Mountains Beyond Mountains

SHAN WAI SHAN

Mountains Beyond Mountains

by Joel Haas
Northern Taiwan, April, 2009

His fields yield only a quarter the tea his neighbors' do. Why then, I
asked, does he farm strictly organic?

"I killed my brother," he says quietly.
He knows it is an odd answer. He pours me another cup of what is the best
tea I have ever had. Behind us in the ancient house in which he was born,
fresh mountain spring water threads a ceaseless stream through his wife's
kitchen, a constant source for our teapot, cooking, and even a small
spillway running along the floor for the family dog.

In his tea barn, the drying racks and massive tea tumblers stand
silent. The harvest is in for now.

In a corner, his 9 year old daughter does her homework, carefully tracing
out her Chinese characters for the day in a notebook lined into squares.
Each character has to be drawn precisely, in the right stroke order, much as
the swifts building a nest twig by twig behind ornate carved wooden awards
plaques lining the barn. His wife pads shyly back and forth bringing us
tea water and additional cups.

From the barn, we can see his tea fields and the mountains --shan wai
shan, mountains beyond mountains. As evening falls, successive ridges fade
into blue night. There is too much mist shrouding the peaks for us to see
stars, but fireflies are starting to rise and dance across the tea bushes.

It hardly appears to be the scene for murder, some Taiwanese Cain and Abel.

"What happened?" seems the most neutral question.

"We were the sixth generation of tea farmers."

A quick mental calculation tells me these fields before us must have been
cleared under the reign of the last Qing Emperor, shortly before the island
was ceded to Japan in 1895. Taiwan then was as wild and rugged as any
American frontier. A dozen or more tribes of headhunting aboriginals roamed
the island, while the coast was a haven for pirates. Chinese settlers from
the mainland province of Fujian only crossed the straits to settle here if
driven by famine or arrest warrants, hoping they could homestead rice farms
in the coastal plains or find work logging camphor in the jungle shrouded
mountains.

"It happened eighteen years ago," the farmer went on.

Again, I do a mental calculation. Martial law had been lifted only three
years before. People were still emerging into the process of democratic
thought and a free market after fifty years under the Japanese and another
42 under the iron hand of Chiang Kai Shek's party. The economy was taking
off like a rocket. Wealthy Japanese discovered Taiwanese tea much as wine
collectors discovered California's Napa and Sonoma valleys. I could imagine
the free-for-all as generations of tea cultivating tradition was swept away
into an era of high tech farm equipment, automatic watering and spraying
systems, and heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides. Tea yields
skyrocketed and so did many farmers' incomes. For the first time, new
methods promised a way out of grinding poverty. A man might dream of
building a new house, sending his children to university--even buying a car.

The pressure to use artificial fertilizers and insecticides must have been
immense.

Unfortunately for the farmer's brother, knowledge of how to use insecticides
did not match their potency.

"We were ignorant farmers," he went on. "We didn't really know how to use
these things." He looks away.

I can only speculate why he thought he had killed his brother. The farmer
is the oldest son; in Chinese society, the head of the family; responsible
for all. Maybe his brother didn't want to use as high a concentration of
chemicals; maybe the equipment leaked; maybe they should have used more
protective clothing; maybe it was something as simple as, "I need to walk
down the mountain to the village on an errand today, so why don't you finish
spraying the upper fields?"

Insecticides work by paralyzing bugs' nervous systems. High amounts do the
same things to people.

I don't know if he returned to find his brother dead in the fields, or lying
there, gasping for life as though stricken by a mysterious shaman's spell.
I can only think of my own brothers; how, for all our family foibles, how
much I love them and how devastated I would be to have been in the farmer's
place.

Since then, he has never used chemicals.

Weeds outpaced his ability to pull or hoe them. Wildlife moved in to nibble
the tender shoots of tea plants. His yields dropped along with his
income. While his neighbors built large barns and bought new cars, his
buildings fell into a collapse beyond repair. The family tomb overlooks the
tea fields. Who knows what reproach generations of family spirits offer as
they see fields wrenched from the mountain side by their own sweat and blood
fall into desuetude?

Still. He would not use chemicals.

He and his wife picked only the best shoots from the remaining tea plants.
Neighbors could be called on from time to time to help harvest tea and he
could repay their time with his own labor.

