There are new darlings of recreational travel.

Ten years ago, the main places for people in Taiwan to travel were invariably Yehliu near Keelung, Sun Moon Lake near Taichung, Taroko Gorge in Hualien, and other natural scenic spots. Today everybody is talking about Window on China, the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village, Janfusun Fancyworld, and similar large-scale recreational areas.

In the past when people went travelling, the considerations were the natural scenery and special local products. Today, whether or not the park has a European style flower garden or "dancing waters," or whether there is anything special about the water slide, the Ferris wheel, the spaceship, or other rides have become the criteria for evaluation and selection.

Even the view along the highway is changing as a result.

New recreational landmarks: On the road to Pali near Tamshui, the long and winding line of cars seems like an arrow pointing at the Formosa Waterworld, which is built on 30 hectares of beachfront.

Then there's the Janfusun Fancyworld in Yunlin, which has its "skyscraper plaza" of rides developed on top of a levelled small mountain. There, a 30-story tall Ferris wheel, imported from Japan and costing NT$160 million to build, beckons at motorists on the highway ten kilometers away.

On the Tsaotun to Puli section of the Chungnan Highway linking Taichung and Nantou, there are four amusement parks one after the other. Along the highway in Kuantien rural township in Tainan County there are six amusement parks in less then an eight-kilometer stretch, truly an incredible sight.

From north to south, from city to country, from freeways to dusty back roads, eye-catching billboards and road signs instruct motorists on how to get to this or that "amusement park," "vacation village," or "playworld."

According to Hsu Wen-sheng, director of the Taiwan Tourism Administration of the Taiwan Provincial Government, last year private cars and double-decker buses carried people on at least 25 million visits to amusement parks, accounting for 60% of domestic tourism.

What's the "attraction"?

Utopia: "Weekend late night guys, hurry to the Apple Amusement park," "We welcome all kids out there who are just hanging out..." In the indoor playground at the Aboriginal Culture Village, bright flashing lights, bobbing merry-go-round horses and the youthful sounds of the Little Tigers' music weave a dreamlike atmosphere, making one forget that it is raining sheets outside.

In the Formosa Waterworld by jade seas and clear blue skies, a young girl has just swum across a three-meter deep pool, climbed up a tower several tens of meters high and slid down the enormous water slide. After getting over the exhilaration and wiping the beads of water from her face, she heads off to another slide with a ferociously angled turn. "This is great! It's a terrific test for your body and your heart," she says.

"There's less and less green space and recreational room in cities," says a Taichung taxi driver with feeling. He takes the whole family to an amusement park about once a month on average. He lets the kids go on the rides, while he likes the European style gardens and looking at beautifully colored flowers and trees.

Nan-fang Shuo, the cultural critic, points out that the many kinds of space vehicles, haunted houses, bumper cars, pirate ships, and all kinds of food and drink in amusement parks let everyone get a thrill and have a great time. There is no big or little, and everyone is equal. "All kinds of entertainment consumer goods are brought together here --it's a Utopia of fun!" is his footnote to the amusement park.

A product of time and money: Besides the innate attraction of the amusement park, the main reason why people have happily thrown themselves in and why this type of activity has been able to flourish is that citizens have time and have money.

In the past ten years, the annual average income per person has gone up from US$3,000 to more than US$9,000. Expenditures for leisure have gone up with corresponding rapidity.

According to the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics, in the last ten years the average amount of time a person in Taiwan spends at work has gone from 50 hours to 47 hours a week. Although this is only a reduction of three hours, in recent years the Central Personnel Administration of the Executive Yuan has been permitting flexible vacation time to go with national holidays and implementing multiple-day holidays, so that people have relatively more time to drive somewhere for leisure activity.

On another front, the travel and recreational resources which have been developed in Taiwan in the past have not been able to satisfy popular demands for either quality or quantity. Wen Tsung-yi, a researcher at the Institute of Ethnology at the Academia Sinica, has done a survey of the views of vacationers toward 200 of Taiwan's travel sites. The results showed that 53% of the visitors expressed "extreme dissatisfaction."

