Longshan Temple

Taking the red line to Longshan Temple, we found an underground mall that resembled the typical marketplaces we see in Mexico and other Central American countries.  Here you can get the tourist souvenirs like bookmarkers, bags, tea sets, dolls, puppets, statuettes, etc. and when it says "made in Taiwan", you know you have a product that is really made by the locals.  Coming up to street level, street vendors lined up one side of the metro building selling all kinds of food.  Music coming loudly from a parked vehicle of sorts, people buying and eating as they walked around a beautiful fountain and a Buddhist temple across the street. This is the panoramic view you got as you stepped out of the metro building.

Longshan Temple was described in my guidebook as the real heartbeat of Taipei.  The temple is officially  dedicated to Guanyin (the Buddhist representation of compassion) but there is a great amount of folk religion mixed into it.  There were people everywhere.  Some with hands together making their way up to the temple, some giving their back to the temple but also praying, some with offerings of flowers and/or food, some chanting, some with prayer beads, and some in a long line making their way up to the altar.  There was a smell of incense throughout the temple. 

The People of Taiwan

According to official governmental statistics, 98% of Taiwan's population is made up of "ethnic" Chinese and 2 % are considered Taiwanese aborigines.   I read somewhere that cross-ethnic mixing with their own and other groups is quickly giving a self-identity to the "Taiwanese".   Both their social and political experiences have helped to boost this new identity.   Walking through the stores, you notice a multi-cultural society that includes not only Asians, but also East Indians, Filipinos, Americans and Europeans.  Statistics show that 25% of the marriages are racially or culturally mixed and 1 out of every 12 children born has mixed parentage.

Maybe these facts have helped in the development of a rather open and friendly interaction with foreigners.  People will look at us without giving us a feeling of staring and if you acknowledge them they will heartily give a greeting in English.   Taipei has a population of almost 3 million and yet you very rarely hear the blast of a horn in protest or anger.  In a cab the other day I heard someone honk but it was more of an acknowledgment that the light had changed...just one rather short beep.  Everyone is very orderly in walking down crowded sidewalks, motor scooters everywhere appear to be given the right of way, and checkouts always have a line with no pushing or shoving.  It gives a relaxed sense of security.  People will leave their purses, cell phones, etc. on a table while they go get something to eat and no one seems to worry about losing them.

Academia Sinica has two museums dedicated to the history of the island:  The Museum of the Institute of History and Philology and the Museum of the Institute of Ethnology.   Below are a few of the artifacts found in the museum.

THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND PHILOLOGY:

Graded Po Bells

Bronze Ox Cauldron

Embroidered shirt

Red pottery Kuei Pitcher

Yen Steamer

The Nuo god and Nuo goddess of the Miao people are the brother and sister in the story of a great flood.

This is the best-preserved and most complete wooden slip text extant, with the wooden pieces, strings, and ink all mostly intact

MUSEUM OF THE INSTITUTE OF ETHNOLOGY

I Got My Wings And I Learned How to Fly!

First, a little personal history for non-family members joining in:  My husband and I are in Taipei visiting our oldest daughter.  She is a scientific editor for Academia Sinica, a research facility and has been in the city for about 6 months now.
Today marks one week we have been in Taiwan and up to this point we have done most of our exploring with our daughter.  She seemed a little apprehensive about us going out on our own--now the tables are turned and she seems to feel what I felt when she was a snotty teenager who thought she was too independent to let us know her whereabouts.  PayBack!!!!

