Growing Things

Since Taiwan is a tropical climate, there is no single growing season. People grow things all year round. And, in the words of a local friend, the Taiwanese like to grow things. You can see little gardens everywhere! Whenever there is a spare plot of dirt between buildings or at the end of a parking lot, people plant things. Most of the things people plant are vegetables and fruit, sometimes herbs and, occasionally, flowers are grown, too. But most of the point of planting is to grow edible plants.

power line garden

apartment block garden

vacant lot garden

Along the riverbed is a favorite place to grow a garden as the land doesn't belong to anyone and the soil is rich. People spend a lot of time designing their plot and caring for the plants. They set out rain barrels to catch the rain. Unfortunately, because the land is not theirs they might lose their whole lovely garden to a front end loader as the city decides to reclaim the river bank and prepare for the rainy season.

riverbank garden

Recycled containers are also put to good use when city living does not allow for a garden in the ground. Many styrofoam or plastic containers are filled with soil and made to yield some healthy veggies that are then consumed by the family or sold to neighbors. These "street gardens" are not the most beautiful but if you look past the containers to the greens inside them, you can see how this trash is put to good use.

The nun's down the street have this container garden.

street corner container garden

And then there's the tropical fruit! Wow. There is so much available and so many things I had never seen before. I love that I can watch them picking pineapples a block away and I can buy one from the back of a truck on my way to work.

harvesting pineapples

I had no idea this is how pineapples grew!

pineapple truck on my way to work

And every time we go hiking in the mountains there are women selling the bananas they just picked - cheap and so many varieties!

beautiful bananas!

perfect papaya!

 One thing Jeremy and I will really miss when we move back to North America is the fresh tropical fruit.

This is an avocado!

This is a lime!

And this is my favorite! Mango!

And this is my favorite person in this country!

Tsou Mayasvi War Ritual

I could barely believe it when Joyce offered to take us up to her mountain home town to check out the community's festival.  Joyce is an elegant and dedicated teacher who I met at that brutal first experience of teaching English, at Elite.  She is one of a few grand Taiwanese friends we've made through that fryilator of an English school.  I feel particularly grateful to Joyce for opening up such a familial and private experience.  We could have joined the moderate sized crowd without much direction, definitely enjoying the opportunity to share in a Taiwanese aboriginal festival/ritual, but without the spectacular romp through her family's afternoon of eating and drinking in their laid back way of chilling in the family backyard.  Of course, the BBQ had been cranking since early in the morning to lay out a huge cornucopia of belt busting pleasure.  With the expected caveat; we were worried there wouldn't be enough.

Entrance to the town-a Formosan Pheasant

In case yer busy, here's a brief throw down of the day/experience.  Early exit up the serpentine road to a mountainous town's ancient war ritual.  Growing out of  the steps of a mountain valley, the warren of homes and back streets (really just two or three main circuits weaving through the maze of homes) circles around the one central dance/ceremonial ring.  Tree chopping for the god's entrance, knives, chants, swaying, spirals of dancers, cell phone pictures, a butt load of journalists, and finally a basket for heads. Oh, grand food and great people.

Everyone's a comedian, not even going to mention it, but Wang isn't with the Yankees anymore

Stabby Stabby

The God's stairway

Running food back to the community, amid the masses.

Even spongy boy made the show

There is so much to this rich experience that I could barely share fully with you how freakin awesome it was.  Alright, there is some uncrushed 80s sentiment (awesome) creeping through my mind.  Anyway, it was an early morning departure from the smog of our medium sized city with mum and daughter, heading up the Escher like roadway snaking into the mountains.  Near, but not located in the valley of Alishan Mountain.  Her mum drove with acumen, albeit, with that Taiwanese edge-of-death-defiance most approach this, literally, dangerous route up to the mountains.  We were shown where her hometown village was located on the way; an outcropping of the upper valley, built upon the steps of the valley wall.  Even gave us a little moment of how she met Joyce's dad; one of those, we knew of the family and he came to town tales.  Short, especially with our limited Chinese.  Joyce was a great sport to translate so much for us, but we gave her a break half way through the trip to just chill, and chat with her mum in their own time.

