Limestone Jubilee: The Queen’s Head Rock - 女王頭

by Charles DeBenedetto

The entrance to Yeh Liu Geo Park. Photo Credit: K.H.

 

Driving past Taipei and under the shadow of skyscrapers, we quickly transition from highway, to provincial road, to side road, to “is this a road?” Along the way, there are beach resorts, paraglider rentals, and plenty of seafood restaurants. Eventually, we find a sign pointing to what we are looking for, “Yeh Liu Geo Park.”

 

Parking our car and buying a ticket, we’re surprised by how many people are here, and how many foreign languages are being spoken, despite the pandemic. We are reminded that Taiwan has a large and eclectic foreign community. We look through all of the different language brochures until we find English (a testament to the popularity of this place), and I read the title:

 

Welcome to Yeh Liu Geo Park! The closest place on Earth that you can get to the surface of Mars.

 

I laugh at that, but, looking at the pictures in the brochure, I get their point. We walk down a large, sand-colored stone path, flanked by trees on either side which graciously provide us with shade from the mighty Sun. About fifteen minutes of walking in shade abruptly ends when we reach a bridge. It connects Taiwan to the Geo Park, which is situated on two separate stone peninsulas that slowly descend into the Pacific.

 

As we walk among the peculiar rocks, we notice an employee with a large straw hat and sleek sunglasses standing beyond a red painted line that divides the park roughly in half. As we watch him, we realize that he is essentially The Catcher in the Rye. His job is to make sure nobody crosses the red line over to the side by the ocean which is considered too dangerous. We talk with him, projecting our voices a bit from the safe side of the line, and his face lights up as he talks about the rocks.

 

“Oh, yeah!” he says happily, and he begins pointing his fingers as he talks. “So you just walked through the Mushroom Field. Over there is Ice Cream, and down that way are the Candles.” I’m sure he has said this to tourists every day for a long time, so I appreciate the enthusiasm with which he says it.

 

Very Big Mushrooms. Photo Credit: K.H.

 

We look back at the Mushroom Field. The bottom halves are lighter stones that have been heavily eroded by the tide, while the top halves, darker and crannied as if shot by many rounds of bullets, appear to be ocean rocks or coral that were pushed up a long time ago. I cannot get my imagination to see the Ice Cream, but the Candles are beautiful divots with round stones inside, supposedly placed naturally, to make the wicks. We walk on top of the red line, but never cross it, and look back at the man every now and again to see if he cares or if he will say anything.

Candles might work if you don’t have a lighthouse. Photo Credit: K.H.

 

We see many other special rocks made by countless years of wind and erosion, with names like Elephant, Snake, Dragon, and, my favorite, Flip Flop. Finally, we see what we have been looking for.

 

She has a long, slim neck, a small indent of a mouth, a little nose, and a large, pointed crown. She looks fearless, as if she knew who Medusa was and still dared to look her in the eye anyway. She is the Queen’s Head, a symbol of Taiwan, right alongside Taipei 101 and bubble milk tea.

 

Her Majesty. Photo Credit: K.H.

 

A line of people is waiting to take a picture with her, and when it is our turn, we run up next to her, quickly put our umbrellas down and squint our eyes in the Sun until the picture is taken. Moving out of the way so that other people can take a picture, I turn back to her for another look.

 

Her neck is almost cartoonishly skinny, balancing her giant head. Later I would learn that she has been losing about a centimeter of her neck every year due to erosion, and that she probably has about ten years left before she falls. Discussing this with my family later on, we decided that perhaps a veil could be made to go over her head and down to the ground, made of strong metal to give her extra support.

 

Perhaps, but then she would lose some of the magic, that she is a work of art made solely by Mother Nature herself.

 

Artificially propping her up would feel inauthentic, but it would also follow a human pattern of first hurting Mother Nature’s creations, only to then become the stewards of those creations’ continued survival.

 

We are hurting her, and accelerating her decapitation. Not only because we are careless tourists, who cannot resist the urge to touch her and put our arm around her, but also because the typhoons she must endure every summer are becoming more intense because of human-induced climate change.

 

If she is to survive beyond 2030, then, humans must intervene to save her, after nearly killing her. Is there a difference then between the Queen’s Head and polar bears?

