din Something Something turned to Wikimania 2008 and possible venues for it. Right now, the only serious bid is from Alexandria, Egypt, home of the Biblioteca Alexandrina. This is a modern reconstruction of the famous Library of Alexandria, centre of learning for the ancient world and repository of all of its knowledge. The bid is to use the sleek, glamourous conference centre attached to the Biblioteca -- offered to us free of charge.
You couldn't put together a more powerful metaphor -- Wikimedia being itself a project to capture the world's knowledge and share it with all humanity. Having our event on the African continent would also send a great message about the Foundation's commitment to making free information accessible to the developing world. North Africa is definitely the most accessible part of the continent for Europeans and North Americans -- many of whom balked at the price and distance of travel to Taipei.
The big problem with planning Wikimanias (Wikimaniae?) in the past has been the short time-frame. Typically bids for the event don't start until after the previous one, and the bidding process takes several months. By the time a venue is selected, there may be only 6-8 months of planning time available. For an international conference of several hundred people, this is a stressful, breakneck schedule.
The idea was floated to do a little stutter-step and put Wikimania on a more long-term planning schedule. The event committee would short-circuit the bidding process this year, and declare Alexandria the site for Wikimania 2008 unless other groups insisted on bids for other cities. Then, bidding for Wikimania 2009 would start in September or October, with a decision made by the end of 2007.
This would give 20 months for the Wikimania 2009 organizing team to prepare. Most importantly, they'd be able to shadow the 2008 team, learn how the job is done, attend the 2008 conference, and present about their venue for the next year.
I think this is a really good idea. The Biblioteca conference centre staff will be able to provide us some professional services, making the shorter schedule (still about 11 months) a lot easier. There are some concerns about fairness of the process, or appearance of same, but my guess is that if the 2009 bid process starts soon after, people won't have a big beef.
There are two major concerns with going to Alexandria, though. First is Egypt's worrying problem with human rights -- specifically gay rights. Homosexual Egyptian men are subject to arrest, and the laws are occasionally enforced. One foreigner was arrested in 2002. That's enough to put Egypt on a no-visit list with some gay-rights groups.
Depressing as it is, I think it might be too much to hope for a venue in a country with an absolutely spotless human rights record. Maybe parts of Scandinavia...? There's a cruel calculus needed to evaluate which national human rights abuses can be reluctantly overlooked, and which are unacceptable. It's also clear that my personal judgment might be clouded, since this particular human rights issue is not one I would be directly targeted by. My hope is that an official statement by the Foundation would make it clear to the Egyptian government that this kind of policy is not conducive to attracting overseas business and tourism.
The second concern is that Egypt and the Arab world in general have only embryonic local Wikimedian communities. While there are many people who contribute to Arabic Wikipedia, there is not a Wikimedia chapter in Egypt, nor are there regular meetups in the country or region. This might be a chicken-and-egg problem: choosing Alexandria would probably kick-start local groups. I hope that ar: Wikimedians pick up the mantle of leadership that the world Wikimedia community is offering them.