On Sunday we went to Taipei to see the Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen Memorial Halls, by cab to the high-speed rail station, and then again from the Taipei Main Station to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.
In Chinese culture (and I've seen it in Korea, too), important people have memorial halls built in order to preserve their memory. It's where their name is displayed in exquisite calligraphy and where their portrait is hung or a statue is placed. These memorial halls seem to be more significant to the memory of the celebrated person than their actual graves, even.
Sun Yat-sen was a leader (and quickly the leader) of the early Chinese revolutionary period, starting on January 1st, 1912 when the last Qing Emperor was deposed. Before he died of cancer in 1925, he founded the Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang or KMT--authentically pronounced Gwoh-min-dahng) and set the stage for his protege Chiang Kai-shek to make the "Northern Expedition" to bring the warlords into line with the new Republic. Sun Yat-sen is revered on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.
Despised on the other side of the Straits, however is Chiang Kai-shek. A consequence of the Northern Expedition, he fought the Communist Party during the civil war period (1927-1937, 1946-1950) and the Japanese during World War II (1937-1945). He eventually lost the mainland and retreated to Taiwan, which, with U.S. military help, he was able to hold. For the next 25 years he held power in Taiwan as president of the Republic of China, and frustrated Chairman Mao and the People's Republic of China's desire to be recognized as the "real" China. He was a U.S. ally in WWII and a signatory power at the founding of the United Nations. The U.N. seat was only given to the PRC in 1971, and U.S. recognition was switched only in 1979. And while the Red Guards were pulling a Taliban and smashing antiquities on the mainland, Chiang made fostering traditional Chinese culture and arts a state policy.
Nowadays, though, Chiang Kai-shek is not universally admired here in Taiwan, either.
When Taiwan was surrendered by the Japanese, the KMT behaved rather badly towards towards the local population (primarily Min-speaking people who migrated to Taiwan in the 300 years before the Japanese took Taiwan in 1895, and had never been under Republican Chinese rule), and when they revolted, the KMT brutally put down the revolt and established martial law that lasted (with the further excuse of hostilities with the Communist mainland) until 1988. The island was flooded with more than a million Mandarin-speaking Chinese from the mainland who weren't interested in Taiwan's unique pluralistic history and culture so much being part of China and taking back the mainland.
So, in the post-martial law era, the KMT has lost the presidency twice to the opposition Democratic Progress Party (DPP), the first time 2000-08, and then again in 2016. They represent the view that Chiang Kai-shek was a nasty brute and that Taiwan should be independent and part of neither Communist or Nationalist China. In 2007 they proposed to de-consecrate the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and turn it into a museum for martial law brutality, as they see it. But then the KMT was back in power, and they put the Kai-bosh on the plan (so many pun opportunities here, you can't possibly know). Now that the DPP is in office, last month they reintroduced their plans for De-Chiang-ification. So now was the time to see the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall while it was still the same.
Whew! I'm sorry for all the history, but it's necessary to understand why we were visiting the place. The Chiang Kai-shek (CKS for short) Memorial Hall was completed in 1981 and differs from most memorial halls in that it is more a pagoda shape than a rectangular building. The first thing we went to see, since it was nearly the top of the hour, was the changing of the guard.
When you get to the top of several flights of steps, the Memorial Hall opens with an arch. Inside, under a rotunda canopy of the KMT sun emblem, is a giant bronze statue of CKS, flanked by ROC flags, and calligraphy of his political principles carved on the walls. In front is a large red carpet, and on two short platforms, two army guards in ceremonial uniform, with white gloves and webbing, chrome helmets and nickle-plated rifles with bayonets attached. At the top of the hour, two relief guards with rifles led by an NCO with a pistol, enter from a side vestibule and slowly march to the center of the carpet. The guards on the platform descend and there's quite a bit of smart drilling, which includes a fair amount of saluting, brandishing bayonets, and twirling rifles. And despite all the "crash and stamp" of boots and rifles, almost all of it is done wordlessly. It was all quite impressive and is worth a view on YouTube, if you can find a video of it.
Once we'd seen that, we descended downstairs to see the museum in the undercroft. There you can see CKS' writings, calligraphy, uniforms, flags, medals (he was probably only second to Marshal Tito in foreign orders and awards), sedan chairs, Cadillacs, and a full replica of his office, complete with a wax likeness of the Generalissimo himself.
After this, we had a bite and hopped in a cab for the Sun Yat-sen (SYS) Memorial Hall. This was built in 1966 in a more traditional shape, but still has some mid-century modern elements to it. For those of us of a certain age, it's homey in its datedness. Had the red carpets been replaced with orange shag, I would have been completely at home. Here there's a bronze statue of SYS even bigger than CKS's, surrounded by flags and a mezzanine with bronze bas-relief plaques depicting SYS's career. We again saw the changing of the guard ceremony, and with a few alterations for the differences in architecture, it was essentially the same as the one at the CKS Memorial Hall.
Sun Yat-sen's personal legacy is much safer than CKS's, and throngs of people relax and play in the square in front of the Memorial Hall and adjacent gardens. Being revered in mainland China as well, there are quite a few mainlanders in attendance. It's hard to put a finger on exactly how, but mainlanders dress a little differently than the Taiwanese, in a sort of plainer, slightly dated way. They are also, compared to the polite and quiet Taiwanese, loud and pushy. We had a look at a gallery with colorized photos from SYS's life and career, and I had elderly Chinese practically pushing me to get a closer look, yammering away at a half-shout the entire time. I was starting to see the DPP's point on reunification.
