Showing posts with label seashore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seashore. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Culture x Water

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My last paper of the term is done, and I took the Tomb Sweeping holiday to travel around in southern Taiwan simply enjoying time with Brendan and meeting up with some friends. I read Crystal Boys (review coming soon), didn't write anything, generally relaxed and re-learned what it was like to be able to take a nice short trip without academia weighing on my mind.

I sent in that final paper at 6pm on Wednesday. The next morning, we hopped on the HSR to Zuoying, arranging a pickup from the HSR station to the ferry terminal in Donggang (NT600 for the trip - not bad). Little Liuqiu (小琉球), where we spent two nights and, on account of my being thoroughly exhausted from the previous day's push to get my paper in, still didn't manage to see everything. After this we spent the final two days of the long weekend in Kaohsiung and Tainan.




I enjoyed the island's rural sights and did not feel the crowds visiting them were overwhelming. Baishawei, the island's main town, was a different story. I suspect Baishawei is a fine little town to relax in on a non-holiday weekday; over the long weekend, though, it was horrible. Really horrible! I understand getting on a scooter to go out of town - there is a bus that circles the island and you can ride it fairly easily to get anywhere you might want to go - but to get on a scooter to go around Baishawei, whose streets are narrow and made for pedestrians, and the sights within walking distance of it? Come on. I get that it will be crowded, but if people realized that and used their scooters more judiciously, it wouldn't be so bad.


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Beyond that, a thought struck me while navigating around Baishawei, which I shared over drinks with a friend who happened to also be on the island - a thought about water, and our orientation to it, and what that means for Taiwanese identity.

People explain away Taiwan's less-than-ideal beach infrastructure and general lack of well-maintained beaches, and the fact that many Taiwanese don't know how to swim despite living on an island, by pointing out that Chinese culture isn't a water-oriented one (leaving aside the fact that historically, Chinese fishermen, explorers, traders, pirates and seafarers have absolutely been an integral part of Chinese culture.) They point out that China doesn't have great beaches - I've been to the one in Qingdao and yeah...not great, and I haven't heard great things about Hainan. Or they mention that Chinese cities tend to be built "with their back to the sea", or generally thinking of the sea as the end of China and not an integral part of their lives. As that same friend pointed out, for a large portion of not-too-distant Chinese history, access to the coastlines was banned (which of course didn't work at all as intended).


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You can see that in Taiwan - for a long time, despite being an island, the coastal waters were off-limits and people "were living more like residents of a landlocked country." In terms of specific beaches, Wai'ao could be a really nice destination, except it's just off a strip of noisy road, backed by ugly buildings and an entertainment complex that is both uninviting and behind a parking area, not actually on the beach. Kenting...I don't like Kenting, let me count the ways. Baishawan allows 10,000 people to churn the water in approximately half a square meter of a long, gorgeous beach. Fulong has that hideous bridge (yes, it needs a bridge, but couldn't it be nicer?) and ugly hotel and is flanked by a lagoon to one side that smells, as one friend who worked in health care put it, "like my sick elderly patients' pee." And that's just to name a few. (Some of the outlying islands fare better.) Taiwan doesn't have a lot of gorgeous, sandy beaches, but what it does have could be better than they are.

I mean, in Taipei we live an MRT ride from the ocean and hardly ever go, because the infrastructure needed to make the beaches really nice places to swim and relax just isn't there. Taiwan's cities do indeed feel as though they are built with their backs to the sea.

But, in Little Liuqiu, I got the sense that it could be different. More kids in the younger generation are learning to swim, Taiwanese Millenials go to the beach and hang out in a way that feels distinctly familiar to me as a coastal American. On Little Liuqiu, I dare say that, while not a "great beach" (too many rocks and coral to cut your feet) Baishawei's beach was a pleasant place to hang out, and other rocky beaches have good snorkeling - and people were taking advantage of that. People were going in the water and enjoying themselves in ways I just didn't see in China (though I haven't been to Hainan).

Note how all of the cultural attitudes towards the sea that I mentioned above are in relation to Chinese culture. But Taiwan is not China - it doesn't have to be this way. Taiwanese history is rooted in Austronesian indigenous culture, and who are seafarers if not Austronesians? Taiwan's deepest history is tied to the sea. It doesn't need to hold to Chinese notions of how the sea fits into their lives, and in fact such an attitude doesn't suit it. Taiwan isn't like China, not least in terms of geography. So why have a Chinese attitude to the ocean?


