Thinking of myself as somewhat mildly intuitive of being able to distinguish visually between people of different Asian origin, I have since learnt it’s not just about how they look but how they behave.

Using looks to determine where someone comes from in Taiwan is about as relevant as English at night market.

My flight was split into two, intersecting at Kuala Lumpur. Upon embarking the plane at Melbourne International and looking around I was reasonably sure that the plane was mostly full of people who were heading to Taiwan.

Amongst them were a spattering of Indians and some white people who I assumed were rather holidaying in Asia somewhere. The guy who wound up sitting next to me for example was on a holiday with the rest of his family in Malaysia itself.

Arriving at Kuala Lumpur at 6’ish in the morning I soon learnt that visual appearance, unless completely obvious, meant jack. Out of the couple of hundred people on board the Malaysia bound flight just three wound up coming over with me to our connecting terminal.

Kuala Lumpur is also where I experienced my first language barrier. Whilst waiting at the terminal I got bored and struck up a conversation with the security guard.

In Australia we have questionably effective short and scrawny Indian security guards.

In Malaysia they seem to have questionably effective short, petite women guards – complete with religious headgear.

I asked her a few things about the airport and then given that it was still dark, when the sun would rise.

She told me sometime between nine and ten am. Naturally I was suspicious and queried her on it to make sure she knew what I was asking.

“Wow, nine to ten is so late, what do you guys do all morning then? That means that my flight is going to be departing in darkness!”

Having flown into Kuala Lumpur in complete darkness I’d observed several giant patches of black amongst the city lights. Upon departure I’d been looking forward to getting a sense of bearing on the city and what was in those dark patches too.

At around 7:30am, an hour or so after chatting to the guard I saw the first glimpses of the sun rising over the horizon. The guard had delivered her answers with such deadpan sincerity I figured I’d spare her the ordeal of being asked about the sunrise again.

Upon boarding my flight to Taipei it wasn’t long before I realized how woefully wrong I’d been about the demographic make up of my earlier flight.

Taiwanese people you see seem to have no concept of aeroplane safety. I sat in profound amusement as around 70% of the plane ignored the safety demonstration and continued on their regular chit chat in Chinese, loudly.

Unlike the previous flight in which the demo was done electronically on our chair screens, this flight had the attendants performing the demonstration so the total disregard for common courtesy was even more squirmingly uncomfortable.

I know the demonstrations are boring etc but I’ve got it hardwired into me that I can appreciate that if someone is just doing their job then I should at least try to feign some sort of interest.

A big stupid grin spread across my face as I watched one of the attendants try to make one lady return to her seat. She’d gotten up in the middle of the safety demonstration to access her overhead locker.

Ignoring the attendant it was all she could do but to hopelessly ask the lady to return to her seat repeatedly whilst still trying to carry on the demonstration.

Much to the frustration of the flight attendant it wasn’t until the lady had retrieved her bottle of juice till she returned to her seat. I got a sense that this was perhaps somewhat typical behaviour on flights bound for Taipei.

Shortly after takeoff I then witnessed what I can only assume was another Taiwanese cultural phenomenon. Practically ten minutes after stabilizing at cruise altitude, a line began to form outside of the rear toilet about ten people long.

Over the next five hours or so this line remained constant, which was pretty impressive for a plane of only about 100 people or so. Once established, this toilet line remained replenished right up until the point of descent towards Taipei.

I’m not sure if it was some weird good manners thing to use the aeroplane toilet or that small bladders are just a typical characteristic of the people, but it seemed like every person on that plane had to get up and personally approve the aeroplane’s bathroom facilities.

Maybe I was just unlucky and had managed to catch the connecting flight for a annual Taiwanese toilet inspection convention somewhere. I’d have asked but unfortunately ‘toilet inspector’ wasn’t in my phrasebook and nobody around me spoke any English beyond ‘thankyou’ and ‘it’s ok, it’s ok.’

Although I did need to eventually go at one point, having used the bathrooms of several fine Box Hill, Footscray and Melbourne CBD establishments in the past, I instead opted to just sit tight.

A few hours later into the flight and the south western coast of Taipei melted into view over the horizon. As I peered through the clouds straining for a glimpse of my new home I couldn’t help but wonder what else this little island had instore for me…