Taiwan 2009 (part 3) - from May 4th to May 17th

What is the significance of these two dates - May 4th and May 17th and what is that to do with my trip?

Sunday May 17th was my last day in Taiwan. It happens to be the day that Taiwan’s leading opposition party - Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) called for anti-government demonstrations in Taipei 台北 and GaoXiong 高雄. The official agenda of the demonstration was multifold: protest against the (pro-) China policy and handling of the economic crisis and recession by President Ma and the ruling party KMT. Everyone knows however that the basic agenda as far as some factions of DPP are concerned remain the same; they perceive government’s China policy is a clear indication of favoring unification with China and moving away from Taiwan independence. Further, the ongoing trials of the corruption of former president Chen Shui-Bian, his family and several associates are politically motivated.

All told, the demonstration was peaceful and did not have much nuances; nor did it generate new energy, momentum and substance discussions. The total number of participants of the demonstration was estimated at between 50 thousands and 600 thousands in Taipei (my own educated guess is somewhere 100-200 thousands). As always, you can pretty much see the correlation of the estimates and the political affiliations or positions of the source. As a comparison, the 2006 August non-partisan anti-corruption demonstration (so called the “Red Shirts” 紅衫軍) against then President Chen Shui-Bian and DPP government gathered an estimated 400 thousands to 1 million demonstrators in Taipei.

In Taipei, one of the four routes of marches by demonstrators began at my alma mater NTU (National Taiwan University) and ended at the front of the Presidential Hall. As the marchers headed north from the main entrance of NTU, I was arriving at the neighborhood walking in opposite direction. I saw a portion of the march and caught a glance of the tail of it; banners, flags, and loudspeaker blasts included.

The scene brought back my memory of my own first participation of political demonstrations. Almost 38 years earlier, on June 17, 1971, I was a college junior standing at the same spot in school uniform, along with few thousand NTU students (current President Ma YingJeo included), in participate of the first “sanctioned” student demonstration in Taiwan under martial law. We marched north to the embassies of U.S. and Japan to demonstrate against the unilateral handover of DiaoYuTai 釣魚台 islands by U.S. Government to Japan.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, the news of events and discussions led by students and intellectuals in Taiwan, U.S. and across the globe excited the nationalism once more that ultimately resulted in critical re-examination of Chiang Kai-Shek’s KMT (KuoMing Tang, aka Nationalist Party) government in Taiwan. Indeed many overseas Chinese and Taiwanese students subsequently became strong believers of unification of Taiwan and China. Meanwhile backlashes in Taiwan swelled with media attacks and suppression from conservative elements of KMT as well as pro-Taiwan independence forces who shared one common enemy – communist China.

It wasn’t an accident that NTU has been the epicenter of many movements and efforts by intellectuals and students in advancing the principle of liberty and democracy. One of my purposes of the walk the afternoon of May 17th was to visit the preserved residence of a legendary figure in that part of the history – the late Professor Yin HaiGuang 殷海光 of Department of Philosophy at NTU, a thinker, philosopher and relentless promoter of liberalism and multiparty democratic system in Taiwan in 1950s and 60s till his death.

As the march passed by the main avenues a few blocks away from his residence, I wonder what would Professor Yin say if he were alive? He spoke up through his life against the tyranny of authoritarian rules and corruptions of power. His 17 years tenure at NTU ended in 1966 when he was practically under house arrest. A true believer of “Pen is sharper than sword”, he was a chief-editor and lead contributor for the Free China magazine between 1949 and 1960 when the magazine was shut down by the government. He was well-known for his impeccable logic and fearless pursuit of liberty and justice for the larger good and people’s rights.

Professor Yin joined NTU in 1949 during the defining and tone-setting lead of the revered University President Fu SiNian 傅斯年. What I did not mention about our 1971 DiaoYuTai demonstration was that large banners was hung seeing us off that day over the university building next the main entrance. It said 「中國的土地可以征服，不可以斷送。中國的人民可以殺戮，不可以低頭。」 That is, “Our land could be conquered but will never be given up. Our people could be killed but will never yield.” This was a part of the famous May 4th demonstration declaration drafted by Luo JiaLun 羅家倫 in 1919. The protest itself was under the command of none other than the late president Fu SiNian who was the chair of the Beijing University Student Association.

Now you probably can begin to appreciate why I chose this subtitle as the encounters in Taipei of my trip have awakened a deeper nerve and memory of mine. You hopefully by now also have a little feel for the history of the development of modern China that can be traced all the way back to the single most important event 90 years ago – the May Fourth Movement 五四運動.

