Hidden Gems

"I'll take the strawberry ice cream crepe with chocolate sauce and dog head, please."

Over the past two and a half years, I've come to discover what a hidden gem Taiwan really is. I may complain to friends that this wonderful little island - a rough-cut green emerald in the South China Sea (with a few gray spots, to be sure) - gets so few tourists. That it feels like the entire world, including the traveling world as exemplified by tour buses at one end, and Lonely Planet-totin' kids at the other - has collectively decided to ignore* Taiwan. If someone who has visited, worked or lived there mentions the trip, many back home will initiate the following conversation:

"So, how was Thailand?"
"Thailand? How should I know? I didn't go."
"Yes you did; I could swear you went to Thailand."
"No, I went to Taiwan."
"Oh, so you were in China then."
"No, I was not in China, I was in Taiwan."

It's kind of sad, really. Between having its own rich history, being the repository for a huge chunk of Chinese history now lost to the Mainland, all of the outdoor activities it offers - when the weather cooperates - the friendly people and the magnificent food, Taiwan should be ranking up there with Japan on travelers' itineraries.

That said - yes, I complain about it. But secretly, I like it this way. I like not having to share my mountain peaks with hordes of backpackers. I like that banana pancakes are only on menus insofar as Taiwanese people seem to like them (though you're more likely to find a fruit waffle than a pancake). I like that even the most "touristy" spots aren't touristy at all, and that the locals haven't sold out to travelers' wallets. Well, maybe in Sun Moon Lake to Chinese wallets, but that's about it. I say this hoping that Penghu doesn't become the next Macau, what with allowing casinos and all. One Macau is enough, thankyouverymuch.

So part of me wants to broadcast to the world what Taiwan has to offer; part of me wants to zip my mouth and keep it all as one big, delicious (literally delicious) secret. If hordes of buxiban English teachers can come, stay a year or two and never really discover what Taiwan is about, what's the point of trying to promote such laid-back, subtle beauty to a world of people who've never even been here?

Which brings me to the next point of this post - within the island that is a hidden gem are several other, smaller little treasures, some tiny and some the size of buildings. I'm talking about the little things that make Taiwan beautiful, but aren't significant in and of themselves, and are usually overlooked. Things like a picturesque old brick wall winding its way up the side of a mountain settlement. A fat, friendly cat lounging on a warm scooter seat.



A huge image of Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy, perched atop a tiny Buddhist temple on Shuiyuan Road (#155 I think) just after it leaves Wanhua District and heads into Zhongzheng. Even from the street, you wouldn't know that this massive statue exists - and by the way, such statues are quite common down the west coast, but I rarely see them in or around Taipei. To see this one, you have to head to Zhongzheng Riverside Park and look, well, up.

I met someone in Zhongzheng Park who told me that this temple has been around since the 40s (the current statue is newer than that) and was erected because that site - just north of Guting and south of Machangding Memorial Park - used to be a popular and safe swimming area for local families. The temple was erected to keep swimmers safe. These days, I wouldn't dare jump into the Xindian River, for fear I might dissolve.

You see it on the two or three decrepit shophouses dotting the streets here and there, or the outlines of old brick arcades.

If you wander deep enough into the alleys, you begin to lose sight of the endless concrete and see the curious potted plants and vines, the friendly old lady with her ancient dog, or the lovely little shrines to all manner of gods you never knew existed.

My favorites of these gods, by the way, are the Yin-Yang God and the God of Insomnia (you can find his shrine deep in Wanhua District, not far from Huanhe South Road). The God of Insomnia doesn't cause insomnia; apparently he cures it. The shrine even has two tall god costumes for participating in parades, and seems to see a reasonably steady stream of locals praying for relief from their sleeping troubles.

You might even come across an unusually beautiful temple, full of artwork that's three centuries old, or older. We came across just such a temple in Wanhua recently - can you tell we like Wanhua? - dedicated to Matsu, goddess of the sea.



Matsu temples are fairly common here, but this one was especially lovely. It has only been at its current location for 30 years, but the idols and altars within it are all several centuries old, and were imported from Fujian with some of the first immigrants to Taiwan. Most of the temple is made of stone and wood.



