Trips afield

My daughter has been attending a local kindergarten for almost a year now. I've been teaching at a local kindergarten for longer than I care to think about. One might assume that Amber would go to the school where I teach, especially as we could take advantage of an employee discount regarding tuition. Well, one would be wrong. At this stage in my daughter's young life, I want her to have fun and make friends while getting a start on learning. However, my place of employment places far too much stress on academics IMHO, and the last thing I want is for Amber to get on that train and ride to that academic hell known as the Taiwanese school system. Of course, the kindergarten where I teach provides a mostly English language learning environment, but unless Amber's English starts to be suffer from her present school (and so far it hasn't), I'd prefer she continue to go to her present school, which she really seems to enjoy.

Every now and then, however, my kindy gives the kids a break by taking them on a field trip, and the principal graciously allows Amber to come along and join in the fun, which was the case today. Our destination was the K'ueihai Nungch'ang, or Sunflower Sea Park 葵海農場, and though it was a long day, my daughter had a blast. Here are a few pictures of our field trip this morning and afternoon:

The "farm" was located on the outskirts of Tachia 大甲, close to the waters of the Taiwan Strait 台灣海峽, in an area dotted with giant wind turbines, which the kids found fascinating (as did I).

The day was filled with lots of activities for the children, including rowing boats on a small pond...

feeding fish...

making kazoos out of reeds, and blowing them en masse...

tormenting live crabs in a workshop...

walking over to the beach to catch crabs in their native element (and releasing them afterward)...

and collecting some sunflowers to take home.

All in all, it was a great experience for Amber, and both of us are looking forward to the next excursion.

Demonic (but friendly) drummers

In the central Taiwanese town of San'i  三義 there is a resort called West Lake Resortopia. You won't find it listed in any of the English-language guidebooks on Taiwan (there aren't that many to begin with), and for good reason - it wouldn't be of much interest to the average Western visitor in Taiwan, unless he/she wants to see what Asian European fantasies look like ("Versailles" rose gardens, "Dutch" wooden houses and so on). Except, however, when the resort plays host to Ondekoza 鬼太鼓座, a Japanese taiko 和太鼓 drumming troupe based in Fuji 富士市, Shizuoka Prefecture 静岡県. Pamela and I are both big fans of kumi-daiko 組太鼓, and we have an Ondekoza DVD, so naturally this was an opportunity that couldn't be passed up.

The group is performing at West Lake Resortopia as part of an annual festival centered around the blooming of the San'i area's Tung trees 油桐, so we knew today would be crowded. As a result, we were up at six this morning, and arrived at the resort shortly after nine. Good thing, too, as Amber was able to ride on the merry-go-round and a couple of kiddie trains without having to wait in interminably long lines. We were also able to find a space on the lawn right in front of the stage, with great views of Ondekoza as they performed their first show of the day at ten:

It wasn't all drums, flutes and cymbals. One member showed off some juggling skills involving a traditional Japanese toy called a kendama けん玉:

The highlight of the show, of course, was the Ōdaiko 大太鼓 solo...:

...a segment of which I recorded:

After the performance, Pamela bought a T-shirt, then we went backstage to have it autographed by a couple of the members, followed by some photos:

We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon walking around the resort. One of the stranger sights we encountered was this torii 鳥居:

It led past a chōzuya 手水舎, a Shintō shrine 神社 wash basin, to an artificial cave filled with statues of Kuanyin 觀世音菩薩, the Buddhist goddess of mercy.

There were Tung trees in bloom, but not as many as I'd expected:

For Amber, the highlights were the long slide and the obstacle course:

It took a while to get out of the parking lot and on the road back home (two words for the management of West Lake Resortopia to consider for next year: traffic control), but it was a fun day out for the three of us.