 

But even without humans, the Queen’s Head would indeed fall one day. After thousands of years of working on her, Mother Nature was always going to destroy her eventually.

 

She is impermanent, just like me, but in that moment our two impermanents met.

 

* * *

 

As a New Hampshirite, seeing the Queen inevitably reminds me of the Old Man of the Mountain, the rock formation which used to be perched at the top of Cannon Mountain in northern New Hampshire, before it fell in May 2003. A couple hundred years before that, US senator Daniel Webster said of the Old Man:

 

Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe, jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth. But up in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.

 

It is truly an epic quote, although I do realize that the use of "men" is outdated. But to me, the quote means that strong, diligent, and independent people, men and women, come from New Hampshire, and I feel proud to be a part of that tradition.

But now, we must ponder its antithesis.

 

Now that the Old Man has fallen, are there no more strong people in New Hampshire?

The Old Man before the Fall. Photo Credit: Wikipedia.

 

* * *

 

There was mourning when the Old Man fell, and some talked of artificially putting him back up there, but finally it was decided to do nothing. The people of New Hampshire are steadfast and independent, as Daniel Webster observed long ago. We don’t need a rock on a mountain to prove it.

 

What, then, does the Queen’s Head mean for Taiwan? Perhaps it is the Old Man’s opposite; New Hampshire’s strength and resolve complimented by Taiwan’s beauty and grace.

 

Or maybe it is Mother Nature’s signature, after having finished her masterpiece that is not only Taiwan, but all of our wondrous Earth.

 

Or maybe it’s just a rock, and it is silly to spend so much mental effort trying to project meaning onto her.

 

In truth, I don't know what the Queen’s Head means, but, like the Old Man to New Hampshirites, I do know that the Taiwanese do not need her message.

 

She will fall when it is her time, as all things do. But until then, we will admire her beauty, and after she falls, we will remember her.

 

The Queen will be dead one day, but she will live long in our collective memory.

 

And maybe, though our lives are too short to comprehend this, Mother Nature is just creating a fresh canvas on which to make another masterpiece.

 

A sign that will almost certainly outlive its subject. Photo Credit: K.H.

The Lennon Wall: We Need More Than Love – 藍儂牆

by Charles DeBenedetto

The Vltava River in Prague, Summer 2019. Photo Credit: K.H.

 

Our knuckles turn white as we awkwardly grip our luggage and descend the stairs into the dark subway station. We look around to try and understand our surroundings, and I fear that we look like innocent tourists just waiting to be taken advantage of.

 

We see a sign that says CHANGE and we roll our luggage toward it. My girlfriend says that she’ll wait with the luggage while I change some Euros for Czech korunas. I walk inside the small, lonely store.

 

It says 0% commission, and I think that is probably a good thing, even though I only have a vague idea of what commission means. There is a list of currency exchange rates, and at the top, I see that the exchange rate of Czech korunas to Euros looks about right, and I prepare a one-hundred Euro bill.

 

“I’d like to exchange one-hundred Euros,” I say meekly.

 

The man behind the counter is young, perhaps a few years older than me, with short red hair, pale blue eyes, and a long nose. He prepares a receipt for me to sign. I begin signing my first name, then I look up to read what I am actually signing. I see that there is a section that says I have three hours to cancel the transaction if I wish, and, feeling relief, I finish signing my name.

 

The man puts my one-hundred Euro bill through a machine to verify it, and holds it up to the light as well, as if he believes that I might be trying to scam him. He then slips three Czech bills under the glass: a 1,000, a 500, and a 100.

 

I thank him quietly, carefully place the three bills into my wallet, and scurry out of there.

Back with my girlfriend, we look at my receipt and see that the exchange rate was one Euro = sixteen Czech korunas, much lower than it should be. I was scammed.

 

I turn back to look at his store. At the top of the exchange rate list, the rate from Czech korunas to Euros is in large print, and perfectly normal. At the very bottom of the list, in small print, the exchange rate from Euros to Czech korunas is terrible.

 

“This place…no good,” an older man says, with hazelnut eyes and short, curly gray hair. “I can show you…better place.”

 

I’m nervous, and I don’t want to be talking with this man. But I remember that I can still cancel my transaction, so I rush back inside the CHANGE shop.

 

“I want to cancel my exchange.”

