Gaining Ten Pounds

Normally, I am filled with regret and self-incrimination after gaining ten pounds (warning for the youth:  easy on and hard to get off is true once you get north of 30 years old!).  However, on the recent trip to Taiwan, I decided from the get-go to just let it all go and eat like there is no tomorrow.  In my youth, I lived under the delusion that everything will always be accessible to me in the future.  But, now, I realize this is probably the last time I will be in Taiwan.  (not that I don't want to travel, but it's just not likely to be to this particular country).  

Anyone who has been to Taiwan or knows Taiwanese people, knows it is all about the food.  I mean, everyone always says that about all cultures.  But, in this case, it is more than true.  Everyone is talking about food, hawking food, asking about food, thinking about food, etc.  Interestingly, the focus is so on-the-food, that western ideas of service and amenities are almost entirely absent.  Want a napkin, grab some of these cheapo thinner-than-tissue "napkins" yourself.   Want a drink, head over to the fridge and help yourself.  Want to clear your table?  Forget it, that old lady at the back of the floor ain't touching your dishes until you leave.  Need to use the bathroom?  Send in one of your kids to scout it out first... is there a door?  Is there an actual toilet?  Is there toilet paper?  I sound kind of prudish but, actually, I wasn't surprised by this (not my first rodeo by any means) - but what stood out to me on this trip was the disparity between the quality of the food (very high) and other trappings of eating out (usually (but not always!) quite low).  I found myself reflecting on how often I have eaten out in the United States and had a very fancy setting and very nice (overly attentive?) service while eating food that was, well, kind of meh.

Anyway... a random gustative photo travelogue:

Fish head soup

Duck Eggs in the back

Just when you think they can't fit another dish on the table... they manage to somehow.

Whole fish came out at the end of almost every meal

Shrimp dish with almost every meal.  Always slightly different!

Being the designated chicken fiend, I was anointed to tear the roasted chicken (roasted with head and claws on!) apart with the provided gloves.  Apparently a roadside stand tradition now in a restaurant setting. 

Japanese restaurants are very popular.

This is my face after one of our drivers convinced me to chew on some of his Betel nut.  At the end of our ride, he offered me more.  I declined.  Not a gustative highlight.

And, for dessert...

Shaved Ice!

Remembering Sinéad

1966-2023

Dear Sinéad,

You never knew me, but we spent some quality time together back in the day.  I still can recall with great clarity my intensity of emotion listening to your first album.  I was lying in my bunk bed in my dorm room at Purdue in 1988, listening on headphones (probably to a cassette borrowed from roommate JZ).  Lying there in the dark listening to "Mandinka", "I want your (hands on me)", "Just like U Said it Would B", and (especially) "Troy"was intense.  Discovering this new sound you had brought me.  Singing straight from some incredible, inner strength.  You delivered me a musical knock-out punch.

I loved some of your work after that too and I enjoyed it when I caught a performance on television, but, honestly, I kind of lost track of you through the years.  Not one to confuse the artist for the art, I tend not to follow the personal lives of artists I like.  But, now, I kinda wish I had with you.  I didn't know we were so close in age (you were only three years older than I when you died).  I didn't know Peter Gabriel broke your heart (embarrassingly, I am only now grokking this one posthumously, what a song and what a performance at 53 years old).  I didn't know you had pulled a Cat Stevens and converted to Islam.  I didn't know your son had committed suicide.  And now the internet speculates that you probably did the same.   This last point was struck me surprisingly hard.  How can that same person who spoke to me through her music with such passion and strength have decided to end it?  Maybe it will turn out not to be true but of course plenty of people do make that final choice so you've got me thinking about that now, too.

And so, I leave you with your own duet and the words of Peter Gabriel:

-A Fan

Tree vs. House

The Banyan is an interesting tree.  It makes new trunks from roots that hang downward from its branches.  After several of these 'take root', eventually the tree appears to be walking across the landscape.  Interesting to me as I always associate the branches of the trees with things deep and philosophical.  But if you can grown new roots off of new branches of life, that's pretty deep too, huh?

These trees are ubiquitous in Taiwan and we snapped several pictures of interesting looking ones as we toured the island:

This last picture was of a place called "Tree House".  Since mistranslation and mysterious use of English words in rampant in Taiwan (if I had a nickel for every random T-shirt with english words (as in, made for Taiwan; not simply imported from an english speaking country) I saw Taiwanese people wearing...), I didn't really imagine it would be anything to do with a  literal House+Tree.  (I was thinking maybe a Teahouse or an old Chinese place that was called something that was a homonym with Tree... I thought lots of wrong things).  

The entire old abandoned warehouse (for salt!) was taken over by some of these trees (maybe one originally?) and now is a tourist attraction. 

Tree vs. House.  Tree wins, every time.