The wildlife which had plagued him, now evolved into an entire ecology from
which he extracted a small amount of exquisite tea. Instead of struggling
against Nature as his brother and he had, now Nature was his partner.

He bought a camera and began to photograph the face of his new partner. He
proudly brings out stacks of photos of wild life he has photographed in his
fields. Hundreds of species of butterflies, myriad beetles, spiders, were
followed by larger animals, birds, turtles, frogs, monkeys, even the rare
Formosa pangolin, found homes among the tea bushes and the natural spring
fed pond. He has documented it all.

Then, some funny things started to happen. People noticed how good his tea
tasted. Friends bought his tea and soon told their friends, who told their
friends. For some years he could eke out an income selling to a fairly
restricted circle of loyal friends who knew his tea to be spectacular.
Finally, the craze for "organic farming" and "organic teas" took hold not
only in the West, but in Taiwan and Japan as well. Instead of being the guy
who was late to the party to industrialize his production, he was one of the
first and best to raise organic tea. As other farmers set some of their
fields aside for organic production and certification, the government set up
a local "organic tea marketing co operative." He joined that and found he
could sell all the tea he could harvest now. The co operative got much
better prices for his tea and soon he was winning awards and his photo
appearing in the tea trade magazines (every bit as glossy and ritzy as wine
magazines, just written in Chinese and opening back to front).

Now, he remains loyal to his friends, selling his old customers the first
choice of his tea before turning over the rest of his crop to the co
operative. He has built modern rooms onto the back of the ancient family
home; there is a modern concrete warehouse/barn that will easily withstand
typhoons; his child does her homework in front of a new flat screen computer
and TV set up in the barn. A Toyota compact sits next to the barn.

I asked him what the best things and the worst things are about being a tea
farmer.

The worst he says, is the weather; a typhoon or heavy rains at harvest
time. Tea cannot be picked for a day or two after it has rained. There is
too much moisture in the leaves and they will rot, not dry and cure
properly, if picked then.
The best, he smiles and pours another cup of tea for us all, is to sit here
by the barn overlooking the fields and mountains and drink his tea with his
friends and his friends' friends.

I have my final cup of what I know will be one of the best cups of tea I
will ever drink in my life, listen to the creek run through his kitchen, and
watch the fireflies try to hold back night even as it drops a curtain across
the mountains.
The family tomb can still be seen in the twilight. It is in excellent repair and swept spotless.

From here, they--and we-- can all look out over the shan wai shan--the
mountains beyond mountains.

Unlike my earlier travel letters, I have placed the other illustrative
photos below the text. Scroll down to see more.
Feel free to write me about this story at joel@joelhaasstudio.com with any
comments or corrections.
In fact, you can see all the photos of the trip to the organic tea farmer's at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joelhaas/sets/72157617395114763/_

If you would like a copy of the mountain scenery to use as a screen saver or
wall paper click on the photo below.

The tender top and first few leaves are all that is picked from the tea
bush branches


Generations of tea farmers sat around these stone tables in the small lawn
before his house.


Our host, the tea farmer. He is about to brew us one last cup. The bricks
in the background
are part of the room in which he was born._


Ornate awards over the flat screen TV and some of the tea dryers. Note the
little swift
peaking out the top. They were undisturbed by our tea drinking and went
right on
building their nest behind the award.


The family shrine and altar. A very simple set up compared to many homes I
saw.

Taiwan weddings--There Goes the Bride

Wedding Photos in Taiwan

I am NOT getting married. My 26th anniversary is in May.
None the less, I find the Taiwanese bridal industry fascinating. It is sooooo very different from what you'd expect at home in North Carolina.

For the casual observer the first things you notice are the "wedding photos."
Obviously, the wedding photo above was not taken shortly after Rev. So-and-So said, "You may now kiss the bride."

Here, the wedding ceremony itself is quite secondary to the photos and the banquets. Many of the albums have more in common with a layout in Maxim or GQ magazines than wedding photos from a Western point of view.

Wedding photos are taken weeks before the ceremony and banquet. Sometimes over a series of of several weeks depending on the bride's family budget, the weather, and the couple's schedule. The object is to create a fantasy for the bride. She is a movie star, a top magazine model, a queen bee surrounded by make up technicians, lighting technicians, photographers, fashion consultants, drivers, and so on photographing her in the most elegant, romantic and exotic places.

