If you are ever in Taiwan or even Southeast Asia and are interested in visiting a quaint island embedded with Chinese culture, you might enjoy Liuchiu off the southwest coast of Taiwan (about 30 km from Kaohsiung).
I spent the weekend there and had a great time camping and sight seeing. It is an island made entirely of coral, thus while the beaches are fairly rough on the skin, the creature-friendly curves and divets makes for a photogenic snorkling adventure.
Engrish is prevalent and toddlers screamed a number of times when they saw me and my coworker (apparently they don’t get a whole lot of uber sexy Western visitors). Everything is fairly cheap and despite the language barrier shop owners really wanted your business (all of them would motion for us to come in and gave us the best seats).
Also, because it was far from the industrial factories on mainland China and Taiwan, the air was clear and smog free.
Oh, and the best part: last night we bumped into 15 travel agents from Hong Kong that were also visiting the locale for the first time. Upon learning that we were super cool Americans, they invited us to partake in drinking games and finger foods. I won’t name names, but let’s say that a couple local government officials definitely had their fill of beverages. We became chingu, and as a result were offered a gazillion discounted offers for flying throughout SE Asia.
Disclosure: the Taiwanese Tourism Board paid me 1 million USD to write this.