Visiting the Tiny Island With 24 Million People

I've made it to the one island that is smaller than Switzerland, but it has as many residents as Australia. Can you guess where I am? This is my sixth time visiting Taiwan, and all I can say is that it's a very special place and an island of contrasts. For a nation so small that it takes just two hours to cross entirely by high-speed rail, there are 24 million people living here. Thank you very much. Over the next four days, Deanna and I are going to take you on a wild adventure all around Taiwan to meet the people, try the food, and understand its culture from the indigenous tribes to the bustling cities. As you can see, it gets pretty crowded here. My guess is that you know about Taiwan from its technology and innovation. Per capita, Taiwan has one of the strongest economies in the world, and they are the proud inventors of your cell phone microchip and your USB flash drive. So how did all this happen? How did the small island of Taiwan become so populated and have such a large impact on our global society? Here's a quick history lesson. The first records of human settlement on Taiwan date back 20,000 years ago, and to this day, there are 16 indigenous tribes who live mostly in the south and the east. In the 16th century, Spanish and Dutch colonizers invaded and stayed for the natural resources like gold. Soon after, the Qing dynasty swept in and established ethnic Chinese control over the island. After World War II, the Japanese took control of Taiwan until the little island broke away as a semi-independent de facto state that I do consider a country, and I included it in my quest to visit all 197 countries in the world. They have their own flag, their own passport, their own currency, and their own legal system. In the 1970s, a massive boom of economic growth hit Taiwan, and now the nation dominates the world in textile and tech. Although the majority of people here speak Mandarin or Hokkien, the Taiwanese have really developed their own national identity, and it's really amazing. My guess is that you've only heard about Taipei, which by the way, is one of the coolest cities in the world. But I'm going to save it for the end of this video. There are plenty of other towns and indigenous tribes to explore in Taiwan, and the clock is ticking. Deanna and I got in touch with a local named Charlie, and our adventure begins in the city of Kaohsiung. We made it to Kaohsiung, the city in the south, and there's fireworks in front of me, there's activity everywhere, there's a temple right there. We're going to learn all about this place. Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and is virtually unknown to the outside world. It's my first time down here, and I am just in awe by how massive it is. I mean, the buildings never stop, and it's famous for its temples, which we are about to explore. We stumbled upon this huge ceremony for martial arts mixed with Chinese art in front of the temple here. It's pretty cool. So behind us is a beautiful temple. Loads of temple in Taiwan. You know, they're all for different reasons and... They're Buddhists. They're Buddhists, yes. Ultimately, you know, the Buddha. Buddha. Yeah, Buddha. Entering this temple is special, and it makes me realize why I love Taiwan so much. I am constantly amazed by the decorations and the respect that the people give to their faith. Deanna and I wanted to participate in the traditions, so we followed Charlie's direction. Yeah, so we put it here. This is ours. Oh, you leave it. So you just put it together like this. This is the fire pit just outside of the temple where you put your offerings and pay respects to the gods. Spread it out. Wow, there's a lot going on in this thing. There's a lot of details. What I love about Taiwanese people is that they're very spiritual and they have these certain beliefs. It's really cool. So they do everything for a reason and they pray a certain way. It's very special. We made our way onwards to another temple which might be my favorite in all of East Asia. So I'm with my friend Phoebe here and she's going to explain what we're looking at behind us. What is that? Okay, this is pagoda. It's one of the most religious landmarks in Kaohsiung. So do people come here to pray? Yeah, they come here to pray and you can see there's tiger. There's like a dragon. You have to enter from the dragon and come out from the tiger. If you do the other way, it's bad luck. Okay, so let's have good luck. We are entering the dragon's mouth. Let's go. And these are all the stories from the old time. And then some is talking about like afterlife. You're going to hell. What's going to happen there? Now we are going through the tiger. Phoebe's going to lead the way. This side, they're more like a god, a different god because Taiwan's religion is like Taoism. So there are many, many gods you can pray to. It's not Buddhism? No, it's Taoism. It's a combination of Buddhism and a bit localized. So