On a completely unrelated note, a brief Kyōdō News 共同通信社 article appeared in Sunday's Japan Today ("Taiwan arrests customs official over smuggling of Japanese beef"):

"A Taiwan customs official is in custody after allegedly covering up the smuggling of high-grade beef from Japan into Taiwan in defiance of a mad cow disease ban...Tang Lung-sheng, a section head at the T'aipei 台北 Customs Office, is alleged to have protected the smuggling operation that brought in more than 5,000 kilograms of Matsusaka beef 松阪牛 over more than a year. After intercepting the latest shipment Wednesday, prosecutors alleged that frozen meat importer Chang Shih-chun, 52, and others carried the beef in personal luggage on a weekly basis and that Tang ensured they passed through customs smoothly. Chang would then sell the beef to restaurants at more than twice the price he paid in Japan, prosecutors said. Health and agricultural officials are now attempting to determine where the beef was sold, officials said. Tang denied involvement in the operation, according to media reports, but he was detained as investigators looked for evidence of accomplices among his colleagues..."

Will there be an underground market for American cow tongues?

Let's 国際化！

Sitting in a small shop in a provincial city in central Taiwan, eating a dinner consisting of おにぎり, 茶碗蒸し and 味噌汁, and being spoken to in very good English by the middle-aged woman managing the eatery - there are times when this world doesn't feel so big after all.

刺身丼

今日のランチだった

Amber vs. the Terrible Lizards

We went into T'aichung 台中 early this afternoon (a couple of hours before Amber's regular Saturday swimming class) to go see something called the Paper Windmill Dinosaur Art Expo. After coming, seeing and conquering, I'm still sure what the point of it all was, other than to sell lots of books about dinosaurs. My daughter's expectations, being much lower than mine, were met as she enjoyed watching the show about a baby dinosaur and its mother, going down the long dinosaur slide and having her photo taken with the friendly reptiles. No doubt at some point in the future, a dinosaur of the human variety will inform her that girls should be interested in other things such as Barbies and dolls, and leave the dinosaurs and the trains to the boys. Until that day comes, however, I will encourage Amber to enjoy whatever it is she's interested in. You're only four years old once in this lifetime.

(Insert double entendre here)

I'm too tired to think of a clever, yet risque lead-in to the following article that appeared in today's Japan Times ジャパンタイムズ, so I'll let "Taiwan providers irk porn makers" speak for itself:

"Eight Japanese pornographic film producers are demanding compensation from Taiwanese cable and telecom firms they claim are using their works without authorization, a lawyer representing the producers said Wednesday. The case may depend on whether Taiwanese authorities rule that adult films are creative works protected by copyright law. Chen Shih-ing said the Japanese producers are seeking royalties from Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd. 中華電信, Taiwan Mobile Co. Ltd. and other unnamed Taiwanese telecom and cable TV providers to make up for an estimated 1 billion New Taiwan dollars ($30 million) in annual losses. He said the companies are allowing customers to download the films onto a variety of platforms, including mobile phones, without providing compensation in return. Speaking to reporters in T'aipei 台北, Chen said he was basing his case on a Taiwanese law assigning intellectual property rights to creative works. He said his clients will give Taiwanese companies one month to negotiate before they face legal action. Taiwan's Intellectual Property Office stated that the question of whether adult films are creative works needed to be decided on a case-by-base basis."

The article highlights a couple of points about life here in Formosa. One is that there is a huge demand for, ahem, "adult entertainment". Virtually every neighborhood has its "special KTV" or "barbershop", which are code words for brothels, and AV stores are commonplace. The local industry, whether due to government restrictions or traditional conservative morality, is unable to satisfy this demand (a glance at any of the cheapo late-night T & A shows on cable shows how hilariously amateurish the industry is in Taiwan), and so the market turns to the Japanese. Made-in-Japan DVD's are widely available, and Japanese porn stars have a devoted following among Taiwanese おたく.

As the JT story also indicates, however, the interest in Japanese erotica cums up (there's one I was able to "slip in"!) against the reluctance of many Taiwanese consumers to pay for copyrighted material. I know of few people here who buy CD's or rent DVD's from stores - why should they when such entertainment can be easily downloaded for free from the Internet? The Taiwanese economy has come far in the last couple of decades, but observance of intellectual property rights in some respects isn't much better than what you would find in a typical Third World economy.