Admittedly we didn't explore the entire building, but there didn't seem to be quite the same museum setup as at the CKS Memorial Hall, with very few artifacts on display. But there was a delightful retrospective exhibit of the mainland-born Taiwanese ink painter Luo Feng (b. 1937, presumably still alive and well). She works in a style that bridges classical ink painting with more modern forms, sometimes painting more her mood or an impression than an actual representation of a real landscape. She works equally well in the classical mode, and one painting that absolutely knocked my Gudetama socks off was a traditional ink painting of Yosemite. I don't know if I can lay hold of a print, but I seriously want one.
And with all that accomplished, we returned to the train station by cab, took the train back to Taichung, and then another cab home. The transit system here is widespread and very easy to navigate, but can tire you out, too. Our little jaunt north involved five taxis and two one-hour train rides, and we were flat-out bushed.
Post-script: Laura and I have debated whether it's worth the extra $10 to upgrade from standard high-speed rail tickets to business class, so we rode up to Taipei in standard class. Laura may still feel differently, but I was definitely confirmed in my preference for business class. The seats are wider and softer, the floor is carpeted, there are foot rests, no middle seats, and they bring you a drink and snack, and even a newspaper if you want. We had bought two very tasty boxed lunches at the Taipei station for an insanely cheap $3 each, making the trip homeward very sumptuous, satisfying, and peaceful.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Birthday cakes in Taiwan--Rachel's post
I was excited to visit Laura and Ian in Taiwan. I’ve only been outside of the country once before, and this was my first official passport stamp (because Australia uses e-visas).
The flight out was actually pretty enjoyable. If you’re ever on a long-haul flight in economy class, I highly recommend having having planned ahead and selected a special meal when you booked your ticket. Everyone with a special meal gets served first and if you select the vegetarian option, at least on United, it’s curry for dinner, curry in a pita for a midnight snack, followed up by a nice hot breakfast curry. It’s hard to make curry unappetizing.
As Laura had promised, once the plane landed I made it through security, customs, and the baggage claim without any local language skills. Ian had graciously traveled to meet me at the airport, so he handled getting us onto the right bus and train. By the time we got back to Laura and Ian’s place, the travel time amounted to 20 hours from my door to theirs.
(Fun comparison: Walking would have taken approximately 78 days, non-stop, assuming you can walk on water)
We did so much during the visit (Jade market! Fine arts! Animatronic dinosaurs in the museum! Arcade games! Night markets! Fruit tea!), but my favorite thing was just being able to spend that chunk of time with Laura and Ian.
Here are a few stories from the trip.
The Cat Café or The importance of a convincing smile
Laura has developed a special way of compensating for not knowing the local language. Whenever someone starts speaking to her, and she can neither understand nor reply in a way that they might understand, she smiles, says “It’s OK! It’s OK!” and agrees to whatever it is they’re saying/offering/asking. She is very convincing. And it works! They give her whatever the default thing is, or guess at what she wanted and give her that. Most of the time that’s what she wanted, or at least not far off.
On the first full day I was in Taiwan, Laura had to work, so Ian and I decided to visit the cat café near the apartment. We were greeted by a smiling waitress who was wearing a cat ears headband. Sadly, I’d left my cat ears at home, so I couldn’t match her.
She showed us downstairs to a room with one very nonplussed scotch fold cat and handed us the menus. There are two main things that make the cat café a cat café: First, there are cats. Secondly, the establishment serves lattes with foam sculpted into the shape of cats. You can order lattes with one, two, or three cats.
We tried to order cat lattes, but there was a problem…which we couldn’t quite grasp. The waitress explained the situation, and we tried to explain back, but since we were each using different languages, it didn’t work. After a few repetitions, creative pointing and hand signals, we got the idea that the latte foam artist wasn’t at work yet. The waitress was offering to bring us one latte now, and cat lattes in a couple of hours. We decided we’d be fine with just the normal lattes.
It was time to try out Laura’s technique.
“It’s…OK. It’s OK?” I said
She looked at me skeptically.
“Its…OK?” I tried again.
No dice.
(I later asked Laura why the magic phrase had failed me, and she told me that clearly I didn’t believe in it hard enough. You have to be obviously and unreservedly enthusiastic about accepting the unknown offer, and I was not.)
Ian pulled out his phone and typed “We are okay with the plain lattes” into Google Translate and showed the waitress the translated text. She burst out laughing, pointed at the word that “plain” had been translated into, and giggled again. We tried reverse translating the Chinese back into English, but we got the word “plain” again. I really want to know what that word was translated into. I suspect it amounted to something like “We approve of the ugly lattes.”
At any rate, the waitress called someone on the phone to translate for us, and we were eventually able to order and drink our ugly lattes while the cats hid from us, like cats do. After that experience, I tried to sincerely mean it when I said “it’s OK,” but I just don’t have the knack.
The Food: Tea houses and less successful dining experiences
Udon noodles are always delicious, but they are even more delicious in Taiwan.
My favorite meal from this trip was probably the vegetarian udon noodles and mango coconut milk bubble tea at the Chun Shui Tang teahouse. The Chun Shui Tang teahouse is one of two tea house (franchises?) that claim to have invented and/or popularized bubble tea, and whether they’re responsible for the creation of the drink or not, they make delicious bubble tea. We went back there a second time, and I ordered exactly the same meal.
Laura and Ian also took me to the Wu Wei Tsao Tang teahouse. It’s a beautiful wooden structure, with tea rooms arranged around a pond that is full of gigantic koi fish. As they've surely explained here before, the tea cups in Taiwan are tiny little glasses, and you brew and drink many, many more rounds of tea than I could handle. We actually felt the need to tuck the bag of leftover unbrewed tea into my bag so it looked like we’d drunk more than we had.
We had two entertainingly uncomfortable restaurant experiences:
One night we decided to stay close to the apartment for dinner, since it was pouring outside. So we made our way to the nearby vegetarian restaurant, Veggie Wonderland. Turns out, it’s an Italian restaurant! (We should have run at that point, but we did not.)