it becomes like Tao. So you burn the paper money but Buddhism, they don't burn paper money. Do you know that? No. I always thought Buddhism was the main religion here. So this is not a Buddhist temple. It's a Tao temple. The bad luck is gone. Taiwan's temple is certainly impressed but you will be even more excited when you hear about the amazing food. I'm not sure how else to put this but Taiwan is a top five best food destination in the world. We are going straight for my favorite dish, soup dumplings. Yilong Two. I give up. Mandarin is hard. These four ladies behind me are working so hard. They're not even speaking to each other and it looks so, so delicious. Look at this. She's making each xiaolongbao by hand. She's just hand rolling them out in the dough and then they're gonna cook it and put soup inside of it and meat. Oh, with the ginger. Look at that steam coming off of these dumplings. You gotta get it, get it all in there. Bite a little bit and drink it. He's right. Yo, the dumplings feel so homemade and amazing. On a chilly day, nothing is better than some warm soup dumplings. Also, I must add that an entire box here is less than three dollars. Last one. Belly's full, it's time to head to the countryside to discover some of Taiwan's unique indigenous communities. We are hopping in a van and driving two hours eastbound. And the journey to the tribe begins. Just pulled over on the side of the road and holy crap. And look at these views, love. Holy schnitzel. Holy schnitzel, she says. What I love about Taiwan is everything's nice. Like we stopped in this little village, god knows where, and there's like all these cool little fancy shops. On the side of all the roads here, they have these patterns, these tribal marks, it's really awesome. They're all over here. Just when I was starting to get antsy, we arrived in a small village to meet the Rukai tribe. Out of all my trips to Taiwan, I've never spent time in the countryside, and this is going to be really exciting. We are going trekking through the village. Yeah. We're going to see some beautiful nature and maybe some wildlife. Look, he's got his knife ready. This is the best thing. Just in case. How many people live up here? About 10. 10? Yeah. 10 people? Yeah. There's more than 10 houses. Because years ago, about 2009, there was a huge typhoon that destroyed this area. We proceeded to head into the jungle to learn some survival techniques of this tribe. And watch out your head. Behind the mountain is our hunting area. When I finish my hunting, I will... To let people know I'm back. Really? Yeah. Can you see that? That is a massive freaking spider. It's like three inches long. We use this to take the water. And now we have a PVC, a pipe, so we don't use this now. But before, people in the past, we used this. It's pretty cool to learn about the lifestyle of the Rukai tribe. And even though Taiwan is so modernized and advanced, they are still holding on to their roots and their way of life. Isn't it really boring here because there's no people? No, no, no. There's no people here. Because every day, you have a lot of job to work. Like the road, the shell road. If I fail, it's broken. I have to... Yeah. It's my everyday business. So you like being here with no people? I have lived in Taipei for a year. So there's still so many people. I don't like it. Part of Taipei is don't think I'm indigenous people. You think I come from Indonesia, the Philippines, or Thailand. But oh, you speak Chinese very well. Of course, I'm Taiwanese. It's not ironic that some people might think he's Southeast Asian because the indigenous Taiwanese are scientifically proven to be one of the original settlers of the Philippines from over 5,000 years ago. In fact, the two territories were so connected through trade routes, beautiful nature, and indigenous culture that it was hard to tell the difference. It's really a crazy connection that I wasn't expecting to learn about. And it's special to share this moment with Deanna. We also have this in the Philippines, but they have a different design. And it's also in the northern part. In Baguio. In Baguio, which is closer here. But the indigenous of Taiwan is quickly fading away as we are noticing in this village. They just invited us for a local meal here. We gotta wash our hands first. So it's a holy place in this area. So we need to be calm, be quiet, and take off your shoes. Everything in here is so traditional and peaceful and beautiful. The stones on the walls, they're all like perfectly placed. Look at this. It's like photo. The first generation built this house. His name is Zhigao. That's second generation. His name is Wulugu. And the third generation, his name is Langaru. The fourth generation is already ruled by Japanese. My grandmother. That's the fifth generation. And sixth is my mom and dad. And I'm seven. This is number seven right here. Yes. He's alive. Eighth is in the kitchen. Yes, my daughter is cooking. It's eighth