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TAIWAN DAY DREAMS
"Ilha Formosa -- Beautiful island," said the Portuguese navigator who first recorded then left the mountainous land
mass bisected by the Tropic of Cancer.
"Great opportunities," said the Dutch in 1622 and stayed. Taiwan became one of their most profitable branches, accounting
for 26 percent of the company's world profits in 1649.
Waves of Chinese mainlanders, Japanese expansionists who controlled the island for 50 years, businessmen and tourists have
since discovered and developed the potential of Taiwan. "Made in Taiwan" may be the most familiar phrase in the
world.
Because of that influx and the
mountain ranges that take up half the land area, Taiwan is the second most densely populated area in the world.
Shaped like a 245-mile-long sweet potato, the island is slightly larger
than Maryland. Despite tree-lined streets, parks and handsome monuments, cities are unattractive, full of tall concrete boxes
and motorcycles, the dominant mode of transportation.
Linger, though, and you realize that most residents are prosperous, spending money on luxuries, dining out at restaurants,
shopping for the latest fad at stores that stay busy and open 24 hours a day. The very rich and the very poor are a small
minority. If there are beggars, none were seen during a busy, week-long tour of the country.
Salaries have risen along with skill levels. Taiwanese now produce high-tech
goods, leaving cheap mass production to lower-paid mainland Chinese.
"If it's cheap, it's Chinese," said one resident.
Taipei is the capital, a city of wide avenues, medium-high buildings (thanks to the domestic airport it grew to surround)
and parks, that never sleeps. Night markets -- combination carnivals, food fairs and merchandise marts -- are wildly popular.
Even the Eslite Book Store, five chic stories of literary delights, is open 24 hours a day. When one does sleep, however,
everyone is concerned that you do it well.
"You did not sleep well," announced the reflexologist, rubbing the top and sides of a foot that had spent the last
24 hours on planes or in airports.
The
itinerary closed out the first day in-country with a trip to the Taichitong Chinese Foot Reflexology Center. An answer to
the prayers of any international traveler, or so one would think. The Japanese and Chinese swear by it and indeed, there are
storefront clinics all over town. The foot soak in a wooden bucket of hot water was enjoyable, and the next step, stretching
out on the comfortable lounger, feet snuggled into warm towels, boded well. The young practitioner, his white lab coat crisply
pressed, looked both efficient and benign.
Well, one out of two isn't bad. Reflexology hurts. It is nothing like the soothing massage a pedicurist gives. You feel
the manipulation all the way to your ear lobes and between gasps you marvel at the strength a slender young man can exert
with mere thumbs.
Does it work? No guarantees
here, but it did get one foot-weary, sciaticy traveler up and down the narrow stairs to the upper level of Din Tai Fung for
dinner that night. This steam-filled, four-floor-high hole in the wall is reportedly (by The New York Times) the world's
best dumpling restaurant. Outside, there's always a queue and billows of steam. Inside, the steamed crabmeat and pork
dumplings are to die for.
"Sleep
well," said the smiling housekeeper, exercising one of her few English phrases as she picked non-existent lint off the
cavernous, carpeted hallway of The Grand Hotel.
BEST OF THE BEST
Taipei has more to offer than dumplings and sleep monitors. The National Palace Museum is reason enough for art lovers to
stop here. The museum was first established in Beijing in 1925 following the fall of the Ch'ing dynasty. When the Japanese
invaded Manchuria in 1931, the finest of the collection was carefully packed and moved south for safekeeping, beginning a
30-year odyssey. By the end of World War II, there were still some 20,000 wooden crates under the protection of Chiang Kai-shek
(CKS) and the Republic of China (ROC). When the ROC evacuated to Taiwan in 1948 and '49, the treasures came along.
The museum itself, built in 1965, is under renovation,* but what counts is its contents, the best that 5,000-plus years of Chinese culture has produced. Not one or
two examples of the epitome of an artistic discipline, but dozens. The earliest of bronzeware; Sung dynasty celedon; the paintings
of Han, Sung and T'ang; the sculpture, especially equestrian, of the T'ang. Calligraphy, ceramics, furniture, enamelware,
export goods, glass, personal seals, jewelry, jades -- the excess of quality and quantity is overwhelming, even though the
lion's share is not on display. Of the 100 pieces of sublime Sung dynasty Ju Ware porcelain known in the world, 26 are
here, nine on display together.
