The Knife Man’s Sales Pitch

I didn’t listen to the knife man’s sales pitch like everyone else for his promised free gift (a cheesy plastic butter knife as it turned out) but went out to take photos of rice fields next door and doodle our tour bus. When they finally came out, my dad showed me the set of 8 kitchen knives he bought. I was shocked! He was very pleased with himself for spending only NT$1,000.00 (about US$32.00) and owning knives so sharp that he could cut paper with any of them. But we were not short of knives! And as far as I knew, he never used kitchen knives to cut paper. My mom winked an eye to stop me from saying anymore.

Now it was all clear to me why the bus tour cost so little (NT$550 or US$14); they made money from 2 sales pitches each trip (in the morning, another salesman was in the bus selling 1 beauty product and 1 Chinese drug) from people like my dad. A similar strategy to restaurants selling alcohol and drinks, I guess.

The Tour Bus

Today my parents and I took a tour to Central Taiwan. We took off at 6:45am and didn’t came back to Taipei until after 10pm. While we were on the bus (about 8 hours), all the tourists except me had fun with karaoke whose volume was turned all the way up. It was a living hell.

When everyone was listening to the knife guy’s sales pitch in a closed curtained store (and my dad ended up buying a set of 8 knifes because of the price), I stayed outside taking photos and sketching. Not a great one (When will I produce a great one?), but my mom seemed plenty impressed.

This trip made me realize one thing: During a trip, it’s difficult to allocate a 2 to 4 hour slot to do my usual drawing/painting. Sketching, on the other hand, can be accomplished at small chuck of time that usually gets wasted away anyway. Not having to sketch first with a pencil seems to free me from being a perfectionist, too, not that my colored paintings are that perfect. If you compare the drawings of my Keen sandals, you probably notice that the pencil one is more alive and the later technical pen one is more cartoonish (even though the technical pen produced the desired effect for the later coloring, unfit for pencils).

Because lines produced by a technical pen is final, I’m not that comfortable skipping the pencil sketching step for my colored pieces. However, one of the Japanese art books that I acquired in Taiwan recommended exactly that. His paintings are far from perfect, but somehow they are full of energy and happiness. Once I’m more comfortable with my pen sketching, I’ll give that brave technique a try.

Fourth Stop: Dragon Phoenix Waterfall (龍鳳瀑布)

This was a stop that we had to pay the entrance fee, although there was no gate and the driver and the owner didn’t get a chance to count the actual number of people. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone got in without paying. Plus, the listed price and the price we paid were VERY different (NT$160 vs NT$30), which made me believe that the driver got commission from the owner.

Ignoring their incredible business model, I believed that the sight was the best of the day. And we even got to play with the water at such a hot and humid day! Along the way up, I found a little crab in the tiny creek. (Its shell had the same colors as the nearby rocks.) I didn’t know that crabs exist in the mountains; I thought they only live in the ocean. On the way down, I ran into 3 little kids busy hunting something in a little creek. I asked them if they were looking for tadpoles; they shook their heads and told me shrimps. Shrimps! I didn’t know that shrimps live in mountains, either!

Even better, when we were ready to head back to the bus, we ran into the driver at the fork road. He pointed the untaken fork road and told us that a bigger waterfall was only 3 minutes away. Well, I didn’t know about the “3 minutes” part, but it was definitely bigger. And size was the only exciting part. It was less developed and less pretty, and its mist didn’t fall on us like the other to cool us down. Nevertheless, it made my dad very happy, because now each waterfall only cost each of us NT$15. I was happy because I found this extraordinary big stone face statue.

This and the last hikes were not easy. Quite a few steep slopes and lots of stairs were along the way. During those hikes, everyone sweat a big time and our clothes never got a chance to dry before we sweat more. It was very much like working out on StairMaster in a steam sauna room. Thank God the scenary was interesting and pretty.

Several pomelo trees were planted at the entrance. No one bothered to help themselves this time, because it wouldn’t be ready for another month or two. (Normally it’s ready around Moon Festival.) This was my first time seeing pomelo growing on trees instead of in supermarket!

Thrid Stop: Crazy People Trees (瘋人樹)

Don’t ask why it’s call “Crazy People Trees.” I forgot to copy down the sign before heading up and only remembered what the driver said in Taiwanese. (Taiwanese names usually describe things better but less polite.) On the other hand, this is not a famous sightseeing spot and the path is far more interesting than the destination; maybe that was why it didn’t occur to me to copy down the name.