generation. There's a lot of guns on the wall here. What's going on with the gun? We hunt using this weapon. Oh, that's a knife. We don't use gun. We don't use gun to hunt. On foot? You just run on the foot? No, no. You look. This is a tiny one. We step into the heart. Of the pig. We don't use this. His daughter and wife have been cooking us local food this entire time. And it's a pleasure to share a table with them inside of their ancestral house. They will pray for us using their own language. Please, please. So, can you tell me a little bit about the culture? Like, what makes it unique here? When Japanese ask every indigenous people to move out from their own tribes, from their own home. But this tribe decided to stay here. They didn't give up their tribes. So they stay here. That's why the leaders say here is the oldest tribe in this area. What is in the bottom of that? Smells like vinegar. Sour. How? Good. Safe trip. Thank you. What do you think about the experience? It just makes me realize that they're extinct already. You know, the generations doesn't want to embrace the culture. Yeah. And that's a bad thing, right? It's a good and bad thing. I cannot say it's a bad thing. But there's a good thing in there. When people think of Taiwan, they think about Taipei. But man, this is just such a great escape. And it's such a beautiful, peaceful, fresh life out here. And this video is not over yet. We actually just got invited to visit another tribe that is two hours away. And they said we can crash there and hang out with them. I don't know what to expect. We're gonna head there right now. And the journey continues. Are you awake? We're here? We just arrived somewhere in complete darkness in a village. And there's a fire burning behind me. And there's people around. And I don't know what's going on. Your guess is as good as mine. It's like a boundary. You use the fire to like wash our body. Dirty things like bad spirits, any bad thoughts. We need to do the fire thing again. Because we have to go grab all of our bags. Because we're sleeping here. And we gotta get the demons away from all of our belongings. So going back to the car. Okay. We're carrying all of our bags down like a million stairs right now. Wow. Whoa. This is cool. Oh my god. It's cool right? We made it to our humble abode. I think we're all crashing in the same room. Nice little bed option here. It's a little mat. Wooden ceiling. As we started to get ready for bed, I walked outside our room to the sound of a flute. Little did I know that she was playing from her nose. The nose flute is only for the men. So why is she doing it? Because there is no man who knows to use this instrument. So the woman needs to do it to let the legacy live on. All right we are getting ready for bed. Gonna brush our teeth and hit the hay. We're pretty exhausted. It's been a great day. I like brushing outside. Just as we were about to fall asleep, our guide told us about a very strange sleeping superstition. Your feet go to the wall. Why? When your head goes to the wall, that kind of dead man use. Dead man? Yeah, only the dead man use that style too. Oh. On the corpse. When you lay down the bed, your head must be outside the bed. So the whole body should be inside? Yeah. Good night, bro. Take it easy. Night. It's about 5 30 a.m and I just rolled out of bed to a crazy weather. Look at this. Is it good? I didn't sleep sh**. Everybody was doing like riding their motorcycle around. Is it like smog? Yeah, it is smog. This is the first time I've seen this in the daylight because we arrived at night. These two lovely people are cooking us some traditional breakfast. This is hot water. I never had just hot water without tea. Is that a Chinese thing? It's just hot water. There's a little chili on here so hot water is good. Breakfast is served. We have sausages, barbecue pork with vegetables, guava and bean soup. Deanna's awake. What do you think? Beautiful? I thought it was you. It was cute. You know his own was this. There was also one. It was so cute. It tastes like sweet pork hot dog. Interesting. Can you teach me a word in your language? Mali mali. So actually the meaning is how are you but the real meaning in the language means are you breathing? So what if you say no then you're dead? Can you tell me about life out here? It seems to be really peaceful. Just like you said he said it's very peaceful. Whenever she comes back up here in the mountains she feels very relaxed. It's like all the stress in the city is all gone. Beautiful fire ground. We're heading down to the main stone house here. All the smoke leaves out of this hole in the roof. It's so cool. Okay just basically the smoke is to make the all this place the wood to be dried. So not like get too much moisture and one of the key factors about having these slabs is that when you put the smoke the smoke goes out from all direction through the hole through the slabs and you still feel warm inside but at the same time you