She is adored and desired.

She is marrying Tom Cruise's twin brother.

Then, it is all put on display. A laminated album of poster sized photos are set on easels at the wedding and/or engagement banquets.

The scenarios or settings can range from the fantastical, to the slutty, to the simply mystifying (one photo posed the groom in a white and green tux standing in a swimming pool with water up to his waist while holding the bride halfway out of the water in her wedding gown.)

A walk up Zhong Shan North Road here, takes me by the most elegant and expensive of the bridal services. Young women in fancy clothes stand guard outside their respective boutiques showing off their photographers' works.

Portfolio albums are displayed on custom made pedestals on the sidewalks. Behind them, bridal gowns, ball gowns and the occasional additional poster of a photo fill the showroom windows. Inside, mothers and daughters hunch over catalogs and computer screens going over complex packages of offerings, deciding on the number of outfits, locations, size of the posters, budgets, etc.

typical bridal photo shops--I managed to get a lot of the album portfolio shots because many of the clerks were distracted by cleaning and making spirit money sacrifices to the gods that day and left the portfolio albums unattended. Notice the offerings to the gods on the little table in front of the shop.

In a more middle class part of town, the bridal row shops had set up benches along the sidewalk facing into the shops where bored grooms and fathers could sit and smoke while the women haggle out the deals. There is even an eight story tall building surrounded by a giant red steel ribbon--a business called DEAR WEDDING offering banquet facilities and photography studio services. Recent bride's photos were blown up to billboard size and mounted around the building. Ahem...er none of them was looking bridal or, uhm...innocent in the photos.

Recently, we had a break in the weather, a long string of cold rainy days was broken by one day of great weather. On my walk, I encountered a number of brides, taking the day off to complete some photo shoots for their wedding albums. Any open area of green space in this crowded city is fair game. For more expensive packages, everybody drives out to the central mountains or to the seashore, sometimes in a procession of vans carrying not only the bride, but the groom, technicians, props, and more than a half dozen different outfits.

This bride in a poofy miniskirt I encountered at the Sun Yat Sen historic site next to the Taipei Main Train Station. Yes, her wedding gown really is that short. A make up technician is talking with her.

You can't just get married any old time you want to. When couples announce their intentions (arranged marriages are long since a thing of the past) an astrologer is consulted to determine the "most auspicious" hour and day for the wedding. As there can be only a limited number of "most auspicious days" for a wedding--and nobody gets married in Ghost Month, late July into August on a lunar calendar--there is fierce competition to book wedding banquet catering facilities and the services of the best photographers.

The bulldog's a prop. The bride is waiting to get into a van full of dresses and technicians. Note her shoes and the towel she holds.

The bride's family will host an engagement banquet, generally smaller than the wedding banquet, and centered more on the bride's family and friends. The engagement banquet might be hosted only a week or a month apart from the wedding, regardless of when the wedding is so visitors coming from Canada, the USA, or elsewhere can attend both the engagement and wedding banquets. The groom hosts the wedding banquet. In either event, the first question asked is "how many tables?" A banquet's size is rated by the number of banquet tables seating 8 to 12 people. The food and drink for each guest is considerable and easily costs thousands of dollars (US) per table. In addition there will be a band, karaoke, speeches, gifts the new couple offer guests on leaving, and so on. It is a crushing economic undertaking.
So, they have the guests pay.

Upon arriving at the banquets, guests present "red envelopes," (cash is traditionally presented in red envelopes.) The amount of cash and the guest's name is recorded. One's relationship with the couple or the couple's parents, determines the amount of cash given or even expected. (It seems a great way to do money laundering and a system of tax avoidance.)

another bride off to a photo shoot on a day of nice weather

People who work in large offices complain of getting "red bombed." They might receive five invitations in one month to office weddings (maybe it's a big office and an auspicious time to get married.) They still have to send a little money if they do not attend and a lot more if they do. At one time, the red envelopes were to create a cash nest egg start for the couple. Now, they mostly offset the wedding expenses and, if there is any left over, help pay for the new Western innovation of a honeymoon.

Along a row of bridal shops in more middle class Da An, grooms and fathers wait outside the shops while the women make the decisions.

The working class get married, too. Here, a bridal shop in southern Taiwan in Kaohsiung. Note the tires stacked in front; the family owns the industrial uniform store next door, too.

