Estonian who has lived in Taiwan for 30 years: I'm captivated by Estonia's calm and quiet
Tauno Kelder, who has lived in Taiwan for three decades, spoke about his journey to Asia and his family's rare visits home. He says he is drawn to the silence and slower pace of life in Estonia, so different from bustling Taiwan.
Tauno Kelder, who has spent the last 30 years living in Taiwan, shared his story on Vikerraadio. In 1996 he became the first Estonian student to receive a scholarship from a Taiwanese university to study Chinese, shortly after Taiwan opened a representative office in Riga; students from Lithuania and Latvia had already visited Taiwan a year earlier.
Kelder's fascination with Asia began in childhood, when he heard a radio program featuring hand-to-hand combat scenes — one character's kung fu skills struck him as impressive. During his years at a secondary school, his English teacher began offering lessons in Chinese breathing practices in the 1980s; karate was banned at the time while kung fu occupied a gray area, and the teacher later moved on to martial arts more broadly.
Life in Taiwan
His scholarship covered both tuition and living costs, though funding did not actually begin until the end of the second month, forcing him to live for a while on dollars his brother had given him. After two years on the scholarship, Kelder returned to Estonia and taught Chinese, but later went back to Taiwan and has remained there ever since. He said he enjoys the culture, the people and the climate — even the heat isn't a problem for him, since he cycles to stay fit.
Asked about the long-running tension between China and Taiwan, Kelder said an underlying fear exists but people don't dwell on it day to day — military exercises around Taiwan have become background noise rather than a cause for panic.
Rare visits to Estonia
Kelder is married to a Taiwan-born woman and they have three children. Traveling to Estonia as a whole family is a costly, complicated undertaking, so they usually go in summer. Two years ago the children saw snow in Estonia for the first time, which delighted them. Compared to densely populated, mountainous Taiwan, home to 23 million people, Estonia feels calm and quiet to Kelder — arriving there brings a kind of inner shift he needs time to adjust to. He tries to speak as much Estonian as possible with his children.
