Thursday, June 05, 2008
The Joys of the Countryside
Today my cousin had a full day's worth of classes so I took a trip up from Kaohsiung to the city of Chiayi. I have some family living there from my mother's side in the nearby city of Puzi, so I decided to visit them for a day.
Southern Taiwan is more agricultural. There are also more people who speak the Taiwanese dialect which is largely incomprehensible to a speaker of Mandarin. It's an offshoot of a particular Minnan dialect spoken on the Mainland but with time, differences developed between the. Supposedly, however, you can still work out most of the other by knowing one of the two. As you travel north, the number of people who speak Taiwanese declines. Speakers, some of whom speak Taiwanese exclusively, are concentrated in the south. It is also interesting to note that speaking more Taiwanese has a positive correlation with being associated with the DPP, while the opposite sees a positive relationship with the KMT.
One of my uncles owns a chicken raising operation around the Puzi area. He also has a small plot of land where he grows his own food. The surplus he sells or gives away. Chicken farming is the key money-making business. He raising baby chicks starting from when they are in their cute yellow stage until they are ready to be slaughtered for their meat. It was at this place many years ago that I caught and killed my first chicken, thereby alerting me to the nature of what it means to be a meat eater. It's not much an accomplishment. These are domesticated creatures after all. The chicken was delicious.
The rain, which has been following me around throughout this trip, did not let up today. I sat with my uncle and aunt outside in a sheltered area looking out into his fields and the longhouse-like structures that housed his chickens. We drank green tea and ate grass jelly. By the way, grass jelly goes great with some milk, I discovered.
A friend of my uncle showed up shortly before we finished our second round of tea. He brought some vitamins. My uncle produced another cup and the three of us drank together. The newcomer spoke Taiwanese, a language I could only understand about 10% of. He went on for a bit with my uncle and then he decided to start talking to me. I answered his questions in Mandarin. This must have puzzled him, because it appeared as if I understood what he was saying. In fact, I didn't. I simply made some assumptions based on what I could pick out from his words and body language what he was saying and from that, I planned my reply. My lucky streak was lucky. When I finally admitted how little Taiwanese I knew and how I was figuring out what he was saying, he seemed a bit surprised. It's amazing what you can pick up when you try.
Southern Taiwan is more agricultural. There are also more people who speak the Taiwanese dialect which is largely incomprehensible to a speaker of Mandarin. It's an offshoot of a particular Minnan dialect spoken on the Mainland but with time, differences developed between the. Supposedly, however, you can still work out most of the other by knowing one of the two. As you travel north, the number of people who speak Taiwanese declines. Speakers, some of whom speak Taiwanese exclusively, are concentrated in the south. It is also interesting to note that speaking more Taiwanese has a positive correlation with being associated with the DPP, while the opposite sees a positive relationship with the KMT.
One of my uncles owns a chicken raising operation around the Puzi area. He also has a small plot of land where he grows his own food. The surplus he sells or gives away. Chicken farming is the key money-making business. He raising baby chicks starting from when they are in their cute yellow stage until they are ready to be slaughtered for their meat. It was at this place many years ago that I caught and killed my first chicken, thereby alerting me to the nature of what it means to be a meat eater. It's not much an accomplishment. These are domesticated creatures after all. The chicken was delicious.
The rain, which has been following me around throughout this trip, did not let up today. I sat with my uncle and aunt outside in a sheltered area looking out into his fields and the longhouse-like structures that housed his chickens. We drank green tea and ate grass jelly. By the way, grass jelly goes great with some milk, I discovered.
A friend of my uncle showed up shortly before we finished our second round of tea. He brought some vitamins. My uncle produced another cup and the three of us drank together. The newcomer spoke Taiwanese, a language I could only understand about 10% of. He went on for a bit with my uncle and then he decided to start talking to me. I answered his questions in Mandarin. This must have puzzled him, because it appeared as if I understood what he was saying. In fact, I didn't. I simply made some assumptions based on what I could pick out from his words and body language what he was saying and from that, I planned my reply. My lucky streak was lucky. When I finally admitted how little Taiwanese I knew and how I was figuring out what he was saying, he seemed a bit surprised. It's amazing what you can pick up when you try.
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