Night markets (Travel in Taiwan)

No visitor to Taiwan should leave without wandering around at least one of the island's 300-odd night markets. Every bit as colorful and bustling as Middle Eastern bazaars, these after-dark attractions are places to eat, shop and slowly wander around while soaking up iconic Taiwan sounds and smells.

This might surprise you, but night markets (which typically run from dusk until nearly midnight) are very different to morning markets. At the latter – which early-birds will find well worth visiting – housewives stock up on vegetables, fruit, meat and fish. Night markets sell very little in the way of fresh cooking ingredients. Instead, they're renowned for offering tasty snacks like squid-on-a-stick, oyster omelets, steamed sweetcorn, and something that resembles a donor kebab – but with pork rather than lamb, and a conventional bun instead of pita.

Here's another surprising fact: Even if the food doesn't tempt you at all, spending an hour or two exploring a night market still brings many a reward. Photographers will lap up the visual possibilities: Piles of gewgaws, racks of clothes, games to play, and people of all shapes and sizes...

This article appears in the March/April issue of Travel in Taiwan magazine. All of the links above go to photos on the flickr website.

Keeping Up With the War God (2nd ed., BooksFromTaiwan.com)

For some years I've contemplated, admittedly not very seriously, updating and reissuing my first book, Keeping Up With the War God. Last month, the folks at BooksFromTaiwan.com nudged me to revise the text (which involved correcting some bad writing, redrafting several inelegant sentences, and updating some facts) so they could create an e-book version for Kindle machines. It's now out!

Keeping Up With The War God

Committee appointment

I've been appointed to Kaohsiung City Government's Bilingual Living Environment Commission, a 19-strong committee whose duties include the correcting of bilingual signs, and the standardizing of the English names of government units and tourist attractions. The work is very similar to what I've been doing from time to time for the central government's Research, Development & Evaluation Commission.

Eleven members are civil servants; eight are outsiders. I'm not sure how often we'll be meeting.

Translation projects unlock world of Taiwanese literature (Taiwan Today)

Readers in the English-speaking world have long enjoyed translations of the cream of French, German and Russian literature. Only in the past few decades, however, have English-language editions of the best fiction written in Taiwan become available.

In the 1980s, Indiana University Press published translations of short-story collections by Huang Chun-ming and Kenneth Pai Hsien-yung as part of its Chinese Literature in Translation series. In 1998, Columbia University Press launched its Modern Chinese Literature in Taiwan series with Wang Chen-ho's “Rose, Rose I Love You,” a novel first published in Chinese in 1984.

Of the 18 titles in the series, with two more in the pipeline, the best-seller so far has been Chu Tien-wen's “Notes of a Desolate Man,” said Jennifer Crewe, CUP's editorial director.

Print runs are usually small, however, about 1,000 copies on average, said Crewe...

Go here to read this article in its entirety. Researching this story was very satisfying on a personal level, opening doors to one aspect of Taiwan I had until this year neglected. The National Museum of Taiwan Literature is worth visiting, even if you cannot read any Chinese.

Aboriginal food comes down from the hills (Unity)

Taiwan's indigenous people account for about two percent of the island's 23.1 million people, yet the number of local restaurants serving authentic indigenous cuisine is far fewer than the one in fifty you might expect.

Many lowlanders have a vague idea of what aborigines eat and how they cook: A lot of meat, much of it got by hunting, roasted or barbecued; small fish and shrimp taken from mountain streams; and strange vegetables, quite different to those seen on the lowlands, all washed down with homemade liquor. Although these impressions are broadly correct, what indigenous people eat now on a day-to-day basis is quite different to the aboriginal diet of just a few decades ago.

Millet, yams, and taros used to be the main carbohydrates. But now, because good roads link the plains with the mountains, indigenous people eat just as much rice as their Han Chinese compatriots. At tribal festivals, however, millet-based dishes are still made and consumed...

The complete article appears in the March/April issue of Unity, the inflight magazine of UNI Air. Meatier articles of mine about indigenous food can be found here and here.

Historic Tainan (Verve)

Few places have modernized so fast and yet retained so many of their customs as Taiwan. And within Taiwan, nowhere is more traditional than the southern city of Tainan.

