Thinking back to Taiwan

It's been a few months since I visited Taiwan and China with my wife Cathy, and I'm finally going to write about it. Today I'm just writing about the Taiwan portion. (Technically Taiwan is internationally recognized as part of China. In fact, even the Taiwanese government considers Taiwan part of China, at least officially. They consider themselves the legitimate government of all of China, although they don't really pursue that claim anymore. And in reality, Taiwan essentially functions as an independent country.)

Cathy went to Taiwan before me to do a med school elective. When I got there, we met up at the airport and traveled to southern Taiwan to the Siang Yuan organic farm. We set up this visit through WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). We spent about a week and a half there, which is kind of short for a WWOOF visit, but it was hard to fit anything longer into our schedule.

We did this because I've been interested in trying something completely different from my usual engineering work, and kind of getting back to basics--producing food being such an important part of meeting our basic needs. I've done some volunteering with churches and non-profit organizations in foreign countries before, but even that work wasn't as focused on basic needs. This was also a chance to connect with people in a foreign culture in a non-religious context. (Not that there's anything wrong with connecting in a religious context; I just don't want to do that exclusively.) Although I was more interested in this than Cathy was, she still joined me for this experience.

We weren't sure what to expect our hosts to be like, but it turned out that they were very friendly and welcoming. I had made sure we went to a farm where the hosts speak English, so I was able to communicate with them. They spoke Mandarin better than English, so Cathy had an easier time communicating with them than I did, but most of the time we all spoke English. They were a middle-class family. Both the man and the woman were semi-retired. They had taken over the farm and made it organic in recent years. One of them had been an engineer, and he said running the farm was much better for his health. They grow a variety of vegetables like cabbage, rice, some kind of squash, onions, tomatoes, and probably a few things that I forgot.

The work itself wasn't particularly fun and exciting, but I wasn't expecting it to be. We spent a few days planting cabbage, and most of the rest of the time weeding around onions and squash plants. Occasionally we'd help our hosts with certain other tasks too. Riveting, isn't it? But what stood out to me, especially the first couple of days, was the stress relief. Even though I got sore doing all that bending over, it was such a stress relief to sit there, doing simple work, listening to the birds (wild birds and other people's chickens), enjoying the fresh air, and having long conversations with Cathy.

We went into town (about a ten-minute walk away) regularly to get some exercise, or buy various things, or just for something to do. The nearby town had a traditional market with fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and some homemade foods for sale at little booths. At night they had a night market, which mostly sold various interesting cooked foods. (Taiwan is known for its stinky tofu, so we tried some of that.) We had meals with our hosts, and one time we cooked a meal for them.

Although my experience there was short, and I'm sure not all of the farmers who are part of WWOOF are as awesome as our hosts, I'd have to say WWOOF is a great way to gain experience with growing food and living a simpler life, and it can be a great cultural exchange (unless you do it close to home). It's also very inexpensive, since you work in exchange for room and board. I like how unstructured it is too. A person can spend anywhere from about 10 days to several months on a farm--you basically set up whatever works for you and your host; the WWOOF organization just gives you information about potential hosts.

After our time on the farm, we also spent a couple of days in Kenting National Park on the southern tip of Taiwan. It's a beautiful area, but fairly touristy. In March when we were there it wasn't peak tourist season, and wasn't quite beach weather yet. (We spent a short time at the beach, but got a bit cold from the wind.) I think my favourite part of Kenting was the forest recreation area, which has a bunch of trails winding through forests, botanical gardens, and a few small lit-up caves. We even saw some wild monkeys there. (I think they were Formosan macaques.)

And then we went to China...

Church

Christian talk show host Drew Marshall once said, "The sign of a good church is how many ugly people there are."

With that in mind, read this post: Blessed are the Un-Cool