In the back, we discovered two volunteers doing repair work on one of Matsu's companions (I forget if this one is Thousand Mile Eyes or Long-Hearing Ears).



Down Wanda Road, we also came across a relatively new temple whose dragon columns had especially beautiful lines.



...and at the end of this trail of tiny, insignificant-in-themselves, but beautiful-as-a-whole gems, you might just find an incense shrine topped with a beer can...or a tiny food stall autographed by the President of Taiwan (in Simplified Chinese?)...or a vendor whose specialty seems to be "dog's head crepes" (see the first photo).



*although I have noticed more recently that a huge contingent of visitors to touristy areas do in fact come on tour buses; they're just Korean, Japanese and Chinese so they blend in.

A Good Week for Gods

The coming week is a big week for festivals in Taipei, all celebrating the birthdays of various gods.

For Baosheng Dadi (a medicine god, rumored to have been a real person), Bao'an temple usually holds several days of festivities. As far as I know now, the firewalking (devotees allow themselves to become 'possessed' by various gods and walk across hot coals) will take place at Bao'an temple (MRT Yuanshan) this Thursday, April 9th. It usually happens around 2-3pm. Anyone interested in a truly Taiwanese experience ought to make it out there.

On the same day at about 2pm, there will be a god procession for Baosheng Dadi near Longshan Temple. It will start just off Bangka Blvd (from MRT Longshan Temple, head down Xiyuan Road and turn left on Bangka Blvd. Walk down past the 350 block and hang a left at the 7-11) at about 2pm.

On Tuesday (the 7th) there will be another big celebration in southern Wanhua. It will start at about 11:30 am at a temple off the southern end of Wanda Road (south of where it merges with Baoxing Road, not far from the river) and go all around Wanhua. We came across an old Matsu temple in our ramblings around that area today and they told us it was a particularly nice god parade. The Matsu temple was repairing its Thousand Mile Eyes da sen ("big doll" - tall god costume) at the time of our visit.

Ghosts

We all know that Taiwan is huge on ghosts, ghost mythology and general superstition about how to deal with (and escape the clutches of) said supernatural powers. Don't swim during Ghost Month, never stand in the corner of a hospital room, avoid the fourth floor of any building, sweep your ancestors' tombs once a year, if you're male, never pick up a red envelope you find on the street, buy a tiger suit for children of a certain age to scare ghosts away, never look behind you when someone taps you on the shoulder, never say anyone's real name after dark during ghost month, etc. etc..

As a result of this belief in ghosts, there are quite a few places in Taiwan believed by locals to be 'haunted'.

I'm not a big believer in the paranormal - the closest I can say that I've come to really wondering about this stuff is in my own home. I grew up in an old, creaky farmhouse in upstate New York that my mother insists is haunted. She's got a point: if there's any house in that town (no, not Sleepy Hollow, though not too far from it) with ghosts, it's ours. But that's an entirely different blog post.

I've known for awhile about a local belief in the haunting of a certain large hotel in Xinyi District. Apparently the site of this hotel was once a cemetery that was razed before construction began. Typical creepy story, probably not true, right? Well, true or not, from what I hear a lot of business travelers from other parts of Taiwan or even other parts of "Greater China" (pfft) won't stay there. That apparently, if you walk into the lobby you'll see two very large pieces of calligraphy on either side, but the calligraphy itself is not of any discernable Chinese characters - and was written by a fa shi (not sure how to translate this term, but something between a priest and an exorcist) hired by the hotel as a talisman specifically to keep those ghosts at bay. From what I've been told, only fa shi and dangki (self-injuring spirit diviners) can write such talismans.

I intend to take a look for myself inside that very lobby in a few days. Until then, this is really only something I've heard.

I've also heard about the supposed haunting of the old building of a very well-known hospital in Taipei (the new one is big and shiny, the old building is still in use and was built by the Japanese. I've worked inside it. It's beautiful on the outside, not so much on the inside). I can see why stories like this would abound in an old building, and a hospital at that. But being inside, it looked so much like a typical hospital that the place just didn't feel, well, haunted.

Another part of Taipei, however, has always felt quite ghastly to me. Until today, I didn't know why. Not being a believer in ghosts, I'm still not entirely willing to concede that "It's haunted" is the reason. But anyway.