This new age of technology makes it so much easier to venture out even when in a strange land with a very foreign language.  Picking a destination (Ikea) and looking it up on google maps, I asked for directions from our apartment to Ikea.  I then downloaded both addresses (in Chinese) to my tablet and the map from destination A to B.  So AndreAna goes to work and we take off.  First, hailing a taxi is easy.  Just stand on the corner and wave when you see one.  Get in, pull out the tablet and show the driver the address for Ikea and the map, and off we go.  We don't have an Ikea in San Antonio, but we have been to the stores in Austin and Houston. Taipei's Ikea is not much different except that there are no English descriptions or names on the products.  We walked around, bought a few things for the apartment, and had the typical Ikea lunch.  Hamburger steak with gravy and mushrooms, veggies, and fries were very much like the food stateside.   We shared one plate, a salad, corn chowder soup, and a drink for less than $9 US.  A full stomach and shopping successful, we go outside hail another taxi and pull out our map and directions.  Thirty minutes later, we are home.
 A good day!

Rain and Hot Pot

It seems that there is some rain just about every day in Nankang, the area of Taipei we are staying in.  Something to do with the mountains surrounding it and the clouds getting caught in it until they are so heavy they let go their water.  I prefer to think that they cry because the mountains trap them and keep them from seeing all there is to see in the rest of the land.  Lucky us get to travel around the mountains to the rest of the city.  And chances are that once we get around the mountains it won't be raining.  But the rain was pouring and it seemed a lazy day so we stayed home and looked at places we might want to see during the weekend.  A couple of times the rain stopped, but before we could venture anywhere it poured again.  Lunch was take-out from Academia Sinica:  roasted duck, strange but good veggies (some type of root I think), green beans, rice and a soup of beef and noodles.  

Most days the rain comes and goes every afternoon leaving a steamy evening, but this rain must have been a front because it was cool all day.  Venturing out for dinner, we found that it was indeed cool enough for a light jacket.  I can't remember the last time I went walking in the rain but it really felt good.  Two blocks from the apartment we stopped at a small little place with about 10 tables.   While we waited for a friend who was meeting us there, we saw people going in and out continuously so we figured it must be a good choice.  Going in, we get a table for 4 with individual Sterno hot plates at each place setting.  The only settings include chopsticks and a ladle.  There is a small package of napkins in the center just in case you need a napkin.  Forewarned, I come prepared with my own napkins, and a couple of cute kits from The Container Store that include a make-it yourself fork, knife, spoon, and/or chopsticks.  I feel like the ugly American with my own utensils until I see a native sitting across from me who pulls out her own cute little box and chopsticks.  She smiles at my little set, too.  Now for the meal:  two beef broth bowls with all kinds of vegetables in it, a curry bowl with vegetables,  and a vegetable broth bowl.  The server places each bowl on its own hot plate and turns on the heat.  A "refill" buffet by the kitchen offers two types of tea (barley and one that seems to be the choice of most other restaurants) and  extra condiments for the soup (scallions, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, etc.).  The pots start boiling and we get three plates of raw thinly sliced beef and a beautiful cornucopia of different veggies for the vegetarian broth. We also get sides that include udon noodles, white rice, and/or ramen noodles.   Here the fun begins, especially for me, the one person who has never been able to master chopsticks.  I actually use mine to spear the meat slices and drop them into the boiling soup.  They also become my stirrers for the mixture.  Udon noodles can be added to warm in the broth, the white rice comes ready to serve, and the ramen noodles "brick" needs to be added  to the broth.  When the meat turns from pink to brown, I use the ladle to pour a small amount of soup into a small bowl.  Now to explore the tastes.  Veggies include cabbage, tomato, roots (turnips?), etc; tofu; and several different fishy tasting ingredients.  Dinner takes a couple of hours with good company sharing food and conversation.  Today was a good day!  Rain included!

Look Again?

Last night for dinner we had KLG fried chicken, a knock-off that would do the colonel proud.  It consisted of a huge breast, crispy fried and very moist.  Spicy was not quite the colonel's but it was a different spice that I couldn't make out with a tinge of sweetness visible in the taste.  Very good!  but you do have to watch out for small bones. 

Another note:  Coke products here taste more like the Mexican coke...I can't read the label but I imagine its made with cane sugar.  There are not very many soda choices...but there seems to be an endless supply of teas in all flavors.  Some with fruit flavors, some with yogurt, some with milk, etc.  Very often the only way we know the flavor is by looking at the picture on the bottle.  We are trying to taste a variety but old customs die hard...I did find Lipton at the Seven-Eleven:  Green tea with lemon. 