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Taiwan can - and I'd argue should - grow its existing beach/sea/ocean culture as a way to not only acknowledge that it is not only a subtropical/tropical set of islands and it makes sense for warm-water island nations to be sea-oriented, but also as a way to differentiate Taiwanese culture from Chinese culture. China can turn its back to the sea - we can turn to face it. It can be a barrier for them, the "end of civilization". On our beautiful ball of mud, we can do things differently.

Taiwan doesn't need to be defined by ideas central to Chinese culture. It has its own culture and can define itself accordingly. Just because something is culturally Chinese doesn't mean it needs to be applied to Taiwan.

And that will be one small, but notable, nail in the coffin of this "Taiwanese and Chinese culture are exactly the same! They have the same history and think and act in the same way!" nonsense bandied about by people who don't know what they're talking about. It's not true, but it's hard to see that if you're just passing through (or are just some Internet bloviator). We need it to be more demonstrably untrue, and a country where the beaches are both lovely and popular would help in its own small way.

This isn't a crazy outsider idea. I'm not trying to push my foreigner thoughts on a local culture - Taiwan is already going down this path and already has more of a historical and current orientation to the ocean than China. So there is no reason why Taiwan can't [continue to] cultivate a sea-facing, sea-loving, ocean-integrated culture that is well-suited to its geography and actual non-Chinese history. Improvements need to be made, but it would be unfair to say we're not on our way.

Anyway, enjoy a few more shots of Little Liuqiu:

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If you are wondering whether my feet are dirty or just dyed by my sandals, the answer is...they were really cheap sandals.


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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Taiwan Celebrates...What Now?


Sign at the Fulong Sand Sculpture festival

Brendan's hawk eyes noticed this sign before I did.

So.

Ummm...excuse me? Leaving aside the horrible phrasing of "After a century, Taiwan celebrates its 100th year anniversary" (as opposed to celebrating what? What else do you celebrate after 100 years?)...

...I would dearly like to know what happened in 1911 in Taiwan that would cause Taiwan to celebrate its centennial. Something happened in China 100 years ago, for sure, and not one but two governments celebrate it. Nothing, however, happened in Taiwan. On October 10th, 1911, the Taiwanese and Japanese woke up and went about their day as usual. In a country on the other side of the Taiwan Strait a lot was going on, but that has nothing to do with Taiwan. The sentence makes it sound like Taiwan didn't exist before 1911 - as though the KMT, despite the fact that they didn't arrive for several decades more, founded the country in 1911, or discovered the island, or something.

The Republic of China, sure. And yes, the Republic of China is the name of the sovereign government of Taiwan (which I do think should be called the Republic of Taiwan, but that's a whole 'nother rant) now, but it wasn't then. The sign would be correct to say "The Republic of China celebrates its 100th anniversary".

Which it did.

In China.

I'm sure this was written as it was to appease some douchebag from the Chinese government, or the Chinese artists listed as having worked on the corresponding sculpture (which is this one - the side is of Taipei 101 and Spongebob from my previous post):

...or maybe some douchebag in the KMT. The latter actually makes the most sense, considering that the phrasing as it is makes no sense at all. Or it was some sort of compromise that made everyone roll their eyes.

Not only should the government not be giving in to such demands, whether they are internal or international, but they should lay ground rules for these events along the lines of "you respect the reasonable language we use to express our sovereignty, you respect us and our dignity, or don't bother coming to, sponsoring or participating in our festival."

More happily, though, we also saw this sign:

The "正" should be read in Taiwanese (I believe it sounds like biang with a falling tone, but I don't really speak Taiwanese) and I suppose means "really" or "very".

Hooray for dai gi popping up on signage!

A Pictoral Walk Through Miaokou Night Market (Keelung)

A stand selling refreshing fig jelly drinks with lemon (愛玉檸檬汁) - I like this photo for the hanging limes.

After our tiring, sand-covered trip to Fulong to see the lovely sand sculptures, we hopped a long, heavily air-conditioned bus to Keelung to eat in the night market. More than half the night market is currently closed (road construction, I think) but the main eating area known as Miaokou Snack Street is still open.

Keelung is one of my favorite night markets, and I'd say the best in northern Taiwan (though I am also a big fan of Raohe in the far east of Taipei). I was devastated that my seafood lady - my dealer, as it were, for delicious sea urchin sashimi, was a part of the closed area. Good for my wallet though - sea urchins start at NT$100 an urchin and go up from there. As you can only eat the roe, not the innards, you don't get a lot for your money (but what you get is sublime, so I keep coming back for more. Mmmmm sea urchins).

