sunday drive

sundays are shu-shu's day off. and so, the family announced that they would be taking me for a drive. finally, we'd have automotive access to some of the roads and villages that had been cut off since the typhoon. we started by taking the direct road to maolin-- a drive that had taken 40 circuitous minutes last week, and that normally takes only about 15.

shu-shu's big pickup turned down a dirt lane lined with beheaded palm trees. the sight of the beat up riverbed was pretty extreme, and more so for the liangs who had known it pre-typhoon. gray silt spread far and wide where torrential flooding had torn open the river's path, and half-buried tree trunks scattered about, marked up with orange spray paint. just a little further down the road, the foot of the mountains and the road to maolin. turns out that twisted yellow bridge that i'd seen the other day was the connection between maolin and gaoshu. industrious drivers had come through with a makeshift road all the way up to the mountain-top village by laying large temporary pipes across the river, covering them with dirt, and driving over the earth repeatedly. or by just blazing a trail through and around the heaps of rubble.

the red carpet (aka freshly slaughtered pig) was laid out for our arrival, and we met up with the same lovely aboriginal taiwanese ("ywenzumi") family that we'd seen last week, all of whom had helped to raise the liang kids. how could we say no to piping hot boiled pig chunks? jun claims to only like grilled meat, not boiled, so i was on my own. the soy-garlic dipping sauce was amazing, as was the scene of dividing up and parceling out shares in clear pink bags.

the village of guangfu was our next stop. the combination of light drizzling rain, dense betelnut palm groves, and buzzing heat made it feel straight out of indiana jones. we visited each of guangfu's three giant stone lions (who are rumored by the people of maolin to have made a live appearance during typhoon morakot!). apparently, in the beginning there was only one. it was damaged in the last terrible typhoon 50 years ago. the people, however, were safe, and they attributed their good fortune to the stone lion. so they built a second one, and that one was vandalized by a jealous neighboring village. then came a third-- and nothing happened to it. now, all three have now been located and are now positioned about the village, protecting the people of guang fu. this one was my favorite-- the mossy, reclaimed-by-the-jungle lion.

sky high sandimen was next. sandimen is a community well-known for its promotion of aboriginal taiwanese culture, and the indigenous people's cultural park. while we didn't visit that particular park, we did visit a local artist's self-constructed restaurant high up on the mountaintop and the dragonfly bead art studio, where glass beads are crafted in the tradition of the paiwan tribe. we also ate some more delectable ywenzumi pork-- cooked on a stone slab over fire, with chunks of onion and garlic. true to his word, jun ate up.



our last stop was the big city, pingtung. we had hua-gua, or hot pot. a big metal bowl with a yin-yang like divider filled with 2 kinds of broth, one spicy and one not. a blazing hot fire beneath. a refrigerated wall unit stocked with all types of uncooked foods-- meats, mushrooms, tofu, sea creatures, dumplings, herbs, quail eggs, pumpkin, taro, noodles, duck blood cakes, and so on. you take what you like, dump it in the broth, mix up an individual dipping sauce, and then dip in to the hot pot. shu-shu probably wasn't joking when he said that he'd like to book a hotel room next door and stay for a vacation... easy hua gua access. my favorite thing about hua gua is the precious freedom to pick and choose. that and the soft-serve ice cream*

photos: bridge swept away; worst parking spot ever; silty riverbed; disassembled pig; maolin digging in; guangfu lion #2; glass bead studio; pingtung hua gua; sandimen valley