My Last Post - I'm coming home!

So, two weeks have flown by. I'm glad I started this blog before I left Canada, because looking back at the first entries, I see some pre-conceptions and expectations that now seem kind of quaint.

I've had a great trip and learned a lot in these last two weeks: about the island of Taiwan, about my father, about my relatives in Taiwan, about my Taiwanese mother who passed away a few months ago, and about myself. Some of these things I've shared in this blog, and some of it I'll still keep to myself to think about some more.

My father was born in 1937 in a village in Shandong, in northern China, the third child of a wealthy landowner. My grandfather was a colonel in the Kuomintang army, and in 1949, the family gave up everything they owned to flee the Communist regime. In 1949, they settled in Taichung, Taiwan, and began scraping a new living for themselves. Today, Ba has an older sister who lives in Taichung, Taiwan, an older brother who lives in Toronto and a younger brother who is the primary guardian of their 100-year old father in Taipei.

My father lived 14 years in Taiwan, mainly catching up with his education, before moving again, this time for Canada, in 1963. There, he learned English, taught thousands of students to appreciate math, raised a family and became a Canadian. It is now Canada, where he has lived for 48 years, the major bulk of his life, that he calls home. Here in Taiwan, he often introduces himself as being from Canada and once, a lady even commented that his Chinese was not bad. I had always thought of myself as Canadian despite being Chinese "on the outside", and it was only when I came to Taiwan with my dad that I realized that he felt the same way about himself. Displaced from his homeland of Shandong, never feeling at home in Taiwan, he now identifies most strongly with Canada. Taipei and Taichung are now unrecognizable to him, which is probably a good thing, because life back then was poor and harsh. But even though Taiwan has prospered to become a developed country and an economic success story, Ba is still glad to be living in Canada. He is in fact, envious of me, because after two weeks, he is ready to go back too, to his home in Montreal. But he will stay one more week, to visit with his father and to get in touch with a couple more old friends.



I can see that it's an effort for my dad to be in Taiwan, from his forgetfulness with names of people and streets, from his constant fear of getting lost, his growing weariness with tourist activities, his struggle to remember how to write Chinese, and his frequent use of English, with the locals, when he can't remember the Chinese.

Last night at the hospital, I told my father to tell my grandfather that I enjoyed my visit to Taiwan and that I had learned a lot about my father. "You mean Yeh yeh," said my dad. "No, about you," I told him. He turned to me in surprise, totally unaware that this trip was such an eye-opener for me.




Growing up with my "traditional" Chinese parents in Canada, I had always thought that we suffered from a generation gap, a cultural gap and a language gap. And I did nurse a small chip on my shoulder about it. But I now see where they were coming from, literally, and can now understand a lot of things, and it has even helped me to see where I want to be going to.

My grandfather is still in the hospital. I saw him about three or four times in total, each time, he was lucid and in good spirits as he chatted with my dad. I'm not entirely sure what he is suffering from, but it may simply be his 100 year old body finally slowing down. The doctors are worried that his lungs may be getting filled with liquid, which will lead to pneumonia. My dad is very pragmatic about it. He loves his father, but, he says, sooner or later, my grandfather is going to die. I never got to ask my grandfather a lot of the questions I had in mind, but that's okay, along the way, I did find the answers I was looking for.

Before and After

Do you see the small buildings on the right side? When my father left here 48 years ago, these two-storey structures, narrow streets, fields and empty lots made up the city of Taipei. Times have a-changed.

Mmmmm, thanks, but really, we're full.

One of the drawbacks of being taken out to dinner by friends, is that you have to eat what they order even if you don't really like it. I've had oysters, stinky tofu, dried tofu, sea urchin, clams and crabs and candied squid. I'm not that big on seafood which is characteristic of authentic Taiwanese food. And although I like tofu, I think I've eaten enough to last me a few months.

Just a minute before this photo was taken, my dad watched his friend pick some of the "Taiwanese delicacies" out of the tank, and he secretly grimaced to me. He is also laughing because behind him, his friend is haggling with the restaurant staff over the price of the dish. My dad is like me - we are totally incapable and uncomfortable with haggling and are more used to just handing over the money.

