Jade Cabbage and Wax Apples

The next morning, I was very brave and grown-up. Several friends and relatives had recommended that Chris and I plan a trip to beautiful Hualian, which is on the east coast of Taiwan.


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So, without knowing what one actually does in Hualian (or where to stay, how to get there, or how much it should cost), I walked up to the concierge and tried to make the trip happen. Now, I'd been to Taiwan several times when I was younger, but this would be my first independent excursion, with no parents or relatives to buy me food or keep me from doing something stupid. I was just imagining all the horrible catastrophes that I might be in for. We might take the train to the wrong city, or we might not be able to find our hotel, or we might get totally ripped off by a cab driver and stranded in the countryside with no money. But I was determined to prove that I, proud 26-year-old college-graduate and gainfully-employed adult, could plan a two-day outing without help from mom and dad. (Yes [I] can!)

By the end of the conversation, I had successfully reserved train tickets, a hotel room, and even tours around the city. The most confusing part of the entire trip (which, by the way, I'll describe later in more detail), was picking up the train tickets. The man at the concierge told us to go to the post office, because apparently post offices can give you train tickets? And then there was some confusion because we didn't have "ID numbers". Adding to the confusion was that I didn't understand "ID" in Chinese, so I futilely started offering all sorts of other "numbers". (Confirmation number? Nope. Phone number? Nope. Passport number? Nope.) But we did eventually get the tickets. I felt very pleased with myself.

Now, time for the real day to begin...

Hot Pot Lunch

We met up with Da Ayi ("big aunt", my mom's big sister), Da Jou Jou ("big uncle", the older of my mom's two younger brothers), and my cousin Chian Chian for lunch at the Shipai MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) station. They took us to get Chinese hot pot -- YUM! Each person had:

• A pot of hot water.
• A little knob to control the temperature of the water.
• A platter of raw vegetables.
• A platter of raw meat.
• A dish full of interesting sauce that we mix at the sauce bar. I think we mixed in some of everything (a brown lumpy base, soy sauce, daikon mash, chili peppers, scallions, ginger, raw egg white, and a few other things that we didn't fully understand but ate anyways).

You can probably guess what comes next. Hint: Raw food + boiling water = cooked food.

Chris had an especially tasty beef dish. You can see some of the platter in the bottom right corner of the picture. It's apparently a very high quality sort of beef, sliced nearly paper thin (much thinner than bacon for instance). If you dip it into the boiling water for just a few seconds, and then pull it back out, it's soooo tender and delicious, especially with the sauce. Chris, having never had hot pot before, claims that this was one of his favorite meals of the trip. I bet we can find someplace that does hot pot in Cupertino. Must remember to look at some point!

National Palace Museum

After lunch, Da Jou Jou drove us all to the National Palace Museum. This museum is amazing. It's the single largest collection of Chinese treasures in the world, because the Kuomintang (KMT) absconded with all of the mainland's priceless art when it fled to the island after the Communist Revolution in 1949. The museum had a spectacular 1984-evoking plaque explaining this particular piece of history from Taiwan's perspective. I seriously regret that I don't remember it verbatim, but it went something like this: "To protect them from the ravages of war, the government relocated these priceless treasures to Taiwan for permanent safe-keeping." I wonder who they think "the government" is here. :-)

Another interesting political fact about the National Palace Museum is that it seldom loans its collections to foreign countries, because they're terrified that it may be seized by China. While we were in Taiwan, the Economist published a short article about how they force the receiving country's government to guarantee the artwork immunity from seizure by China as a precondition of receiving the exhibit. Given how few countries even diplomatically recognize Taiwan, small wonder that this stuff doesn't leave the island often!

The centerpiece of the museum is a magnificent jade cabbage.

Jade, I learned, can be many colors. I had always assumed it was just green, it's often found in white, blue, and pink too. Historically, it was valued for its hardness and durability, and apparently the white variety of jade was especially prized. The cabbage is especially cool because it's a chunk of white jade blended with green jade. Kudos to the artist who saw a cabbage in that rock! It's so perfect. If you look carefully, you might also be able to see the green insect sitting in the leaves -- also carved in intricate detail.

I won't go through all the exhibits we saw, but I did wish I knew more about Chinese history so I could understand these objects in more context. All their plaques were neatly translated into English, but I got the feeling that they assumed some basic skeletal knowledge of the various dynasties. When my aunt (a former school teacher) asked what I knew about Chinese history, I said, well, I know Genghis Khan... She and my uncle stared at me blankly until Chian Chian finally understood and translated for them. They responded, "Ohhhhh, yes yes him. <hesitation> He's not actually Chinese you know."

Yes, I did know that Genghis Khan isn't ethnically Chinese, but how embarrassing that the only Chinese historical figures I could name (Genghis Khan and Marco Polo) weren't really Chinese! Three cheers for our Euro-centric history education.

Anyways, here's us outside the museum:


Grandmother's House

Next, Da Jou Jou and company dropped us off at my other grandmother's place (my dad's mom). Here's a picture of my dad's half of the family. From left to right, Gu Gu (my aunt), Shu Shu (my uncle, Ama (my grandmother), myself, and Chris.


We hung out for a while and snacked on tasty fruits, the most notable of which was the wax apple (called "lian wu" in Chinese). It's really a very delicious fruit; the name "wax apple" doesn't do it justice at all. It's light, juicy, and refreshing, with a slight sweet crisp when you bite into it. It probably wins Chris's award for Best Fruit of the Trip. He demolished dozens of them. Here's a picture of some wax apples that have been cut in half and cored (the red ones). The green ones are the football-shaped plums I mentioned in an earlier post -- see how they're pointy at one end?

For dinner we went to an excellent restaurant where we again, cooked our own food, but this time over a grill. What a coincidence right? Note that we were hanging out with different halves of the family for lunch and dinner, so this wasn't at all coordinated. But it was a fantastic dinner -- the meats were especially flavorful and delicious.

You'll quickly notice that eating is a big theme on this trip. My relatives said on several occasions that they thought the most special thing about Taiwan is all the great food. And seriously, we were eating ALL the time. It was all so irresistible. Jumping ahead two weeks, when we got back home to Sunnyvale, Chris got on the scale, and the scale said he'd gained 25 pounds. (!!!) I'm sure the scale was lying, since...well...I think it's impossible to gain weight that fast, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't off by all that much!