Joyce's sisters.  Exceptionally talented theater artists who blended their pro voices amidst the circle.

Joyce's dad three away from the head honcho himself-familial recognition/importance and all that stuff.  He was a real affable guy comedic at heart as well. 

It was a very local, everyday and culmative feeling about the town.  Obviously a big celebration is gonna happen with everyone wearing traditional outfits, but talking to people in Taipei on a phone in their back yard quickly before the whole event starts.  A freakish number of media teams are there shooting away-quite a few just family with the change to buy pro video stuff, hobby.  Sheeeze.

So this is their ancient-which is true to the general time line of about 12 aboriginal tribes establish cultural centers between 3,000 to 4,000 years about, many in mountainous areas.  A few theories give their perspectives on who these people got here, with similar ideas of land bridges and migratory cultures due to food shortage.  Anyway, this ritual we watch is a War Ritual which actually has quite a few songs sung-paired with a group swaying dance-that are in a language many don't know; including most who are sing those songs.  A few of the elder women seat themselves in the next to the central fire pit telling stories from generations past, probably with a lesson or warning, but to most attendants  (including most residents) few if any know what the exact story is although they know the general lesson.

There is so much more to say, but I will refrain from going too overboard.  the ceremonial dance spot is right next to the main road through the town.  We stood about the dance arena-about 20 feet above-which was the southern edge of the oval dance space.  Across from us were bleachers with all ages snoozing, taking photos and general blah blah blah.  What we do waiting to get things rolling.  On the western edge sits the guys ceremony building-a bamboo-stilted open air meeting center that has a central fire pit and a basket (which at one point when all the guys go into it, Joyce leaned over my shoulder with an extended finger point to a big wicker basket and said, "that's were they used to put the heads.").  So yeah, many tribes, including the Tsou were head hunters.  Now they put flowers in the basket.  Oh, don't worry there is still a sacrifice of a pig.  Then they attach the central tree with machetes until there are only three branches left.  Yes it does grow back each year.  This hack-o-rama is to create the steps for the war god to come down from the sky to basically say right on, show me what ya got.  Dancing, singing, children brought into the main hut for initiation-screaming-food run from all the families to the center, tons of cameras, then a powerhouse eating frenzy in every home in the neighborhood. 

The warren

Local greens, pork, onions.

Alright, a non-sequitur

So thar ya go.  Here's a link to a big gallery of photos.  Oh, and here are three videos from the day.  The last one, you really got to wait for it.  This was Joyce's uncle.  I could barely keep it together as I filmed this.

The guys
The gals
Wait for it, wait for it.... wait for it

Monkeys!

Monkeys!

I’d been waiting all my life! And here I was on an island with native monkeys. I was so excited. We had been planning this hike for months with some Taiwanese friends who were from the area. We had missed a previous date because I had come down with some nasty illness. But now, we were ready.

The monkey mountain lay just outside of the southern city of Kaohsiung; about an hour and a half south of our city by train. We started off early Sunday morning and arrived in Kaohsiung around 9. We met our friends and rented a scooter for ourselves. Six of us began the drive through the city up to the base of the trail.

At the base of the trail and above the city was the beautiful Foguangshan Buddhist temple. This is the largest and wealthiest Buddhist temple in Taiwan. People came from all over to visit it and some to study there if they were going to become part of a monastic community. We came upon it as some of the monks and Buddhist lay people were chanting and praying so I took a little video. The chanting is so beautiful and serene. And the three huge golden Buddhas on the altar were impressive. Click the link below.

click here

 The trail up the mountain was a popular one so it was heavily trod and well marked. We met hikers going up and down and several groups of mountain bikers hurtling down the rocky terrain. We hiked for a while and stopped for some oranges. Sitting at the picnic table eating our fruit we were warned by several passers-by that the monkeys may come and try to steal our snack. We acknowledged the concern and finished eating so we could continue our ascent.