don't feel stuffy. The beautiful countryside of Taiwan has been an absolute pleasure to experience for the very first time. It is so chill out here and the people are so welcoming and kind which further solidifies my theory that the Taiwanese are some of the nicest in the world. Everyone wants to welcome us in make sure we are not hungry and honestly do anything they can to make our stay a pleasant one. The hospitality combined with the fact that Taiwan is the safest place in the world are a few reasons why this nation is one of the best. We are on our way to Taipei which is going to be a world of difference from the last 24 hours spent with the tribes. If you ask me it's really incredible how you can have so many different feels and experiences on the same small island. Charlie what do you think about this train station? It's like I'm right here right now the 200 miles per hour it's like so fast and so clean. Are you excited for Taipei? I'm so excited man right now look look look. For the record he's making fun of me the way I vlog. Look no hey hey you know my my homie this bro I'm excited to be with you man. Come on. This place is awesome just like it's perfectly clean I could eat off of the floor here. It's crowded with people but you still have space it's open these are like massive windows. This is Taiwan baby let's go to Taipei getting on the train. No mode of transportation is more impressive to me than bullet trains and they are so much fun to ride. This is so awesome it's literally like what you see in Japan it looks like a bullet. I mean we are literally moving one third the speed of an airplane. Dude we are flying and it does feel like you are floating over the countryside. After a quick one and a half hour ride we made it to Taipei and let me tell you this place is a world of difference than the countryside that we slept in last night. There's two things you need to know about Taipei. The first thing is that it's the cheapest big city in all of East Asia. You can get any good meal for under five bucks and the second thing is that it has one of the quirkiest cultures in the world. Let me show you what I mean by quirky. Penis cakes. Smart street signs. Find a location where you want to go and it's gonna speed around. That is so cool. The sprinting crosswalker guy. He walks slowly and then he's gonna walk faster. The toilet cafe. Poop waffles. Poop ice cream. Funky hairstyles. Knife massages. How good are you at chopping up vegetables? Funny dog strollers. He's a fluffy boy. Wacky vending machines. You can literally win garlic. But of course there are plenty of incredible things to do and see in Taipei. Walking around Freedom Square in Taipei and it's pretty iconic. Beautiful outside. Oh man I love this place. It's a really beautiful part of the city just to kind of come hang out and just sit here and enjoy. And you can see in the distance just peeking through the trees is the Taipei 101 tower. We're about to witness the changing of the guards here in front of the main statue. We met up with a friend of a friend named Bella who is a native of Taipei and is going to take us to all the fun spots around town. So Ximending is an area for like all the students, kids, young kids, cool kids hanging around. Sometimes they have a street performance and there's lots of shops and food. Behind me you can see a rainbow road and that is because Taiwan was the first nation in all of Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. Pretty cool. And now we are running around to go to the night market and to get some beer at 7-Eleven. Because Bella has told me so. If you've never been to 7-Eleven in Taiwan or Japan or Thailand before then you are in for a real treat. It's like a grocery store meets convenience store meets hangout spot meets home goods store. In other words you can literally do everything here. Behind me is 7-Eleven which is found everywhere in Taipei but this one specifically serves draft beer. It's like a bar. Holy crap there's a full-on travel agency inside of 7-Eleven. You can pay for your credit cards, electricity bill and whatnot. I'm about to get a beer instead of 7-Eleven. A draft beer. What do you guys think about draft beer at 7-Eleven? This is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Cheers. Really really amazing. Let me take a shot. Bro are you a vlogger? No I'm your servant. It's nighttime in Taipei and my favorite thing about the city are the night markets. We are heading to my favorite one which dates back to 1899. We are on our way to Shilin Night Market. We've made it. This is the best night market in the whole world. It's an international night market. You don't have a barrier here speaking English. You can find food, you can find games, you can find entertainment, fashion, cheap things. You can find culture, the temple, you can find crowds. That's the most important. Behind me is the famous hot star fried chicken. Literally it's the best thing in the world. I've stood