Taiwan at its Best! The Mystery Camera

Saturday March 30, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Six years ago an American woman, Lindsay Scallan lost her camera while scuba diving in Hawaii (2007). That camera somehow managed to work its way across the Pacific from Hawaii to Taiwan and ended up on a beach in Taitung County (the southeast part of Taiwan).

Along came Douglas Cheng, an employee of China Airlines strolling that beach (2013) who then found the camera. Spurred by good will, curiosity and perhaps a sense of being a closet detective, Cheng set out to see if he could find the owner. Photographs in the camera, a Canon PowerShot (three cheers for Canon for making such a durable camera)led to tracing it to Hawaii and eventually to Lindsay through the internet and other things.

Result: China Airlines offered to fly Lindsay to Taiwan and provide room and board and the whole nine yards in getting her camera back. A win-win all the way around and congrats to the human concern and effort by all. Taiwan at its best!

Oh and by the way, China Airlines is the flagship carrier of Taiwan, and not that other country on the other side of the Taiwan Strait. Unfortunately Taiwan is still saddled by much of the baggage from the diaspora that fled there after the Civil War on the continent. But that like Republic of China (ROC) is a whole different story and far too complex to go into here. Hopefully, one day they will have a name change to Taiwan Airlines as with many other overdue names changes etc.