Our trip to Xiluo in Yunlin County
We travel with substack readers to the rural western coast of Taiwan; plus, the June 4th commemoration and Book Club details
Hello readers!
Last month we had a marvelous time traveling to Yunlin County with our readers. This trip realized a dream of ours to create a path between Taipei and rural spaces. We’re so happy that some of you came along! (And if you’d like to come next time, just reply to this email.)
This week we’ll share stories of Xiluo, a township of roughly 46,000 people; next time we’ll share stories of Huwei, where one of the most violent confrontations between the KMT and the local population occurred. (If you’ve seen Alan Yang’s Tigertail, the gorgeous scenes of the rice paddies are filmed in Huwei, where his parents are from.)
For many people—Taiwanese included—Yunlin registers as a blank. For others here, it’s known as a hometown for gangsters and has been called Taiwan’s Sicily. Yunlin is one of the poorest counties on the western coast, due to decades of “northern migrations” (北漂)—a shorthand for the hollowing out of rural populations. But it’s also very beautiful.
We were lucky enough to have the inimitable Jennifer Chen hosting us, organizing a full day of activities. Last year we wrote about her and her husband's foundation, Shine Arts, which brings world-class art, music, film, and animation to its Ensemble Hall (聲泊廳).
In the morning we heard a talk from Raito Low, a stop-motion animator from Malaysia. Now based in Taiwan, she’s worked on several award-winning Taiwanese stop-motion animation projects, including Little Holly and Compound Eyes of Tropical. Raito took us behind the scenes, showing us the meticulous artistry of her work. One minute of film time can take weeks to shoot. Recently, she finished her own stop-motion animation that uses flowers and seeds set to the music of Robert Schumann.
Some of the flowers, seeds, and Raito’s notebooks were on display in the Ensemble Hall art space.
For lunch, we hopped over to the Xiluo Old Street (西螺老街). Once a major trading post and agricultural town, Xiluo has a three-hundred year history. It sits near the Zhuoshui River, the longest river in Taiwan and the unofficial border separating north from south Taiwan. The plentiful water made the soil ideal for planting rice. During the Japanese era, Xiluo rice was so prized that it was presented to the Japanese emperor as a gift.
The charming Yanping street is suggestive of its former glory. At the one end of the street you’ll find the Wuan Chuang Soy Sauce Factory, founded in 1909 and one of the few producers that still makes traditional black bean soy sauce.
The process relies on sun-baked fermentation in terracotta clay pots. One bottle needs to ferment at least four months. A really good bottle can take up to a year to make.
In 1935, much of the old town was devastated by a 7.1 Richter-level earthquake. The Japanese authorities re-built the town to showcase modernizing efforts. You’ll find these two-storied Japanese colonial-style buildings throughout the street.
The architectural style also includes lovely arcades, so the entire old town is a nice stroll. Many of the shops have been taken over by artisans, who sell hand-crafted bags and other goodies.
At the Yongfeng Rice and Grain Company, you can get a delicious green bean smoothie in a beautiful old teahouse. Our intrepid traveler Carol guessed that it contained 400 beans per drink:
Meanwhile, the store cat got into a hissing match with a beautiful Shiba Inu. The owner scolded her cat and banished it to the backyard. We told Baby P. this was a time-out, which caused her to worry. “Cat time-out?” she kept saying. She knows about time-outs, don’t ask why. Baby P. was very much in solidarity with the cat.
But somehow we only got a picture of her with the dog:
On one other end of the street stands a temple devoted to the goddess Mazu, dating from 1717. Mazu is the goddess of the sea and guardian of seafarers, and temples dedicated to her can be found throughout southern China and southeast Asia, connecting diasporic Chinese communities. The goddess here is known as Taiping Mazu and purportedly has the power to bring peace and tranquility to the entire country. Most Mazu temples hold their processions in the third month of the Lunar calendar—in April, the Dajia Mazu in Taichung held a major pilgrimage that lasted for nine days and attracted up to one million followers. The Taiping Mazu, on the other hand, holds hers in the ninth month to coincide with the rice harvest in Yunlin.
After our stroll, we returned to the Ensemble Hall to listen to an excellent jazz trio led by Tseng-Yi Tseng (曾增譯 ) on piano, Tsung Han Hsieh (謝宗翰) on bass, and Andrew Salim (林德潤) on drums. They played all Bill Evans tunes. Here’s the trio on the balcony with Jennifer:
Baby P. took this photo of our group:
June Fourth Commemoration in Taiwan
Taiwan’s commemoration of the June 4th massacre in Tiananmen Square is now the only one held in the Chinese-speaking world.
As Maura Elizabeth Cunningham writes, “For thirty-four years, June Fourth has not been just another day for those in China who remember the protests of 1989 and mourn those whose lives were ended or irrevocably changed in the violent crackdown that ended them. Nor is June Fourth just another day for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP): it’s a sensitive day, a day to monitor and repress and silence with extra care.”
For this year’s commemoration, the organizers made a replica of the Pillar of Shame, which was first created in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park in 1997. It symbolizes people who were killed by government violence. After being rotated through different Hong Kong universities, the Pillar found a permanent home at the University of Hong Kong. But in December 2021, university officials removed the official; the pillar has since been confiscated by Hong Kong’s National Security Department to be used as evidence in a case of state subversion.
In other news, Michelle was delighted (and as she puts it, embarrassed) to receive an honorary degree from Knox College, a liberal arts college in Illinois founded by abolitionists. People keep telling her this look on her face is “so Michelle”:
Some Links
One of the most remarkable films produced by a Taiwanese stop-motion animation team is Compound Eyes of Tropical, a re-telling of a famous Malays folktale of a clever mouse deer who tricks crocodiles to help it cross a river:
If you want to learn about the traditional Taiwanese method of producing soy sauce, read Lisa Cheng Smith’s excellent article at Yun Hai Taiwan Stories and watch this mini-documentary. The producer compares making Taiwanese soy sauce to writing a poem:
For some more spectacular photos of Xiluo, see this photo series at Spectral Codex. We loved his exploration of the abandoned Xiluo Theater.
The most important news in Taiwan recently has been a series of #MeToo scandals. Jordyn Haime has a good article on how the movement began, and Jono Thomson has a solid roundup of the most recent developments. We are still processing and reflecting on all of the news.
A few announcements:
One of our favorite musicians, Cissy Yu, is playing with her band Animal Garden & Friends. It’s Saturday, June 17th at Clash in New Taipei City at 20:30.
For those interested in creative writing, please register for this online class with the wonderful writer and multimedia artist Amy Zhang.
At New Bloom on Saturday, July 8th at 19:00, Teo Sin Ee, a Singaporean missionary and writer, will speak about Serving Tea: Stories from Taipei’s Red-light District (out in Mandarin, forthcoming in English). We have been following her work with admiration.
For those interested in exploring Taipei more, Qingtian 76 青田七六 has been organizing walking tours around the city. They have one on June 25 of the Baoan and Confucius temples if you’re interested. (Tours in Chinese.)
Book Club for June and July: Joann Tompkins & Alexander Chee
In June we’ll read Joanne Tompkins’s What Comes After on Friday June 30th, 6 PM EST / 6 AM Taiwan time. In July we shall read Alexander Chee’s Edinburgh.
Thank-you for these dispatches from Taiwan. They are tremendous.