At the beginning of the trail, we were welcomed by blue-plastic-wrapped bananas. This mountain was full of bananas, betel nuts, and dragon eyes. Most of the tourists (my parents’ generation) grew up in the countryside and were not that amazed at seeing fruit trees, but I was pleasantly surprised and couldn’t stop taking photos. Dragon eyes were great; everyone helped themselves along the trail, as an alternative water source. No one touched those plastic-wrapped bananas.

Frankly, I was not too happy how people helping themselves with dragon eyes, because in my mind it was stealing. Somehow, including my parents, they were able to justify their behavior and didn’t feel the slightest guilt about it. (No farmer came out to yell at us.) The plastic-wrapped bananas, however, were clearly labelled that they were owned by farmers and therefore registered as “off the limit” in their mind. I was uncomfortable about this weird mind set, but everyone else saw nothing unusual about it. I guess that I’ve been away from Taiwan too long and can’t understand Taiwanese logic.

The original destination was a family of four giant trees at the top of the mountain, because each trunk was wider than a person. Unfortunately, everyone had seen something more impressive somewhere else and this sight was not all that special to us. What attracted everyone’s eyes was the nearby passion fruit orchard, which reminded me of vineyards.

Why would farmers planted passion fruit at the top of mountain? We were puzzled about it, but most people quickly turned their attention to the ones fallen on the ground. This time, they justified their behavior with this un-verified explaination, “They can’t harvest and sell those fell on the ground,” and happily helped themselves with those mostly green passion fruit.

Nantou got seriously damaged and lost a lot of lives during the tragic 921 Earthquake in 1999. It took several years for the city to rebuild its tea, fruit, and liquor business again. (Nantou is a major player of high quality tea production.) You can see from one of the leftover sites as shown on the right.

Second Stop: Nantou Liquor Factory

We made a short stop at Nantou Liquor Factory (not sure about the English name), a branch of Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corporation (The English page is broken, but does it ever exist?). Besides making liquor, this branch is also a showroom for TTLC. Therefore, the tasting building is barrel-shapped and the tasting room is nicely decorated. But since I’m not a big fan of hard liquor, we didn’t spend much time there.

Their shopping center is more interesting. Beside selling all sorts of drinks and desserts with and without alcohol (I had the nastiest red bean popsicle in my life), a tiny Taiwanese hard liquor museum is located at the end of building with a barrel storage room underneath. I think this storage room is for show only, since I didn’t smell any alcohol and the entrances were wide opened. This room reminded me of wineries I visited in the past, except that it was awfully clean and barrels were on the small side.

First Stop: A Sex-Organ Worship Temple

Sorry to disappoint you, but as soon as hearing about the first destination, I despised the stupidity and the waste of time of it. I didn’t plan to sat through 4 hours of torturous bus ride just for this.

It’s a little opened temple with a dark hole that can only be seen if you bend down to worship it. Inside of it contains a male and a female sex organs. People come here to worship it to get sons (note, just sons, not daughters) or to win lotteries. I probably should’ve taken a photo anyway, but I was in a foul mood and seriously dehydrated (Where was the 7-11 when you needed it?), so didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

On the other hand, plants cheered me up. I saw my first dragon eye tree and ate my first dragon eye before the fruit comes to Taipei’s fruit markets. I took quite a few photos of the tree, not realizing that I would see a whole mountain of it later today. Banana trees were everywhere, too. Taro fields, passion fruit trees, rice fields, peanut fields, betel nut trees, …, to name a few. Quite a sight for a city kid!

The (Torturous) Bus Tour

Today my parents and I took a tour to Central Taiwan, Nantou, the only city not bordering the Pacific Ocean. The bus took off at 6:45am and didn’t return to Taipei until way after 10pm. Actually, it tried to take off at 6:45am as planned. There were more people than 1 bus could take, so we actually stopped for over 1 hour, waiting for the company to dispatch another bus to take care of the extra people. Think about this: For us who had made the reservation in advance and showed up on time, we were punished for our goodness. I should’ve just walked out by then, if not because the driver already took my money and I thought we were going to visit a tea farm. (Mei Shan, or Plum Mountain, is one of the biggest High Mountain Tea production areas.)

While we were on the bus (about 8 hours), I was bombarded by deafening, happy but God awful singing through the fully furnished karaoke system by the rest of tourists, who were all about my parents’ age. It was a living hell for me, but a heaven for the rest of karaoke fans.

In short, I will NEVER, EVER join any Taiwanese bus tour again. No thanks.