The food wasn’t that bad, but it was weird. Imagine a vegetable lasagna, but instead of spinach and tomatoes, the vegetables in the lasagna are cabbage, bok choy, and green onions. That’s pretty much what I got. It didn’t taste too bad, but we did put the leftovers in the bin earmarked for hog food, near the dumpster outside of the apartment.
The second less-than-successful experience we had was our time at the hotpot restaurant in the mall.
I’d been to a hot pot restaurant once before, years ago. It’s only slightly more complicated than fondu. There’s a burner in front of you, and you get a pot of broth or water. You order things to cook in the water (meats, vegetables, noodles, etc) and they bring you those items. Often, they’ll provide recommended cooking times for the raw food.
During my time in Taichung, we mostly went to restaurants that had English translations on their menus. Unfortunately, not every restaurant that has an English-friendly menu is English-speaking friendly. We had some difficulty figuring out how to order. Even though it looked like you could simply order pre-defined packages (sets) of food, there were actually some options that you needed to choose between. Much pointing and confident “it’s OK!” saw us through.
Laura and I both ordered the vegetarian hot pot option. I was surprised by the size of the enormous bowl of cabbage, tofu, mushrooms and unidentified mock meats that the waitress brought us. Was some of it intended to transform the water into more flavorful broth? Were we supposed to casually eat half a head of cabbage as part of the meal? We tried sneaking peeks at other diners to see what they cooked, but we didn’t get a lot of clues. (Meanwhile, Ian is merrily and easily cooking and enjoying his various delicately sliced meats.)
Eventually we cooked and ate enough to consider dinner completed.
The search for cake
For the last couple of years, Laura has visited California for our birthday. This year, I was returning the favor. But whether you’re on the West Coast or in the Far East, a birthday’s not a birthday without cake. You’re more likely to find steamed buns and bright fluffy white milk bread than a chocolate cake in Taiwan. So Laura and I went on a quest to find all the types of cakes we could.
We found:
Lemon cakes—Sponge cake with crisp lemon frosting. I loved it.
Pineapple cake—Traditional Taiwanese cake. It’s almost like a shortbread biscuit with a slice of dried pineapple tucked within.
Green tea cake—Laura had this on her ice cream from Miyahara Ophthalmology Department (a very fancy ice cream shop, despite the name). Meh.
Cheesecake—This was the fluffiest cheesecake I’ve ever had. Very nice!
Some fruits I would not recommend
Cherimoya—A cherimoya looks like an armadillo would if an armadillo was a fruit. It has a kind of scaly green exterior. The skin is poisonous, and the seeds (which are spaced throughout the flesh) are also poisonous. But if you persevere and avoid the skin and seeds, you can eat the firm, damp white flesh. It takes a little like a cross between coconut and feet.
Eggfruit—The eggfruit, or canistel, is cheerful yellow fruit and is shaped somewhat like a mango. The fruit gets its name from the texture of the flesh, which has the mouthfeel of an overcooked hard boiled egg. The flavor is...unremarkable.
Fruits you should try
Starfruit—The starfruit in Taiwan was as big and juicy as those Mike and I had while on our honeymoon in Hawaii. You can even just eat it like an apple, if you don't feel like cutting it into pretty star-shaped slices.
Purple Dragonfruit—This looks just like a normal dragonfruit from the outside, but cutting it reveals an exiting deep fuchsia flesh. Sure, it tastes pretty much like normal dragonfruit, but the color! So bright! This fruit is also useful if you need to stain clothing, furniture, countertops, or cutting boards.
Note: Eating this fruit produces the same after-effects as beets.
Something else you should try
Visiting Laura and Ian when they travel! This was such a fun and fascinating place to spend time together, and they're excellent hosts.
—
(Editor's note: Rachel makes an excellent guest too, and we enjoyed having her. She was also a great sport for agreeing to author this guest post—Thanks, Rachel!)
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Journey to Sanyi--Laura's post
I asked a work colleague, who has spent a lot of time traveling in Taiwan, for suggestions of things to do, and one of the items he mentioned was a visit to Sanyi. Sanyi is a village about 30 minutes to the north of Taichung that's famous for their wood carving. There's a wood carving museum there, along with lots of shops.
I've occasionally dabbled in wood carving. What that really means is that I've got a few books and supplies, I've dreamed of owning a lathe if I ever had a garage to put it in (imagining the pens and chair legs I could make), and one time I carved a (still not finished, but functional) captured ball in a cage. So when I heard about Sanyi, it went on the list.
While having dumplings with my colleague and her family the other night, her husband mentioned that he had started planning a trip to Sanyi. I excitedly exclaimed that I wanted to come too, and he graciously agreed to move the trip to the weekend so that we could all go.
I wanted to try out the local train system, so we ended up with the plan to take the train to Sanyi, and then consider our option to take a train or a cab back to Taichung at the end of the day. On Saturday morning, we met up to grab a quick cab to the train station.
The closest train station to us in Taichung is Taichung Station, about 3km away from the apartment. There's apparently an old Taichung Station and a new Taichung station, and initially Ian and I were a bit confused because we couldn't find anywhere selling tickets after the cab driver dropped us off. But after a quick back and forth with a clerk, I learned that we were in the old station, which you have to walk through to get to the new station, where you can actually do train-station-like activities. We wound our way through some halls and stairways to arrive at the new station and picked up our tickets (250元, or US$8 for all five travelers).
Without specifying anything other than "Sanyi" to the ticket clerk, we ended up on a local train, which was pretty much like riding the subway. There were some seats available, but mostly it was standing room with handles to grip to keep balanced. The train was busy, but only as packed as I've experienced in Boston, and not the crazy mass of people we dealt with in the subways of Seoul. Mountains and fields whizzed by, and eventually we disembarked at Sanyi station.