After a couple more twists in the trail one of our friends pointed to a tree above us and there sat a monkey! He was just sitting there staring at us and all the other hikers. He was either used to all the traffic or he was plotting something. We took some pictures and continued on. We then came up to an area with a few covered picnic tables where a lot of people had stopped for some refreshment. Well, apparently it was the place for a lot of monkeys to stop for refreshment too because they were all over the place! I was excited we could get so close and observe them and take pictures but, it is never good when wild animals grow accustomed to getting handouts from humans. They could get sick off the food, they could lose abilities to scavenge their own wild foods or they could become aggressive. We found out that the later was definitely the case.

"Morning Reverie"

"Banana Daydream"

"Contemplation"

We had fun taking pictures and hanging out with the monkeys. They are a native monkey called the Formosan Macaque and are about the size of a 3 year old kid. Our friend, Neo, insisted on taunting one that was in the tree above me and it was getting mad. I thought it was going to jump on my head but luckily it just made nasty faces at Neo.

Monkey Mad!

We moved on up the trail away from the picnic scene. The trail was steep and overlooked the big sprawling city below (along with the smog). A lot of the trail had ropes for you to hold onto as you pulled yourself up from rock to rock. At the top of the trail we ran into a man who had fallen. He seemed disoriented. Jeremy and Neo and a crowd of others encircled him to make sure he was OK. They got the man to sit up and then stand up but he wasn’t making any sense. (Of course, he was speaking Chinese so it didn’t make sense to me but our Taiwanese friends assured us he wasn’t making sense in Chinese.) Jeremy and Neo decided to walk him down the mountain after reaching the paramedics by cell phone. That left us 4 gals to have some lunch at a nearby covered table.

We took out all our delicious items – bread and cheese, nuts, raisins, several tropical fruits, chocolate - and had a very nice meal. There was another woman sitting with us and as she got up to leave she warned us to put everything away because the monkeys might come. But there weren’t any monkeys in sight so we continued eating. Then we heard some crashing in the woods. Out came a pack of wild dogs. Very common in Taiwan. They are everywhere and don’t approach people. They grumbled amongst themselves and we continued eating. The dogs wandered away.

wild monkey and wild dog on hiking trail

We heard the bushes moving again and thought it was the dogs but then I saw him. The big monkey and his smaller side kick. We immediately started putting stuff back into our backpacks but the monkeys moved fast. They came right into our covered table space; the big one jumped onto the bench beside my friend’s open backpack and started rifling through! The nerve! We were yelling and trying to shoo it away but it just turned to us and barred its teeth and continued its search for food. It finally found a guava fruit and jumped off the bench with it to settle a few feet away and eat it tauntingly. The audacity!

Friends on the trail with the monkey food thief

Unlike raccoons in the States who might look for food in an undefended backpack but be easily scared off when you make noise and run at it, these monkeys seem to know you’re not going to actually do them any harm. Or maybe they’ve just got a chip on their shoulder because they’re lower on the evolutionary tree. When Jeremy and Neo finally caught up with us, they told us how they saw a monkey jump onto a little 4 year old girl walking up the trail with her parents! The mother grabbed the girl but she was screaming in terror and I’m sure she wasn’t going to want any stuffed animal monkeys for her bedroom in the future!

It was definitely a unique experience hiking in a mountain full of monkeys. You just don’t get that in Maine and New Hampshire. And they were cute (I even saw a mother and baby) and fascinating to watch. But beware of your belongings and protect your children because these monkeys are naughty!

click for monkeys in motion!

Chinese New Year Family Gathering

Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday in Taiwan. It's date is determined by the lunar calendar and it usually falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice. This year that was February 2nd. Almost everyone, except the essential 7-11 convenience store workers, have this day and a good part of a week after it off from work. Kids are out of school for 3 weeks covering this time. However, the English language schools are only closed for a week (or not even). Families plan their vacation and travel for this time. Almost all the families in Taiwan. So, it is very crowded no matter where you go. Making reservations and buying train tickets ahead of time are essential.

