A Broad Reference

Every day walking home from school, I pass a place that roasts sweet potatoes in massive clay ovens (I think heated by charcoal), very reminiscent of tandoori. The smell as you walk by is terrific and since I don't have an oven (just a bionic toaster on steroids), this is an efficient and convenient way to get some healthy carbs. It's cheap too, only $10 NT per sweet potato. They are piping hot, smoky without being burnt and sort of caramelized from the long baking. The lao3ban3 is super friendly and goes out of her way to make conversation with me. I think she's been very supportive of my awkward Chinese and appreciates the minor improvements in tones and vocabulary over the weeks.

You can imagine my surprise last weekend when they dismantled the entire operation from the largish shop space to camp out on the corner selling from a cart (top picture). When I asked her what was going on, she said that they couldn't afford the shop anymore. I guess the margin on sweet potatoes is just not that large. But she seems in good spirits, and I haven't noticed a drop in the number of customers, so hopefully with lower overhead, and maintaining their customer base by staying in the vicinity of their original space they're able to make a profit. The second picture is the space they vacated.

Across the street is a small baking operation, I hesitate to call it a bakery. The guy sells shao bing- 3 different kinds. Big pillowy flat ones stuffed with green onion, small crispy salted green onion dusted with sesame seeds, and little sweet ones. He's open early until he sells out, lasting maybe 3 hours tops. There's always a small cluster of people waiting for the fragrant and steaming buns, he sells them faster than he can pull them out of the ovens every day. But rather than making more and having leftovers, he just grins and says "Wo3 mei2you3. Ming2tian3 ni3 hui2lai2." And then you know you missed your chance and have to come back tomorrow- earlier, much earlier.
When I asked him why he does it this way, he explained that wheat flour prices doubled over the last year, and that he can't afford to have any leftovers and still keep his prices where they are right now. But soon, even these kind of cost cutting measures that are protecting his customers won't be enough, and then the shao bing will get smaller or the prices will go up. I'm betting they get smaller...

On the corner by my house, there was a small restaurant with a couple of street stalls out on the sidewalk. They mostly supported the local business lunch crowd, but were never very busy. Yesterday, they packed up into 3 large trucks and moved out. I didn't get to talk to anyone about the reasons behind their closing down, but I'd guess they'd cite rising costs in food and fuel, killing their margin. I think it looks like it's going to be harder to find fabulous cheap food shortly, just because everything is costing an arm and a leg wholesale.

This morning on my walk with the dogs I passed a betel nut shop also closing. I don't frequent this store (not into carcinogenic radioactive luminescent red spit), but all of the construction workers drop by on their way home from the job sites (of which there are many in my neighborhood). So you'd think there was enough business to stay open? It's starting to get a little depressing.

Posted by Misty at 10:51 PM | Permalink

Taiwan DragonBoatTraining from Misty FahYing on Vimeo
Every year in June, teams of people vie for top honors in the Dragon boat races. The events in Taipei City and County are fierce, fielding teams from all the local universities and major corporations. Angelica's friend Andrew recruited us for his Dragonboat racing team citing low numbers of girls. "If you show up, you'll get to paddle" he promised. Thus we rose at the crack of dawn and ended up on the river bank to experience this Taiwanese tradition. When we showed up, there were a couple of teams churning by looking either energetic and paddling all in unison or looking exhausted and uncoordinated (more like a drunken caterpillar).

After some essential stretching each person collects a paddle and a puffy life jacket, and we head out onto the dock to load the boat. With 9 paddling positions of 2 people- one on each side of the boat, a helmsman who steers, a drummer and a flag catcher/navigator- there are 21 people in total. We start out with some warm up paddling, you're supposed to paddle with your back and legs and not with your arms. Easier said than done... I'm finding it difficult to bend in the middle considering the massively squishy life jacket. But we bend and paddle in earnest, splashing water and trying to achieve the desired "hydroplaning" effect, where you're going fast enough that the boat rises out of the water and becomes "easier" to row. We look more like a bunch of frenzied egg beaters than a smoothly functioning machine, and the boat lurches from side to side as the rhythm breaks down (we really didn't start in unison either). To top if off, we've got a rookie helmsman, who sends us around in circles for about half an hour, before we swap him out for someone else.