Sanyi station was small, and we found ourselves standing outside on the steps near several taxi cabs, trying to decide how we could get lunch. I pulled out my guidebook because I remembered it had said something about where the center of town was, and a local woman came over and asked if she could help. (They do brand themselves "The tourist-friendly town"--Ed.) I told her that we knew we had to take a taxi to the museum, but we didn't know if we should have lunch in town or eat at shops near the museum. She didn't seem to think much of our plans, and seemed concerned that we wouldn't find food at either place. So, I asked if she could recommend something. After confirming that Hakka food was OK (stuff with noodles, she said) she decided we should go a few miles, eat at a restaurant, and then go the rest of the way to the museum on foot. She spoke with the cab drivers for us, explained the plan and arranged for one of them to take us to a restaurant There was a lot of back and forth (maybe they were deciding where to take us?), and then we were off!
The cab driver took us a few kilometers into town and then stopped and let us know through gestures that we could eat at the place across the street, and then we would have to walk up a road to the right to get to the museum. We got out of the cab and one of our friends wanted to get a few pictures of interesting signage before we moved on. The cabbie, having originally started down the road, stopped and got out of his cab to tell us again to go across the street to get lunch. He also yelled something in Chinese to the shop, which was half in the open air. I can only assume it was something like "Hey! These people want to eat food, they don't speak any Chinese. Help them!" People are so friendly here!
At the restaurant, they gave us a plastic laminated menu and grease pencil to indicate our choices (a very common ordering technique here), and I had just whipped out my Google Translate app to help make decisions when a middle-aged local woman came forward and asked in English if she could help. We said sure, agreed that noodles sounded fine, and went to sit down at a table. I think we got the shop specialty. We each got a bowl that we discovered contained thick, chewy noodles in a chicken broth, with green onions, mung bean sprouts, slices of pork, triangles of beef liver, a tea egg, and something pink, crispy and well seasoned sprinkled on top. I admit that I mostly stuck to my noodles, green onions, sprouts, egg and broth, (sinking less desirable food items in the remaining broth before pushing the bowl away as done) but Ian and our friends all gamely finished off their bowls, upholding the honor of all Americans abroad. Fed and paid up (150元 or US$5 for four full meals), we hit the road.
My maps app said we were only a half-mile away from the museum. We walked up the main road a bit, observing a rusted three-wheeled vehicle as large as a truck and some interesting signs, before turning off onto a side road, and starting up an incline. We passed a resort that appeared to be somewhat abandoned. There were large rocks (maybe 10-15 feet tall?) carved in traditional Chinese cloud motifs, and a wooden amphitheater. The sign at the main building called it Sanyi Sakura Resort, but there was no activity and little evidence of upkeep. To our left, a walkway opened up with some storefronts and what looked like nice motel rooms, so we decided to see what was there.
There did appear to be shops, but a vast majority of them were closed, despite it being just after noon on a Saturday. As best we could figure, this used to be a resort that had now turned into primarily residential housing with a few shops. Bronze statues graced every corner, and the pillars between garages were printed with helpful sayings for a better life. "Don't worry about everything. Be firm and resolute." "Nothing for nothing, and very little for half a penny." "Give compassion a form with concrete actions." "Love your competition." The walkway stones were heavily flecked with mica and sparkled in the mid-day sun. At this point, we were high up enough in the mountain to see other mountains in the distance. The mist partially obscured mountains further away, so that we saw vague impressions of dark hills behind dark hills, fading to white in the haze of the day. The depictions of layered, fading mountains in the distance common in Chinese calligraphy scrolls finally made sense as not impressionism, but truly representational.
After exploring the area for a little bit, I pulled up my maps again and my colleague and I started to figure out the directions we needed to walk in. Then, from around the corner, her husband called out that he was just going to head into the air conditioned art gallery he found. There was a small gallery featuring some nice modern art--primarily large paintings and some ceramic and jade works. One unusual feature of the gallery is that the seating in the individual rooms was more than perfunctory. There was a nicely carved wooden bench in one room, in another there were thick leather couches and chairs, and in another, a dining room table. In a different gallery I would have expected the furniture to be part of the exhibit, and not for sitting on, but the attendants here didn't seem to mind. I guess they were really encouraging visitors to use the space to consider the works in comfort. We got directions to get to the main street to the museum, which was only a few blocks away and once again set out.
Shops containing wood sculptures, large and small, trinkets, baubles, and clothing lined the road to the museum, but our friend at the train station was right, there was very little in the way of restaurants visible. A handful of Asian tourists milled about on the street, and on the steps to the museum, a group of several dozen people who looked like they were students on a class trip took a photo holding a banner. As our friends dealt with an interruption to some of their utility services back at their house in the states, I had a chance to check out the scenery. Behind the museum was a Chinese gate opening to a somewhat damaged walkway into the forest that quickly turned up the hill and out of sight. Perhaps it's a path for another time. The parking lot looked out on more misty mountains. Right across from the museum, they were filming a cooking show, which the sign declared was part of "iWalker Moving Kitchen". They were putting a breaded fish into a smoker while I watched.
The museum didn't allow photography. There was a clearly defined "visitor path" that wound us up and down five floors filled with a little historic art and furniture, and much modern art, both in traditional and non-traditional Chinese/Taiwanese styles. I was most impressed by the carvings of leaves and bugs that were delicate and translucent. I also liked the use of roughened wood grains to produce lifelike fur on apes and pigs. Lots of figures were carved from wood, and I recognized some mythical characters from a television show I had seen. We saw lots of pigs with ingots for prosperity, temple dogs, bixie, mythical characters, Buddhas, cabbages, orchids, toads, fishes, and figural art.