There's
nourishment for the stomach as well. Taipei has the culinary variety of any international city, including more Japanese restaurants
than Chinese. Ah, but the Chinese. Most early Chinese immigrants came from two provinces, so the cuisines of Fujian and Xiamen
plus indigenous products became Taiwan's. After World War II, Chinese from all parts of the mainland arrived bringing
their cookery with them. Pure examples of each are still available, but the merging of techniques is producing Cantonese with
Sichuan and Hunan verve, Sichuan with Cantonese delicacy and hundreds of other wonderful variations.
If Stanley C. Yen, chairman of the Taiwan Visitors Association, has his way,
more mouth-watering mergers are in store. A living legend in Taiwan's hospitality industry, the group president of The
Landis Hotels and Resorts has started at home, bringing a pair of award-winning French chefs into the kitchens of The Landis
Taipei Hotel to work alongside his Chinese chefs.
An early and delectible experiment of this cultural exchange was traditional Chinese chicken soup with traditional French
truffles.
Seafood lovers need to visit
Pisha Fisherman's Wharf in nearby Keelung. Indoor stalls offer the liveliest collection of marine life outside of an aquarium,
swimming in tanks and ready for your favorite recipe. There's even a booth with fish candy (a sample suffices for most
Western palates, but Chinese kids love this stuff). Pick your own crab, shrimp, fish, squid, whatever and take it home. Or,
head outside and peruse the 30 or so storefront restaurants. They, too, have cases of live fish and crustaceans that can be
cooked and served, from soup to entree, in a thrice.
Historians will relish a visit to the CKS Memorial Hall with its collection of artifacts and memorabilia of China and Taiwan's
20th century as well as a changing series of interesting exhibits. Check out the changing of the guard at Dr. Sun Yat-sen's
Memorial, too, another standout structure.
Every Saturday and Sunday, the Chienkuo Holiday Jade and Floriculture Market fills the space beneath a downtown overpass with
masses of flowers, trees and plants and what can, on a good day, be a very large jade market. Definitely worth a visit.
You can't help but notice The Grand Hotel; it towers over the city from
a hilltop and is worth a tour if you can't stay. Built and still managed by members of the Chiang Kai-shek family, its
compound includes lakes, gardens and winding paths. Inside it is a fantasia of red and gold, with a museumlike display of
objets d'art (for sale), shops, restaurants and services. Everything is oversize, including hallways and rooms, each of
which has a large balcony.
LEAVE TOWN
Almost
any city in Taiwan is likely to under-impress Western visitors: too many people packed into too many unattractive buildings.
Head for the hills, and you are soon traveling through a Chinese brush painting, surrounded by cliffs and knobs of steep mountains
playing peek-a-boo in the mists or plunging into the sea.
As you head to mountains or shore, note the glass "boxes" bristling with flashing neon that line the highways on
the outskirts of every town. Inside each is a "betel nut beauty." These attractive, scantily clad young women tempt
long-distance-drivers to stop and purchase the bitter nuts that are chewed to keep awake.
Steel drum smokers and grillers along the roadside aren't preparing barbecue, they're grilling sweet potatoes and
sugar cane. Do stop at a roadside candy store; the Taiwanese "candy" everything, from fruit to taro.
Taroko Gorge, Taiwan's Grand Canyon, is spectacular. Formed by a combination
of techtonic lifts and the Liwu River's erosion of 9,000-foot-high limestone and marble mountains, it is a series of deep,
narrow gorges with fantastic striations. This National Park, well marked and maintained, is a 30-minute flight from midtown
Taipei to the Hualien airport, plus a 20-minute drive along the dramatic sea-hugging Chingsui Cliff.