Afternoon Wood

I bought a new pair of hiking shoes last weekend in preparation for my trip to Japan next month (where I plan to climb a couple of mountains), and I've been wearing them every day in an attempt to break them in. Today, they received an extensive workout in the town of San'i 三義.

Mention Sanyi to a Taiwanese person, and "wood carving" will probably be the first thing that comes to mind. Ever since a Japanese military officer at the end of the 19th century discovered camphor trees growing in abundance in the area, the town has become known for wood sculpture. In recent years, the flowers of the Tung tree 油桐 have also attracted the tourists, and so I set out to walk what's known as the "April Snow Trail" 四月雪歩道.

Rather than riding my scooter from Fengyuan 豐原, I instead took a local train three stops to Sanyi Station 三義車站. From the station, it's a long, uphill walk along Chungcheng Road through an altogether unappealing part of the town. It took about 30 minutes to reach the turnoff to Kuangsheng Village, one of two areas in Sanyi cluttered with woodcarving stores.

On weekends, like other tourist hotspots in Taiwan, Kuangsheng Village is a zoo. On a Tuesday afternoon, things were much quieter, with only a few visitors. The shops were open, and quite aromatic:

At the end of the road is the Miaoli Wood Sculpture Museum (more on that later), and the start of the April Snow Trail. The path is an easy one, and my shoes will have to wait until the next time I go to Tak'eng to get a real workout. I actually came here with my wife about four years ago, not long after my daughter was born, and I carried Amber in my arms to the top and back down. Today was much easier! Unfortunately, it seemed I was too early for the tung blossoms. There were only a relative handful on the ground, though someone had thoughtfully arranged some of them for photographic purposes:

At the top, the path opens up onto a large tea field:

After walking around the tea bushes and back down the trail, and having plenty of time to kill before the next train back to Fengyuan, I paid the NT80 (¥240/$2.50) to go inside the aforementioned museum. With four floors of exhibits on Taiwan's wood culture, it makes for an interesting and informative visit - or would be, if you can read Chinese. English labeling is rather minimal, which is a pity. It's also a shame that photography isn't allowed, for the religious statues and examples of traditional Taiwanese furniture and architecture are a sight to behold, both in their craftsmanship and attention to detail.

After the museum, I left Kuangsheng Village and walked back down to Chungcheng Road. Turning right there, the road changes its name to Shuimei Street, and is Sanyi's other major grouping of woodcarving stores. I took a short walk along this road, until it was time to turn back and head downhill towards the train station.

In addition to wood and its many uses, Sanyi is also famed (within Taiwan) for Shenghsing Train Station 勝興車站, an abandoned rail outpost set higher up in the hills opposite Sanyi. I'll save this for another visit in the not too distant future.

Oh, and the shoes held up well.

Tourin'

Japan Today has an article today on the challenges and opportunities facing the Japanese tourism industry ("Asian tourists mean cash"):

"Earlier this year, the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) 国際観光振興機構 announced that the number of foreign tourists traveling to Japan plummeted 18.7% from 2008 to just 6.79 million people in 2009. This was the largest decrease in tourists since 1986 when the yen suddenly appreciated by almost 100%. Needless to say, the tourists stayed away at that time simply because everything became so darned expensive. This time around, the tourists are staying away because of the global financial meltdown and it wasn’t just Japan that was affected. Pretty much every tourist destination saw similar double-digit drops. However, whatever the reason, the fact is that the government is extremely unlikely to hit its 10 million visitors by 2010 target this year, and indeed a bad economy is not the only reason. There needs to be an awakening both at government level and commercially that tourism is a potentially massive industry for Japan and that investment is needed to help things along."

I'm going to do my part at the end of next month, when I'll be in Japan for a week, visiting Kumamoto 熊本, Aso 阿蘇, Takachiho 高千穂, Usuki 臼杵 and Beppu 別府. But the article ignores my past (and future) contributions, and instead focuses on the importance of Asian visitors to Japan's tourism industry, especially that of individual free-spending travelers from Hong Kong. Seeing as this is a Taiwan-based blog, however, here are the sections of the article referring to Taiwanese travelers. After pointing out that visitors from Taiwan make up the third major grouping of tourists to Japan (at 1.02 million), the story notes that:

"...the most prevalent repeat travelers are from Hong Kong and Taiwan...The number of repeat visitors from Taiwan was 72.1% and 73.6% of them were tourists."