After the museum, we wandered through the shops. At one shop, Ian was standing around, and suddenly ones of the shop ladies started massaging him with a wooden massager. We decided to move on quickly after that. Eventually, Ian and I picked up a few wooden trinkets (a small ruyi scepter, tea tongs, scoop and stirring pick), and four-inch geode with stand. The geode had been cut open and polished, and was displayed with the top piece held vertical, like a box with a lid. Our friends were also successful in purchasing some goods from the various shops, and we shifted focus to try to find some dinner.
(It should be mentioned that the wood carvings are made from aromatic woods, making browsing the shops a very pleasant olfactory event.--Ed.)
The one restaurant we could find wasn't open, and as best we could tell, they said we were supposed to come back in a half hour. We went back to a coffee counter that we passed on the way to the museum to caffinate and wait our time. The lady running the coffee counter saw me hesitate at choosing an espresso drink, and said, "No, you drink my latte, it's the best." So I did. I can say with confidence it's the best latte I've had in Taiwan (though, having stuck to tea primarily). The coffee lady was a little bit crazy, from insisting that I come over to smell the latte before she poured the milk ("It's good, otherwise what's the point?") to making me keep the spoon in all the cups instead of returning them to her ("No, it's got milk, you can stir it as you drink"), to making recommendations about where to eat ("I'm kind of the boss here, you tell them coffee boss sent you and it will be OK!"). Ian suggests that perhaps she had a bit too much coffee herself, but who could blame her?
When Ian was walking around investigating a bamboo grove, he peeked in some windows to see what looked like a lovely dining room, set with candlelit tables and wine glasses. So we thought we'd try our luck to get dinner there. After much walking trying to find our way in, we finally found what looked like a reception area. When we walked in, my friend asked if this was a restaurant They smiled, and seemed to confirm, but then told us we needed reservations. Also, we could not make reservations now, because they would need time to make the food. I'm still not sure what was going on, because they were fully staffed up, apparently open, but didn't want customers. Anyway, it was 4:30, so we went back to the first restaurant
We were welcomed in to a table. The woman who let us in told us she would give us a set menu and we said OK. This was clearly a family-style place, and a glass lazy susan took up a vast majority of the table space. Within a few minutes, they started bringing out dishes. We had a large bowl of rice, most of a chicken, deboned and sliced, something like bok choi, various marinated meat slices (pork, beef, tentacles with suckers, tentacles without suckers) and green onions, a glass dish of somethings that were white and cup shaped (tripe?), a pile of tiny head-on whole fried shrimps on green onions, and a large cauldron of broth with different larger white cup shaped things. I stuck to the bok choi, chicken, rice, and broth. Ian worked on most of the non-tentacled marinated meat, with a few shrimps, and our friends had a lion's share of the tentacles, white cup shaped things and whole shrimp in addition to other food. We all ate our fill and still couldn't finish off the food. We paid for our meal and the clerk called us a taxi. Gratefully, the cab driver didn't blink twice when Ian handed him the card to take us back to Taichung, and about 25 minutes later, we were back home, safe and sound.
I've occasionally dabbled in wood carving. What that really means is that I've got a few books and supplies, I've dreamed of owning a lathe if I ever had a garage to put it in (imagining the pens and chair legs I could make), and one time I carved a (still not finished, but functional) captured ball in a cage. So when I heard about Sanyi, it went on the list.
While having dumplings with my colleague and her family the other night, her husband mentioned that he had started planning a trip to Sanyi. I excitedly exclaimed that I wanted to come too, and he graciously agreed to move the trip to the weekend so that we could all go.
I wanted to try out the local train system, so we ended up with the plan to take the train to Sanyi, and then consider our option to take a train or a cab back to Taichung at the end of the day. On Saturday morning, we met up to grab a quick cab to the train station.
The closest train station to us in Taichung is Taichung Station, about 3km away from the apartment. There's apparently an old Taichung Station and a new Taichung station, and initially Ian and I were a bit confused because we couldn't find anywhere selling tickets after the cab driver dropped us off. But after a quick back and forth with a clerk, I learned that we were in the old station, which you have to walk through to get to the new station, where you can actually do train-station-like activities. We wound our way through some halls and stairways to arrive at the new station and picked up our tickets (250元, or US$8 for all five travelers).
Without specifying anything other than "Sanyi" to the ticket clerk, we ended up on a local train, which was pretty much like riding the subway. There were some seats available, but mostly it was standing room with handles to grip to keep balanced. The train was busy, but only as packed as I've experienced in Boston, and not the crazy mass of people we dealt with in the subways of Seoul. Mountains and fields whizzed by, and eventually we disembarked at Sanyi station.
Sanyi station was small, and we found ourselves standing outside on the steps near several taxi cabs, trying to decide how we could get lunch. I pulled out my guidebook because I remembered it had said something about where the center of town was, and a local woman came over and asked if she could help. (They do brand themselves "The tourist-friendly town"--Ed.) I told her that we knew we had to take a taxi to the museum, but we didn't know if we should have lunch in town or eat at shops near the museum. She didn't seem to think much of our plans, and seemed concerned that we wouldn't find food at either place. So, I asked if she could recommend something. After confirming that Hakka food was OK (stuff with noodles, she said) she decided we should go a few miles, eat at a restaurant, and then go the rest of the way to the museum on foot. She spoke with the cab drivers for us, explained the plan and arranged for one of them to take us to a restaurant There was a lot of back and forth (maybe they were deciding where to take us?), and then we were off!
The cab driver took us a few kilometers into town and then stopped and let us know through gestures that we could eat at the place across the street, and then we would have to walk up a road to the right to get to the museum. We got out of the cab and one of our friends wanted to get a few pictures of interesting signage before we moved on. The cabbie, having originally started down the road, stopped and got out of his cab to tell us again to go across the street to get lunch. He also yelled something in Chinese to the shop, which was half in the open air. I can only assume it was something like "Hey! These people want to eat food, they don't speak any Chinese. Help them!" People are so friendly here!
