Big Trouble, Little China
Neiwan, Taiwan
Friday, June 2, 2006 Neiwan, Taiwan
If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write something worth reading or do things worth the writing.
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Learn as much by writing as by reading.
Writing well means never having to say, 'I guess you had to be there.'
Welcome to what I would like to call an Active Media Blog. Basically, it is a daily blog infused with lots of pictures and short video clips of the events that I am writing about... Hopefully, it’s an immersive experience! So when you see a word linked [look for the red brackets], click on it and check out the video or pictures to see first hand what I am writing about. Video links are double bracketed. Enjoy! This works best with tabbed browsing. I had to scavenge for stuff to fit this old blog. These will get much better as I write the next blogs with active media in mind. Check back often for more coming soon.
Yesterday, we took a trip to a Hakka village in Neiwan, Taiwan [pic] [pic] [pic] [haka wiki]. The day started out pretty rough for me as this was probably the pinnacle of my sickness; however, it still ended up being a pretty good day. The air was humid and hot and my cold was kicking my ass, but I had a whole new culture to explore and I still managed to have a damn good time.
A two-hour bus ride took us to Neiwan and as we exited the bus, the stifling heat was the first thing that hit me. We wandered around for a bit, getting used to the place and then we made our way to a famous rice dumpling shop [pic]. I must admit, I was extremely afraid. Here we were about to taste [rice] [dumplings] again and there was a crowd of shop owners surrounding us waiting to see our faces after the first bite. The previous day at a [[chopstick competition]] was the first time I had ever tasted rice dumplings and that wasn't a good experience at all so I didn't have high expectations. (Yesterday’s dumplings smelled like cat food and if I were to ever taste cat food, I would imagine it would taste the same as well.) After unwrapping the ginger leaf from the dumpling, the first good sign was that it didn't smell like cat food. Considering, however, that my nose was completely congested, I didn't trust my smelling senses and thought that maybe I just couldn't smell the cat food aroma. I decided to be brave though and took a bite. Wow! Now that's what a rice dumpling is supposed to taste like! It turns out that this shop is renowned for it's [rice dumplings] and for good reason. Great stuff.
After my positive outing with the rice dumplings, I took some medicine and went to the shop next door and bought some Buddhist prayer beads that were shaped into bracelets. I had been looking for those for a while. We then made our way through the town doing various things and stopping at various places for various reasons. We saw a [temple] and we also went to the house of the Taiwanese equivalent to Walt Disney, [Liu Hsing-ching] and [[he showed us his original comics]] and showed us around his museum [pic] [pic] [bio]. I have to make a monument to myself like his one day, I just hope I have created enough cool stuff like he has to fill it with.
The last and most important stop was the Neiwan Theatre. There we were to meet [Ms. Jang] to learn about Hakka Opera. Then they dropped a bomb on me. Renee and I were to dress up in Hakka Opera outfits and perform a traditional Hakka Opera. My first thought was, “oh great, I looooove making a fool of myself.” My second thought was the same. So Renee and I went up on stage and prepared to practice with Ms. Jang. She opened her mouth to sing on stage and a sound came out so beautiful that I instantly fell in love with her! [[Watch the video of me falling in love]] Wow, I have never heard anything so melodious in all of my life! It's too bad for me she didn't speak a lick of English. As we struggled to follow along, she gave us a piece of paper with the words on it as if that would help us. Unfortunately it was in Chinese so that was no help at all. I am sure everyone got a good laugh watching me try and sing along with her.
Once we finished a little practice, Ms. Jang began doing our makeup. After an hour of that, I ended up looking like [Casper the friendly female ghost!] My face was white with pronounced eyelashes that went in funky directions and I had eyeliner and lipstick on too! Then a guy came out and [put on my Chinese outfit] and I swear that once I put on the pointy hat, I looked just like the lightening guy in that old school movie, "Big Trouble, Little China." [pic] [pic] I couldn't avoid running around doing [crane kicks] and I would also randomly say stuff like, "Wu Tang Clan ain't nothin' to fuck wit!"
Eventually, it was time to embarrass ourselves, I mean perform. Renee and I got up on stage and did our thing, mimicking the professionals in front of us who knew what they were doing. [[Full video of me making a fool of myself]] After every one got a good laugh out of it, and lots of pictures, Renee and I were relieved of our duties as village idiots. Actually, I kid, I kid. It was a lot of fun. I was just really worried that we would make a mockery of something that was obviously very serious in their culture. They put a lot of heart in their performances and it meant a lot to them. I didn't want to undermine that and in the end, I think that Renee and I did a good job of respecting the dance and song. As a reward for our efforts, we got treated to an [authentic Hakka meal] that was phenomenal!
I still had the feeling though
that while I had that get up on, if I just stretched out my arms, lightening would fly from my fingertips. Waaa taaaaaaa!