I haven't posted about it on here yet, but I've recently acquired a new bicycle from a friend who moved home. It's a typical city-dweller's gearless bike, red and shiny. Living in Jingmei, I'm literally a one-minute ride from the entrance to Jingmei Riverside Park, a small park with a bike trail, sitting areas and basketball/tennis courts. It connects to the much longer Huazhong Riverside Park, with a bike trail that heads all the way to the coast.

Afraid as I was at first to cycle in Taipei proper, I've spent a lot of time whizzing up and down that narrow little path, which for the most part is well-maintained. At Jingmei, a haven for older folks (many of whom are in their 90s and still fluent in Japanese, more so than they ever were in Mandarin), the path is strewn with old ladies walking and clapping their hands to promote blood circulation, and old men riding equally old bikes while playing their favorite Taiwanese old-skool music on little transistor radios. That park runs past Gongguan and spills into Guting Riverside Park, which at the moment is a-bloom with daisies in various shades of pink.

Sometime after Guting, something happens to the park. The grass begins to look wilted and the expanse seems more desolate than family-oriented. There's a very ominous hill - obviously manmade - away from the river a bit. In the distance to the left are mist-covered mountain peaks. The river before you looks sad and weepy.

This is the part where you enter Machangding Memorial Park.

I'd heard of Machangding before, but not with that Romanization. A long time ago, I began reading Death in a Cornfield, an excellent compilation of short stories in English by Taiwanese writers, critiquing and disassembling the bits and pieces of Taiwanese society in the 1980s (for anyone with even a rough knowledge of the history of Taiwan, you'll recognize that decade as being a turning point both politically and economically). In the first story, Mountain Path, a place called Ma ch'ang ting is mentioned. It was an execution ground under the Japanese and again during the White Terror.

Because I'm obviously not a very keen observer , I didn't really realize until I re-read the story today that Mach'angting and Machangding are the same place, and that this place where thousands of people were executed less than 70 years ago is not some abstract geographic location in the whorls and folds of Taiwan's topography. It's not a disembodied place-name that has nothing to do with my Taiwan experience. It's the place where I've been swinging back and forth on my bike and the place that I've found, until just now, to be inexplicably creepy.

Many people believe that this place - Machangding - is haunted, and deeply so. That the restless ghosts of those executed there, whom many would say have still not had their fair piece heard, still wander the place and that the hill, where the killings took place, is especially saturated with anger. The area is quite open, allowing the gray days of Taipei to settle in unhidden, the moldering expanse of sky to stretch unbroken and the wind to hiss through unobstructed - this minimal topography only enhances one's feeling that something, to be frank, just ain't quite right about the place.

Now, as I said - I'm not a big believer in ghosts. It's possible - even likely - that Machangding Memorial Park is only chill-inducing insofar as the poor planning of some not-so-aesthetically-inclined city councilman got lazy in designing it.

It could be that Taipei weather is really quite gloomy, and the days I've been there have been the sorts of days where any quiet park is going to look, by default, haunted.

In any case, I'm not sure what to make of my initial chill at cycling through that area, and subsequent discovery of what it used to be.

Lehua Night Market

It says "Beer and sausage - definitely good friends". I agree.

Yesterday we headed out to the city of Yonghe, a suburb of Taipei that's just brimming with class and sophistication -

(ahem)

- to check out Lehua Night Market, revered by my students as the best in the Taipei area.

While I disagree that it's the best in the area, I have to admit that as a night market it combines an exuberance of the sacred...

Hey, adorable kids with balloon hats are sacred!

...and the profane...

Look for the new James Bond film, Goldenbum, in a theater near you!

...that I find truly amusing.

And for Yonghe, famous for Yonghe Soy Milk, old waishengren from Sichuan and a fantastic Sichuanese restaurant, at least one organized crime racket known as the Zhu Lian, love hotels and the Museum of World Religion, I have to say it's pretty sizeable and pretty good. Worth a look if you are interested in exploring every nook and cranny that Taipei and surrounds has to offer.

Some photos, for the heck of it:

You know, I've eaten frog. It's not half bad. Rubbery, but flavorful and unique. Does not taste like chicken. This frog, however, looks horrific. Seriously, this is enough to make me go vegetarian. Poor little guy.

