When you go to the Lungshan Temple in Taipei, besides taking in the beauty of the traditional Chinese architecture, what else can you see? When you hit the highway, what are the so called "Ten Wonders of the Freeway"? For these Taiwanese scenes, a guide could help you out. . . .
The work of local guides is to introduce Taiwan. For foreign travelers here for the first time, they represent "Taiwan people." This trip might also very well account for visitors' entire idea or impression of Taiwan.
In the space of a short trip, how can they get past the superficialities and allow foreign visitors to really understand Taiwan? And how can they help local citizens renew their acquaintance with this island that is so familiar yet which they might not fully understand? Or even more, how do the tour guides adjust their moods to tour Taiwan?
Senior guide Giovanni Kuo has been chaperoning foreign visitors for nearly 10 years, through the time he bought his first introduction to Taiwan history on Chungking South Road to the present, serving as the escort from the Department of Civil Affairs of the Taipei Municipal Government for tours of historic sites in the city. On the other hand, 22-year-old Cheng Shu, a third-year student at the World College of Journalism, has in his three years of work-study taken local tour groups to every major and minor sight in Taiwan. How does this pair of tour guides--one young, one not-so-young-- introduce Taiwan, and what is the Taiwan that they see?