beautiful Hualien, talking bird, ocean travel, indigenous cultures

Sunday: Jojo handmakes his special dumplings for breakfast...though mine are shrimp instead of pork. Cooking must be in our family because my mom cooks, he cooks, and one of my aunts is a famous cook and has published quite a few recipe books. We leave the house at 7:30am to get to Kunyang MRT Station by bus to connect at Taipei Main Station and take the train to Hualien. Hualien is a beautiful town at the east coast of Taiwan and the most beautiful place I've ever visited (other than Lake Louise).

While on the train we went through mountains (tunnels). One tunnel was very long, it was pitch black. And then all of sudden people ooh and ahh, and there it was--the ocean right outside our window. People are snapping pictures every second, as I am of course.

after the long tunnel

When we get to Hualien train station, my mom's friend of 40 years from college (Yuanshan University, Taiwan) picks us up along with her husband. We eat lunch at this cute cafe near their house. I had the best fried rice ever. Definitely unique and not like the typical fried rice you'd find at a Chinese restaurant or your mom's cooking. All ingredients were fresh and organic--salmon, pine nuts, grape seed oil, and oregano cooked with purple grain rice. The owner of the restaurant comes by our table to chat with us. She seems like a free-spirit bohemian type and tells us she opened the restaurant because she wants everyone to be healthy, likes cooking for others, and another reason that's kind of hard to translate into English.

Mom's friend's house is right across the street from the ocean. The house looks like it belongs in Corona del Mar--American beach house style, and certainly does not look like a Taiwanese/Chinese house. She says when she and her husband traveled to Australia, they saw a house they fell in love with--took pictures of the house and designed their house after that model. I took a two hour, much needed nap and then we went to the beach. We drove there because the beach in front of their house is a harbor with no shore to walk along.

The view is breathtaking. I don't know what else to say about it, but it's prettier than all beaches in Cali...by far. No one is swimming in the ocean. Both Mom and I are shocked by that because the ocean is so clean here. But actually, it's because swimming is not allowed. It's extremely dangerous...just a few feet away from the shore is a 2000 feet drop into the deep end, like diving off a massive cliff. There is not really sand here, it's pebbles instead. I leave mom with her friends and sit alone by the shore. Breathe in, breathe out. The air is so fresh here. No smog, pollution, nasty people hacking their spit onto the ground, nowhere can compare to this place. I watch little kids jumping the waves, but they seem to know to not go any further. The dogs even know it. On my right is a lighthouse and a gazebo. On my left is Taroko and mountains. I end up taking about 300 or so pictures of just the ocean. The sky is turning orange and pink, and I'm wondering where the sunset is. Then I remember that the sun sets on the west...Hualien is on the east coast. But there are strange clouds in the sky, four cotton candy clouds that make the shape of the back of a sitting dog.

We leave up walk further down the shore. It's just as humid here, so I'm soaking in sweat...grrrrreat. So we sit down on the stairs, and beside us is a couple with their talking bird [in a cage]. This bird is called Ba ge--I don't think there is an English word for it. It's not a parrot, but a black bird kind of like a small crow but with a yellow beak. He nods when his owner asks him questions. He can say Wan An! (good morning!) and Baobie (sweetie, baby).

We eat another healthy meal at a small cafe called Lighthouse. Right when we stepped in, I could smell the aroma of coffee mmm. All their coffee is from South+Central America. The owner is half-Aboriginal. Purple soup was served first--made of purple sweet potatoes. Then I ate multigrain bread and a salad dressed with yogurt. Who would have thought that yogurt would taste good with salad. It's a yummy alternative to the boring olive oil + vinegar. I order an iced coffee, grounds from Jakarta, Indonesia.

After dinner we walk to the Tribal Harvest Festival. In case you don't know and a little history lesson, there are three ethnic groups residing in Taiwan: aboriginal, hakka/hoklo (my dad), and immigrant (my mom). Aboriginals (divided into about 13 tribes) are those who are native to Taiwan and were the first to migrate and settle in Taiwan. Hakkas are descendants from those who were "imported" to Taiwan by the Dutch (sometime in the 1600s the Dutch colonized Taiwan) from the Fujian province in China as laborers. They are primarily a mix of Fujianese and Aboriginal--and some are part Dutch [like me, I think, 1/16th or so].

It seems like the whole town of Hualien is here. There are crowds of people here, some tourists from other countries as well. We arrive a bit late as it started at 6:30pm so we unfortunately missed a lot of performances. The center stage is a light pastel green color, and one of the tribes wearing colorful costumes is performing a traditional ritual dance. For some reason, while watching the dance I got emotional and fought back tears. I don't know if it's because I find indigenous culture dances beautiful or maybe because at this moment I realized that I now want to have a career related to cultures/preserving indigenous cultures (+animals, fashion, art, food, marketing). Watching this makes me want to come back here, to Hualien or somewhere in Taiwan where I can study aboriginal culture, language, and history. And, there is still so much to learn about my own family history. After spending plenty of time with my family here, I still have many questions about my ancestors.

~~MORE PICTURES IN NEXT POST :)