"Overcrowding, monotonous scenery, obsolete facilities, no decent control over garbage or vendors, all were major reasons for dissatisfaction," notes Wen.

NT$30 billion in private investment: Demand stimulates supply, and private capital which was upbeat about the market began to flow in. Park after park, each stressing diversity, high levels of investment and high quality service, sprang up: From the Yunhsien Amusement Park in Wulai, the Tatung Water Park in Panchiao, and the Asia Amusement Park around the Tsengwen Reservoir in the early days; to the early 1980's, when Window on China, the Leofoo Village Safari Park, the Aboriginal Culture Village and Encore Gardens finally appeared; to the late 1980's with Formosa Waterworld, the Janfusun Fancyworld, the Sanyihsi Lake Vacation Village, and the Little Ding-Dong Science Park in Hsinchu; all have entered the fray, and it is really heating up.

In ten years there has been at least NT$30 billion in investment poured into this trend," estimates Hsu Wen-sheng.

Investor funds include everything from big corporations to small and medium enterprises to idle capital from society at large. For example, the Formosa Waterworld, which cost NT$3.3 billion, was mainly financed by the Shihlin Paper Group. Janfusun Fancyworld was a joint venture between the Nice Group and A.G.V. Products (a Nice affiliate) and Japan's Izumi Leisureland Corporation. The owners of Little Ding-Dong are a group in construction.

Spend money, get enjoyment: The rise of amusement parks has definitely given people in Taiwan even more choices for getting out of the house, and has also caused business at traditional natural scenic spots to fade these past few years.

For Sun Moon Lake, since the construction of the Aboriginal Culture Village next door five years ago, the number of guests has dropped 40%. The fame of Green Bay on the northeast coast has surpassed that of nearby Yehliu.

"Amusement parks relieve the pressures of too many people on these places." Hsu Wen-sheng of the provincial Tourism Administration sees this "stealing away of business" quite contentedly, because "this allows people who are really interested in enjoying the natural scenery to enjoy some peace and quiet."

Nevertheless, with big investments, operators are naturally looking for big returns. One trip to the park, including the admission and meals, costs several thousand NT dollars for a family. Compared to the scenic areas, which still practice a low admission policy, this is rather expensive fun.

Operators say they can explain this: "In the past we underestimated the leisure consumption ability of Taiwanese," says Yu Kuo-chien, vice general manager of Janfusun. Although Janfusun is located in the western basin, next to the cities and counties with the lowest incomes, there are more than 130,000 visits per month, with each person spending an average of NT$450 (about US$18) per day--which is NT$380 more than was anticipated at first.

After opening in February of this year, the electronic amusements section of the Aboriginal Culture Village has pulled in an average of NT$750 per customer, and has attracted 400,000 people in less than five months. "This has created the second high tide for the Aboriginal Culture Village," says General Manager T.L. Hong.

Aestheticizing entertainment: Hsu Wei-chun, assistant head of operations at the Little Ding-Dong Science Park, which is targeted at primary school students, says that even if the children who come have been sent by their school as part of a field trip, their pockets are still full of change. "If they can't spend it, they complain 'this is no fun,' or 'how boring'!" she describes.

The problem is, though the purses of consumers are bulging, after going to several and comparing, one wonders "why do they all have to have European style gardens, dancing waters, bumper cars, and Ferris wheels?" as one visitor who has been to several in central Taiwan complains.

It even goes so far as to have stage shows in gardens that were supposed to bring one tranquility. And one discovers inappropriate mechanized rides in parks whose original function was purely cultural or educational.

"Whatever kind of customer you have, that's the kind of leisure culture you get," says operator Hong Tien-li, protesting his innocence.

"Although demand for recreation is up, people are still rather busy, so most just take day trips," explains Wen-chin Chuang, president of Encore Recreation, Inc. People hope to satisfy their desire to get some physical activity, see something beautiful, dine, and even shop all in this one day. So amusement parks must become more and more diversified," and the special features of each become more and more obscured.