Some schookids eating what I think is stewed pork rice

Some specialties of Keelung, besides seafood generally, are cream crabs (奶油螃蟹) - a whole crab cooked in cream and butter with onions and often basil, thick soup (羹) in its lamb, eel and crab forms (and possibly others), one bite sausage (below), tempura (below), and ice desserts of various kinds.

All the other stuff is tasty, too.

So...enjoy a pictoral walk through a busy night at the night market, with a few bonus pics of downtown Keelung - which is just this side of sketchy without being too dangerous!

A view of the night market from the temple's incense burner

Many night markets seem to have sprung up around temples, which makes sense if you consider the temple as a community gathering spot that has always had snack vendors outside. It is quite obvious that some of these might grow into full-blown snack markets or night markets. Not all night markets have a temple and not all larger temples have a night market, but many do.


There's a famous snack at Miaokou called "Nutritious Sandwich" - it's a piece of deep-fried bread filled with mayonnaise, tomato, cucumber, ham and boiled egg. Nutritious indeed.


Taiwanese-style tempura (甜不辣)


One Bite Sausage with raw garlic - yum! (一口香腸加蒜頭)


Lovers eating mba wan (肉圓 - Taiwanese rice gluten dumplings)


Crab thick soup (螃蟹羹) and chicken rice (雞絲飯)


I'm quite sad that this photo ended up a bit blurry (and no amount of Sharpen tool can fix it) - I love the expressions on their faces.


They look surprised, but believe me when I say that I asked permission to take this photo.


"Traditional" shaved ice toppings. The green stuff is "coconut" and is actually quite good.


Best photobomb ever! Well, not the best, but still pretty good.


I like Keelung because it's just...weird.


...and gritty with a side of seediness thrown in. It's those things too. That's what you get in an Asian port town.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Yehliu


Kid playing in rock formations as the sun sets



Yehliu is a small fishing town - and an ugly town at that, sorry - on the northeast coast of Taiwan.



To get there, take the MRT to Taipei Main Station. Exit on the Zhongxiao side of the railway station - 4 or 5 should do, I can't remember which is better. Walk west along Zhongxiao (if you're facing the railway station, turn left) until you come to two bus stations - one for the airport and one for long distance buses. Pass both of these and make your first right, walking away from the Shinkong Life tower that is prominently on your left. On the left, you'll see another bus station servicing Ubus. enter and turn right, walking past the UBus section into the Guo Guang section. On the left, find a departure terminal labeled "Jinshan". Buy tickets to Yehliu from the counter across from that, and get on a Jinshan bound bus. Make sure to have the driver tell you where to get off.
About 1.5 hours later, you'll arrive in Yehliu. Turn right and walk down the hill to the harbor and past it. The good seafood restaurants are here. Turn away from the harbor when you see a V in the road, and you'll come to the Geopark. There's a market selling dried fish and tacky souvenirs as well.

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It has two attributes that make it entirely worth a visit, if not a repeat visit: gorgeous eroded rock formations and the best damn seafood you've ever had in your life.

We went for a day last weekend - a second visit for me and Brendan, and a first for my sister and a new friend. As we had all slept in, we didn't arrive until an hour or two before sunset. As it turns out, this is the best time of day to take photos of the compelling rocks that dot the coast, and the staggering cliffs above. The warm sandy color of these formations lends itself particularly well to the orange rays of the setting sun.

The rocks, coast and parts of the cliffs were formed - and are still being formed - by wind, water and sand erosion and (apparently) seismic activity. My students say that this last factor is false - it has nothing to do with the movement of anything below, and everything to do with the unique erosion conditions above.

Queen's Head Rock

The rocks are classified by their shape - there are "tofu rocks", "ginger rocks" and apparently even "brain rocks". The most famous is nu wang tou, or Queen's Head, shown below. We personally found the odd "garlic"-topped mini-volcanoes at the other end to be more compelling.

More weird rocks

Couple at sunset

After the sun properly set we made our way to a seafood restaurant, choosing based on the abundance of plastic bins holding live seafood. "You guys got a menu?" I asked in Chinese.

"This is our menu," the owner answered, gesturing to the bins.

We had cuttlefish sashimi with a spicy dipping sauce, a plate of basil clams, a steamed fish, four barbecued crabs and a plate of stir-fried cabbage. The entire meal came to under $2000 NT for four people. Delicious!



My sister enjoying the local marine life






Sand dollar fossil



Fishermen flagrantly disobeying the rules