Incense burners and lights


Straight from Japan - the world's tiniest hot dog, in gummie form!


My sister, the starving college student, tries on clothes as she contemplates making extra money as a betel nut beauty.


Something about "Grandpa Brand" white pepper powder had me in giggles for...minutes.


Joseph and the amazing deep-fried oyster spinach pie. It was pretty good actually.

The Mountain Dawn

The Taipei Times had an article today reviewing U Theater's The Mountain Dawn, now touring through Taiwan (it was at Taipei's National Theater on Saturday, and is heading south from there).

I'm mentioning this on Lao Ren Cha because I was there on Saturday, and every word of the review is true. I loved it. I realize that Yunmen Wuji (The Cloud Gate Theater) seems to have a monopoly on both international and local fame, but U Theater is almost as good and in some ways - including their percussion skills - better.

Brendan and I bought tickets - a compromise of proximity and price - to celebrate our 2nd anniversary, which we celebrated on March 2nd. Yay us!

If you read the article or the theater program, you'll learn that they began in the 1980s and currently live and rehearse on a mountain outside Taipei. They practice dance, drumming and meditation among other things up there, and their latest show, The Mountain Dawn, showcases the group's feelings about their hilltop home.

The costumes were very minimal - almost monk-like and rather androgynous. The music was also minimal; it reminded me of a cassette I picked up at a secondhand shop years ago, featuring the Washington DC Toho Koto Society, full of traditional Japanese music. The Mountain Dawn shared a lot with this sort of quiet, bare dissonance.

In fact, I saw a very strong Japanese influence in the costumery, the music and the topic: more or less meditations on nature. It only goes to show that art in Taiwan is influenced as much by Japan as it is by China.

The pieces performed included one about bamboo in the wind, one about the cloud sea and one about the power of the sunrise - I can't provide much more detail as that is what I could read of the titles.

More about the show is reviewed in the article, in more lyrical terms than I could ever give it. We contemplated buying the CD, but realized that without the dancing and the atmosphere that the performers created, the music itself might be a let-down. It wouldn't capture quite the mood of the theater that night, stripped bare of its plush red seats, lobby chandeliers and gold-leaf hullaballoo and transformed into a mountain top of cool stones and singing bamboo.

In short, if you have the chance, go see it.

A Country Hike in the City

On Sunday, the clouds cleared up around noon to reveal a warm, sunny day. We set out from Jiantan MRT and hiked via backroads and little-used trails from Shilin to Neihu. The trip is outlined in Taipei Day Trips 1, so if you want to attempt it, pick up a copy.

The hike begins at Jiantan and heads up lots of stairs, around the backside of the Grand Hotel and through a wooded children's park and karaoke spot (for the parents). There are several temples nearby, all with lovely views of Shilin, the Danshui River, Guanyinshan, Beitou and the revolving restaurant tower (at least that's what I think it is.)



This area has a lot of military installations, which means you can't go far off the path. It also means you will pass a lot of unmarked buildings, old guardposts and even older pillboxes, set up in case of a mainland invasion I guess.



Soon you'll reach the peak of the first hill - hardly a mountain - Jiantan Mountain. Heading down, the stairs give way to a proper trail. You'll go down then up again, finding yourself eventually on a very rural road that winds around. You end up with more great views - on one side, Shilin and the Danshui River. On the other, Neihu. There are plenty of great viewing spots, many of which are probably populated with tai chi practitioners early in the morning.


Later, as the road winds around, you begin to get views of Yangmingshan and the National Palace Museum. The glare was quite high at this time of day, when the sun was at its zenith, so I apologize for the washed-out image with the old crater of Yangmingshan in the background. You don't start getting these views where Taipei Day Trips says you do (there's been some forest growth since it was written), but they do come eventually.

Most of these come as you approach and then top Wenjianshan, which is somewhere above Dazhi on the Shilin-Neihu Road (you can stop hiking here and head down to the road at this point if you want - it's about 5kms to get to that point).


One thing we loved about the hike was that it was almost entirely rural, with real trails and forest. Other than the views over urban vistas, you could hardly tell that you were hiking within the Taipei city limits the entire time.

