October 2003: Taiwan Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

Moon Festival, Taiwan, October 2003

A Chinese holiday in a Chinese village with Chinese people, through the eyes of an American kid.

9:13 PM, 11 September, 2003, Mid-Autumn Festival, Taichung, Taiwan

Circles and Circles.  Wind, motion, movement, change.  Circles upon circles upon. . .

Today.  A wisp of a moment in space time.  I woke up on the third story of a four floor building in a small Taiwanese town, hot, sweaty, splayed out, recovering awkwardly from my imaginary dream-escape world of the evening before.  

Thank God!

Into the soon-to-be-sweltering day.  Down stairs into the kitchen and a maternal Taiwanese smile and a round table abundant with breakfast sweets.  Breakfast cakes, sweet rice, peanuts-my eyes are puffy and I sneeze often-apparently I am allergic to Taiwan.  

After breakfast we walk through the traditional market, and I see pig’s feet, cooked chickens with their beaks open in fatal shock at their unfortunate fate, raw fish, shrimp, dragon’s eyes-a wonder of exotic meats, eggs, and vegetables.  

Amber and Emily take us, along with the Taiwanese thermal engineer, to a lush green sanctuary with hiking trails, dragon-decked Taoist temples, coffee shops, and mosquitos.  We take a 45 minute hike through the verdant hills and I soak in the exotic, the oriental, the subtropical island version of the East.  I want to be alone with my Taiwan, so I avoid my hiking companions and appropriate nature with my digital Canon.

Back at the sanctuary, we sample chilled Taiwanese coffee, coconut sorbet, and jello, and we speak of mandatory military service, the historical role of “black gold” in international affairs, and the inevitable self-destruction of the modern state system (Chomsky).

We ride back to the urban countryside village, stopping at the market to make our purchases for the afternoon barbeque. 

Guarding the entrance to the driveway of Emily’s grandmother’s traditional 1940’s Taiwanese house are two teeth-baring black dogs in raised cages.  They are either thrilled or infuriated to see us, as tail wagging and vicious barking betray the confusion of animals that have spent their entire lives locked in small cages.  They prove to be deranged and obnoxious throughout the afternoon.

Emily’s 80 year old matriarch grandmother only speaks Taiwanese, and her smile is good willed if toothy.  She spends her days now lying in a heap inside one of the concrete boxes in the house-today is no exception.

We drink liquid orange sugarcane drinks.  Mmmm.

Barbeque!  We have no grill, and the mosquitos live in the back, so we decide to make a grill on the concrete driveway.  We form a square pit with eight red bricks, and fill the hollow middle of the square with gray sand.  We then put coals, sticks, newspaper, and Taiwanese firestarters (they look like gray pieces of garlic) into a heap on the sand, and spend a half our trying to coax our concoction to ignite.  

Finally the Chinese fire Gods answer, and we can begin to grill:  squid, sausage, beef, chicken, mushrooms, shrimp-this is eclectic cuisine!  We feast and cook for hours to the sounds of angry dogs barking and the blaring soundtrack to a puppet show at the temple down the street.

Puppet show!  Oh we must go. . .   We take a mid-meal break and stroll out of the driveway around the corner to encounter docile Chinese babies, adults offering incense to the Goddess of the Earth, a woman burning paper money, and most importantly: a puppet stage!  The façade of the stage is covered with spray-painted neon dragons, fantastical mountainous Chinese landscapes, and all in bright pink, orange, green!  The music for the puppet show is shockingly loud, forcing one to protect one’s eardrums with one’s index fingers-It sounds like out of tune clarinets having a chaotic cock fight-yet it is charming.  

There are few audience members, as most people these days prefer to stay home and watch Asian variety shows, talking heads on the news, or channel surf-but the puppet show continues.  Perhaps the puppeteers turned up the volume so loud so everyone in the neighborhood would have to listen to it anyway.

Back to the bbq, and we finish with coconut milk filled with tapioca balls and pieces of papaya and pineapple.  Hao Chi!

We take a late afternoon bike ride through the rice paddies, and I learn about rice, wave at good-willed rice farmers, and pay homage at the shrine to the Ming general of 2,000 years ago who protects the farmers.  A bike ride in a Taiwanese village is fun!

I am tired and it is dusk.  We drive the one hour back to Taichung, watching fireworks explode all along the way next to Highway 1, and listening to the English language station in Taipei broadcast the newest American Rap hit: Right Thur (I like the way ya move that right THURRR!!).  

An incongruous and wonderful day.