We're part of a mixed group of locals and expats, and a fair number of the team is bilingual, which means that you may get instructions in either Chinese or English. What this really means is that you still don't understand what's going but you can use the language hurdle as your excuse for not immediately complying. After another 20 minutes of wetly thrashing around on the water, another team issues a challenge to a "friendly race".
Bring it on.
We muscle the boats into approximate alignment, paddles in the ready position and then when the shout "paddles up. GO!" start with the 20 "quick" strokes. The boat heaves and judders and then suddenly feels magically "lighter". We've achieved the desired hydroplane and it IS easier. We rock back and forth, watching the oar in front, straining to keep time and stroke correctly. Snatching a quick glance over to the other boat, we're rapidly pulling ahead, their prow still buried in the water- they failed to "rise" to the occasion. We continue up river to the marker and then break, resting our burning backs and legs and waiting for the other boat to struggle to the end. We cheer them as they approach with shouts of "Jai You, Jai You!" They grin sportingly and promise another time. I want, I need to switch sides- my back is starting to seize up, but there's no chance since we're stuck out in the middle of the water in a wobbly boat. Turning downstream we paddle against the incoming tide. This time it's a tough slog, and we're all grateful when someone needs to get dropped off, ending the session. Still I'm hooked and I'll be back on Wednesday, really at the crack of dawn- got to be at school/work by 9am.

From http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary
paddle
Function:
verb
Inflected Form(s):
pad·dled; pad·dling

Text: to move a boat by means of oars "I like to paddle on the river for exercise and relaxation" — see row

Posted by Misty at 06:29 PM | Permalink

Here we are helping you blow out your candles.

Hope you have a fabulous day.

Posted by Misty at 09:45 AM | Permalink

After a long fun hike in the hills above Keelung, Sabina and I headed back down into town, ducking into the 3 brothers' Dou hua shop to eat the famous dessert. I had the special tapioca pearls, stuffed each with a red bean, accompanied by iced taro and dou hua with ginger syrup. Then we met all of Sabina's family and friends at the local fire station (opposite the stairs up to fort hike) before walking across town to the restturant.

Sabina and her girlfriends had decided to treat their moms to a fancy meal to celebrate Mother's day. All the girls are working professionals, Sabina is a project manager/PR for a Taiwanese economic "think tank", her friends are all in the public services- nurses, police, firefighter. I think the invitation was to the moms who were told they could bring their husbands if they wanted (but only if they deserved it). So we had quite a large table of people.

From Tang Family photos

I didn't take pics of the meal because it felt intrusive. For starters there were these soy-vineagar brined clams slurpy goodness. Followed by the best sashimi I've had since Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo Japan. There were 3 or 4 local fish really fresh firm and tasty, as well as tender squid pieces and salmon/crab rolls. A decadent plate of curried crab roe served with crusty french bread, mmm tasty. Grilled oysters in the half shell. Rock lobster heads in vermicelli, garlic lobster tossed with black bean sauce. Then we had a fish soup, salt and pepper deep fried crab. Drunken deep fried whole fish- it had been soaked in rice wine before frying so the wine cut the fat and the flesh was sweet and succulent. Mounds of vinegary shrimp to peel.

From Tang Family photos

From Tang Family photos

Everyone was very happy and cheerful. Here's a pic of the Moms and husbands.

From Tang Family photos

Posted by Misty at 12:11 AM | Permalink

So I go walking down by the river fairly often. One afternoon the guy ahead of me on the trail suddenly disappeared. I checked to see where he went but couldn't make out how he could have vanished so quickly.

If you look closely, you can see a hut kind of merged into the surrounding greenery. In fact there's a whole row of huts! And people live there...

The official stance on homelessness in Taiwan is that it's very low. Altho I've tried to find statistics I haven't found anything super specific in English- some articles cite between 5000-20,000 in the Greater Taipei Area. Truthfully I've seen several people sleeping on the streets looking very reminiscent of San Francisco and Berkeley. But somehow I have a feeling that some people aren't being counted coz they've found themselves an alternative that doesn't rely on charity or available aid.

Posted by Misty at 02:03 PM | Permalink

Every year (well almost) I send my Mom flowers for mothers' day. She says that it costs too much money (what was I thinking?) and that it's just such a commercial holiday, that I shouldn't buy into the whole thing. So this year instead I'm making a blog tribute to my Mom. Which has a couple of pluses- It's free AND I made it specially for you, Mom!