Taroko, which includes 27 of Taiwan's 100 tallest peaks, is bisected
by the Central Cross-Island Highway, a site in its own right. An ancient, 15-person-maximum suspension bridge leads to pictureque
Hsiangte Temple and pagoda. In February, it was banked by flowering cherry trees. Up at the temple, a plain stone marker is
given a place of prominence, but you'll have to ask someone else why.
"Too old," was the answer Francis Soong, senior protocol officer with the Government Information Office Division
of Information & Protocol, received from the Buddhist nun. "No one remembers."
Not surprising when you consider the periods of instability and upheaval
this area of the world has endured in the last century. Soong's family can chart itself back 17 generations, but no one
recorded when they moved from Fujian Province on the mainland to the island, and now no one is old enough to remember.
Hikers will be in heaven with the variety of trails. The Tunnel of Nine Turns
gives even sedentary visitors paved access to glorious views. With its excess of marble, limestone and jade, Hualien County
is the center of the island's rock-carvers and shops line the access road to Taroko.
If serene is more your style, aim for Sun Moon Lake, a National Scenic Area.
The country's largest freshwater lake was formed by a Japanese hydroelectric project. At 2,800 feet above sea level, it
is still surround The lake, its north end
shaped like the sun, its south like the crescent moon, was a favorite retreat for Chiang Kai-shek. He had Tsen Pagoda built
in his mother's memory and was particularly fond of the indigenous and bone-filled Chuiao, now commonly referred to as
president's fish. Eight natural hiking trails, each with its own history, surround the lake. Perched on the surrounding
mountainsides and a few flights of stairs away from local roads, are Wenu Temple and Hsuantsang and Hsuankuang Temple. Lalu
Island, sacred to the ancestor-worshiping Thao Tribe who live in the area, and a nearby floating viewing platform are reachable
by boat. Much of this area was devastated by a major earthquake in 1999 (according to natives, the "big ones" run
in 60-year cycles) and is still rebuilding.
Perhaps the most incongruous facility of any country and surely this one is the nearby Taiwan Aboriginal Cultural Park (also
known as Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village). Imagine a combination of Six Flags, Disneyland and Williamsburg set in a mountain
glen filled with cherry and plum orchards. Next door is a French-style formal garden circumnavigated by a miniature railroad
whose train is named the Abe Lincoln.
At one end of the garden is a large, white, multi-storied hotel and dining facility that wouldn't look amiss in Monaco.
Amid this grand kitsch, you can tour village re-creations of the island's 10 indigenous tribes, watch Disneylike shows
of their costumes and cultures, try your hand at archery, ride the cable car, a double-decker carousel or the space drop.
Even if the kids are at home, try this; you'll get great photos.
The village of Sanyi is the center of woodcarving. Start at the Museum of Wood Sculpture, if it's open, and work your
way back through a street lined with wood carvers' shops. Many fill the fronts with mass produced tourist wares; push
through the schlock to the good stuff in the back. Some is repetitious and formulaic, but you will also see flights of creativity
and individuality when carvers release a living being from its wooden cage.
North of Taipei, up and around and around and around a mountain grouping, is the charming village of Chiufen, which also goes
around and up, until it ends at an overlook down to the seacoast.
The "up" street for pedestrians is lined with food, souvenir and handicrafts shops. Visitors wind their way through
purveyors and creators of baked goods, medicines, dumplings and buns, teas, fruit and herbal drinks, shaved ice or peanut
brittle treats, candies of every variety and very good restaurants.
Each edibles stand operator eagerly offers samples, making it a grand way to taste your way through the country's favorite
snack foods. Do save room for a meal, though; rice noodles are particularly popular.
Taiwan is credited with the densest, most varied concentration of hot springs
in the world, with bubbling soothers in more than 100 locations. There's a rare cold mineral spring at Suao in the north
and an even rarer seawater hot spring on Green Island.
Trying the ones in Taipei can be like a short trip to Japan, for almost all were developed by these bath lovers, although
it may be easier to find springs in other parts of the country. The old Japanese quarter of the city is a warren of steep,
narrow and twisty streets and lanes barely one car wide.
Wherever you go on this friendly island, don't be intimidated by crowds. On Taiwan, you're among friends. Many of
whom will ask, "Did you sleep well?"