Another operator, Yu Kuo-chien, points out that multiple day holidays are usually a chance for the nuclear families from the city to go to the countryside to see the grandfolks. Times like this are for the whole family to go out together, with customers ranging from "zero years old to one hundred." Thus the route they have mapped out goes: Enter the park in the morning, first to the stage for a variety show, lunch in the cafeteria, then take the kids off to the rides area for stimulating electronic games, then take the whole family over to open air karaoke in the afternoon for a sing-a-long, and then contentedly head for home at dusk.

Take the money and run: Business is business, and let the buyer beware. There's nothing wrong with that, really. But looking at the mass of people throwing themselves into amusement parks and embracing vacation villages, one cannot help but begin to wonder about the future social costs.

Has the short-term explosion of the parks caused over-development in land-and resource-poor Taiwan?

It is true that the point of amusement parks or vacation areas is to use leisure resources in an even more concentrated and efficient way, and it is necessary to first provide a detailed plan and receive approval from the environmental, tourist, and travel authorities before one can build. But after this market potential was discovered, it attracted many short-term speculators, who have operated illegal amusement parks with the mentality of a roadside vendor who might take off anytime.

"Just get a few friends together and put together a few tens of millions. Then rent three or five hectares of farmland or hillside, spruce it up a little, plant some flowers and trees, raise a few cute animals, install a few rides like bumper cars or a Ferris wheel--then start selling tickets," says Luo Kuang-chih, who came over to the business from a travel agency. Because the investment is low, it is possible "to make back your original costs in one New Year's holiday or long weekend."

According to statistics of the Taiwan Tourism Administration, although only 51 amusement parks in the Taiwan area have received licenses, there are seventy "underground" parks. One operator of tour buses based on his own statistics of the number of buses going out says that: "Altogether, large and small, there are nearly 350." Compared with Taiwan's population of 20 million, this must make for the highest density in the world. Even Japan, where this industry is quite well developed, with its population of more than 100 million, has only 100 or so amusement parks.

Competition no laughing matter: High density and over-concentration also bring negative side-effects like traffic congestion and noise pollution.

In several scenic areas where the parks flock together, like Kuanhsi in Hsinchu or Takang in Taichung, every holiday and Sunday the traffic becomes disastrous. The green mountains that once lined the belt Chungnan highway the Kuantien in Tainan are today pocked with scars of development. Local residents suffer through traffic jams and obnoxious loudspeaker cacophony on their "days of rest."

What makes one even more concerned is what effect some of the parks--which have no unique features, lack any creativity, and are simply copies from foreign amusement parks--will have on kids.

Faced with this problem, the governing organs say that, besides strengthening policing of illegal parks, "the only thing is to rely on the market function to encourage them to raise their quality and standards." Hsu Wen-sheng takes an example: Judging from applications to run amusement parks, the peak was from 1987 up to 1991, but "in the last two years the number has declined greatly, so you can tell that operators know the competition is fierce, and aren't willing to hazard going in."

Since the market is already saturated, why has bidding started on the large scale Yueh-mei recreational area--which must still overcome problems of traffic management and land use--under the Six Year National Development Plan?

A Chinese Disneyworld? "The scale of the amusement parks in the country is rather small. The largest is no more than a few tens of hectares, with an investment of NT$4-5 billion. Moreover, the themes and the technology both rely on foreigners, with no way to create a leisure culture with Chinese characteristics for local vacationers," explains H.S. Ku, assistant director for the Commission of National Corporations of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

In the six-year plan, this plan involving nearly 200 hectares of land and NT$14.5 billion in capital hopes, through coordination with land and traffic conditions, to attract large well-heeled corporations and financial groups to join. They hope in this way to provide better service to people in Taiwan and to stimulate an overall upgrading in quality. "We consider it a 'Chinese Disneyland.' It will be designed by the Council on Cultural Planning and Development, with the theme being the special characteristics of Chinese," she adds.

