This entry documents my final day of riding on a bicycle trip down the Huadong Valley in 2018. I began with a short yet eventful spin around Taitung City, the administrative capital of Taitung, and headed southwest across the alluvial plains before curving back to catch a train bound for Taipei in the afternoon. I already introduced the history, geography, and culture of Taitung City in this post from a previous visit in 2015, so I’ll focus on specific sites I visited on this particular trip.

A bizarre work of public art in the bowels of Taipei Station.

This striking installation is one of the more iconic and well-known works of public art in Taipei. Created by artists Hé Cǎiróu 何采柔 and Guō Wéntài (郭文泰) in 2009, it is entitled The World in Aves’ Eyes (愛維思看世界), Birdperson (鳥人), or Daydreams (夢遊) and can be found somewhere in the labyrinthine passageways beneath Taipei Railway Station (臺北火車站). Apart from the obvious, the immature, androgynous figure holds a pencil in its right hand (never to write a word), water continuously seeps from its neck, and its feet show the signs of a mild case of pigeon toe, a condition that should be familiar to anyone who has seen young Taiwanese posing for photographs. Here is the original creative statement that accompanies the piece:

「愛維思看世界」以稚嫩的身體、怪誕逗趣的鳥頭以及輕輕淺淺的流水，表現出E世代對世界的困惑，身體的稚嫩感彷彿要告訴世界，還不急著要長大，而側著的鳥頭以不成比例的尺寸，誇張的標明著自我的異化感，猶如一位誤闖地球的外星人，在幽浮般的蛋殼中孵化而出。愛維思（Aves）搖搖晃晃的嘗試著適應這難以理解的世界，那漾漾清水則是一般腦傾洩而出的困惑，沒有黑暗、邪惡、憂傷或者種種成人世界裡的光怪色彩，愛維思（Aves）的苦惱是屬於孩童一般的天真困惑，在陽光的照耀下甚至會散射出七彩的光暈、迷霧而迷人。

My ability to translate Chinese remains limited, particularly when it comes to the sort of conceptual language employed above, but I’ll do my best to provide the gist. From what I can tell…

It is hard not to notice the giant freaking eyeball and neon orange head hanging out at the side of the road leading up Hōnglúsāi Mountain 烘爐塞山 at the southern edge of Zhonghe, Taiwan. After taking in the scene I jokingly came up with a new slogan for the tourist bureau; “Taiwan: don’t ask why!” But of course that’s not really my style—I always like getting to the bottom of the seemingly inexplicable things I encounter in my travels here.

Taiwan loves Totoro, the iconic star of Miyazaki’s animated classic My Neighbor Totoro. Known locally to Chinese speakers as Duōduōlóng 多多龍 (or 豆豆龍) and—my favourite—Lóngmāo 龍貓 (literally “dragon cat”), Totoro recently appeared on the streets of Taichung alongside Chibi and Chu Totoro, numerous makkuro kurosuke (soot sprites) and No-Face (who appeared in Spirited Away). These life-sized, fan-made sculptures have drawn so much interest that the site even appears on Google Maps as Dàlǐ Totoro Bus Stop 大里龍貓公車站.