TAIWAN: IF YOU GO
-- Getting around: There are two international airports, Chiang Kai-shek in Taipei and Kaohsiung
in the south, but most visitors fly into Taipei. Shuttle buses run from airports to major hotels. The major ports for passenger
ships are Keelung, Kaohsuing and Hialien. You can fly to and from anywhere in-country in less that an hour. The highway system
is good and well marked, but not always in English. A high-speed railway between Taipei and Kaohsiung will be completed in
2006. In Taipei, a cab ride across town, 20 or 30 minutes, will run $8 to $12. The new subway may get you there for 60 cents.
-- Lodging: Taipei is full of excellent
five-star hotels, but even the tourism officials admit they need more three- and four-star facilities. There and in other
areas, the top-end Landis chain (www.landistpc.com.tw) is popular. Businessmen will like the Evergreen chain, as will tourists
who value comfort at less than top cost (www.evergreen-hotels.com). The Grand Hotel is an affordable institution (www.grand-hotel.org).
The indigenous Atayal people, known for their weaving, run the Grand Formosa
Taroko Hotel, a good place to stay if you plan to amble or hike. The park has one campground with spaces available on a first-come
basis.
There are a number of resort hotels
around Sun Moon Lake, but if you want to see "charm" personified, try for a room at Full House, an art-, artifact-
and anecdote-filled bed, dinner and breakfast inn run by the Lins. She's an artist, he's a pharmacist and photographer
and both are avid travelers and collectors (fhsml.idv.tw).
-- Eating: As on the mainland, hotel food can be quite good. The Landis in Taipei is
considered to have the city's best dining room (food and service), and in Taichung, the Evergreen Laurel has an excellent
selection of prix fixe dinners. Wherever you go, a 10 percent service charge probably will be added to the tab. You can leave
the small change behind if you want, but tourism officials are trying to make Taiwan a tipless society. Please don't undermine
such an admirable goal.
-- What to buy: Wood and stone (including jade) carvings offer high quality at a very good price, but
the quintessential Taiwanese craft is the brilliantly colored Chiao-Chi pottery. It originated during the Sung Dynasty on
the mainland. By the 1800s, the Chinese community in Taiwan wanted its temples decorated and imported a number of master craftsmen.
They stayed, turning temple roofs and walls into friezes of morality tales, much as the Byzantine churches were painted with
Biblical stories. Under the Communist regimes, the art died on the mainland, but it flourishes here. Now companies such as
The Aristocrat Pottery (www.taso.co.tw) produce plates, plaques and sculpture for tourists as well as templeware.
-- Sights:
-- National Palace Museum: www.npm.gov.tw
-- Sun Moon Lake: www.sunmoonlake.gov.tw
-- Taiwan Aboriginal Cultural Park: www.tacp.gov.tw/english/intro/fmintro.htm
-- Taiwan Fine Arts Museum: www.tfam.gov.tw/english/information/aboutleader.asp?mode=leader
-- National Theater: www.ntch.edu.tw/english/english.htm
-- Information: Taiwan was trying
to double its tourism business by 2008 before the SARS epidemic struck. With the virus eliminated, they want to get back on
track, so the timing couldn't be better. Check the Internet for special tours and rates or contact the Travel Section,
Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, New York, (212) 867-1632.
Tourism Bureau, Ministry of Transportation and Communications: www.tbroc.gov.tw.; www.taiwan.net.tw.
* This article originally appeared in The Florida
Times-Union on October 5, 2003 .
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| Our lantern rises to mother moon at the Pingxi Lantern Festival. |
Lantern Festival brightest of celebrations
It's not hard to find a unique festival in Taiwan. The Chinese have always been adaptive when it comes to religions, and
Taiwanese add a spin of their own.
Between folk, aboriginal, Buddhist, Confucianist and Christian faiths, someone's always celebrating something. Whatever
the occasion, expect colorful parades, banners, dances, competitions, special foods, noisy fireworks, especially firecrackers,
and crowds. Big, happy, polite crowds.
The Lantern Festival, second only to the Chinese New Year celebration, is the biggest, most famous and perhaps the best for
Westerners to attend.