I will not elaborate further on the details and aspects of the Mary 4th Movement. There have been volumes of writings and discussions of it, some politically biased and colored. I do want to mention that shortly after I arrived at Taipei from U.S., I had the opportunity to attend the opening ceremony for the celebration of 90th anniversary of the May 4th Movement, sponsored by government organizations and private foundations. There was a panel discussion by Professors Lee OuFan 李歐梵 of Chinese University in HongKong, Chen PingYuan 陳平原 of Beijing University and Ke QingMing 柯慶明 of NTU, moderated by Yang Zhao 楊照. In his opening statement, Professor Chen PingYuan made observation and contrasted the basic attitudes and spins of the event by later Communist Party and Nationalist Party: the latter has been fearful of student movements while the former embraced and utilized them to advantage. He also gave a concise and insightful read of how communist China interprets and re-interprets the meanings and implications of May 4th Movement based on its political agenda and focus at the time, referring to the editorials of People’s Daily News on every 10th anniversary of the Movement.

But if one takes a snapshot every 30 years that Chinese traditionally considered as one generation period, it is interesting to note that the year of 1949 was when Communist Party won the civil war and established the People Republic of China and the year of 1979 was when it and U.S. formally recognized each other and established diplomatic relation.

What about the year of 2009 and looking forward? Rapid economic development in China powered by experiences and resources of Taiwan is accelerating and there is little doubt that China will be one of two superpowers of the global economy in 21st century. What is still yet to be settled is its answer to the call for liberty and democracy that the students put up on the streets of Beijing 90 years ago. There are multiple political parties and two peaceful transition of power between parties in Taiwan so far. People there now do have the freedom to express their anti-government view through many avenues including street demonstrations like the May 17th event showed. Compared to May 4th, the agenda and the level of the discussion however are less about the fundamentals and much more about petty politics. In both sides of the strait, the question of identity and the duality of Chinese and Western cultures/values remain open. Imperialism that triggered May 4th Movement has long been replaced by forces of globalization. But where are the new thought and intellectual leaders and discussions in China and Taiwan? I worry…

Taiwan 2009 (Part 2) – Notes from Biased Samplings

During this trip, I have made several observations that either previously escaped my attention or are truly recent phenomena. Thought I would share them with you.

First thing I noticed was that in Taipei Metro stations, people all automatically move to the right-hand side of the escalator and stairs to allow those who are in rush pass by. That is new to me. My general impression of the trip is that people seem even more confident and courteous than before; life must have been pretty good. Also, stores and restaurants seem as crowded as ever. It is really hard to tell in the city if there is a serious concern or significant cutback as a result of the ongoing recession.

Taipei seems more and more international. There are endless offers and exhibits of things from all over the world ranged from food, entertainment to arts and culture. For example, if you take a look of films shown in theaters in the city, you will find movies from U.S., Europe, East and Southeast Asia countries. I went to see a movie Money Not Enough II from Singapore that has acute portraits and subtle discussions of government’s role and the “fusion” culture of Singapore society through the lives of the members of a family. All conversations in the movie are in unique “Singaporean” whose sentences are convenient concatenation of words and phrases of Mandarin, Southern FuJianese (basically the same as Taiwanese), and English in Chinese intonation. Will Singaporean be able to define their own identify and culture with multiculturalism? I seriously doubt it.

Throughout my stay, I saw many students walking down the street and traveling on Metro as late as after 9 p.m. Right before 9 a.m. on Sat mornings, I also saw rushes on a 7-11 store of students for breakfast food who attend the morning prep classes nearby. For decades, reform after reform, dissatisfactions remain and debates continue about higher education and college admission systems in Taiwan. I suppose people have a hard time to accept the fact that one has to work hard and compete for what is perceived to be more desirable. Significantly expanded capacity of university in last decade only diluted the diploma and did not alter the reality as one would expect.

I visited several museums including the National History Museum (special exhibit for Zhang DaQian’s 張大千110 year birthday celebration), Taipei Fine Arts Museum (special exhibit Arcadie: Dans les Collections du Centre Pompidou ), Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, and National Palace Museum. I also attended performances at the National Concert Hall (Paganini 24 Capricci by Sholmo Mintz’s) and the National Theater (Shamlet, a play in Chinese). With the exception of National Palace Museum which was filled with tourist groups, I noticed that the average age of the attendees tends to be very young, likely under 20. This is quite a contrast compared to my experience in U.S. where majority of audience in concert halls and museums tend to be much older. This may suggest that we will be seeing a society with more interests and diversity in arts and culture down the road; that is a good thing.

Talking about arts, as I picked up oil painting, I started to appreciate more the differences of western and Chinese paintings. For one, as I compressed the visits to exhibits of Chinese and Western paintings, I began to see more intuitively the unique multiple perspectives of Chinese paintings that would seem unrealistic and absurd in western paintings. Yet it serves to free the artists from restrictions of time and space as clearly demonstrated in classics like the treasured panoramic Along the River During the QingMing Festival 清明上河圖. Isn’t that fascinating?!