At the restaurant, they gave us a plastic laminated menu and grease pencil to indicate our choices (a very common ordering technique here), and I had just whipped out my Google Translate app to help make decisions when a middle-aged local woman came forward and asked in English if she could help. We said sure, agreed that noodles sounded fine, and went to sit down at a table. I think we got the shop specialty. We each got a bowl that we discovered contained thick, chewy noodles in a chicken broth, with green onions, mung bean sprouts, slices of pork, triangles of beef liver, a tea egg, and something pink, crispy and well seasoned sprinkled on top. I admit that I mostly stuck to my noodles, green onions, sprouts, egg and broth, (sinking less desirable food items in the remaining broth before pushing the bowl away as done) but Ian and our friends all gamely finished off their bowls, upholding the honor of all Americans abroad. Fed and paid up (150元 or US$5 for four full meals), we hit the road.
My maps app said we were only a half-mile away from the museum. We walked up the main road a bit, observing a rusted three-wheeled vehicle as large as a truck and some interesting signs, before turning off onto a side road, and starting up an incline. We passed a resort that appeared to be somewhat abandoned. There were large rocks (maybe 10-15 feet tall?) carved in traditional Chinese cloud motifs, and a wooden amphitheater. The sign at the main building called it Sanyi Sakura Resort, but there was no activity and little evidence of upkeep. To our left, a walkway opened up with some storefronts and what looked like nice motel rooms, so we decided to see what was there.
There did appear to be shops, but a vast majority of them were closed, despite it being just after noon on a Saturday. As best we could figure, this used to be a resort that had now turned into primarily residential housing with a few shops. Bronze statues graced every corner, and the pillars between garages were printed with helpful sayings for a better life. "Don't worry about everything. Be firm and resolute." "Nothing for nothing, and very little for half a penny." "Give compassion a form with concrete actions." "Love your competition." The walkway stones were heavily flecked with mica and sparkled in the mid-day sun. At this point, we were high up enough in the mountain to see other mountains in the distance. The mist partially obscured mountains further away, so that we saw vague impressions of dark hills behind dark hills, fading to white in the haze of the day. The depictions of layered, fading mountains in the distance common in Chinese calligraphy scrolls finally made sense as not impressionism, but truly representational.
After exploring the area for a little bit, I pulled up my maps again and my colleague and I started to figure out the directions we needed to walk in. Then, from around the corner, her husband called out that he was just going to head into the air conditioned art gallery he found. There was a small gallery featuring some nice modern art--primarily large paintings and some ceramic and jade works. One unusual feature of the gallery is that the seating in the individual rooms was more than perfunctory. There was a nicely carved wooden bench in one room, in another there were thick leather couches and chairs, and in another, a dining room table. In a different gallery I would have expected the furniture to be part of the exhibit, and not for sitting on, but the attendants here didn't seem to mind. I guess they were really encouraging visitors to use the space to consider the works in comfort. We got directions to get to the main street to the museum, which was only a few blocks away and once again set out.
Shops containing wood sculptures, large and small, trinkets, baubles, and clothing lined the road to the museum, but our friend at the train station was right, there was very little in the way of restaurants visible. A handful of Asian tourists milled about on the street, and on the steps to the museum, a group of several dozen people who looked like they were students on a class trip took a photo holding a banner. As our friends dealt with an interruption to some of their utility services back at their house in the states, I had a chance to check out the scenery. Behind the museum was a Chinese gate opening to a somewhat damaged walkway into the forest that quickly turned up the hill and out of sight. Perhaps it's a path for another time. The parking lot looked out on more misty mountains. Right across from the museum, they were filming a cooking show, which the sign declared was part of "iWalker Moving Kitchen". They were putting a breaded fish into a smoker while I watched.
The museum didn't allow photography. There was a clearly defined "visitor path" that wound us up and down five floors filled with a little historic art and furniture, and much modern art, both in traditional and non-traditional Chinese/Taiwanese styles. I was most impressed by the carvings of leaves and bugs that were delicate and translucent. I also liked the use of roughened wood grains to produce lifelike fur on apes and pigs. Lots of figures were carved from wood, and I recognized some mythical characters from a television show I had seen. We saw lots of pigs with ingots for prosperity, temple dogs, bixie, mythical characters, Buddhas, cabbages, orchids, toads, fishes, and figural art.
After the museum, we wandered through the shops. At one shop, Ian was standing around, and suddenly ones of the shop ladies started massaging him with a wooden massager. We decided to move on quickly after that. Eventually, Ian and I picked up a few wooden trinkets (a small ruyi scepter, tea tongs, scoop and stirring pick), and four-inch geode with stand. The geode had been cut open and polished, and was displayed with the top piece held vertical, like a box with a lid. Our friends were also successful in purchasing some goods from the various shops, and we shifted focus to try to find some dinner.
(It should be mentioned that the wood carvings are made from aromatic woods, making browsing the shops a very pleasant olfactory event.--Ed.)
The one restaurant we could find wasn't open, and as best we could tell, they said we were supposed to come back in a half hour. We went back to a coffee counter that we passed on the way to the museum to caffinate and wait our time. The lady running the coffee counter saw me hesitate at choosing an espresso drink, and said, "No, you drink my latte, it's the best." So I did. I can say with confidence it's the best latte I've had in Taiwan (though, having stuck to tea primarily). The coffee lady was a little bit crazy, from insisting that I come over to smell the latte before she poured the milk ("It's good, otherwise what's the point?") to making me keep the spoon in all the cups instead of returning them to her ("No, it's got milk, you can stir it as you drink"), to making recommendations about where to eat ("I'm kind of the boss here, you tell them coffee boss sent you and it will be OK!"). Ian suggests that perhaps she had a bit too much coffee herself, but who could blame her?
