BY ROGER WATSON

“Welcome back to Taiwan…”

“…do you still have diarrhoea?”

Few, if any people arriving in the landside of customs at Chiang Kai-Shek airport near Taipei in Taiwan will have been greeted like this. The young student sent to welcome me, demonstrating typical Chinese directness and insensitivity, was referring to my previous visit when I arrived from Hong Kong following the worst bout of gastroenteritis I had ever had. And thus, memories of that visit, which was my first to Taiwan, flooded back, most of them filling me with horror.

The previous week my wife and I had been in Hong Kong where I was working. One day early in the visit we went to Café Kool in the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Hong Kong for lunch. For sweet I selected a variety of fruits and marshmallows on sticks to dip in the chocolate fountain and that was my first mistake. Clearly someone whose hygiene was not the best had also dipped in the fountain before me.

Google tells me that the shortest time for the onset of gastroenteritis is one hour. I beg to differ as I immediately knew that something was wrong as soon as I ate the chocolate covered sweets.

I will spare you the details but the journey back to Shatin (make your own jokes up folks) where we were staying was achieved by bar-hopping along the way to the train and then a gritting of teeth (euphemism) until I was back in our room. There ensued three days of violent vomiting and the rest. Suffice to say that on any visit to the bathroom I was unsure which end to point at the porcelain.

I duly recovered with the help of my wife who, on the verge of calling a doctor, instead purchased some Diaoralyte® (disgusting by the way) and I gradually got back on my feet. I was due to visit Taiwan to continue working in the region but my wife had to return to the UK. We packed hastily before her departure and, unknown to me, my wife went off to Hong Kong International Airport and back to the UK with something very valuable in her case; more of that later.

I flew to Taiwan and, while I had recovered, I was unable to eat without feeling sick. On arrival I told my host that I would really appreciate just heading to my hotel to rest and that I would be fighting fit the next day. In typical Chinese fashion she nodded her assent to this arrangement (Chinese people hate to contradict or convey bad news) but instead we proceeded to a Chinese restaurant where a banquet was laid on for me at a large table full of guests. As the waves of food arrived, waves of nausea engulfed me which I could only suppress by making frequent visits to the loo to take a few deep breaths. This is not advisable in Chinese loos at forty degree centigrade and ninety-five percent humidity. My hosts feared the worst and I tried to explain that I was not currently suffering the Taiwan trots, merely getting away from the smell of the food.

I ate nothing and was taken to my hotel where things took another downturn. My wife had packed the bag with our laundry and that included all my spare underwear.

I realised that the underpants I was wearing, soaked as they were with perspiration and sticking to me like clingfilm, were my only pair. I contacted my host and asked if someone could take me to a chain store as I had to make a purchase. Naturally I was reluctant to say what it was that I required but she got it out of me and several young female students arrived at my room to take me by taxi to a nearby shopping centre. They knew what I wanted, clearly did not believe that I had not ‘had an accident’ in my pants (yes, they asked me) and proceeded to hold up endless pairs of men’s underwear for me to consider. I eventually persuaded them to leave the shop and wait for me outside. Fresh underpants were duly purchased, and I felt that nothing else could go wrong. My optimism was crushed at the last minute on departure from Taiwan.

My host and a student I had got to know over the week arrived in her car to drive me to the airport. On the way I noticed that this very pleasant and garrulous young lady was rather quiet as she was driving. Then, to my dismay, I noticed beads of perspiration were beginning to form on her brow and soon began to drip down her face. The nearer we got to the airport the wetter and more worried she looked, the harder she gripped the wheel, and her silence was maintained. I asked my host what was wrong with her but after an exchange between them in Mandarin I was none the wiser.

I soon found out.

We arrived at the airport, and I could see my terminal way away in the distance. But the student turned in to the first car park, possibly half a mile from the terminal. I began to remonstrate that we needed to be at another, closer, car park when the car spluttered and stopped. We had run out of petrol. The rest, as they say, is history. I had a long and dangerous walk to the terminal and a long and welcome gin and tonic in the lounge on arrival. Believe it or not, I love Taiwan and have made many visits. I do try to avoid chocolate fountains and being driven to the airport.

Roger Watson is a British academic and former professor of nursing at the University of Hull. He is the editor-in-chief of Nurse Education in Practice and an editorial board member of the WikiJournal of Medicine. He was the founding chair of the Lancet Commission on Nursing, and a founding member of the Global Advisory Group for the Future of Nursing. In 2020, Watson was elected vice president of the National Conference of University Professors. In 2022, Watson was elected president of the National Conference of University Professors. You can follow him here.