Tainan's status has changed several times during its long history. Initially a trade outpost of the Dutch East India Company, in 1663 it became the capital of Koxinga's Dongning Kingdom. Then, for two centuries beginning 1684, it was known as Taiwanfu – literally, “Taiwan's prefectural capital.” At the end of 2010, the city and the surrounded county merged, creating a sprawling municipality covering 2,192 km2 and inhabited by 1.9 million people.

Tainan's religious life has been shaped in part by the Dutch, the Japanese, and the British. Missionaries from the UK founded the city's oldest school, its oldest hospital, and its most elegant church. However, the strongest influence by far came from China’s southeastern province of Fujian. Folk beliefs, Buddhism and Taoism dominate today's free, tolerant and diverse spiritual environment.

Religious parades, which feature fantastically-attired troupes of stilt walkers and other performers, can be seen almost every weekend. God effigies often go on local inspection tours to bless and safeguard households within the temple's dominion.

On the fifteenth day of each lunar calendar, households and businesses appropriate patches of sidewalk and set out tables laden with offerings before which they burn incense and joss paper for the gods. Ancestor rites are conducted at home, in front of the family altar, but with apartment living, nuclear families, and the fast pace of modern life, this practice is in decline.

It's often said Tainan has “a god every five steps, a temple every three steps.” That’s something of an exaggeration – though very few streets lack some kind of shrine – and yet also an understatement. Tainan has much more, in terms of tangible antiquity, than places of worship. But let's start with two religious landmarks.

The Martial Rites Temple and the Great Queen of Heaven Temple are side by side, and both date from the late 17th century.

The former is dedicated to Guan Gong, a god whose following includes a great many of Taiwan's business people. The layout is rare in that it's asymmetrical. Walk through the main chamber and turn left to find a pavilion dedicated to Guanyin; note the delicate but weathered woodcarvings of dragons. Behind it there's a delightful courtyard with a 300-year-old plum tree. Musicians play traditional Chinese instruments here every Monday and Tuesday.

The Great Queen of Heaven Temple was a palace until the Dongning Kingdom was overthrown. At the behest of the Qing general who masterminded Taiwan's incorporation into the Chinese empire it became a shrine devoted to Mazu, the sea goddess and the protector of sailors.

The temple's crowning glory is the main Mazu effigy. It's unusual in terms of size (as big as high schooler), age (an estimated 300 years), and material (mud!). Many of the faithful believe that in 2004, when the head suddenly fell off, it was the goddess sacrificing herself to warn her followers about an approaching typhoon. The head has been beautifully restored and the original black face covered with gold leaf...

The full version of this article appeared in the January issue of Verve, EVA Air's inflight magazine.

The Dutch in Tainan, then and now (Travel in Taiwan)

Even after the recent merger of Tainan City and Tainan County, Tainan is still only Taiwan's fifth-largest metropolis. Yet as the island's former capital, and the place where Han Chinese culture gained its foothold on the island, any attempt to understand Taiwan's history must address this bastion of culture and tradition.

Tainan's current population of 1.9 million is overwhelmingly of Han Chinese descent. But if you could travel back in time to the second quarter of the 17th century, you would find a multicultural, multilingual settlement.

In addition to Chinese migrants speaking Minnanhua (a language now known as Taiwanese), members of the aboriginal Tsou and Siraya tribes, Japanese pirates and traders, you'd see a surprising number of Europeans. That's because, between 1624 and 1662, parts of what's now Tainan were controlled by the Dutch East India Company (also known by its initials in Dutch, VOC).

The VOC was a privately-owned enterprise that by force of arms opened up much of Asia to European exploitation. The VOC's Tainan colony – like its outposts in Indonesia and Japan – was a commercial venture.

Sugar, rice, deer skins and venison were major exports. Significant quantities of spices, ceramics and silver passed through Tainan – then called Tayuan – en route to Japan and China.

Even though the Dutch occupation of Taiwan was brief and ended a long time ago, this period is crucial to the island's history. According to Lien Heng's General History of Taiwan, “As very early Taiwanese history has no written sources, the history of Taiwan was started by the Dutch...”

To read the entire article, get a copy of the January/February issue of Travel in Taiwan.