Friends and family often ask, 'So how’s life in Taiwan? and I find this to be a question of which the answer is as ambiguous as they come. One wants to say, 'oh it’s great', but then you think of the smell of the sewage and you feel like saying 'it’s crap' and then you remember being hungry at 3am in the morning and feeling totally safe on your scooter, popping over to the 7-Eleven for a curry and rice and you feel like saying 'it’s swell'. So let’s put it on the scales.

Beautiful landscapes, mixed cultures of a rainbow nation like nowhere else in the world and clunk drops the scale to the South African side. Comfortable salaries, low taxes, very low cost of living and the scale starts tipping towards the East. For the wanderer in me, having top locations such as Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and Malaysia just a few hours’ flight away is absolutely marvellous. And holidaying in any of these spots doesn’t mean you have to live on two-minute-noodles for half a year afterwards to get the credit card out of the red. The scales are even now. And here’s the thing. For everything we’re going to add on either side, the scales would somehow end up most irritably even. However like any good gambler, even I who until recently still confused clubs and spades, have an Ace up my sleeve. It’s just one simple little word. Home. Clunk, crash! Laduuuuma!

Like most other foreigners here in Taiwan I teach English. I don’t know exactly how many South Africans are living in Taiwan, but we’re quite a bundle as I once again realised on the South African day on 8 May 2010.

Following the directions to get to the venue of SA Day, we eventually landed up amongst some stalls and market stands bearing only the Taiwan trademark. 'Surely this isn’t it?' said my French husband who absolutely adores South Africa. We continued and at some point we both came to a standstill for the smell that had hit our noses were unmistakably South African! I kid you not when I say that I had butterflies in my stomach. I haven’t been home for two years and here still so far away from home I felt like the mountain had indeed come to Mohammed. We quickened our pace and within five minutes I was staring teary eyed at my husband with a boerewors roll in the hand. From then on I scurried around from one corner to the other smiling at and greeting all the strange, familiar faces.

Vetkoek and fudge, biltong, braai and beer. We had it all. The music was South African and for myself being born in Beaufort West, hearing Beautiful van Beaufort Wes by Theuns Jordaan made me feel like a guest of honour! A live band stood in for when Theuns, Steve, Dozi and the others - who could only make it on CD for this day - needed a break.

Nobody can kuier like the South Africans. There’s no vibe like the one South Africans can create. It was so nice to see people wearing our beautiful flag with pride. Be it on T-shirts, on cheeks or wrapped around the hips, people are still proudly South African.