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| Not supposed to take photos inside Bloomberg Hong Kong, but I did anyway. |
In 2011 I spent a day in Hong Kong, walking around Lantau Island and then Central to kill time while waiting for my Chinese Visa to be processed. It definitely wasn’t enough time and I left wondering when I’d get the chance to go back. This year, I jumped at the chance to visit again with E and C, two friends from college whose first stop was Taipei, Taiwan.
Continue reading “The Fragrant Harbor: Hong Kong Photo Diary”
I’ve always liked old things. Old people, old houses, and all the old things that come with them: yellowing letters, faded photographs, dented tin cans that once held fragrant cigarettes. Perhaps it’s a psychological byproduct of being born in a young nation (Taiwan turns 100 this year) and then becoming a citizen of a nation only slightly older. Or perhaps it’s that old saying, “The grass is greener on the other side…”or in another time. Maybe it’s all the movies from the American 40’s and 50’s. Or the beautiful, rosy posters of China in the 1920’s.
Back then women did their hair, painted their lips, wore stockings and garters and painted their nails. Lights were softer back then, as were their figures and voices. Chinese Bergens and Bardots. But it’s not all glamorous. Sometimes, it really is just about the age – the forgotten time when people lived and thought a certain way.
Now, I take photos and have a penchant for overdoing the “antique” effect – I can’t help it. It brings me back to a time I will never know except from letters, books, movies…and even then, who knows if they’re accurate? But I can’t go to anywhere without trying to see it: the time on the cusp, when the city or the country was on the verge of entering the “first” world… where is that line drawn? When does a place make the leap into now? I’ll never know. Shanghai’s nearly completely there, but it’s still got at least a pinky toe in the past… I hope all cities keep at least that.
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| The irony here is this photo was taken at Tian2 Zi3 Fang2, a relatively new establishment made to look old. |
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| Some things never change. Chinese people believe the sun is the world’s best dryer. I agree. |
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| Wang Ying, my cousin, took me to Qi Bao or “Seven Treasures,” a bona fide government protected old village. |
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| Qi1 Bao3 means “Seven Treasures.” Chi1 Bao3 means “to eat until full.” The Shanghainese say, “To qi1 bao3 to chi1 bao3.” |
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| Young people in a crowded room, making famous soup dumplings from a very old recipe. |
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| On their lunch break, before lunch. |
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| Upstairs at another dumpling shop, an efficient if questionable refrigeration system. |
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| I love old furniture. But those benches are quite uncomfortable. |
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| It’s hard to imagine how Qi Bao looked years ago with all the brightly dressed modern tourists (myself included), but I imagine the sounds and smells are the same. |
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| Bamboo strips waiting to be woven into baskets to steam dumplings in. Sometimes the old methods are the best methods. |
Only in Taipei would I ever spend the morning at the temple and go straight to karaoke with my cousins. My grandfather’s name, along with those of our ancestors, are placed at Zhao Ming Temple in the outskirts of Taipei City. It’s a low-key temple, nestled in hills of Yang Ming Mountain.When I say “name,” I mean a placard that is meant to represent the spirit of these ancestors. A family buys the placard from the temple, which promises to keep it until the temple itself is demolished or destroyed. If it is not there materially, the name exists in spirit.
And when I say “low-key,” I mean, it’s not a garish temple outfitted in gold and marble. The nuns don’t all have their own laptops nor do they have a queen bee nun that is driven around in a bullet proof Mercedes (there are plenty of these “humble” religious leaders about in Asia). The temple is run by a handful of elderly nuns and their fresh-faced disciples, and all share in the household duties and worship services. They cook and serve meals on special occasions such as funerary ceremonies or on the first day of the new year, during which many families choose to eat vegetarian. After lighting incense for our ancestors and the deities that watch over them, we dined at the temple. We can choose, if for some reason the temple no longer pleases us, to move the placard to another temple, but at present we are very pleased with this one. Its name, Zhao Ming, means “Divine light.”
The temple’s exterior.
It is the swastika, a word derived from the Sanskrit word “svastika” meaning any lucky or auspicious object. Buddhists believe it was stamped upon Buddha’s chest when he died and they call it the heart seal. You’ll find it on temples all over Asia – the Nazis have nothing to do with it. Hitler, after much deliberation, decided to use the Swastika on his flag to convey “the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work.” Whatever.
My uncle, holding his incense and waiting for his turn at the altar.
The altar for ancestors. Each placard represents one family. The food on the middle table is prepared by the nuns. After it is offered, they eat it. The side tables are meant for families to place fruit and other goods. Normally, after the fruit is offered, it is left there for the nuns to eat, but on the new year, they make an exception. Families take the fruit home for themselves because it’s lucky to eat on this day.
And because some kids don’t like fruit, no matter how lucky it is, parents make the most out of the situation…
Volunteers cooking in the temple kitchen. No animals killed or cut in this kitchen ever. Truly vegan.
Our vegetarian lunch – less exquisite than New Year’s Eve dinner, but no less delicious, and far more refreshing.
Karen and Melody – my cousins – singing in our tiny private room. Karen went from being one of those, “Oh I can’t sing, don’t make me sing,” girls to a mic hog that now jumps up and down sofas.
Taiwanese super idol. I have no idea who he is.
But I know who she is…
And that’s how I spent the first day of the Chinese New Year.
