A Northern Jaunt, etc.
“Let’s take a drive around the north coast,” Chenbl texted on Sunday morning.
“Ok,” I texted back, still in bed. I’d spent the previous night at the predictably stressful and disappointing Tiger Mountain Ramble, (the ninth one I think? I’ve lost count). Don’t get me wrong, the other Ramblers seem to really enjoy it, as does the crowd in general, but the creepy abandoned temple and relentless expat vibe never fails to put me on edge. I usually arrive late, spend my time there trying to disappear, and leave as soon as I can. Oh, and not get electrocuted on stage.
So I was in the mood to get out of town. I reserved a Toyota sedan from i-rent on my phone, retrieved it from a nearby parking lot, and picked up Chenbl and his parents before driving north. Chenbl’s navigation efforts somehow resulted in us going the opposite direction than we had intended, but this actually later turned out to be a good idea. We drove out of the city and up to the coast, the brilliant blue skies becoming abruptly cloudy after we passed Danshui, and on to the late Lee Teng-hui’s hometown of Sanzhi for a lunch of some of the most delicious noodles I have ever had, at the Yue Lai Ting, a traditional restaurant with photos of various famous people on the walls. The lunch crowd, including the birthday party of an elderly woman who was feeding cake to one of her grandchildren, was just finishing up, so the staff were quite happy to chat with Chenbl’s parents about all sorts of things, including engineering projects and Hakka accents.
We paid our respects at the golden-faced Matsu temple nearby and then explored an open-air clothes-washing canal and veggie garden that featured not only two working water wheels but an enthusiastic older man who was eager to explain the history of the area. By this time I was sensing a theme of the people in Sanzhi being rather talkative, and when I commented on it, Chenbl’s mother joked, “Well, of course they’re chatty; what else are they going to do around here?”
I think it’s nice; I should go back and make a more thorough exploration of Sanzhi. But we had to be getting on, and the sun had come out again in time for us to enjoy the beach a ways up the coast at the Shihmen Arch Bridge. I chatted with some of the Indonesian fishermen on a boat docked at the harbor as elderly black dogs sniffed at us with greying muzzles. Children splashed each other out in the tide pools while tourists took pictures of the green algae on the rocks.
We realized how fortuitous our previous navigation error was as we continued to drive east, the setting sun blasting the drivers coming the opposite direction but lighting the views along the coast in a surreal fashion due to the ocean haze, the amber light illuminating the cliffs and islets in the distance with a glow like something out of a Miyazaki film. The sun had set by the time we reached Keelung, and finding a parking spot in that amazingly mismanaged traffic was a feat we thought nigh impossible until we somehow managed to dip into an underground parking lot without having to line up. “The car ahead was a VIP,” Chenbl’s father surmised. “That’s how we got in. We got lucky.”
It being a weekend, the night market was thronged with crowds. Back-alley sesame dumplings were enough to satisfy Chenbl’s parents, but we also got some tasty sandwiches before getting back on the road and returning to Taipei, Chenbl’s father telling us tales of the construction of the tunnel making highway travel to the port city possible back in the early 70’s. Sinotech, the company where both Chenbl and his father have made their engineering careers, has done (and is still doing) some truly amazing projects that have benefitted Taiwan in many ways.
Thankfully traffic on the way back wasn’t too heavy, as I don’t really enjoy driving at night. I’d reserved the car until 8:30; we got it back just in time. The i-rent system is actually a nifty idea for those of us who don’t really need a car most of the time.
The next day after work I went to the Xinyi Eslite Bookstore, which is set to close for good on Christmas Eve. I had been rather ambivalent about it after the legendary Dunnan Eslite was torn down years ago; I had spent many a late night there all through the 90’s and aughts wandering the creaky wooden stacks to the sound of soothing cello music, looking at photography books, graphic novels, sci-fi, Chinese sword dramas, you name it, so it was a bit distressing to see it demolished. And now, because we’re just getting dumber as a society, the Xinyi 24-hour bookstore is going away as well, to be replaced by yet another vapid mall full of empty shops populated only by fashion items that cost more than most people’s yearly salary. Wandering around perusing the actual paper books, I felt an even greater sense of impending loss; there’s just nothing to compare with an actual, physical bookshop. It’s more than the books themselves; it’s a whole vibe, an atmosphere of people all engaged in the act of wanting to know more, among the dedicated works of people who want others to know more. I can’t help but wonder if anyone will even be able to calculate what we’re losing. Then again, when was the last time I purchased a physical book? Don’t I read books mostly on my aging Kindle Voyage, or, god help me, on my phone? So perhaps I am just as much at fault for this distressing trend as anyone else.
On my way home I found the usually empty Bitan suspension bridge swarming with reporters, police and security personnel. A bearded Western dude with a tricked-out camera glared at me as I passed, as if I wasn’t supposed to be there. “What’s going on?” I asked one of the security dudes, who sported a tactical vest with a badge and an automatic pistol on his hip.
“Nothing, just our routine inspection route,” he lied. I pointed at the gaggle of reporters.
“Why all the press then?”
“It’s Bitan,” he continued with what I wondered was a badly rehearsed prevarication. “There’s always people around taking photos.”
I looked down at his badge and gun. “Uh-huh. Well, good luck with all that,” I said before continuing back to the Water Curtain Cave. I suspected that it might be an executive inspection of the ongoing bridge repair work, and I didn’t want another awkward encounter with the president (though who knows, perhaps the third time’s the charm?). But it turned out, as my journalist friend Chang Liang-i informed me, that it was actually Vice President/Presidential candidate Lai Ching-te visiting, along with his VP candidate Hsiao Bi-khim.
In other news, we recently wrapped up a semester of instructing a course on street photography at Shih Hsin University, which is known for its journalism program. The final exhibition and event was fun, with Chenbl as the MC and attended by several high-level university officials and other professors. Alas, there really wasn’t enough time to do much more than a glossed-over introduction to the art and practice of street photography this time, but it’s been hinted that we might be able to take a real crack at it at some point in the future. We’ll see.