The appearance of the Yueh-mei plan naturally aroused great interest all around. Bidding will begin at the end of May. Already more than 70 corporations have come forward to buy bidding forms. It is even said that foreign corporations are eyeing Taiwan's amusement park "pie," hoping to get a piece.

In the face of this impressive foe, domestic operators approve of its positive sides. "The two-day weekend is the trend of the future [Taiwanese generally work half days on Saturday now], so people will have more free time and more money. To stay alive, it will be necessary to upgrade quality and attract visitors," says Wen-chin Chuang of Encore. Having seen their guests fall over the years, Encore plans to invest NT$600 million to build a hotel and increase facilities, moving in the direction of the two or three day holiday. Shows are another selling point. To attract repeat customers, some of the larger parks have begun regularly scheduled activities. For example, Encore Gardens has its "Flower and Lights Display" as a theme; each month different flower arrangement designs are displayed. The Aboriginal Culture Village has long frequently changed its aboriginal song and dance performance. Janfusun has foreign acts which rarely come to Taiwan as its attraction. Last year they cooperated with Universal Studios of the U.S.; this year, taking advantage of the fad for Eastern Europe, they are inviting various performing groups from the former Soviet Union.

Not enough skill at playing: Quality can of course be improved through the market. But some people also believe that to let "all of society just soak in amusement park culture" is not necessarily of value to the upgrading of the quality of the leisure activities of people in Taiwan.

Nan Fang Shuo points out that although this type of leisure activity beats watching the TV or playing mahjong at home, amusement parks and recreation areas are false, manufactured worlds. They make pretend suspension bridges and cable ways, they stage the way of life of the aborigines, or they manufacture encounters with ghosts or pirates. Although people can get some short-term enjoyment, it's an obstacle to opportunities to understand one's true self and one's true world.

"We should encourage people to cultivate their leisure skills, as well as to have more diversified development," he adds.

For example, for young people who like danger and physical stimulation, they can find natural, stress-relieving thrills from rock-climbing, scuba diving, surfing, or white water rafting that they could never find in an amusement park. Unfortunately that's not in fashion, and these risky activities cannot be fully developed in Taiwan. "If the government and enterprises worked together and invested a little effort to encourage the formation of such clubs, increasing chances for mass participation, many people wouldn't have to spend their money and social resources to bounce around an amusement park," he suggests.

Create more choices: In order to promote interfamily communication, take the kids out to the mountains in the suburbs, go hiking, and along the way tell them little common knowledge about the flowers, grass, and insects. The effect will be no less than the "science parks" and all their blurbs about educational functions. The Homemakers Union and Foundation has designed and published walking guides and plant handbooks for areas in the suburbs around Taipei and Taichung, like Chihshan Rock or the Takang area, to provide materials for leisure trips. Also, publishers have come out with a series of in-depth travel" guides which introduce history, artifacts and local wildlife. Between sitting home and watching TV and going to the amusement park, there is much room for choice. We don't necessarily need to passively follow the arrows put out by operators to tell us where to go, right?

[Picture Caption]

Disneyland-style theme parks have become the latest rage in leisure activities in Taiwan.

Six or seven parks are crowded in along a scenic strip. How should consumers make a choice?

This amusement park is entertaining visitors on one side, and still building on the other.

Laughter, excitement, thrills, release--amusement parks can really get to the heart of what people need to be happy.

Watch the performance in the morning, play in the water in the afternoon, and stroll through the garden in the evening... amusement parks meet the modern need for efficiency.

It's hard to squeeze some free time out of our mundane lives; is it possible that there's no other place to go except amusement parks?

Six or seven parks are crowded in along a scenic strip. How should consumers make a choice?

This amusement park is entertaining visitors on one side, and still building on the other.

Laughter, excitement, thrills, release--amusement parks can really get to the heart of what people need to be happy.

Watch the performance in the morning, play in the water in the afternoon, and stroll through the garden in the evening... amusement parks meet the modern need for efficiency.

It's hard to squeeze some free time out of our mundane lives; is it possible that there's no other place to go except amusement parks?