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 |
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. |
Sounds like a great experience. It’s what travel should be. Exploration, introspection and gratitude. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteIt really was profound and meaningful. I'm glad you enjoyed my story, and thank you for reading!
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