Discovering Dragon Boats and a jaunt Jiufen
Last weekend was the
Dragon Boat Festival and luckily that gave us a long weekend. On this long weekend we decided to watch some
dragon boat races and go exploring. We
looked through my stash of postcards which tell me where I need to visit in
Taiwan and decided to go to Shuinandong to see the remains of the thirteen
levels (Shi San Cheng Yi Zhi). This is
not far from Jiufen, so we decided to have a stop off at Jiufen; we hadn’t been
for over a year and I wanted to investigate again.
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| Dragon Boat with the Grand Hotel and fight at the festival |
First, we went to see
some Dragon Boats; I had been interested in Dragon Boats ever since I heard
about them when I was in Leeds. I
imagined something akin to the boat parade down the Thames (the Thames river pageant),
but with Dragons. I wasn’t anticipating
real, serious racing, I thought it would all just be a bit of fun. Dragon Boat races have been taking place for
over 2500 years; that’s as long as the Greek Olympiad! On doing a little research, I was surprised
to find that traditionally Dragons were to be rulers of Earth’s water; the
lakes, rivers, seas etc. and dominate the rivers and lakes and such in the
heavens. Dragon Boat races originally
celebrated the summer rice planting; presumably to gain favour with the rulers
of the water (or maybe just because it was a good crack). The Dragon Boat Festival traditionally takes
place on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese calendar, which on
Gregorian calendar is late May/early June.
Enough of my rambling history lesson, if it can be classed as that. Upon seeing the Dragon Boats, they reminded
me of what I would imagine Viking vessels looked like, but smaller, skinnier
and with Dragon heads rather than some traditional Viking figurehead. They have long thin shaped hulls, similar to beefed
up Olympic racing shells, but decorated and as mentioned with a Dragon
head. They have a large drum, complete
with drummer, at the front to keep time and act as a cox and a steersman at the
back. We went to watch the races at Da
Jia River Park, but there are races all over the rivers of Taipei and
Taiwan. The races are more competitive
than I had imagined; much less of a parade.
Although the boats are pretty enjoyable to look at, I can understand why
it is not popular with many locals.
Despite being competitive it is not the most exciting of sports. Most of the crews and boats look exactly the
same so it is hard to know or support anyone and very few races are close. You stand there and see the same thing pass
you by over and over; it lacked the class and awe inspiring acts of elite sport
and the fun, unpredictable, intimate nature of amateur (lower level) sport. Although saying that, I may not watch all the
races during the three day festival, I would recommend going and watching a few
races for the experience. You can get
some great snaps and you need to find out what it is all about; it would be
like going to Gloucester in May and not going to see Cheese rolling. It was not what I imagined, but I learnt a
great deal about it and found out a bit more about Taiwanese/Chinese culture,
which is pretty cool and makes it worthwhile.
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| Dragon Boat Drummer! |
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| Zong Zi |
Now on to the
important stuff; the food. All Chinese
festivals are accompanied by a traditional food; Moon Festival has moon cake,
Lantern Festival has ‘Yuan Xiao’ (little rice balls) and the Dragon Boat
Festival has ‘Zong Zi’ (rice dumpling).
(Disclaimer: my English interpretation is my own and may not be accepted
by everyone, but it makes sense to me and most Taiwanese people I know). Zong Zi is pyramid shaped dumpling made from
rice and is wrapped in bamboo or read leaves.
They can have a variety of things inside such as bamboo, meat, shrimp,
beans or even sweeter things. You unwrap
the dumpling and then chow down on the dumpling-y goodness; the ceremony of
opening the leaf is quite satisfying; like opening a food present. I am occasionally critical of Taiwanese food,
such as things wrapped in seaweed, but this is a genuinely delicious treat and
I would recommend coming to Taiwan during the Dragon Boat festival to eat
one. They are eaten to commemorate
Qu-Yuan (a famous political leader) who, it is said, drowned himself in protest
to corruption in China just before the first Qin Dynasty took over. People put rice into the water to protect his
spirit and so the Zong Zi was born.
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| The Dragon Boat race is on! |
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| Jiufen Old Street |
To complete our long
weekend we decided to go to Jiufen.
Jiufen is easy to get to from Taipei; you get the slow train (TSR) to Ruifang
for NT$49 (about 50 mins) and then get a bus (about 20 mins) to Jiufen from
there. As Jiufen is a tourist
destination the trains and buses can become busy, to say the least. On this occasion both train and bus were
manic, long past the time in England where the bus driver would have slammed
the door in your face without explanation to inform you the bus is full. We were not quite sardines, but personal
boundaries were no more, but as I say why leave your country if you want the
same thing. In my mind the public
transport, especially buses, form part of the personality of country. Back to Jiufen. The first time you step into Jiufen Old Street
it is like an assault on the senses. You
are bombarded from all around by a concoction of different sights, sounds, and
most importantly smells. Among the
smells of Jiufen which can be particularly pungent is stinky tofu. Stinky tofu is aptly named, why anyone would
create a food that smells so offensive I will never know. But I will say it doesn’t taste as bad as it
smells. If you come to Taiwan you have
to at least try it, it’s a national delicacy, and if you like regular tofu and
I would hazard to say you might just enjoy it; you just need to get past the
smell. A great place to visit is A Gan
Yi Yu Yuan at the top of Jiufen where you can eat nice ice cool Yu Yuan (taro
balls with ice – or hot in winter) and gaze out over the ocean; it is
particularly pleasant in summer when you are likely to be melting. |
| Zingy at the remains of the thirteen levels |
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| Fight at the remains and peace at Yin Yang Sea |
From Jiufen we jumped
on the bus and headed to Shuinandong to see the remains of the thirteen
levels. It is hard to say because of
absolutely no information provided, but I believe it is where they smelted the
gold from the mountains. There are gold
mines next to Jiufen, which are also a good place to visit; lots of places to
explore. During World War 2, when Taiwan
was under Japanese rule, they would send prisoners of war to work in the mines
to collect the gold. Shuinandong was a
particular disappointment. You get off
at the bus stop and you can see the picturesque remains (which did not
disappoint) up the hill. Unfortunately
that is it, no information, nothing but a bus stop. I have developed a theory that says ‘if it is
up a hill it must be worthwhile’, so we decided to wander up the hill in the
baking sun to see if we could get up close and personal. We discovered that the remains are owned by
the Taiwan Power Company and they don’t want to share and they have put it
behind lock and key. Although we could
not get up close and personal, not all was lost. Shuinandong is right next the ocean. By the top entrance (locked gate) there is
waterfall and great views of the ocean.
We didn’t get what we wanted, but with the view it was most definitely a
worthwhile venture up the hill. Also
there is bus stop there, so we could head home for a well-earned rest.
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| The Crane |
Hot Tea
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