 

“Why?” he says, clearly agitated.

 

“It says on my receipt that I can cancel within three hours.”

 

“I know what it says!” he snaps. “Why do you want to change?”

Because you are a fraud and take advantage of people for a living! I wish I were brave enough to say.

 

“Because I want my one-hundred Euros back," I actually say.

 

“But why?!” he yells angrily.

He’s breaking the script. Service workers are not supposed to yell at customers. I’m even more nervous now. I imagine him coming out from his glass box and hurting me, or calling some henchmen to come up from behind me and hurt me. I have lost some money, but it’s not too bad, so I decide to give up.

 

“It’s okay,” I try to say calmly. “Thank you.”

 

Back outside, the old man is still there. “How much…did you…exchange?” he asks. Why is he still here? Wasn’t he just passing by on his way to catching a subway train?

 

“Not much, it’s okay.”

 

“Can I see…your wallet? I can…help you.”

 

My girlfriend nudges me and says “zou ba,” Mandarin for “let’s go,” so the man cannot understand.

 

“We’ll be alright, thanks though,” I say, and we fast-walk away without looking back. Minutes later, we see the old man approaching other people, and we realize that even the old man is a fraud, even though he was right when he said that the CHANGE store was no good.

 

My mind feels muddy as we finally walk into the subway’s ticket area, where we quickly learn that we need coins to buy a ticket, and we only have bills. “Do you need coins?” someone says, “Maybe I can help?” But we’ve had enough of talking to strangers, so we go to a store and buy a pastry, then use the change to buy two subway tickets.

 

After a difficult time wandering around trying to find our hotel, when we are finally relaxing, I do some math and learn that I lost about one-thousand Czech korunas, which is about forty US dollars. That sucks, but we can manage. I am grateful that I did not lose more than that, and I know that, for the price of forty US dollars, I learned a valuable lesson. I was too innocent, too quick to trust others, and too quick to act.

 

Perhaps that man needs the money to live, I tell myself to try and feel better. No matter, I vow that I will not be fooled again, that I will be more careful, savvier.

 

The rest of the evening is pleasant, but I feel sorry for Prague, because my first impression of this ancient city will always be the time when scammers flocked to me like vultures to a cadaver.

* * *

 

After a first day like that, I never imagined our second day to be defined by a profound love for humanity. Or maybe our first day helped to heighten our next day's experience.

* * *

Walking the crowded cobblestone streets in the baking sun the next day, and feeling pretty pessimistic about our species, I use one hand to make a visor for an invisible hat, and the other to hold her hand. We move like subway trains, picking up speed only to stop abruptly as something grabs her attention. I walk a few more paces beyond her before realizing that I ignorantly passed by something interesting.

The Lennon Wall. Photo Credit: K.H.

 

It’s graffiti, but unlike any other we had seen in Prague, or Europe for that matter. It is a group project of hundreds, perhaps thousands of artists. Many have written messages like “all you need is love,” “no room for hate,” and similar feel good declarations. In the middle of the wall, there is a black and white portrait of John Lennon’s face, the way he looked after he left his boy band years behind. A young man is playing Beatles songs on his guitar directly under him, as if he is being watched over by his teacher.

 

Later, I will learn that this wall has endless layers, and it symbolizes a deep, collective pain and love. It began with one person spray-painting an image of John’s face in an act of mourning his recent death, but later people began using the wall at night to write anti-communist sentiments (the only way to speak freely in then-communist Czechoslovakia). It was an anonymous chat room in the pre-internet social network.

 

But today, the wall’s message goes far beyond the Czech Republic, or even Europe. Today I see many Chinese characters on the wall, like “Support Hong Kong” and “Hong Kong, Keep Fighting!” I wonder if the Czech people feel for Hong Kong with a special intensity, because they know intimately what it is like to be suppressed by a communist regime.

 

While I am admiring the wall, some Chinese tourists are beside me, and they are also reading the Chinese characters. They mutter things to each other in Mandarin, like “disrespectful,” “absolutely terrible,” and my favorite, “everyone knows that China is trying to help Hong Kong, and those violent protesters are completely out of line!”

