Pei-yu lives with her parents in a fairly simple but spacious three-story row house above a drug store in Tainan City, and I became their guest and fourth member of the family for my four days there. My first full day, all four of us made a trip to the Alishan National Scenic Area, about 2-hours drive away and up steep, lush green mountains with little towns scattered on the way up, supporting the tourist industry. The drive up was scenic and steep, and then we hiked around for a while.
My second day, Pei-yu took me out to the Tainan markets just around the corner from her house, and then gave me a tour of sites and tastes of Tainan. In the evening, the four of us had a fun game of traditional Chinese mahjong, a game similar to the card game Gin Rummy. I had to learn the Chinese characters for 1 through 9. I even won a round!
My third day, we took another family trip to the largest Buddhist monastery in Taiwan, Fo Guang Shan. After, we went to a touristy island off the coast famous for its seafood, and then walked along the colorfully-lit riverbank in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second largest city, south of Tainan. Both places were packed with Taiwanese on family outings during the Chinese New Year.
My fourth day, we drove to another town to visit Pei-yu's grandmother and other family. Since this is the Chinese New Year, the country grinds to a hault and is filled with people visiting relatives and doing family outings. There were lots of family present, and we basically sat around all day eating and talking. Pei-yu acted as a great translator, as few other people spoke any English. There were a number of cute babies present, and it was generally a fun family time and low-pressure since there was a large number of people there.At one point in the day, five of us went with Pei-yu's farmer uncle to his land a five-minute drive away. We watched him cut fresh tomatos, celery, potato greens, and huge heads of cauliflower and cabbage. He then explained in frantic Chinese how to tell when the corn was ripe for picking.
Hanging out with Pei-yu's extended family all day emphasized the importance of family in Taiwanese culture, something I had found also in Colombia. In fact, it seems common in a good portion of world cultures to live close, often in the same building or neighborhood, with your extended family, and for children to live with their parents as their parents grow old.
Throughout my my four days staying with Pei-yu, I ate all my meals with her and her parents. For a number of meals, we had "hot pot", which is basically a hot pot of boiling broth with all kinds of things thrown in, including hunks of chicken on the bone, sausage, cabbage, mushrooms, corn on the cob, and other unidentifiable bits. There are always at least two forms of rice. For non-hot pot meals, there is always soup similar to that from Dharma Drum Mountain, but now with meat. Everything is heavily cooked, and we rarely drink anything at the meals (though you get liquid from the soup). I can't say the cuisine is my favorite, but it's at least been interesting to learn what others eat and to try a few new things.
On the 9th, Pei-yu and I left early to catch the bus north to Taichung and spent the day with her friend Ann who is an electronics hardware engineer. Pei-yu and Ann chatted away in the front of Ann's car as we stopped off at various sites, including a bustling food market, a winery, a saxophone factory, and an outdoor flower garden. We had yummy dinner in an enormous food court inside an enormous shopping mall, and then Pei-yu and I said goodbye and took the high speed railway back to Taipei.
1 comment:
what are those mystery bits in the hot pot, tubs?
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