Soleil Recites Tang Poem

This is a Tang poem by Li Bai.  It is called 清平調三首之一。To listen, click the triangular play button below the cat.

To see the poem in Chinese and read an English translation of it, go to: http://eastasiastudent.net/china/classical/li-bai-purity-peace-1

We have also heard the poem sung on Youtube videos.  We didn't find an online recording of someone just reciting it in Mandarin.  That is why Soleil made this recording.  We did it on Garageband and then added the audio to a character she chose and modified on Voki.com.

This semester in second grade Mandarin at Dongxing Elementary, Soleil has to memorize one Tang poem a week.

Sun Moon (Cloudy) Lake

Hi everyone and Happy New Year from Taizhong 台中 - the city in the middle (中) of Taiwan (台灣).  East of Taizhong in the mountains we visited Sun Moon Lake 日月潭, a lake big enough for a fleet of tourist yachts.  A yacht took us to two spots across the lake where we encountered a little local color.

At one stop is a temple in honor of the monk memorialized in the Classic Chinese novel, "Journey to the West".  His view across the lake is pictured below with White Deer Island in the center.  Look who else snuck into the scene.

We didn't see much of the sun or the moon, but the lake was lovely and our host and guide Mark Manno, friend and former colleague of Jenny's, made the trip more meaningful with his commentary on 30 years of life in Taiwan.  Thanks Mark 老師！

Winner

Three lucky things happened last fall and I have only told you about one of them. (See the post called Recitation Contest in December of 2013.)  Another contest I was in in November was a calligraphy contest at my university.  Another student and I tied for third place in the foreign student category.  There were no first or second place prizes given for some reason.

And the other lucky thing is that I one an electric bicycle in a drawing at our local grocery store. Greg occasionally rides it.  Mostly we still use our regular bikes.

Here is a chūnlián (spring couplet) that I did in calligraphy.  I'm not the author, just the calligrapher.  This is in the li style of calligraphy, like the calligraphy above.  People paste these lines of poetry on either side of the door during the new year festival for good wishes.  This one is about beautiful scenery, light in the spring, and celebrating the accomplishments of an abundant year.

Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快樂！

Visiting the Old Home

January 22 to Feb 3

Jenny and Soleil are now traveling in Guangdong Province in China  visiting relatives. The first few days we stayed with Jenny's cousin Mingying and her son Kenny in Dongguan. We visited the clothing inspection factory that they manage.  Soleil and I rented a tandem bike and biked along Song Shan Hu Park. We have gone out to eat pizza, Cantonese food, Taiwan beef noodles, and Cantonese dimsum. We took a train to visit my dad's youngest sister (小姑 Xiaogu) and her family in Guangzhou.

We got tickets to Guangzhou East train station because it is far less crowded than the main Guangzhou station. But still it was very crowded.  In Guangzhou my cousin Renji picked us up. We rode the subway, then walked through a market on the way to Auntie's house. We had dinner with her and two of her kids.
Here is a picture of the market we walked through and one of a park along the way. The Jiujiu (uncle) behind Soleil is my cousin.

A few days later we took a long distance bus to Shantou where my cousin Bangsheng and his family picked us up and took us to a different cousin's house.

We stayed with cousin Yili and her family for a few days. She and her husband had to work a lot while we were there. She says it is OK that she has to work now because in three months she can retire and be done with work completely. Women her age can retire at age 50, but people a few months younger than her have to work a few years longer. She is a sanitation worker.  Her husband works in a shipping yard. They have a son in his twenties and an 18 year old daughter in high school. Her name is Xiaoqi. She is a talented dancer and piano player. She also sings in a youth choir at church. Soleil attended a dance class at church where Xiaoqi was one of the instructors.

Here Soleil and her Auntie Yanshan are helping a street vendor peel ginkgo nuts.

Cousin Yili has two sisters, Yanshan and Yilin. Cousin Yanshan's daughter Yiyi hung out with us a lot while we were at my Cousin Yili and Xiaoqi's house. Yiyi has just completed her first semester of college in Dongguan, majoring in English. Xiaoqi and her cousin Yiyi took us to Zhongshan park were we went on slides and rides and tried out the dancing that the local ladies do for their morning exercise. We also took a pedal boat ride on a pond.  The boat had two mandarin ducks on it.

One night we went to the home of Cousin Yilin and her mom, my "second auntie". Second Auntie (二姑 Èrgū) is the second of my dad's three surviving sisters. All three of Second Auntie's daughters and their children were there, plus Cousin Yili's husband. Second Auntie doesn't see or hear all that well anymore. She spends a lot of the day sleeping.  But she did remember who I was when my cousins explained it to her.

Everywhere we go in Shantou we eat lots of seafood. Soleil has learned how to say "I like to eat shrimp" in Shantou dialect. Wa ai jiak hey! Mostly we use Mandarin or English though.

Soleil really loved all the aunties and jiejies (older "sisters") doting on her and peeling her shrimp for her. Sometimes they even gave her piggy back rides when she was tired of walking.

Here are some of Soleil's second cousins, Xiaoqi and Yiyi.

One day Yili's son Shute and Yilin's son Huángzhì joined us and we took a ferry over to the village of Kakchio, (Quēshí in Mandarin) where the Huang family lived when they were growing up. My dad had six siblings. Four of them are still alive now. I visited all of them on this trip, and most of their descendants.  All of the Huangs have moved out of Kakchio by now. Most of them are now in the city of Shantou. But when we were walking around Kakchio they showed me where they used to live, or go to school or church, or to the store. There are not many cars there because it is hard to get to and the streets are narrow and hilly. And you can't even see the houses the family lived in anymore because they have been torn down and replaced with taller modern buildings.