 

No, not everybody knows that. But you do. It is true for you, as it might be true for many more in China. And if these Chinese tourists can serve as a litmus test for China as a whole, then I can only imagine what they think about the Taiwanese, who are often described in Chinese media as “separatist terrorists” when in actuality they have been peacefully living in a country that has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party and never should be.

 

* * *

 

John Lennon is looking down at me, and the man is singing “All You Need Is Love.”

 

Love is great, perhaps the greatest thing about humanity, but in the case of Hong Kong and Taiwan, they need more than love. This wall is beautiful, and it is covered in warmth and heartfelt prayers from people all over the world, who come here as though on a pilgrimage for a religious faith deeper and older than any scripture. But this wall will not change the oppressive systems in place.

 

I don’t believe that the leaders of Czechoslovakia’s communist government saw the wall and wept, declaring “We were wrong! We must democratize!” Instead, they just painted the wall over with white paint.

 

The same is true for China. This wall will not change them. Neither will your FaceBook post. Only long-term, conscious, careful pressure from all sides can work, forcing them to see that the world will not accept them unless they fundamentally change.

 

But isn’t my story just another layer of graffiti on the wall? Just a glorified FaceBook post?

 

And yet, the wall gives me hope. It shows me that for many of us, our hearts are aligned, even if we are too afraid, too busy, or too unguided to act.

 

* * *

 

When the communists in Czechoslovakia saw the graffiti on the wall, they painted it white. But the people just graffitied it again. And the Party painted it white again. Over and over until eventually, most likely due to other, larger forces at work, communism in Czechoslovakia fell and democracy prevailed. And now, the wall is never painted white again. It just gets painted over with more graffiti, more outbursts of passionate love for Hong Kong and our fellow humans and the world – love begets love – infinitely, as long as we are brave and vulnerable enough to express it.

 

The Lennon Wall is the Truth was a capital T that always prevails in the end. You can paint it white all you want, but it will always come back more beautiful than before.

 

We stare at the wall for a long time until we finally bring ourselves to look away.

A Close-up Image of the Wall. Photo Credit: K.H.

Our Time with the Tribe: Luan Shan Forest Museum Tour – 鸞山森林博物館

by Charles DeBenedetto

View from the top of Luan Shan. Photo Credit: K.H.

I have never bought betelnuts before, and I feel nervous. They are known as east Asia’s chewing tobacco, and are famous for being sold by sexy “betelnut girls” who wear bikinis and sit behind glass windows in roadside shacks. Although betelnuts and rice wine are the only things officially on the menu, stories are often told of them selling other things too, for an extra price.

 

We stop the car by the shack, keep the engine on, and roll the windows down tentatively.

 

Instead of a “betelnut girl,” we are greeted by a small middle-aged woman with a bright smile. When we ask for some betelnuts, she asks, “rice wine, too? You’re part of the forest tour, aren’t you?” She is as hospitable as an auntie, and I want to laugh at how tense my girlfriend and I were.

 

In a little red plastic bag, she places a small bottle of rice wine and a tiny re-sealable bag of betelnuts, which are wrapped with spiced leaves to give her brand its unique flavor. She charges us one-hundred Taiwanese dollars, or about three US dollars. We drive off, and she waves and smiles before returning to her shack to sit and wait for more customers (she is wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, not a bikini, by the way).

 

* * *

 

We are on the east coast of Taiwan, where two extremes meet: mountains many times taller than the Appalachians meet the infinite vastness of the Pacific Ocean. We drive across wide river valleys which are mostly rocky now, as the monsoon and typhoon rains have not come yet, but when they do, the rivers will expand exponentially. Eventually, we make our way to a small mountain village called Luan Shan. Many cars have parked along the dirt road, and a small crowd has gathered around a dark man in a cowboy hat. He coughs before beginning his introduction.

 

“Hello, everyone. In my mother tongue, my name is Ah-Li-Ung, but you can call me Ah-Liang. Today, you are here to participate in the Luan Shan Forest Museum Tour. But it’s not the kind of museum that you would normally imagine. This museum is entirely outdoors, and was made by Mother Nature.”

 

He continues with pride in his voice.