After Wenjianshan, you take some steep stairs down to a road, head left down it for awhile then head straight up a very steep path through the woods. As we approached the leveling-off of the path, several mountain bikers raced down past us. I heard whooping as they hit the steep part, so I don't know if they made it all teh way down on their bikes.

After the trail levels off, you end up at a well-hidden and little-known stone path. It's quite wide and plenty of locals walk it, but you won't see many foreigners and no tourists. There are no views, but it heads through some lovely woods and is an easy walk for a few kilometers.

After awhile, you end up back at the trail up the final peak - Jinmianshan (Gold Face Mountain) which has views over everything.

No, really...


...everything.
The view is not at the true summit; to get there, you have to walk past the summit and wind your way past lots of bumpy boulders. It's easy to find; you can see the view improving as you head forward and that's where all the people 'in the know' will be.

We lingered a bit too long on the summit, watching the sun go down. We had not underestimated the climb back, it' s just that it was a 10 kilometer hike (so says the book; we think it was longer) to get there, the view was astounding, and we didn't want to leave.

The hike down is over a tricky but fun rock scramble...if you linger for sunset, bring a flashlight. Trust me. There is a rope to help, and it eventually reaches some steep stone steps that could cause a sprained ankle during the day; imagine at night when you can't see (I don't have to imagine, I took a spill here).

The trail lets out in an alley along Huanshan Road in Neihu, very close to Neihu Road. Taipei Day Trips 1 gives the exact address, so if you want to hike in reverse or not bother with the long part and just go for the rocky views, you can start from here (be warned; it's a very steep ascent).

Bring lots of water, especially if you do the full 10 kilometers; there is nowhere to buy it along the way despite there being lots of roads to temples, shelters and recreation areas.

Showing in Shanghai as Taiwan, China

An interesting piece in the Taipei Times today:

Care to Join the Party?

...all about Taiwanese artists and how they deal with China's restrictions on their freedom of expression, or how they are labeled, when showing in China - as well as interviews with some Taiwanese artists who refuse to show in China.

What I found interesting about this piece was that so many artists seem apathetic about how they are labeled politically. How many 'don't think about' (or don't allow themselves to think about) whether they are billed as being from "Taiwan" or "Taipei, China", and what that means to their identity, their expression and their art.

I realize that the argument that art and politics shouldn't mix has some credence, and there is certainly a strong case to be made for separating the two in the name of...well of I don't know what, but something.

That said, I'm sorry but art is political. The only art that is not political in some way is found in hotels or in Painting Technique 101 classes. Maybe some civic sculpture put in place by extremely non-controversial town boards. (A good friend of mine once defined public art as "stuff so bad that nobody would pay for it except a committee of people with bad taste" - I wouldn't go that far, and I've seen public art that I've liked).

Even a basic landscape can be political; what is in that landscape, and what does it say about the place it purports to represent? Why did the artist choose this scene, and not that one, and how does that reflect on his feelings toward the place he's painting. Someone who chose to paint a traditional-style scroll of cliffs, waterfalls, cranes and bamboo must have a very different opinion on Taiwan than someone who paints a scene of downtown Sanchong.

A sculpture of a naked woman is political, as well. Why did the artist choose this model and this body, and what does his/her technique say about how he views that body? In turn, what does that say about how he/she perceives women and their place in society? How does that compare with the status of women in this artist's home country?

Art is all about expression - art that is merely about aesthetics and not about both aesthetics and expression is, in my humble opinion, less interesting art.

Some of this expression really is free from politics - ideas about universal things such as death and love, for example, although even those can be politicized. See: Guernica. That was bursting with death and yet was also deeply political. Any photograph of modern poverty is just as tied in with death and politics. Love is affected heavily by culture, and politics is also tied into that. So unless you are merely trying to convey emotions of death, love, frustration, boredom, excitement or what have you, and not trying to tie them to a greater cultural entity, even these have a political underpinning.

As such, a good artist has to be careful about things like political labels. It is very telling that some Taiwanese artists don't care how they are introduced in a show; it makes me wonder if they show the same apathy towards their work. Who you are affects how others see your work, so it is really of the utmost importance that you be as honest as you can about who you are. How can an artist do that, if said artist doesn't care how they are labeled?