Not much, but it does give an idea of the numbers of Taiwanese who choose to spend their vacations in Japan, and who do so more than once. Even around ten years ago, when I was living in Ikebukuro 池袋, there was a significant Taiwanese presence in the area. I can only imagine what it must be like now.

Doggone it

The skies were overcast, with occasional drizzles, and I was still suffering from a cold that had started last Thursday, to the point that I was still wearing a face mask during my Tuesday morning classes. So of course conditions were ripe for a walk this afternoon in the mountains of Tak'eng 大坑. Despite the less-than-ideal conditions, trails 9 and 10 were busier than I'd imagined, even though the warm temperatures today left me a sticky, sweaty mess at the end of my nearly two-hour trek around the hills. While out and about, I came across...

...this butterfly must have been feeling sluggish in the muggy conditions as well, because it allowed me to get up close and take several shots before finally flitting off. And...

...this grave, post-Tomb Sweeping Day 清明節. It's certainly been cleaned up (all the overgrowth has been removed), but with lots of ghost money left behind to (hopefully, but doubtfully) biodegrade. What you can't see in this photo are all the rubber bands that the ghost money had been wrapped in lying scattered around on the ground (most definitely not biodegradable) , along with the ashes of all the plant life that had been burned in the tomb clearing process. Traditional Chinese culture and environmental awareness - two trains of thought that often collide head-on, with the environment usually on the losing end. And...

...on the walk down Trail #9 going back to my scooter, a middle-aged woman and her pet Husky. At least I assumed it was her dog, by the way it was running circles around her as she was walking. It soon became apparent, though, that the woman was scared. I asked her in my awful Mandarin if the Husky was hers, and just as she was answering it wasn't, the dog started to growl at her. Yelling in my huskiest (pun intended), cold-induced voice, I charged the beast and drove it off. The woman made a hasty getaway, stopping only to pick up a stick for defense, and continually looking over her shoulder and back up the trail for any sign of the Husky. Taiwan has a problem with free-roaming dogs, stray and otherwise, and many Taiwanese are scared of canines, most probably due to past traumatic experiences with man's not always best friends. I've had more encounters than I'd like with aggressive loose dogs while hiking, though these almost always end up being a case of the proverbial "all bark and no bite". Sticks, stones and words, in concert or acting individually, are effective anti-dog deterrents, I've found. The hairiest (another pun intended) experience for me had to be the time I was surrounded by a pack of seven mutts. Armed with a large stick, and having identified which one was the alpha male, I was preparing to charge the leader and make a break for it, when an old woman appeared out of a shack along the trail up ahead and called the dogs off. By Taiwanese standards, that made her a responsible K9 owner!

A grave oversight 清明節

By a coincidence in the calendar, Easter and Tom Sweeping Day fell on a Sunday and a Monday, respectively, this year, resulting in a three-day weekend. For those not in the know, Tomb Sweeping Day is the occasion on which Taiwanese descend on cemeteries en masse in order to tidy up the graves of their ancestors. Seeing as many people are genuinely scared of going to graveyards, for most folks this is the only time of the year to visit the dear departed. As you might imagine, there is a lot of cleaning up to do, with 365 days' worth of weeds to be pulled up and burned, and the fires sometimes getting out of control. Getting down and dirty isn't my idea of spending a restful holiday, but fortunately for me, Tomb Sweeping Day is one local custom I've been exempted from. My father-in-law's ancestors are all buried in China, and having gotten married, my wife is now out of her family, and therefore not obliged to tend to her mother's deceased relatives.

Being out of the family doesn't mean Pamela is ostracized, and so we decided to spend the holiday by visiting her relatives in her hometown of Hsiluo 西螺. Leaving our home on Sunday morning and picking up my mother-in-law en route, we eschewed the presumably crowded freeways and made for Hsiluo by way of highways and county roads. It took a little longer to get there, of course, but driving on the back roads not only avoided the traffic jams, but really made me appreciate just how breathtakingly ugly the smaller cities and towns on Taiwan's west coast truly are!