When my grandparents were alive, they and much of the family worked as servants for some Baptist missionaries from the USA. One of them assisted my dad in getting to the US for a college education. He has been in the US for over six decades now. All of the relatives are trying to convince him to move back to Shantou where there are lots of family members but he only wants to go back for visits, not to stay.

In Kakchio we hiked up a hill that had some interesting caves, springs, and viewpoints along the way. Like most Chinese mountains there were paved paths and stairs all the way. I think if they had the kind of more natural trails like we hike in the US, erosion would be quite a problem because of the number of people here. After that we took the ferry back to Shantou and ate another seafood meal.

That night Shute drove us to a seafood restaurant to meet up with 大姑. Dàgū is my dad's oldest sister. She has two sons. They are quite a bit older than I am. One of them already has grand children. One of the grand children is just a few months younger than Soleil. So Soleil got really confused when the other girl called her auntie (姑姑 Gūgu) instead of older sister (姐姐Jiějie). Then I had to explain what a generation was and that even though they were the same age they were of different generations. I admit it is confusing.

Next we spent a few days with my Cousin Bangde's family, including visits to 饶平青岚地质公园RaoPingQingLang Geopark, and a hot spring resort.  His parents and brother's family were with us part of the time. Our other cousins must have tipped them off because shortly after we got in their car, my Uncle Guangyi gave Soleil her favorite vegetable, raw cucumbers and raw carrots.
Cousin Bangde has a son Keven, with whom Greg and I traveled when Keven was a teenager. Now he is in his twenties and has been studying in Australia. His sister is now in California.

Cousin Bangsheng has a daughter just a few months younger than Soleil, so they played together.

Every place we go is decorated for Chinese New Year.  We also saw many potted mandarin orange trees as symbols of luck, and the word 福 fú as a decoration to bring blessings. We ate fish so that there would be plenty of everything in the new year.  These are all based on homonyms. 年年有餘 niánnián yǒu yú. "Every year there will be plenty." The word for "fish" sounds like the word "excess"  or "plenty" and the word for "luck" sounds (a little) like the word for "mandarin oranges." This is the year of the horse. So another common saying is "馬到成功", or "horse brings success". The adults gave laisee to the kids. Those are red envelopes of money to celebrate the new year.  Not surprisingly, Soleil likes this custom. But even more, she loves playing with all the relatives. She played a lot of games with her uncles and cousins. On the bus ride from Shantou back to Shenzhen, where the airport is, she asked, "Can we come back again and see those same people?"

We said goodbye to the relatives and took a bus to Shenzhen where we visited a theme park called Window of the World, which features smaller replicas of major tourist attractions from around the world.
Here is Jenny at Manhattan, the Washington Monument, and Mount Rushmore all at once.

Did I mention China has a lot of people? Here are just a few of them.

We came back to Taiwan the next day. 

Democrats and Republicans in Asia

Remember when the USA was just a young little country with grand ideals?  Shaking off the shackles of Imperial England and starting what they considered a superior form of governing: by, of and for the people?  Only 248 years ago.  Not that long in human history really.

This year is Taiwan's 103rd birthday.  One hundred three years from the founding of the Republic of China by Sun Yatsen (孙中山).  His picture still hangs in many prominent places around our schools.  He is considered father of the country, although he never lived in Taiwan.  He started the Republic following the defeat of the last imperial rule in China.

 Born in 1911, the Republican Army, led by Gen. Chiang Kaishek, fought alongside Mao's Communists to overthrow the last emperor.  Once their campaign was successful, however, the Republican Army split from the Communists.  Turned out they were only partners of convenience.  They then started an even bloodier civil war that weakened China further and left it vulnerable to Japanese invasion.  The Kuoming Tang (國民黨) "Republicans" finally  left China in 1949, rousted by Mao's ever expanding People's Red Army - red is a lucky color in China.  Gen. Chiang shipped his troops and his government to Taiwan, recently regained by China from Japan as a result of WWII concessions.  Dr. Sun had died by this time but the ideals of a Republic remained with those who departed communist China.

Taiwan became the home of the Republic (R.O.C) in exile, led by Gen. Chiang.  I was shocked to find out though, that this man, who is most responsible for the establishment of Taiwan as an independent state, is not well remembered at home.  In fact, he and his army are responsible for elimination of 30,000 Taiwan natives who opposed his martial law.  This mass slaughter of native residents led to nearly 40 years of autocratic rule which included Chiang's son.  This country, which I used to think was one of Asia's earliest democracies, in truth, held it's first popular vote to elect a president in 1996.

Today, the R.O.C. government looks a lot like the US government - executive, judicial and legislative branches; popular election of the president and a representative congress.  It also has a similar two-party structure to its democracy identified by two colors.  Sound familiar?  Unlike us though, their colors are Blue: The Kuoming Tang (KMT) led coalition and Green: The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) led coalition.  And the major point of division between these camps rests in their relationship to and reunification with mainland China.  In talking with colleagues and friends however, the voters have about as low an opinion of their government here as Americans do back home.  There may be no martial law, but there's enough corruption and cronyism to keep the news media in good business.