When Ian was walking around investigating a bamboo grove, he peeked in some windows to see what looked like a lovely dining room, set with candlelit tables and wine glasses. So we thought we'd try our luck to get dinner there. After much walking trying to find our way in, we finally found what looked like a reception area. When we walked in, my friend asked if this was a restaurant They smiled, and seemed to confirm, but then told us we needed reservations. Also, we could not make reservations now, because they would need time to make the food. I'm still not sure what was going on, because they were fully staffed up, apparently open, but didn't want customers. Anyway, it was 4:30, so we went back to the first restaurant
We were welcomed in to a table. The woman who let us in told us she would give us a set menu and we said OK. This was clearly a family-style place, and a glass lazy susan took up a vast majority of the table space. Within a few minutes, they started bringing out dishes. We had a large bowl of rice, most of a chicken, deboned and sliced, something like bok choi, various marinated meat slices (pork, beef, tentacles with suckers, tentacles without suckers) and green onions, a glass dish of somethings that were white and cup shaped (tripe?), a pile of tiny head-on whole fried shrimps on green onions, and a large cauldron of broth with different larger white cup shaped things. I stuck to the bok choi, chicken, rice, and broth. Ian worked on most of the non-tentacled marinated meat, with a few shrimps, and our friends had a lion's share of the tentacles, white cup shaped things and whole shrimp in addition to other food. We all ate our fill and still couldn't finish off the food. We paid for our meal and the clerk called us a taxi. Gratefully, the cab driver didn't blink twice when Ian handed him the card to take us back to Taichung, and about 25 minutes later, we were back home, safe and sound.
Taipei and the National Palace Museum
A few weeks ago we headed north to Taipei to see the National Palace Museum. It was also an occasion to try out the high-speed rail system, since I would have to use it to fetch Laura's sister Rachel from the airport a few days later. We traveled the other American family from Corning, who were going up to see the Taipei Zoo.
It's about 20 minutes (and US$15) by cab to the HSR station, which is distinct from the regular rail station. It's very new and kinda resembles more an airport than a rail station. For 800元 and change you can ride in the business-class car, which is pretty nice. There are only two seats per side of the aisle, so no chance of getting stuck in a middle seat. The seats are spread out a bit more, and attendants bring you a baked good snack and beverage of choice. They'll also collect your trash, and you can borrow one of a dozen newspapers, one or two in English. The ride is very smooth and very swift (up to 300 km/h), and you can be from one end of the island to the other in a couple hours.
Once in Taipei (the architecturally famous Taipei Station), we parted ways with our friends and hopped in a cab. I had a wad of cards I had written out with desired (as well as contingency) locations, and this works pretty well most of the time. The museum is on the outskirts of the city in a park in a picturesque setting. Despite being told Saturday was a good day to go to avoid tour groups, it was thickly peopled and there were any number of guided tours being loud and getting underfoot.
The original National Palace Museum was in the Forbidden City in Beijing, but during the Civil War and then World War II, the Nationalists (Kuomintang/Guomindang, or KMT) crated up the jewels of Chinese civilization and carted it around behind them as the fortunes of war moved the army lines back and forth. In 1949, the Nationalists lost the mainland to Mao's Communists, and they evacuated (most) of the goods to Taiwan. So this is the place to see Chinese antiquities.
Alas, the museum is not large enough to display all the collection, or even a large part of it. Indeed, it doesn't have the density of items I'd have liked, and I suspect this is because of security. You see, the collection is a bone of contention with the Red Chinese, who would like very much to have it back. Not that they would steal. But everything is behind glass and the glass cases take up a lot of real estate. (It also left me wondering how awesome the inside of those cases must smell--like an antiques store x100.)
What we did see however was of very good quality. There were neolithic objects, including tool blades made from jade, which tells you something about the durability of jade. Then jade bi (pronounced "bee") discs from the Xia through Zhou dynasties, whose ritual uses we're still trying to enumerate. Ritual bronze pots (called ding) and bells were all the rage in the Shang through Han dynasties. A whole range of fine houseware ceramics from the Han through Qing dynasties. There was, alas, but one three-color glazed Tang horse on display. Representative items from 3,500 years of Chinese writing, from oracular script on slats to Qin writing reform, to rubbings of Han funeral inscriptions, and medieval through modern ink paintings. Bronze mirrors throughout the ages. And there was a collection of Qing furniture, which included a very impressive wooden folding screen with translucent jade panels inlaid.
The thing, though, that drew the biggest crowds was the Jade Cabbage. Nobody in the West has every heard of this thing, but the Chinese are wild about it. It was made in the late Qing dynasty in the 19th century, and it's a very delicate carving of a Chinese cabbage, the color of the stone changing from white at the bottom to emerald green at the top. On the side is a whimsical grasshopper, pause for a bite. It's nice, though why it's so iconic is a mystery to me. I suspect it's a bit like the Mona Lisa: we're told to love it, so we do. But I can think of better paintings, to my taste. A companion of the Jade Cabbage is the Jade Meatwad (title mine). It is a carving of a piece of fatty meat perched upon a pat of rice, and as with the cabbage, the color changes from white at the bottom, to pink and then red at the top. This was more impressive, I thought, for it's verisimilitude. It looked perfectly edible.
We rendezvous'd with our friends for dinner at the Taipei 101, a skyscraper that for a time in the Aughts was the tallest building in the world. Due to the effect of foreshortening, it looks less impressive at the bottom than from miles away. In all, it's 1,667 feet from steps to spire. Attached is a luxury shopping mall, and we had come for a Michelin-starred dumpling restaurant. Alas, we could not find it, and I felt mildly put out. But we did finally settle on a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant, which seemed to satisfy everyone (though Laura mostly stuck to tamago and inari). As the sushi slowly wends past, you grab what you like, the price of which is indicated by color of plate. At the end of the meal, the waiter counts your plates to calculate the bill. Where we were seated we could also see the chefs at work, and our friends ordered several custom pieces, made to order.