"You
must not come during Chinese New Year," warned James Tien, director of the Information Division's Taipei Economic
& Cultural Office in Miami, helping plan the timing for a trip to Taiwan. "No one will be there to help you. Wait
for the Lantern Festival!"
On Taiwan, he explained, Chinese New Year is like August in Paris; everyone is on vacation during the first two weeks of the
lunar calendar.
The festival culminates
on the 15th night of the first lunar month, but the week before, signs of the Lantern Festival fill the country, from dusty
red lanterns left over from last year to the Mardi Gras-size lantern floats of Taipei and other cities.
The year's astrological animal provides the theme for all.
Each town has its own traditions. In Yanshui to the southeast, they shoot
off shipping container-size "rocket hives" all night long. That's 20,000 rockets going off at once over and
over again and yes, it's extremely dangerous.
The nation's official 2003 Lantern Festival was in the central city of Taichung as part of the 100th birthday of Taichung
Park. In Taipei, activities centered around CKS Memorial Hall Plaza with lantern making and riddle contests, laser shows,
performers and lanterns of all sizes and shapes.
Nowhere, however, is it more beautiful than in the small mountain town of Pingxi (Ping-shee), north of the capital. The art
of turning lanterns into miniature hot air balloons for military signaling originated in China between 50 B.C. and 100 A.D.
One year, on the 15th day of the first lunar month, the art was revived here by Chinese immigrant farmers to warn each other
of the approach and departure of bandits. Over the years, it evolved into a ritual to thank the gods and to relay wishes for
the new year to them.
Normally
a town of 2,000, by 3 p.m. Pingxi was packed with 20,000 to 30,000 celebrants. The winding roads into town were filled with
thousands more en route. Only a small fraction would be able to squeeze into the junior high school athletic field where the
main show and "launches" were to take place. Not that it mattered. The streets leading to the schoolyard were one
big carnival of delicious-smelling foods, games, rides, pitchmen for products and sellers of "heavenly lanterns"
that could be launched anywhere, any time.
Instead of buying a ready-made lantern, Miss Chen, a Pingxi native, showed how to make our own with four large pieces of tissue
paper, a thin bamboo frame and a wad of kerosene-soaked "golden paper." Wishes must cover all four sides, so after
the gluing was done everyone took turns with the felt-tipped pen.
On the outdoor stage, local groups were performing lion dances, acrobatics, songs and dance numbers for what seemed to be
an already capacity crowd. In town some people just couldn't wait; balloons started rising even before dusk approached.
Members of the fire department watched in case they were needed to put out a fire. The later it got, the more professional
the entertainers were, leading up to Taiwan's versions of Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake.
At last it was time for the first launch. One hundred foursomes took their
places, including ours. Holding the lantern's sides out, we lifted it up when the "lighting" crews came by so
they could add flame to the golden paper tightly wrapped about the lantern's center support.
"Step on it!" Miss Chen said, telling us to hold the lantern frame
down with our feet so pressure could build. Wait for the signal . . . wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . go!
We turned our pink paper missile missive loose, anxiously watching and waiting.
If it rose to the sky, our wishes would be heard and perhaps heeded. If it tipped or hit something and burned, they would
not.
It rose straight and true,
caught a draft and drifted to one side then rose again. We watched until we could no longer distinguish our heavenly lantern
from the thousands of others rising into the dark. Like small, bright children they were, waywardly rising to reunite with
the brightest light of the new year's night, the full moon, mother moon.
There would be eight official flights that night, thousands more from the town
and surrounding hillsides. Silent and bright, carrying the hopes and dreams of many souls below.
IF YOU GO
Pingxi makes
a good day trip from Taipei. During the Lantern Festival you can go by car, tour, train or the "heavenly lantern bus."
OTHER FESTIVALS
-- Hualien International Stone Sculpture Festival: Sept.-Oct.
-- Yingko Pottery Exposition: Oct.
-- Penghu Sailboard Cobia Tourism Festival: Nov.
-- Festival of Austronesian Cultures in Taitung: Dec. - Jan.
-- Kenting Wind-Bell Festival: January-February.
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