A blossom among flowers.

I can't possibly articulate all the reasons that my Mom is the greatest, but I'm going to at least try...
Toppest number one reason- she's my Mom!
Most of all- my Mom loves me (and I love her).

Mom loves cooking, and makes the kitchen the heart of the house and a fun place to hang out while she creates dish after fabulous dish. One of my earliest memories is making jam when we were 3 years old, in the basement kitchen in Edinburgh. I credit her with my passion for food and cooking.

Mom always got up early to make our sandwiches for school. I remember the year we went on meatloaf strike (even tho delicious) coz it made too frequent an appearance on the sandwich rotation. My favorite concoction was a filling of shredded cheese and carrot (which I still make). She did the carpool school run and ferried us to and from squash/swim/music/Spanish practice while juggling a busy career schedule.

Mom loves throwing parties and entertaining people. When she arrives at a party, the energy level always goes up several notches as people's smiles turn brightly towards her. She tells vivacious dramatic stories, crafting gems with screaming punchlines and lashings of hyperbole. I think I get my sense of drama and desire for story telling from her. She loves books, reading and writing, and is always willing to discuss the duality of meanings, and the layered dense writing of her favorite authors.

She's kind and goes out of her way to make sure people feel included. She visits the elderly/sick, and pats little children on the head, but she doesn't pet dogs or cats. When I was little and sick with the flu (or whatever crap kids get sick with), she could make me feel better by just putting her cool hand on my forehead. She once spent an entire month at the hospital with Grandma, trading off only with Aunt Cathy.

Before Grandma died a couple of years ago, my Mom flew out and spent more than 2 months caring for her. I think Grandma held on until my Mom went home. She passed away the day after my Mom left. I really miss Grandma. I know that she would be very happy that I'm learning Chinese.

I miss my Mom and wish that I could see her more often. Hopefully my folks will travel to the USA this year. It would be so great if they could live in the Bay Area and we could have family dinners, and I could pop over to hang out with my mom anytime.

I love you Mom!

Liu women- Me, Mom, Grandma and Gwynie.

And of course to all those other mom's out there- I hope your day was marvelous!

Posted by Misty at 12:56 AM | Permalink

The Taiwanese government has invested a lot of effort into municipal waste services including a pretty extensive recycling program. I think it's safe to say that the little old ladies who mostly participate have got the Berkeley recycling scavengers beat in spades. Ok so the low tech version looks very similar to a shopping cart, but check out the massively loaded tricycle. This one gets piled high before setting out to a collection point- every trip has got to be worth while. In fact it's piled so high I have a hard time believing anyone can move it but they do! Another popular option is the scooter powered cart.

It's very much a tradition here to have an old lady down stairs/ around the block/at the garbage drop off point who takes all the paper, cardboard, plastic and metal cans which then don't make it into the regular garbage. It all has resale value. These ladies treat the recycling- crushing plastic, cans and stacking cardboard; then move it to a collection point where it's picked up for transit.

I think it's a fairly effective program, and the ladies make a living off it.

Posted by Misty at 01:04 AM | Permalink

I've only got a couple of weekends left and so I'm trying to cram a bunch in. This makes it hard to keep up with the blogging, what with the Chinese class, studying etc. My apologies for the paucity of entries. Last weekend I took the train out to Keelung (pronounced Ji1Long3). Don't ask me about the weird spelling, Taiwan is full of English "names" that look nothing like the chinese pronunciation. Keelung-aka JiLong, is Taiwan's 3rd largest seaport, and is located on the coast, north-east of Taipei. The train ticket cost NT$45 kuai, the journey was about 1hour 15minutes and relatively non-crowded. There is a bus that costs about the same and is about 45 minutes (which is the recommended way to go), but I prefer trains since they go in straighter lines (motion sickness...)

Here's the view from the south east corner of the harbor just beyond the train station. You can see the massive cruise liners waiting to set sail for Okinawa, Japan. Sabina met me at the station and immediately asked me if I had eaten (which is the polite way to greet someone in Chinese). Of course I answered that I was starving (the impolite but truthful answer) I had heard good things about the street food in Keelung. To that end, we wandered down to the food street (Ren Er Jie) and then headed out for a tour around the city and a hike up to a Qing dynasty fort.