See this fish? One second he was swimming quietly with his friends, and the next minute, he was served up sweet and sour with a side of rice. I'll admit, he was pretty delicious.






My dad's idea of dessert: yams, turnip, aduki beans, and rice starch balls. That's not dessert! That's a side of veggies!



And would you believe that this picture is not of soups but of desserts? My dad got very excited when he came across this in the food court below Taipei 101 and he immediately ordered a bowl. I went and got myself a grape gelato, which I think was the least unusual flavor they had. It wasn't bad.

Today, though, I found a food vendor on the street frying up my favorite Chinese dessert which is sticky sesame rice ball with red bean filling -it was still warm- yum, yummy! And Ba and I then found a dumpling diner, where we ate a plate of jowze (pork dumplings) for lunch. Jowze are originally from Northern China where they eat a lot of wheat products, like bread and noodles. Since the influx of mainlanders into Taiwan, these Chinese dishes or cuisine have now become very popular and can be found everywhere.

Taiwanese Teenager

My cousin's son, Ben, is in senior high. He starts school at 7:30 am. His school day consists of 8 class sessions, a one-hour lunch break and two ten minute breaks and ends at 5 pm. After school, he hangs out with his friends, usually playing a game of basketball. He then heads home sometime between 6 and 6:30 and eats supper with his parents. After dinner, he does his homework, if he has any, reads graphic novels, regular novels or plays computer games until about midnight when he goes to bed.

Some of his cousins and friends go to tutorial classes in the evening, which they call cram school or buxiban to work on any kind of academic lesson, such as music, art, math, and science. It's a traditional belief that parents should send their children to all kinds of cram schools in order to compete against other talented children. Therefore, most children in Taiwan have a schedule packed with all sorts of cram school lessons. Cram schools in Taiwan also focus on motivating students to study harder. They prepare many hand-made posters and print motivational messages on study notes.

Ben says that he constantly has quizzes at school, at least once a day, but sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. He says his favourite subject is P.E., but likes all the other subjects too. Ben also gets up at 6:30 am on Sunday to go to school to work on a science project with two other classmates. But he does this quite willingly, because he likes it. His older brother, Peter, who is away at university all week, prefers to sleep on Sunday, and that's okay with his parents too.

Since the age of 8 or 9, my cousin's kids were walking to school by themselves, and buying their own breakfast along the way. Most kids at this age also go to bed around 10. My father's Taiwanese friend found that North American children go to bed quite early.

My cousin and his wife, are very easy-going people who give their children wide berth in decision-making and following their own individual paths. Their children are also very well-behaved and polite, and will go down to the lobby to bring their relatives up to the apartment or accompany us to the elevator to bid my father and me good-bye.

Yinghe Ceramic Museum

Today my cousin, Michael and his wife, May took us to a town nearby called Yinghe (pron. Ing-a) where we learned about the development and importance of ceramics in Taiwan.


The museum was nicely laid out, with well-formed English text, and I had another peek at my father's past. One exhibit reminded Ba of his old home in northern China. It was a replica of a kitchen with a brick oven and huge wok; he remembered his mother and helper cooking up meals in such a kitchen for the farmworkers and family.





Another ceramic object he remembered was a grade one project where the children each made a small heater pot that would then be filled with a piece of hot coal, and wrapped in a cloth sleeve which the child would hug on his walk to school.






We also visited The Garden of Generalissimos at Cihu which is populated with lots and lots of statues of the former president. Another president while in power, had ordered these statues removed/dismantled from various parks and public sites throughout Taiwan, and the county of Cihu asked to have all of them.




Then, we wandered over to where Chiang Kai-shek's body is embalmed and resting in a casket, apparently waiting for the day when he can be interred back in his homeland.
There were two motionless soldiers on guard at the entrance to his mausoleum, and we, along with hundreds of Chinese tourists, watched the soldiers do their end-of-duty exercises and march away.



Then my cousin took us to a vegetarian restaurant, where one of the staff is an old white guy who spoke Chinese fluently. May told us that he was born and grew up in Taiwan. They didn't think he spoke any English and my dad and I were too shy to ask him. But we couldn't stop staring at him. Even though I'm a Chinese person who speaks English fluently and can hardly speak Chinese, it is still the strangest thing for my dad and me to see a white guy who speaks Chinese fluently and doesn't speak much English.