In contrast to the architectural eyesores we passed on the way there (and back again the following day), upon arrival in Hsiluo, we paid a visit to my wife's junior high school. Without a doubt, Tungnan Junior High 東南國中 has to be the most attractive school of secondary education I've ever laid eyes upon. Hilton D. Bell Junior High School in Garden Grove, CA, certainly wasn't landscaped with carp-filled ponds and flower gardens:

Following that pleasant surprise, we drove into downtown Hsiluo to visit the "sights". First up was Fuhsing Temple 福興宮, dating from 1717 and one of the stops on the annual gangster-controlled Tachia Matsu Pilgrimage:

(The weather was continually overcast and hazy this weekend, which might explain the lousy colors of the pictures I've posted here)

Next up was Yanp'ing Old Street 延平路. There are those poor souls who, having resided in Taiwan for far too long, insist that Hsiluo is a Hidden Gem because of the old buildings here, and even my Japanese-language guidebook lists it as a tourist sight...

美しいレリーフを施した洋館などが現在も商店などとして使われている。特に、非対称な曲線美を残す延平路７２～７６号の「鐘楼」と、レリーフが美しい建興路２４６号の「佳聲唱片行」は見ものである。

（地球の歩き方台湾’０５～’０６）

...but unless you're a serious student of architecture, or need to stop in Hsiluo for the night while on the way to somewhere else and have some time to kill, there is no reason to go out of your way to pay a visit. There are only a handful of structures, none of which are particularly beautiful or outstanding (despite what the Japanese guide says), but at least they still function as real businesses and homes, and not as souvenir shops or tea houses catering to the tourist trade, as has been the case in too many of Taiwan's other Old Streets. Things could change, however - in an ominous sign, work was being done to the sidewalk on one stretch of the street. The Liong Choan building pictured below dates from 1935:

For Pamela, the real reason to visit the downtown area was to buy some Chienpao 煎包 - "cabbage cake" is how my significant other describes it. The blue truck that makes and sells them is always swarming with customers, and it takes a while for your order to get filled. Amber took this photo of me killing time with a green tea while Pamela stood around and patiently waited for her number to be called:

What does one do on a Sunday night in an urban township like Hsiluo? Go to the night market, of course, which is what we did after dinner, guided by one of my sisters-in-law. The market was far larger than any of the ones here in Fengyuan 豐原, and Amber enjoyed the rides and games. After a while, though, I got a little tired of the constant collisions of elbows, and it was with some relief that we made our way back to Pamela's sister's house, where we spent the night.

We had a somewhat fitful night, due to Amber's coughing (she has a slight cold), constant shifting of positions (at one point her feet found their way onto my throat) and habit of gnashing her teeth while sleeping. None of this was the fault of the house, of course, the interior of which is one of the nicest I've ever seen in Taiwan. Spacious rooms, wood flooring, even a tastefully done rock garden - my sister-in-law's house certainly puts our all-too-typical Taiwanese apartment of white tile floors and dirty white walls to shame.

After eating out for breakfast, we paid a couple of social calls to some of Pamela's relatives. We first visited a couple of her cousins, who live in an old, traditional house:

Then it was off to an uncle's home, where we had lunch, and Amber had a lot of fun taking the family's hyperactive poodle Pudding for a walk past the rice fields:

And that was how we spent our Tomb Sweeping Day weekend. Pamela's relatives are, without exception, extremely nice people who went out of their way to make us feel welcome. I'm proud to be related to them.

Happy Easter!

For the second year in a row, we were able to have an Easter egg hunt in our small apartment, thanks to the Ferrero company and its Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs (the ones with the small toys inside, banned in the USA). This year, we were even able to dye several eggs - the local Family Mart was giving away free stencil and dying kits with purchases of Kinder Surprises. Being a cross-cultural kid is getting easier in this day and age of globalization!