Well, can’t close my notes without talking about the wonderful foods in Taiwan. In my opinion, Taiwan simply has the best Chinese food (with possible exception of Cantonese cuisine that I have to give the crown to Hong Kong) you can find anywhere however you define the “best” to mean – variety, value, quality, innovation,… The fact of the matter is it seems hard to find lousy food there! In this trip, I visited for the first time a popular vegetarian buffet restaurant called Spring Natural Vegetarian Restaurant 春天 (3rd Floor, 177, Sec 1, HoPing East Road). The food is wonderful but it was a bit expensive. For this all you can eat lunch buffet, it cost $17 per person.

Before I go, I want to share with you a short list of what I consider are the best of the best in Taipei; nothing exotic, just heavenly taste that please my palate immensely and lure me back time after time. I only include the “tourist class” ones that are clean, air-conditioned, with good services. Hope you can try them out sometimes.

For Shanghai cuisine, go to Dian Shui Lou 點水樓 (11th floor of the SOGO Department Store, #300, sec. 3, ZhongXiao East Road). For meat dishes, try one of their specialties: House Pork with Buns 點水烤方, WuXi spare ribs 無錫排骨, or DongPo Pork東坡肉. For Hunan cuisine, go to The Peng’s 彭園. Don’t miss their Honey Ham Sandwich 富貴烤雙方, Soup in Melon 香瓜元盅, General Tsao’s Chicken 左宗棠雞. The latter is the way General Tsao’s chicken should be prepared. After all, Chef Peng invented that dish! For Szechuan cuisine, try String Bean Pancake 四季豆薄餅,GongPao Chiken 宮保雞丁, MaPo TouFu 麻婆豆腐 at the Ambassodor Hotel 國賓大飯店-川菜廳 (12th floor of the hotel, # 63, Sec 2, ZhongShan North Blvd.). For Peking Duck, go to Song Kitchen 宋廚菜館 (#14, Alley 15, Sec.5, ZhongXiao East Road). For the best Marinated Beef in Sesame Cake芝麻醬燒餅夾滷牛肉,go to Peking Place 北平都一處 (#506, Sec. 4, RenAi Road, across from Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall). Their Sour Cabbage with Pork Soup 酸菜白肉鍋 is pretty good too.

For light meals, don’t miss Beef Soup Noodle, the national noodle. One super place to go is the Old Zhang’s Beef Noodle House 川味老張牛肉麵店(105 AiGuo East Road). Of course, there is this must-have Shanghai style Steamed Port Dumplings 小籠包 in the same neighborhood at Ding Tai Fun 鼎泰豐 (194, sec 2, XinYi Road). If and when visiting the National Palace Museum, you can have lunch at its new restaurant (in the next building) Taiwanese Food Court 府城晶華 that serves a wonderful array of traditional Taiwanese specialties. If you need to quench the thirst in heat, go to Ice Monster 冰館 at 15, YongKang Street and have a fresh Jumbo Mango Ice 超級芒果冰.

OK, too much talking about food, I got to go to have my dinner now! Talk to you soon!

Taiwan 2009 (Part 1) - Hakka Culture

Just came back from my 2+ week visit of Taiwan. I was lucky that during my stay, the weather has been pleasant and dry despite that May and June are supposed to be the rainy season. As a place where I grew up and visited often, one wonderful experience of this trip was exposure to some aspects of Hakka 客家 culture that was unfamiliar to me previously. By the way, if you ever had rides on Taipei Metro, you might have noticed that the announcement was always repeated four time in: Mandarin, Taiwanese, English, and yes, Hakka.

Hakka people are a subgroup of Han Chinese that have originated from north-central China (today’s Henan 河南 and Shaanxi 陝西 provinces). It is believed that they have migrated south over a thousand year ago and reached south-eastern China, primarily in JianXi, GuangDong and FuJian provinces. Later in Qing dynasty, along with Hoklo people 福佬 from Quanzhou 泉州 Zhangzhou 漳州of southern FuJian, many Hakka people moved for political and economical reasons and settled in Taiwan where their population is currently estimated at 3+ millions, a distant second to Hoklo that accounts for about 70% or 15+ millions of the total population.

Possibly due to their long history of immigrant status (the word Hakka literally means “Guest Families”), Hakka people tried hard to preserve their customs and traditions. Not surprisingly, there are also histories of conflicts and fights at times between them and locals. In Taiwan, they did not fare much differently as a minority in number, most of them ended up settling in hilly and less desired areas of Taiwan with limited resources. This may not be all bad as the group developed strong bond and are known to be hardworking and frugal as they faced many challenges. Many Hakka people have become significant leaders at wherever they or their ancestors settled; a shining example is Li GuangYao who is considered by many the father of Singapore.