exactly on this corner like five times but not in the last five years and I'm so happy to be here. How do they make it so good? There's definitely sugar in there. It's bigger than your face. If you just dip into the side streets here you find temples and lanterns and it's like super traditional. As you can see it gets pretty crowded here. There's a lot of people. People queue forever in Taiwan. Uh-huh. When you queue that means it's good. Good. You have to come. I have no patience more than a 10 seconds, right Deanna? If it's more than 10 seconds in line I'm not into it. It's cool that you have like old school retro apartment buildings like right over this market. I mean if you live there you must be going nuts with the sound every day. The last time I was at this night market about four years ago I remember all the bizarre street foods that I tried like chicken feet, duck head, and the century egg. It is a black egg with a green yolk. But if there's one bizarre dish that this place is known for it is stinky tofu. The legendary Andrew Zimmern who is the host of Bizarre Foods said that this was the only dish in the entire world that he could not stomach. I can't do it. Phoebe and I are on a mission to try some right now. You can already smell it. You smell it? I know. When you're like 50 feet away you can smell the stinky. It's like durian. Like you know when you're walking near durian. Oh yeah. You smell it? Did you just barf? You like the smell. Don't act. Pretend. You like the smell? I don't like it. I don't like it but I like to eat it though. The tofu is soaked in a broth of fermented milk and vegetables and it takes months and months to prepare. The overwhelming smell is often compared to rotting garbage or wet dirty socks. Oh my god. This is proper, proper stinky tofu. Here we go. It basically tastes how it smells. Yes, blood time. What animal blood is this? Duck blood. Look at that steam coming off of it. A fine piece of congealed duck blood. Better than the stinky tofu. It actually doesn't really have a taste. She's a pro. She's eating like a pro. Yeah, they're the pro. The time to go on a date after eating this. I'm gonna do the two together. So I'll do it one time. No, it's not that bad. It's good. I like it. I like the blood but not the tofu. It really smells bad. Why is it stinky to you? Because it's fermented. For like days, weeks? Probably months. I don't know. What does that mean? It means 44 rock lion like that. All I hear is si qi si qi si qi si. That's actually good. Why all of a sudden? You just have to turn it to me, man. Because you're funny. What the hell? You should be a stand-up comedian. I actually did a stand-up comedian before. You did? Yeah, I went to Atlanta. He performed in the US. Yeah. It says longest fries in the world on the quote. Wow! That's one fry? Yeah. That's one fry. That's your dream. I cannot leave the Shilin night market without trying one more dish. The Taiwanese hot dog. It's a small pork sausage placed in a bed of sticky rice and then grilled to perfection. Don't open it. You twist the bottom. You would just squeeze up. It's only the sausage that goes. No, you have to do this. You practice that a lot? Oh, no, you don't have to twist it. Hey guys, look. I'm right now with this sausage. You're making fun of me. Oh, we have to cheers with this? Oh my god. You guys all got different flavors? This one's different though. The rest is the same. Black pepper Taiwanese sausage. Really good. It's kind of sweet. They put a lot of black pepper on it. That's really tasty. No, that's the flavor that we chose. Sticky rice is the bun and the sausage is pork. Delicious. There's a lot to say when we talk about Taiwan. But after partaking in the traditions of the indigenous tribes, followed by street tours of its most bustling cities, my takeaway is that I am amazed. How is it possible to have such a contrast between urban and rural life on such a small island? Remember, 24 million people are living here and that's mostly in the settlements on the west coast. Over the last four days, I learned that the cities of Taipei and Kaohsiung are innovative, electric, and they take efficiency to the next level. As for the rural areas and small villages, listen, I've shared many meals with tribes in a variety of countries, but here in Taiwan, I'm very impressed by the rukai and the Paiwan's attachment to their identity in the face of so much change. These tribes are remarkable to still exist into the 21st century and I'm so grateful to share their stories with you in this video. Whether you're a city lover or a friend of nature, the culture of Taiwan is absolutely thriving and I hope that now you can see why it's one of my favorite nations in the world. On that note, I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments about Taiwan down below and if you have any specific questions about visiting, I will hop in and respond. Thanks again for watching and I'll see you guys in the next video.