Beipu is home away from home for the Hakka people of Taiwan. The Hakka (or Kejia 客家) people are an ethnic group that migrated to Taiwan from Canton in southern China a while back (perhaps a couple hundred years ago). Kejia, means "guest families", and is a name given to them by the native hosts.
Carrying with them a culture distinct from the people of the places where they've immigrate, they held strongly to their language, food and religious practices. One way they maintained their own ways was to live in a "round house" community together with other Hakka with a central plaza area for markets, temples and other communal events. Just down the street from us in Zhubei is a Hakka Cultural Center designed like the traditional round houses. Soleil's new elementary school, Dongxing (Eastern Happiness) Elementary 東興國小 also appears to be designed with classrooms in a semicircular building around a central playground area.
Last weekend we took a trip with our good friends Louis and Yingying to a Hakka community called Beipu（North Port) 北埔. Because of weather reports warning of possible landfall of a large typhoon, the streets of this popular weekend destination were not too crowded. Outside the main temple we were treated to samples of local products like fresh almond milk and ripe persimmon.
Louis and YingYing also treated us to a lovely lunch around a wooden table in a family style Hakka Diner, with agricultural antiques on the walls. It felt like my favorite truck-stop restaurants back home in Iowa!
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| Rain Gear for the orchards and fields |
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| Louis, YingYing (Hana) and the irons of Beipu |
The weekend we visited was a long weekend thanks to Mid-Autumn Festival. And an impending typhoon kept the crowds away so we walked around in relative freedom from tourists. The town however was clearly there to receive more of us as the sale tables were set up outside every store vending consumable goods of all sorts - fresh persimmons, dried persimmons, mochi rice balls, clothes of both old and new fashions, tasty peanuts in a bag, as well as sweet potato or taro biscuits. We got some of each.
The visit also included a stop by the town temple where the girls were treated to mango and strawberry ice creams respectively. Then we all walked through the back alleys, called "Ding Dong roads", because the uneven paving stones make a sound as you walk over them. This is an alarm system developed to alert anyone of an intruder in the dark.
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| The girls make cootie catchers on the temple steps. |
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| Temple roofs from the courtyard center. |
The small back walk ways led us finally to a quite little tea shop called "The Old Well" where we ground and drank traditional Hakka tea. This tea usually includes peanuts, sesames and tea ground into a powder and then served like instant coffee from a communal teapot.
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| Jenny grinds "Leicha" - traditional Hakka Tea |
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| Bean gladly takes a turn |
We left Beipu before any typhoon rains arrived and landed at home pleasantly exhausted from a great outing and great conversations. Louis told us about his Malaysian origins and how he ended up in Taiwan, and YingYing revealed herself to be a House On the Prairie fanatic. She has the set of books in Chinese, English and Japanese at home! We invited her to the Burr Oak museum near Decorah, Iowa next trip she can make to the US. She was thrilled by the idea.
While Kejia people are traditionally though of as "guests" wherever they go, they make pretty good hosts as well. Thanks y'all!