Another little bit of irony is that at this restaurant and at so many others, our dinnerware was not ceramic, but paper or plastic. Ceramic today has more advanced applications in science and technology, such as aerospace materials, automotive, electronics, medical (bone and dental implants), military, computers (super-conductors) and semi-conductors. Ceramics - you've come a long way, baby.

The sights I've seen

I snapped this photo from the car; it's not a great shot, but I managed to get the family of four on one scooter.



On our way back from Yehliu (pron. yay-lee-o) - the traffic was a 3-hour slog - we just crawled along bumper to bumper, side by side by side, with scooters enviously squeezing through. They drive very differently here, with cars cutting in front of each other all the time, but there's no road rage; everyone yields without so much as a beeep.




These ladies were near the exit of the Yehliu geological park, selling their food products, which were tiny, dried salted fish. For some reason, they didn't want their picture taken and deliberately turned away when I aimed the camera at them.





The cliffs at Yehliu, a beautiful resort town. We had perfect weather for our hike, and as we huffed higher and higher, the crowds disappeared.







The Queen of Yehliu. These distinctive rock formations have been sculpted by the ocean over thousands of years. Oneday, this Queen will be beheaded.


The flower clock at Yangminshan park, where cherry trees are just starting to blossom. Everyone came out with their cameras.


Me and Ba blocking the view of steaming geysers near Yangminshan park.





This landmark skyscraper, named Taipei 101 (101 floors), was the world's tallest building until 2010 when a building in Dubai nabbed the title. It has a super-fast elevator that took us up to the top in only 40 seconds, where we couldn't see much because we were in the clouds, but there was an interesting exhibition of photos of old Taipei.

I'd pay someone to wash the dishes

This morning, I woke up and lay in my bed wondering why my cousin, who lives in a very posh, very new, highrise condo, doesn't have a dishwasher. Last night, we had a potluck dinner with my aunt, uncles and cousins, with everyone bringing a couple of dishes that they made or bought, and we squeezed around a table and enjoyed the Taiwanese meal. My cousins' kids who ate by themselves, finished all the food at their table and then came around to the "adults" table with their chopsticks and bowls to hunt for some more food. Still, we didn't come close to finishing it all, and after the meal, they cleared the table and wrapped up the leftovers (Chinese never throw away leftovers) and, there was a mountain of dishes to wash. That's when I was stunned to learn that they didn't have a dishwasher. So, while the rest of us ate fruit and chatted, my cousin was in the kitchen for an hour, washing up the dishes. When I asked my dad about it, he shrugged, and said his family grew up washing dishes, and it's not a chore, but an everyday task, like cooking or brushing your teeth.




Another Taiwanese custom is to bring your own towels. I remember as a kid, we used to do that, until my parents adopted the Canadian custom of expecting guest towels. So, my dad and I didn't bring our own towels, and when I asked for one at my cousin's place, they handed me a dishtowel. It wasn't a punishment - that's really the size of their bath towels, and it's not just my dad's family. We're now staying in a friend's friend's house, and in their bathroom, they also have mini towelettes. My guess is that with their high humidity, they use the small towels so that they dry faster. Anyway, I bought a set of towels as a gift for my cousin, and oddly, they're not cheap. I went into a department store in Taipei, and they start at $25 Cdn for a small (slightly larger than dishtowel) towel. Had I known, I would have passed on the Lindt chocolates, and gone to Zellers, and stocked up on towels to bring as gifts.

Ba and I went into a supermarket, and checked out the prices of food on the shelves, and discovered that they weren't that much cheaper than Costco or Superstore food prices. But when we eat in small diners, buy cooked food on the street or from the 7-Eleven or from the farmer's stand, we can pay around half of what we pay in Canada. My bowdze (veggie steamed bun) this morning was 30 cents. The total for our breakfast of dojung (soy milk), a rice roll, two steamed buns, a coffee and a yogurt drink, cost about $3.50. I still don't get it; some things are so much cheaper and some things are at par, and real estate is through the roof: $5,000/sq.m Cdn.