When the new Paiyun Cabin for Yushan opens (if that ever happens!) there’ll be a new policy of charging foreigners $700 to stay there. Locals will continue to pay the usual $220 as before. I’m very much against this as I think it’s unfair and it will damage Taiwan’s reputation.
The reason given for the increase is to pay for the new English services, but a blanket charge for foreigners will affect those coming from non-English speaking countries too. How do they benefit? I also worry that we’ll see no changes to the poor English on the website/signs in the park etc.
In addition to this change it is also rumoured that when the cabin opens, foreigners will no longer have the option of climbing Yushan as a single day ascent, regardless of experience. I can only think that this is because the park wants foreigners to stay in the cabin to extract money from them.
If you too are against this, Richard Saunders has set up a petition for anyone who would like to sign it.
Online Petition
Also you can email the national park directly to ask about the new pricing policy.
Online Petition might work. Better to also pester them with questions and clarifications. The link is http://reflect.ysnp.gov.tw/reflect/new/eng/chief3a_1.aspx.
Questions like, “What if I am Taiwanese but live in US? Will I have to pay the foreigner fee?” or “I am a Taiwan resident but I am not Chinese. Will I have to pay the foreigner fee?” or “My wife is from Taiwan but I am not. We have two children. Do the children pay half way between the foreign fee and the Taiwan fee?” or “My friend from Fujian is visiting. As the ROC claims Fujian (directly through administration of Jinmen and Matsu and indirectly as the government of all of China), will my friend be eligible for the Taiwan fee?” etc etc etc. The more legitimate sounding questions and the more confusing the iterations, the more they will realize that they have a massively time consuming issue and PR problem on their hands.
Follow up questions could be something like, “OK, but what form of ID do I use to prove that my two year old child is eligible for the Taiwan fee? He does not yet have a passport and he doesn’t speak Taiwanese yet”.
Have fun with it – maybe even ask if you can apply for citizenship to get the discount since it has always been your dream to establish a world record for number of times to climb Yushan but you don’t have enough money to do it if you have to pay the foreigner fee each time.
On the website they say that they promise to answer emails. Put their staff to work…
The amazing adventure i can see form you best pic, i really like that pic, i am the admire of mountain photo