Chinese New Year dinner was held earlier this year, and rather than two tables, we had just one. It is my first year in Taiwan without my grandfather, but looking around the table, I realized it wasn’t just my grandfather who was missing. Two great uncles had passed away shortly after my grandfather and my brother, my parents and two cousins were absent as well. At first I feared it would be one of those quiet, awkward dinners – with people keeping their heads bent low over their plates to avoid talking – but this is the Ho family dinner modus operandi: eat first, talk later. And as long as a few key players are present (namely, my aunt and two cousins), there will always be enough conversation to keep things rolling.
An hour before dinner, grandma and cousin Karen Skype with my brother, who is now in Shanghai. You can see his blog here.
My uncle, cousin and aunt’s younger sister, who is visiting from Taichung, a city in the middle of Taiwan.
On our way to the bus stop. Yes, we took the bus to dinner. It was just down the street.
First course: fruit salad with shrimp and crab.
The restaurant: Chao Jiang Yan (it was Chao Zhou style food).
Shark’s fin soup, which makes me sad. I would never order it. But if it’s cooked and served, I’ll eat it. Just don’t expect to see this at my wedding banquet.
One of my favorite seafood dishes ever: steamed Alaskan king crab legs with garlic, ginger and served atop the best tasting vermicelli noodles ever. Sam Woo’s in Irvine actually makes this too.
Grandma Zhang reaching for a crab leg. They are an interesting couple – thoroughly Americanized (they both speak impeccable English and have jobs at the American school – and their daughter teaches English in Ethiopia. Every year, I exchange one or two sentences with them and learn something cool.
In the foreground is the menu, on display so that diners can read ahead and know how to pace themselves. I discovered the menu too late and by the time dessert came around, was really stuffed. Thank God for my extra stomach.
Stir-fried scallops, squid, and broccoli.
This is actually one of the small appetizer dishes that are just put out on the table. We had a debate about it until the manager came to settle it for us: half the table said it was some sort of jelly, made to look like fish skin while the other half insisted it was fish skin. The manager said, just as I put it into my mouth, “It’s fish skin.” Tasted like crunchy jelly… it was good.
I don’t know about the rest of my family, but this was the savory highlight of my evening: sweet and sour pork surrounded by prawn, walnut, and mayonnaise wraps, fried and topped with crispy almonds.
Steamed fish, of which I just took the head. A Chinese New Year dinner would not be complete without fish. Chinese people love puns and “fish” is also a homonym for “happiness.” So eat the fish for happiness. (I actually forgot to eat the fish, I was so absorbed by the pork).
What we thought was the last savory dish: abalone mushrooms over spinach – don’t be fooled, this stuff is amazing.
Then there was a mix-up in the kitchen and we received an extra dish – banana-leaf wrapped steamed chicken and rice. We assumed it was a gift from the manager and dug in. The manager rushed out and said, “Uh, oh…okay well yeah my gift to you guys…yeah, my gift. Happy New Year!” We were like, “Wow, great. Thanks!”
The group, smaller, but no less family – everyone’s visible except for my second uncle on the left.
Dessert: mochi with yam hearts in the middle and curry pastries on the outside. Similar to some dimsum dishes – I think Chao Zhou is also in the south, close to Guangzhou.
Posing with my favorite kind of paper. 100NTD = roughly 3USD. The manager, after giving us the chicken and rice, said, “You guys are a lucky table, you ought to buy lottery tickets!” There’s nothing like the lottery to get a bunch of Chinese people reaching for their purses and grinning big. Each one took out 100NT for a 1500 pot and we gave it to our great aunt to buy the tickets. Wish us luck 🙂
One of many toasts.
Another toast – to the New Year and to our lottery tickets. Just like that, another Lunar Year came to an end and we, grinning, welcomed the year of the Rabbit.
When I was young, I hated going to the Taiwanese open air markets with my mother, preferring the air-conditioned grocery stores in the basements of department stores where produce prices would sometimes match that of the designer merchandise upstairs. During the summers it was hot and sticky and the market almost always guaranteed that your nostrils would be assaulted by a million smells from fish to pork to durian (the smelliest fruit in all the world and my mother’s favorite) and your face and vision by random billows of steam. Pushing and shoving in an endless train of other sweaty, shouting people also didn’t help, but somewhere between then and now, I grew up and while it’s not my favorite destination in Taipei, the open air market is one place where one can observe some of Taipei’s most interesting interactions: images of Taipei’s citizens from wealthy society ladies with their Philippino maids to aging grandmothers to young children dragged along by their young mothers, as I once was. People from all walks of life squeeze through, mingling and looking, all speaking the same language: food.
Now that Chinese New Year is fast approaching the markets are particularly packed with women (and some men, looking lost or hungry) on the hunt for the best meat, fish, poultry and produce to bring home so that they might prepare a meal whose quality rivals Taipei’s finest restaurants. Many families, such as mine, eat out, but it doesn’t hurt to stock up for those quiet days after Chinese New Year’s Eve, when groceries and markets close.
This is where I passed my first two mornings in Taipei: yesterday in East Gate Market and today in South Gate Market, one of Taiwan’s oldest open air markets, as old perhaps as the Republic itself. My aunt likes the company, though she complains that it’s rare for my cousin to go to the market with her. “You young women nowadays don’t know anything about picking produce and meats, and even less about cooking. I wonder what sort of wives you all will be.” I wonder too. My camera in hand, I touched nothing, occasionally bending down to take a macro shot or smell something. Most of the food was familiar to me, but only in that I knew how it tastes and not how it is prepared. My uncle laughed when I came home, looking slightly flushed from the crush of people. “To market, to market,” he said, “What’s tomorrow, West Gate Market?”
We’ll see. Here are a few photos from Taipei’s finest markets:
VERY HIGHBROW 