Even tho it was only a little after noonish, Ren Er Jie was completely packed. At nite the MiaoKou Market explodes into being centered around the Temple (DianJi Gong) and RenEr lies at the heart. It's so popular that during the day, the food stalls are always open. There were so many stalls, and we wanted to get moving so we sampled the "nutritious sandwich" (deep fried yummy goodness but hardly healthy), peanut dust veggie spring roll, and the BBQ'd octopus arms. Across the way, Pao pao Ice stand was crammed with people waiting for a tasty shaved ice treat, and so of course in the interest of sampling as much as possible, I got a mango shaved ice. They have other flavors like peanut and red bean which looked delicious too. Just down the way I looked longingly at the sushi/sashimi and Sabina promised that we would have sashimi later at a great seafood restaurant.

Here's Sabina howling with laughter, after I asked her to pose with the International Asian symbol of picture taking. We crossed the Tian Liao river and walked a couple of blocks north to XinEr Jie and started our climb up to the Martyrs' Shrine opposite the local fire station. It's pretty steep but you get a good workout to compensate for all the eating planned for the day. Continue onward, upward and inward to JiLie Temple. They have an excellent little museum that mostly focuses on the summer "Ghost Festival". (Sadly I'll miss it by just a few days.) Keep walking faithfully uphill (another 30 minutes?) and you'll get to the Kuanyin Temple with the massive white statue of Goddess Kuanyin. There are quite a few temples on the ridgeline, so don't worry if you don't get there immediately.

When we got to the temple there was an old fashioned mini market, and you could imagine what the original Keelung market must have looked like hundreds of years ago. It was pretty quiet, except for the massive bell tolled constantly. Ring the bell & make a wish. I'm sort of templed out so I didn't take any pictures of the massive statues or temple itself.

It's really more of an uphill stroll on sidewalks than a trail hike. If you get beset with doubt, you can always ask a friendly local who will stop and keep pointing you in the right direction. The ridgeline extends out to the Qing (1800's) Dynasty Fort (Hai3men2 Tian1Xian3), on the way you'll pass a great lookout space, and a small dirt bike course.

The woods were pretty dense and there were a ton of butterflies and insects. These were kind interesting looking caterpillars wandering the the walls. Anyway great views, old guns and lonely soldiers' graves. I definitely recommend this hike.

On the way down we took a different trail and ended pooching out onto the seafront road, by a shipyard with those massive shipping cranes that inspired the Star Wars "AT AT walkers". Walking back, we passed a derelict village that had the old fashioned Japanese style houses. Kind of sad to see these houses abandoned but really cool to be able to see how they're actually constructed. You can see the plaster and wood walls, raised sprung wooden floored platforms that used to be covered with tatami mats.
Total time spent including breaks for hanging out etc 3 hours.

Posted by Misty at 11:29 PM | Permalink

Today in class our teacher Li 佬師 gleefully informed us that May 1 is officially the start of the rainy season (aka Prune Rain 梅雨 mei2yu3) prolly coz you shrivel up with all the water! All rain previous to this date can be laughed at（a light drizzle by comparison). True to form it was raining so hard when I left school, that the VW bus sized drops were beating thru my umbrella. I believe it. Our teacher Li 佬師 says the Taiwanese have many words for rain。 I'm starting to think they have these words in the same way that Eskimos refer to snow。

我的課很好 wo de ke hen hao (my class is very good)
我們學完的書 women kanwan de shu ( we have finished our book)

We've learned about 400 words (in pinyin) and ~50 characters. I've
been brute force memorizing. Sometimes it feels like they just run out my ears.

Of course the reason my blog has been pretty idle for the last week: I was studying for a midterm.
我的考試有一點難了 wo de kaoshi you yidian nan （the exam was a little difficult）

Today we started another book! by the end of term, our
teacher says we will have learned about 800 words

The other good news is that I inherited an old beater bike from a
classmate who just left for France。（He's headed to the IvoryCoast next）。Anyway a shout out to Jean-Michel。I'll be passing it on to another classmate when I leave。
Altho it's harder to dodge the rain on a bike。。。

Posted by Misty at 06:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)