Off on Adventures

Fenchihu, Taiwan, 11 November 2006. About 30 of the teachers at my school headed up to Fenchihu one weekend in a chartered bus. Fenchihu is about half way up the mountain toward Alishan. The seventh grade class will be going on a field trip there during this first week of December. The school takes a group of teachers here before the students make their field trip. The purpose is to help the teachers learn about Fenchihu so they can prepare the classes, making the experience more meaningful for the students. There is a guide there to give information to the teachers, but the guide speaks Chinese. So.... as we arrived in Fenchihu, I grabbed my camera and wandered the streets of the town, checking out a little of the culture. I did not walk the trails with the other teachers. I am sure it was beautiful and that I missed quite a bit of the natural beauty of the area, but, I had a passion to see the buildings and the people and the way of life there. Time passed too quickly there and I was only able to see qlimpses of life in that tourist town. I would definitely like to go back one day. A number of craftspersons were working there on the streets. A shoemaker was one of the people who caught my attention. Although he was not a "shoemaker" in the sense that we might use in the United States, he was most certainly a shoemaker here in Taiwan. Basically he assembled a type of wooden soled sandals to the customer specifications. He did this in a matter of minutes, delighting the customers and entertaining the onlookers. As with much of Taiwan, preparation of food is often done in the outdoors along the streets. Fenchihu was no exception, although the streets here seem to be pedestrian only, which is a very nice change of pace. It seems the food is prepared as an art form, and packaging in Taiwan is often done with great care and attention to aesthetics. It never ceases to amaze me. At first, I would collect the ornamental boxes and bags, studying the designs and intricate folds. Soon though, I remembered that one of the reasons I came to Taiwan was to "unload" years of collecting. Now I just look them or photograph them and let go.
It is hard for me to even guess at some of the food and drinks here. The Taiwanese make use of what is available to them and often combinations of foods surprise me. I never know what to expect, so I find myself cautious, occasionally asking for a general sense of the food.... is it sweet? spicy? what sort of texture will I find inside? Hey, before you roll your eyes and frown at my skepticism, let me warn you that it is not unusual to find chocolate stripes on a pastry bun hiding bean and meat filling, or french fried sweet potatoes with a cinnamon and mild pepper spice coating. Recently a co-worker offered me some sort of marshamallowy dessert that was filled with what looked suspiciously like insects. And in a recent report on Taiwanese food, written by one of my high level 8th graders, bats, rats and insects are common ingredients.
In one of the little shops, a young Taiwanese salesman came up to me and asked if he could help. I think he just wanted to practice his English, which was definitely a bit rusty, but I could tell that at one time he had worked on stockpiling an impressive English vocabulary..... most of those treasures having faded from lack of exposure. He told me that it had long been his dream to travel, to become a citizen of that paradise called America. "What a pity," he said, that he would likely never be able to know his dream of being an American. I wasn't sure what to say to the young man, as I looked at the incredible mountains behind him, with the sea of clouds stretching through the trees. Maybe at this stage of my life I know too much.... or perhaps I only think I do.