Typhoon season in Taiwan this year is starting to get tedious. For starters, each of the three that we have had this year were glancing blows to the northern part of the island, where Taipei is located. During the second typhoon, the one that really walloped Hualien really hard, (on the central coast) we managed to be off the island so only had to contend with the rain in Hong Kong and in Shanghai.

There were no mass evacuations in Taiwan, for any of the typhoons. People are instead instructed to stay home. Most of the island that is habitable is near sea-level, but it is after all an island so where would people go. During the last typhoon, by contrast, mainland China evacuated 900,000 people away from coastal areas. During this typhoon about 2 million people are projected to be evacuated in mainland China. Here, we stay home. And surprisingly, precious few people are hurt or killed. During the current storm, two construction workers were killed. In the last typhoon, two or three were killed, in traffic accidents and a mud slide.

I cannot really explain the safety of the Taiwanese people during these storms except to say that I have observed no beach-front living. People live near the coast. We really only live about 20 miles inland, but the ocean front is largely unoccupied. It really isn't habitable anyway, although in the US, we would have probably plunked down several hundred condominium communities in these uninhabitable areas, and then we are conceited enough to believe that we can overcome the forces of nature. Also, when instructed, most Taiwanese really did stay home.

I think that these are the two lessons that the US needs to learn about hurricane safety. There is a reason why no one lived on the waterfronts until recently. It isn't a safe place to be. Also, people in hurricane zones need to heed safety instructions the way people in the path of tornadoes follow instructions and warnings.

So in the meantime, I will stay home, indoors and bored with all the rain. I am pretty sure that being bored with a typhoon is the best possible situation to be in.