Grocery shopping Walmart Style

Carre Four is to Taiwan as Walmart is to the states.  It is a department store/hardware store/drugstore/grocery store combination that offers a wide variety of products to its customers.   Acquiring a cart is of interest.  The carts are chained together and to release one you put a ten dollar coin (30 cents US) deposit into a lock on the handle of the cart.  You walk around with your cart with the coin in the slot.  When you return the cart and chain it back with the others, the coin is released and you get your ten dollars back.  I think I prefer this to the long pole on the Ross Department Store carts. 

A curious observation:  Why are products made in China/Taiwan more expensive there than they are in the states?  Walking through the electronics section and comparing prices on cameras, we noticed that they tended to be more expensive.  The same could be seen in laptops and cell phones. 

In a city of roughly three million people with space at a premium, one thing we noticed was that appliances tended to be downsized.   Refrigerators, washers, and dryers were somewhat smaller in size than what we have in the states.  A dryer is considered a luxury and not very common.  Most people hang their clothes out to dry...although the humidity makes this almost impossible to accomplish.

American brands of food and sundry items can be found on the shelves side by side with local brands.  Some packages have English labels to identify their products and others you just have to guess by the cover and/or picture.  Vegetables and fruit are somewhat similar and easy to make out.  Meat is also easily identifiable.  But there are some items in both that are not common in the states.   One of these is the black chicken in the picture on the right.  The meat is actually black. 

Groceries bagged we hailed a taxi and headed back home. 

Taipei 101 in the background stands tall and proud as a symbol of the tenacity of the people.

A short bus ride and metro transport brought us to the City Hall Station in Downtown Taipei.  Exiting the terminal found us in a shopping mall with a variety of shops and eating places.  We explored a couple of the shops, made note of some rather interesting bakeries for later, and made our way to our primary destination for the day:  Eslite Xinyi Store.  The store offers a wide variety of books as well as fashion and accessories, housewares, gifts, etc.  Coming in from the station mall you find yourself in another food court offering a wide variety of foods.  Lunch here included a beef curry plate and a spicy beef plate both with rice and tea included.  Two plates for three people for a whopping $10 US was considered typical in price and amount of food.  There is no problem in ordering because everything has a picture of the meal and an english name for it.  The servers are very friendly and communication problems are easily avoided by pointing to what you want.

"Eslite Xinyi Store is the largest physical platform of international knowledge exchange in Asia, in which millions of books are displayed. And it is also famous for being the biggest compound mall of books, clothes, fashion designs, living gadgets and food in Taiwan, where shopping space fully represents the beauty of design."  


Formal dining areas can also be found in the store.  Two of interest to me were the Library (with a window view of Taipei 101)and the Tea Room (not to be confused with the tea room in the basement).

History of Taiwan

Originally, Taiwan was populated by a dozen plus aboriginal tribes that were not really related to the
eastern cultures of the area.  After thousands of years of independent living, the seventeenth century saw colonization first by the Dutch and then by the Portuguese.  During Portuguese rule the island was known as Ilha Formosa (beautiful island).  Successful European trade brought Chinese immigrants to the island and eventually Taiwan was integrated into China as a province.  When the Japanese defeated the Qing dynasty in 1895,  Taiwan was a casualty and remained under Japan until after World War II (1945).  This period left a very strong influence on the island that is still visible today.
When the Nationalist government of China was defeated by the Communists in 1949, the Nationalists, their army, and thousands of supporters fled from mainland China to Taiwan.  The People's Republic of China claims Taiwan as a renegade province and still tries to exert certain power over the island. 

The history that I have provided here is a lot more complicated in cultural, political, and biological differences in the people.  Through all the changes, Taiwan has emerged as a leader in consumer electronics and has one of the world's richest and most modern economies.