In Taiwan, with the increased funding and establishment of the cabinet level Council for Hakka Affairs in 2001, Hakka culture awareness has received much more attention and garnered energy for its renaissance. There have been many events organized and promoted in the island to recognize Hakka culture. One significant event is the Tung Blossom Festival 桐花祭/桐花節 which is now held every year from mid April to mid May.

Tung tree (Aluerites fordii Hemsi) is native to China and has a historical significance with Hakka people in Taiwan. During Japanese occupation, Japanese government made concerted efforts to utilize the resources in Taiwan in many ways. One of such efforts was to introduce Tung trees to the hilly regions of MiaoLi and HisnChu counties where Hakka people reside and used them to produce Tung oil 桐油 for paints and inks. Those days were long gone and remaining Tung trees have been quietly living in wild on the hills for a long time until recently as tourists flocked back to visit when blossom.

We stayed at the Westlake Resort in SanYi 三義town which has a large property and many Tung trees. Although we missed the peak, we still got a good look of the blossom and the falling flowers and petals on the ground. I could imagine the claim of “May Snow” 五月雪 may not be an exaggeration if we were at the right place and time! What I found interesting is that unlike most trees, Tung tree is dioecious that some are male and some are female, and cannot self-pollinating. We saw a lot of male flowers helplessly lie on the ground completed with five white petals and the claw that has turned red, a sign that it has done its job with pollens spread.

After lunch (traditional Hakka specials including the famous Stewed Pork Belly in Mei Cai 梅菜扣肉), we visited nearby scenic spots like the now closed tiny ShengXing 勝興 train station that stands at 400+ meters elevation and used to be the highest point of Taiwan railroads. I still recall when taking train home from Taipei, the train often stops at this station till the northbound train passes. Then our train would start moving again and accelerating downhill to TaiZhong. The quiet station and neighborhood are now filled with tourists, shops, cafes and people on the abandoned tracks.

Driving a little further south, one could see the remains of an amazing 100+ years old LongTeng Bridge 龍騰斷橋. The bridge was 100 meters long, 33 meters high with a main span of 61 meters. It was built in 1905 and collapsed in 1935 when a 7.3 Richter scale earthquake took it down during the Japanese occupation. What is unusual about it is that the support of the bridge was built with mostly bricks.

SanYi itself is a historical town and capital of wood carving and sculpture business of Taiwan for a long time. According to the story, the region is a poor hilly land that could only be used to plant economic plants like Camphor Laurel樟樹 and tea trees. The former happened to be seen as a high value timber by Japanese during the occupation and active harvesting and export was resulted. By pure accident, a local resident noticed a nice looking root of a Camphor Laurel tree that was previously harvested and decided to do some carving with it. The rest is history.

Initially, the wood carving business was focused on religious figures, furniture and decorations for both domestic and exports (to Japan). Many skilled masters emerged who trained a large number of students. The town prospered once more during the 60s when Americans military personnel vacationed heavily in Taiwan during the Vietnam war. However it took a disciple like Zhu Ming 朱銘, now an internationally renowned sculptor, to bring and aspire many to the level of high art. An enjoyable way to get a sense of the history and appreciation of the art is to visit the SanYi Wood Sculpture Musuem 三義木雕博物館 where, among other things, you can find impressive collections and exhibits of wood sculptures of past and contemporary artists. Some of the clever arrangements taking advantage of the shape and look of the wood will no doubtedly remind you of the most popular collections at the National Palace Museum such as the Jade Cabbage and Meat Stone of Qing Dynasty.

Hakka people (about 34 millions worldwide) share a common spoken language that is simply referred to as Hakka 客家話. Interestingly, with its evolution over a thousand years due to the migration, Hakka has kept many features of southern year old northern Middle Chinese 中古漢語 that have been lost in the North including the official spoken language Mandarin. According to the wiki entries, Hakka has a full complement of nasal endings, -m -n -ŋ and occlusive endings -p -t -k, maintaining the four categories of tonal types, with splitting in the ping and ru tones, thus giving the classical six tones. Some dialects of Hakka have seven tones, due to splitting in the qu tone. All these features do make it far more musical compared to the modern northern Chinese dialects.

A way to appreciate it is to listen to some Hakka songs. Last year, I had a chance to see on TV the performance of a song writer and singer Lin Sheng-Xiang 林生祥. In this trip, I had a chance to see in person the performance of song writer and singer Lo ShiRong 羅思容 who is also a poet and painter. Both are wonderful. Below is a YouTube music video of The South 南方, a beautiful modern Hakka song, lyric by Zhong YongFeng 鍾永豐, composed by Lin ShengXiang 林生祥 and performed by 林生祥 and Ken Ohtake 大竹研.

Talk to you soon!