 

“This museum exists thanks to my teacher. He saw the other indigenous areas in Taiwan, like Alishan, and Zhi Ben Hot Springs, and he realized that sacred lands were being completely bought up by Han Chinese people to build fancy hotels and resorts. The tribes were losing their lands, and the wealth being accrued at those hotels and resorts were going into the pockets of the Han Chinese, and not the indigenous peoples. So my teacher shouldered tremendous financial debt, in order to purchase all of the land of Luan Shan, so that this land would always belong to our people: The Bu Nong Tribe. So to him we say, “Thank you!” In the Bu Nong language, it is “Wu Ni Nang!”

 

We echo his words, “Wu Ni Nang!”

 

With that, our tour begins. Ah-Liang saddles his metal horse (an ancient, half-dilapidated, smoke-spitting moped), and in our cars we follow him up and up the steep slope of Luan Shan. Trees with tiny white plum blossoms flank the road, and we can see well beyond the valley we came from to the Central Mountain Range. Stopping abruptly on a steep road, we reach our first destination, called “Trees That Can Walk.”

 

Our guide stands on a rock in front of the tree. It has roots that shoot high up into the air, taller than me, and in all directions. It looks as though it can walk on many tentacles, like a giant wooden octopus. Ah-Liang speaks again.

 

“The Bu Nong people did not always live on the rough terrain of Luan Shan. We used to live in the much more habitable and cultivable flatlands, until the Japanese colonial era, when our Japanese overlords “invited” us to live on the mountain and work as lumberjacks.” As an aside, he says, “I use the word ‘invited’ because it is the nicest way to put it…Anyway. This tree here is sacred to us, and we don’t actually know how old it is, because it does not have rings.”

 

Trees that can walk. Photo Credit: K.H.

I try to appreciate the strange beauty of the tree, but the people trying to take pictures of and with it distract me. My girlfriend and I wait until everyone else has gone before taking our own picture, and then jump back in the car.

 

Finally, we drive to the top of the mountain, where the Bu Nong tribe still resides today. Their houses are open-air, with thatch roofs, clay ovens, and wooden furniture. Upon walking into the village, we are given a pointed bamboo shank with a large chunk of raw boar meat pierced through it. Ah-Liang points to some seats by a fireplace, and we roast the meat over the fire. While I am watching the fat bubble on the boar meat, rice wine and ginger tea is served, and the children giggle at having the opportunity to take a sip from their parents’ cup of alcohol.

 

Roasting boar meat. Photo Credit: K.H.

Ah-Liang, in his cowboy hat, serving rice wine. Photo Credit: K.H.

 After our snack, we walk beyond the little tribe, to the entrance of a forest trail.

Ah-Liang speaks again. “I’m sure you have all brought your gifts. Before our people go to the woods to hunt, we leave an offering for our ancestors, to protect us, and help us to come home safely. I invite the men to come forward to leave their offerings.”

 

Carrying our rice wine and betelnuts, I walk over to a shrine of sorts, which is a large rock with small candles in the middle, and skulls of wild boars purposefully placed on a taller rock behind it. Another aside by Ah-Liang, “in the past we might have put some human skulls there, too, but today we’d probably be arrested for that!” Nobody laughs, but I kind of do.

I am a little bit reminded of Lord of the Flies. Photo Credit: erv-nsa.gov.tw

 I place my offerings with the others, and we then spend an hour walking around the woods, climbing through massive boulders that were seemingly karate-chopped in half by gods, and up trees that look like they belong in James Cameron’s “Avatar.” In the end, we safely return right by the shrine, having been protected by the ancestors who must have really enjoyed those bottles of rice wine and bags of betelnuts.

 

Casual tree climb. Photo Credit: K.H.

After our hike, we gather in a large, open air hut for lunch. “Our tribe members have been working hard all morning to prepare lunch for you. In the early morning, they wore head-lamps and picked wild plants to cook, and have been preparing a variety of traditional dishes. In our culture, the men always help with setting the table, so now I invite all of you useful men to get the dishes, place them on our table, and serve some food for the lovely ladies!”

 

He really emphasizes “useful,” which I think is hilarious. In Taiwan’s still rather patriarchal society, men are not often very useful at doing anything in the kitchen.

 

Serving food is no big deal for me, so I get up right away, but other men are slower to get going. Some of them grumble, while the women giggle and whisper things to their girlfriends like, “Take a picture! This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience!”

Lunch is served. Photo Credit: K.H.