Full up on rice and raw sea creatures, we decided to check out a jade market nearby. (Because obviously we hadn't seen enough jade that day.) In contrast the Taichung jade market, this was in what looked like a coverted parking garage, with wobbly tables and buzzing fluorescent lights. And though a lot of vendors had packed up for the day, there were still deals to be had. And we had several funny, friendly interactions with the shopkeepers. Laura got herself a pair of earrings and a pendant, and our friends waddled out ladened with a veritable trove of treasures.
We caught a cab back to Taipei Station, then got back on the train. I was happy for my tea and snack, and somewhere to rest my complaining back. I was also now well-prepared to get to the airport to pick up Rachel two days later. The story of her visit we'll let her tell in her own guest post.
It's about 20 minutes (and US$15) by cab to the HSR station, which is distinct from the regular rail station. It's very new and kinda resembles more an airport than a rail station. For 800元 and change you can ride in the business-class car, which is pretty nice. There are only two seats per side of the aisle, so no chance of getting stuck in a middle seat. The seats are spread out a bit more, and attendants bring you a baked good snack and beverage of choice. They'll also collect your trash, and you can borrow one of a dozen newspapers, one or two in English. The ride is very smooth and very swift (up to 300 km/h), and you can be from one end of the island to the other in a couple hours.
Once in Taipei (the architecturally famous Taipei Station), we parted ways with our friends and hopped in a cab. I had a wad of cards I had written out with desired (as well as contingency) locations, and this works pretty well most of the time. The museum is on the outskirts of the city in a park in a picturesque setting. Despite being told Saturday was a good day to go to avoid tour groups, it was thickly peopled and there were any number of guided tours being loud and getting underfoot.
The original National Palace Museum was in the Forbidden City in Beijing, but during the Civil War and then World War II, the Nationalists (Kuomintang/Guomindang, or KMT) crated up the jewels of Chinese civilization and carted it around behind them as the fortunes of war moved the army lines back and forth. In 1949, the Nationalists lost the mainland to Mao's Communists, and they evacuated (most) of the goods to Taiwan. So this is the place to see Chinese antiquities.
Alas, the museum is not large enough to display all the collection, or even a large part of it. Indeed, it doesn't have the density of items I'd have liked, and I suspect this is because of security. You see, the collection is a bone of contention with the Red Chinese, who would like very much to have it back. Not that they would steal. But everything is behind glass and the glass cases take up a lot of real estate. (It also left me wondering how awesome the inside of those cases must smell--like an antiques store x100.)
What we did see however was of very good quality. There were neolithic objects, including tool blades made from jade, which tells you something about the durability of jade. Then jade bi (pronounced "bee") discs from the Xia through Zhou dynasties, whose ritual uses we're still trying to enumerate. Ritual bronze pots (called ding) and bells were all the rage in the Shang through Han dynasties. A whole range of fine houseware ceramics from the Han through Qing dynasties. There was, alas, but one three-color glazed Tang horse on display. Representative items from 3,500 years of Chinese writing, from oracular script on slats to Qin writing reform, to rubbings of Han funeral inscriptions, and medieval through modern ink paintings. Bronze mirrors throughout the ages. And there was a collection of Qing furniture, which included a very impressive wooden folding screen with translucent jade panels inlaid.
The thing, though, that drew the biggest crowds was the Jade Cabbage. Nobody in the West has every heard of this thing, but the Chinese are wild about it. It was made in the late Qing dynasty in the 19th century, and it's a very delicate carving of a Chinese cabbage, the color of the stone changing from white at the bottom to emerald green at the top. On the side is a whimsical grasshopper, pause for a bite. It's nice, though why it's so iconic is a mystery to me. I suspect it's a bit like the Mona Lisa: we're told to love it, so we do. But I can think of better paintings, to my taste. A companion of the Jade Cabbage is the Jade Meatwad (title mine). It is a carving of a piece of fatty meat perched upon a pat of rice, and as with the cabbage, the color changes from white at the bottom, to pink and then red at the top. This was more impressive, I thought, for it's verisimilitude. It looked perfectly edible.
We rendezvous'd with our friends for dinner at the Taipei 101, a skyscraper that for a time in the Aughts was the tallest building in the world. Due to the effect of foreshortening, it looks less impressive at the bottom than from miles away. In all, it's 1,667 feet from steps to spire. Attached is a luxury shopping mall, and we had come for a Michelin-starred dumpling restaurant. Alas, we could not find it, and I felt mildly put out. But we did finally settle on a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant, which seemed to satisfy everyone (though Laura mostly stuck to tamago and inari). As the sushi slowly wends past, you grab what you like, the price of which is indicated by color of plate. At the end of the meal, the waiter counts your plates to calculate the bill. Where we were seated we could also see the chefs at work, and our friends ordered several custom pieces, made to order.
Full up on rice and raw sea creatures, we decided to check out a jade market nearby. (Because obviously we hadn't seen enough jade that day.) In contrast the Taichung jade market, this was in what looked like a coverted parking garage, with wobbly tables and buzzing fluorescent lights. And though a lot of vendors had packed up for the day, there were still deals to be had. And we had several funny, friendly interactions with the shopkeepers. Laura got herself a pair of earrings and a pendant, and our friends waddled out ladened with a veritable trove of treasures.
We caught a cab back to Taipei Station, then got back on the train. I was happy for my tea and snack, and somewhere to rest my complaining back. I was also now well-prepared to get to the airport to pick up Rachel two days later. The story of her visit we'll let her tell in her own guest post.
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