One of the most surprising things about Taiwan was finding that it had a teeming urban youth culture- and that culture had a color scheme. NEON. You'd glimpse it in downtown alleys, on electric-blue cargo shorts, and hot pink baseball caps. But it came out best at night, when the hues of the neon signs seemed to reflect in hip night market stands and blazing arcade parlors.
Teal is not a color you encounter often. Too clinical to be comforting, too out-dated to be hip. But strangely, it seems almost to be the national color of Taiwan. It appeared in plastic phones, on pharmacy walls, and faded wooden doors. Yet odd as it is, it works. It paired surprisingly well with ocher bricks and vibrant red banners. And almost to assure us of its place in the Taiwanese color spectrum, it flows vibrantly through the halls of the new airport terminal.
