萬安演習！TAIWAN has an AIR RAID drill??

Hello everybody and welcome back to my channel. First let me introduce myself. My name is Alan. I'm a teacher who has been living and working here in Taiwan for the past 10 years. And I've created this YouTube channel to share my interesting life here. And I think today's video might be just that little bit extra interesting for all of you watching. Especially for anybody watching from outside of Taiwan. But first of all, lunch time. Let's go get some food. Okay, so for lunch, before we get to today's video's main point, I've come to a cute little cafe I love to come to called Cafe Na. And I come here because they simply have the best coffee in Taichung. Coffees from all over the world, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Cuba. And their chicken salad bagel is to die for. But anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about. What we're here to talk about today is actually something that has its basis or its foundation deep within politics. And I'm going to do my best to skirt around the politics and not get too involved in it. Because basically, if we can ignore the politics and avoid the complicated issues, then what I actually have to share with you today is just something super interesting. And it's something that happens every year in Taiwan and definitely something that's happened every year since I've been here for the past 10 years. And it's always been something that I've wanted to share with people that I know. So I thought I'd share with you my loyal Team VVVIP today. Okay, so I think I'm waffling now. Let's get to the point. What is so interesting that I decided that I needed to make a video for you today? Well, if I was to pull out my perfect, beautiful Chinese that you all know that I have, 今天在台中是萬安演習. Or in English, today in Taichung is the mega peace exercise. Or in layman's terms, just a military air raid drill. And as I said, it has happened every year in Taiwan, actually for the past 40 years, since its introduction in 1978. And it was introduced by the president at that time, Chiang Ching-kuo. And according to many sources that I've read, he introduced this military air raid drill or 萬安演習 as a precautionary method or in preparation of any air raid or military strikes from our neighbors across the Taiwan Strait. But as I said, don't really want to get too deep into the politics. And as you may already know, I've actually created that kind of video before. It didn't go down too well, but if you want to check it out, it's up here somewhere. And anyway, we don't actually have too much time to discuss it. As the exercise is due to begin at 1.30, I've got to get this bagel eaten, drink this coffee, and I want to take you somewhere a little busier so that we can truly experience the full effects of this exercise. So I'm going to get my lunch eaten, get my coffee drunk, and then we're going to go down to the main street, Taiwan Dadao, to see the full effects of this 萬安演習 in operation. OK, so we've arrived now at one of the busiest intersections on the main road through Taichung. I think, yeah, I think that's, yeah, that's Taiwan Dadao behind me. We're going to go up this bridge and hopefully before the air raid drills start, I can set up a tripod. I can set up a tripod and hopefully get some good footage of this busy street coming to an absolute standstill in the middle of the day. Let's get this camera set up. OK, so hopefully that camera behind me, my phone, is going to get an awesome time-lapse of the road shutting down, of Taiwan coming to a standstill. I'm not allowed to be on the bridge, so I'm going to get down, wait for it to start. 1.29, one minute until this alarm goes off. And actually, it looks like the streets are already starting to clear. OK, this is happening. The alarms are winding up. OK, so it's starting now. The alarms are actually sounding. They're not as loud as I remember, actually, but there is still this spooky, eerie feeling around the city. Super quiet. No cars at all in the street. And as I said, that's because this is a military air raid drill. All residents should be off the streets. No cars on the road. And hopefully the footage from the bridge is showing you exactly that. The police stationed at every junction around the city have instructed cars and buses and pedestrians to clear the streets. And any violators of the rules will be fined $30,000 to $150,000. So as much as I would love to be presenting this segment from the middle of Taiwan Dadao, Taiwan Boulevard, unfortunately, my Google ad revenue doesn't quite cover the cost of the fine. But it's definitely eerie, definitely a little bit spooky to be in the city when it's simply so quiet. Okay, so while this thing is still going on for the next 30 minutes, and while the streets are so quiet, I thought I'd give you a little bit of extra information about it. The official rules from the police are that everybody should be indoors with your windows shut. Don't use the water. Don't use any gas and don't use any electricity. But as you can imagine, these rules are somewhat flexible. Although I'm sure if bombs started, some people just don't give a... But I'm pretty sure if bombs started dropping that people would very quickly get off the streets. But in fact, the HSR, the high-speed trains, the MRTs around the country, and in fact, the airplanes at the airports, they continue as normal. It's only the road traffic that stops. And that's a point I want to discuss in the comments section. Whether you are Taiwanese living here, a foreigner living here, or you're overseas and you have this kind of thing in your country, do you think it's necessary? Is there a point to these exercises? How useful do you think this drill actually is? From my humble and somewhat naive opinion, I think it's more about making a statement rather than it is actually preparing or getting ready for an attack from our neighbours. What do you think? Do you agree? Do you think it's important? Do you think it's a waste of time? Let me know in the comments section what do you think about this 晚安演習? And just like that, it's 2 o'clock, 30 minutes over, and Taichung is going to spring back to life. And just like that, everything goes back to normal, and Taichung springs back into life. Right, time to wrap it up. Thanks to everybody for watching this video. I know it may be something a little bit different, but I hope you enjoyed it. But as I promised you, this channel does bring you culture from Taiwan, and this event is definitely something that I've only ever experienced in Taiwan. There's probably some deeper metaphors that we can draw between peace amongst the chaos, and we could go deep into this politically, but as I've said throughout the video, I just wanted to share something different, something that I find super interesting that happens here in Taiwan. Discuss it in the comments section below. Do you think it's necessary? Do you think an air raid is actually possible on Taiwan, especially with so many of our neighbors from across the Taiwan Strait coming here to visit, and so many of our people from Taiwan living over the water? Let me know what you think in the comments section below. I'd really like to have a discussion about it, but try and avoid getting too deep into politics. Probably impossible, right? So anyway, that's enough from me. Thanks so much for watching this video. I hope you found it interesting. Team VVVIP to the very end. Hope you enjoyed today. Hope you enjoyed today's video. I'm gonna go now, get myself a cool drink, and get out of this heat. I'll see you next time in my life in Taiwan. Peace out.