Some of the food is familiar, like broccoli and bamboo shoots, while others I have never tried before, like wild fern and sushi rolls made with millet. After lunch, Ah-Liang brings out two long, heavy poles, and a large wooden goblet to make mochi, a sweet and chewy rice-based dessert.

 

To make mochi, the rice must be crushed repeatedly until it becomes an amorphous glob, which can then be broken into bite-sized pieces and coated with peanut powder or sesame powder. Two people, each with one of the long poles, must develop a rhythm where one pole smashes down into the rice at the exact moment that the other person’s pole comes up. This becomes difficult as the rice becomes globular and sticky, because the pole gets stuck in the rice and you need to exert extra force to get it back up again.

 

Ah-Liang and his indigenous friend demonstrate, and for them it looks effortless. After a while, he asks if any of the useful men would like to take a turn. “Useful” is still dripping with sarcasm.

 

I wait for many other people to try before finally picking up the massive mochi stick. My arms are twigs compared to my more muscular running legs, so with every downward lunge, I bend my knees, and with every pulling motion up, I stand up straight again. Ah-Liang laughs hysterically and says, “I’ve seen many people try to make mochi before, but I’ve never seen anyone use a squatting method!”

 

In Mandarin, to describe how that comment makes me feel, the correct phrase would be to say that “my face fell off.”

 

After all the men, women and children have all had a turn, Ah-Liang, in his dead-pan way, says “Wow, you were all pretty terrible at making mochi. That’s okay though, my friend and I were actually done making it before we even let you try.” God, I love this man, I think as I take a bite of the chewy, sweet mochi that I did not help to make at all.

I am not very useful. Photo Credit: K.H.

It doesn't look appetizing, but it is delicious. Photo Credit: K.H.

* * *

 

We have other activities after lunch as well, such as planting a tree, which might be in acknowledgement of all of the trees that the Japanese “invited” the Bu Nong people to cut down. Later, Ah-Liang teaches us how to sing “Eight Part Harmony,” a famous Bu Nong technique that is often performed in front of large crowds in Taipei City and internationally.

 

Finally, it is time to “share our hearts.” 

He asks, "What did you think of everything that we experienced today?"

 

At first, there is silence.

 

A little girl pipes up. “I just want to say that rice wine is delicious!”

 

Silence again.

 

A woman speaks next, saying something about environmental protection, but it sounds large and not very specific to Luan Shan.

 

Silence again.

 

Ah-Liang coughs. “Actually, I’d really like to hear a foreigner’s perspective.”

 

I cannot refuse. A little nervous to be publicly speaking in Mandarin, I say something like, “It’s difficult in Taiwan to find such a naturally beautiful place, and we must work together to preserve this place for the next generation.”

 

It's okay, but all I think about for the rest of the day and that night was what I should have said, or could have said, if I had more time to think.

Now I know. Here is what I wish I could have said to Ah-Liang, and to everyone else there that day:

 

I am from the northeast of America. My homeland is also a land that was sacred to indigenous peoples. But, long ago, they were also “invited” to move away, to faraway lands, and today, I have never even seen an indigenous person in my home state of New Hampshire. To learn about what their lives were like, you must go to a real museum, where the things they left behind are on display. I am so happy that here, at Luan Shan, there is no real museum. Instead, you are here. The forest museum is here, where the Bu Nong Tribe still lives, and passes on their culture. My country failed our indigenous peoples, but in Taiwan, the indigenous have hope.

 

But I cannot say that. My opportunity has passed. I hope Ah-Liang can forgive me.

 

* * *

 

In the end, Ah-Liang says, “Why do we have this tour? Part of it is to share our story with you. But part of it is also to give our next generation an opportunity to stay and work here. I may look old, but I am only twenty-four, and my first child was only just born recently. I need to be here, to help my tribe, so that our culture will never die out. And to everyone, I say ‘Wu Ni Nang!’”

 

A chorus replies, “Wu Ni Nang!”

 

“Do you still remember what ‘Wu Ni Nang’ means in the Bu Nong language?”

 

We all eagerly reply, “It means ‘thank you!’”

 

A sly smile crosses his face.

 

“Exactly! Well, I already said ‘thank you,’ so why are you all still here?”

Wu Ni Nang, Ah-Liang. Photo Credit: K.H.