Buddha Washing Day

Last week I drove to Foguangshan to see the new Buddha Memorial Center, which opens to the public on December 25. It also happened to be the one day each year when the 14,800 Buddha icons in the Main Shrine are removed, cleaned by volunteers (above) and then put back in their sconces (below).

Books: Taiwan From the Eyes of a Foreigner

Nick Kembel, a Canadian who's been living in Taiwan since 2008, has produced an interesting and beautifully-illustrated book. Kembel's blend of history, travelog and personal observations is aimed at both Taiwanese people who'd like to know what Westerners think of their country and Western people curious about the island's culture. The text is in both English and Chinese; the two versions run side by side, which is very useful if you're reading one and want to refer to the other to find a place or person's name in its original language.

As someone who's read a lot of Taiwan's history (and been here much longer than Kembel), I expected to find a few odd interpretations of the past in a book written by a relative newcomer. But Kembel has clearly done his homework, and comes across as very fair-minded. As a result, this is a book I'd confidently recommend to anyone thinking of relocating to Taiwan. The 100-odd photos deserve a special mention. They're very good (if a little small), and show not only conventional tourist attractions like temple parades and aboriginal dancers, but also prosaic scenes such as crowds of commuters and parking lots packed with bicycles.

Taiwan from the Eyes of a Foreigner is published by Tsai's Idea, is available throughout Taiwan and costs NT$366.

Fresh Facts V: The decline of farming

According to Taiwan: A New History, edited by Murray A. Rubinstein:

"The number of farm households fell from 51% in 1953 to less than 20% in 1990 as agriculture's share of the net domestic product decreased from 34% to only 4% [it's now something like 1.7%]. The dispersal of industry into Taiwan's villages has been a critical factor in this transition, at once raising farm household income... also making it possible for farmers to retain their residence in the countryside."

Nowadays many of Taiwan's small villages are dominated by elderly people, almost everyone aged 18 to 45 having moved away to study or work. Few Taiwanese, it seems, like living in a village and commuting to work. If anything, the reverse is more common. A great many people live in cities (because the schools are better, they say) even if they work in fairly rural places. South Taiwan Science-based Industrial Park in Tainan is a good example: Most of the engineers who work there live in downtown Tainan, not in nearby towns where housing is cheaper.

Taiwan's new history museum

The National Museum of Taiwan History opened in late October. You'll be able to judge from its name whether or not it's the kind of place that'll interest you. In my opinion it's very good, as I say at greater length in this article.

Fresh Facts IV: Mudskippers

Mudskippers are fairly widespread along Taiwan's west coast, and two species can be found. According to this scholarly paper: 

"Mudskippers are air-breathing, amphibious fishes, and one of few vertebrates that reside on [intertidal] mudflats," and that such places, "are highly productive ecosystems that impose severe environmental challenges on their occupants due to tidal oscillations and extreme shifts in habitat conditions. Reproduction on mudflats requires protection of developing eggs from thermal and salinity extremes, oxygen shortage, dislodgement by currents, siltation and predation."

Pictured here (photo from a Chinese-language Wikipedia page) is the smaller and more common of Taiwan's two mudskipper species, Periophthalmus cantonensis. This creature, which sometimes appears on restaurant menus, has a particular liking for mangrove swamps like those at Bali, New Taipei City. The other, Boleophthalmus pectinirostris, has a green-brown mottled appearance and grows up to 15cm long. It's a territorial species that's now endangered in Japan.

Books: Song of Orchid Island

Like the author's Chingchuan Story, Song of Orchid Island is an engaging first-person account of life and missionary work alongside indigenous people. Not published in English until 2006 (two decades after the Chinese-language version was a local bestseller), it was in fact written back in the early 1970s, just after Martinson had spent a year on Orchid Island (also known as Lanyu, 蘭嶼).

The island has changed a great deal since then. Martinson describes serious poverty and widespread, though never fatal, malnutrition. Age-old traditions were still observed, for example the requirement that fathers change their names to match their eldest sons':

"The man's name was Jayud. The son's name was also Jayud. The reason their names were the same was not because the boy had been named after his father, but because the father had been named after his son. Jayud explained that when a couple had their first child, the father changed his name to that given the child."

In one memorable episode, Martinson leads his students on a walk to another village many of them had never visited.

"At least two dozen of the mothers and fathers were going with us. The men wore armor and carried spears to protect their children from the spirits."

The book's 55 black-and-white photos, all taken by Martinson, are excellent. To buy this book, directly contact the publisher, Tau Books, or visit the specialist website BooksFromTaiwan.com.

Taiwan Wine Cellar

Recently I dropped by the Taiwan Wine Cellar (go here for the address, a map and other details), a shop in central Taiwan that sells locally-produced wines and spirits. Opened in 2008 by Erlin Township Farmers' Association, it has an impressive range of alcoholic drinks, including liquors made from passion fruit and pineapples. Connoisseurs of good European or New World wines are unlikely to find anything to anything that pleases their taste buds, but if you're looking for liquid souvenirs of your time in Taiwan, this shop is a good bet.

Changhua County's Erlin Township (彰化縣二林鎮) is said to have the highest concentration of wineries in Taiwan; the staff at the Cellar told me there are 19 legal wineries in the area, a legacy of grape-growing on a large scale for sale to the government's Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Monopoly Bureau. When Taiwan joined the WTO in 2002, the monopoly was abolished and the bureau converted into a state-run enterprise, TTL. Because TTL now sources its grapes from elsewhere, Erlin's grape farmers have began making their own wine.

There are wine producers elsewhere in Taiwan. One I've visited, and whose products I like, is CJ Wine Village (藏酒休閒農場) in Yilan County.