House where we spent Chinese New Year

The actual Chinese New Year night is a night for families to get together. Most households consist of parents and kids living with the husband's parents. If there are unmarried sisters they also join the festivities at their parents' house. But married daughters spend this night with their husband's family and the next day is when they go to visit their own parents. So, Jeremy and I were invited by the owners of the school I work for to join their family on Chinese New Year. We were honored and excited to be part of the celebration as well as to be with a family for a night as we missed our own at Christmas.

Johanna, Sylvia and goofy Belle

The owners of my school are Sylvia and Richard who are about our age. They have 3 daughters, Belle and Ella (11 year old twins) and Nana (12). We spent the evening at Richard's parent's house which is in a tight older neighborhood not far from the school. Their house is a traditional style one story house built in the 1930s. There are a couple of similar run down houses nearby in what used to be a family compound. Their family used to own a number of acres but it was subdivided to various children and some of it was sold off so their house is now in a tight little lane behind more modern apartment buildings. Luckily, it did abut some foresty green space so the grandparents grew alot of their own vegetables.

Main entrance of the house, facing the back yard

Old Family Compound of traditional style houses

We arrived in the late afternoon which was nice because we could look around. Grandmother showed us her garden and we could take some pictures of the houses which reminded me alot of Irish cottages. We were joined that night by 2 of Richard's sisters and they helped prepare the food along with Grandmother and Richard. The house is laid out where the main entry door leads into the "altar room" where they have a big wall picture of Buddha with an altar in front. Even modern houses in Taiwan have a room like this. You can drive through the city at night and see the red glow of the altar lights through people's windows. This altar is used daily for prayer and to worship the ancestors. So before we ate the family burned incense, offered food and said prayers at the altar. Jeremy and I waited outside.

Food Offerings to the gods

from altar room to dining room

Then in the same room as the altar we helped set up 2 folding tables - one for the adults and one for the kids, of course. We had a great meal filled with a variety of dishes. Jeremy had prepared one dish of our own as well. The kids' table was very noisy. Conversation was mostly in Chinese but Sylvia and Richard would translate for us and the sisters spoke some English so we could ask basic questions and at least tell them how much we liked the food.

After dinner we left the food and dishes on the table in case anyone wanted to come back for seconds and we went outside to be entertained by the 3 girls. These 3 girls are great. I have them in one of my classes and I give Belle private art instruction. They speak English very well and are learning piano and violin and they love to sing. They usually walk around humming songs from the Sound of Music or Phantom of the Opera. So, this night they played a variety of traditional Taiwanese folk songs, some classical pieces and, of all things, The Marine's Hymn in Chinese. (This is such an American song and I had to learn it on piano when I was a kid so it was so funny to me that here, on the other side of the world, these girls were playing it!)

All the adults sat on stools in the yard facing the porch to watch the girls perform. They were good and very theatrically funny. It reminded me of my own family gatherings when I was a kid. They even put out an open violin case for tips.

After the performance, parents and grandparents gave the girls "han bao(like bough)" which are red envelopes with money in it. The amount in the envelope varies but usually is a derivative of 8, 12 or 16 as these are seen as fortuitous numbers. So the kids usually get a few thousand Taiwanese dollars in each envelope. (One thousand Taiwanese dollars is about $32 US). It's very exciting and the girls were telling me they were going to buy roller blades or books, etc. with it. Sylvia and Richard also gave han bao to Richard's parents. As soon as you are a working adult (early 20s) you don't get han bao from your parents. You give them han bao. And you usually get some from your work as most businesses give a bonus at this time of year. Grandmother was very sweet and gave Jeremy and I a small han bao each. They asked if we had such a tradition and we explained Christmas as being the closest.

We finished up the evening with a final drink and chat on the porch with the adults. Another sister and her kids who lived nearby came over and the kids turned on the TV. So we decided to say our "good byes" as we had to catch an early train for our own little Chinese New Year break to explore other parts of this island.