Nominally, the wedding banquet is all about the couple. They are the center of attention and the whole is inevitably surmounted by a giant "double happiness" symbol, but really it is about the parents' status, collecting debts and payback.
The wedding album is put on display, and suffice it to say, there are very few Western fathers who would tolerate the public display of some (but not all) of the wedding photos I have seen in the portfolio albums.

Sample photo from a portfolio on Zhong Shan Rd. The same bride pictured at the top of this letter.

I don't know that I would want this sort of thing shown at my wedding. My father in-law would have gone off like a rocket (of course, we didn't have alcohol or dancing at our wedding either.)

The economic downturn has forced the wedding photographers to branch out into family and childhood photos. The couple above will shortly be in the market for the photo like this one in a bridal shop on Zhong Shan Rd.

Not all bridal photos are racy--most just cater to more innocent fantasy--see below

The bride will be expected to wear at least three outfits at the banquet (all rented as is her wedding gown and all provided by the wedding photographer) and may well wear a large amount of rented or borrowed jewelry. (An odd thing I notice here: normally women wear very little jewelry, and only now is the custom of even wearing a wedding band gaining ground, let alone an engagement ring.) Often, the bride will wear as one of her outfits, the more traditional chi pao the slender, bright red dress. Red is the traditional color for brides in Chinese society. I watched a bride being photographed in a gorgeous long red silk dress on the steps of the National Theater at Chiang Kai Shek Plaza a few days ago.


The legal wedding is simply a civil ceremony at a government office. People don't take that very seriously and you'll see folks show up for that in shorts and tee shirts. Everybody has to have a civil ceremony. it's not like in the States where the minister files the paperwork for the couple later.
The four percent or so of the island which is Christian, marry in a church.
For the rest of population, though there is great variation in local customs, the general outline of the marriage ceremony itself is as follows. Bright red "prayer cards" are hung on racks at the local temples, requesting happiness and prosperity for the young couple. On the auspicious hour at the auspicious time ( a bride would like to hope it's not 6AM but it's not unheard of) the groom shows up with his best man and or groomsmen at the bride's house. They kneel and make formal statements and requests to marry the daughter and take her away from her parents' house. Often, there has been some early morning ceremonies as the bride's mother and her bridesmaids get her ready and into a Western style bridal gown. The groom is to take her to his parents' house or to where the groom and the bride will live. (I am told that sometimes, for convenience, he simply takes her directly to the wedding banquet.)
If they are going to the groom's home, she will be preceded by the groomsmen throwing firecrackers along the way and at the entrance to scare away any evil demons. Auspicious wedding days can be noisy affairs all through town.
Despite the careful choice of auspicious days and driving away all the demons with firecrackers, Taiwan's divorce rate is rising as Confucian family values fade and economic and social pressures common to the West both liberate and oppress couples more.

To see photos of Taiwan weddings on my Flickr account click HERE
To see photos of Taiwan posted on my Flickr account click HERE

The Taipei Jade Market

click on the image above for a wallpaper/screensaver size image

Jaded on Tomb Sweeping Weekend

I'm jaded-- but not as jaded as I could be. The Taipei Jade Market opens every Saturday at the corner of Renai and Jianguo Rds. If you are envisioning a street corner like one in the US with some card tables thrown up looking like a Saturday morning yard sale, you're in for a shock. First, the corner is the corner of two eight lane roads. Second, the market is actually under an elevated highway. More than five hundred dealers have come together to form an association and formalize the administration of what would otherwise be wasted public space. A generator, lights and wiring, spaces marked off, port-a-potties, and even a small temple have been set up. Police and private security help direct traffic and surging crowds to cross wide roads halfway to reach the jade market.

click HERE to see the complete photo album of the visit to the jade market and click HERE to see the complete set of photo albums of my visits to Taiwan both this year and in 2005

Entrance to the market. Note the heavy steel girders overhead. All the tables would be full if it were not a holiday weekend.

They even have a temple--see the red and chrome structure to the right in the background, at which the dealers can pray for good fortune.

Buddhist monks, who live by charity, wander the jade market. People buying the many jade Buddhas and amulets often drop a few coins in the "begging bowls," particularly if they would like a blessing upon the new jade Buddha they have bought as a charm. The monk in the photo below seems to have come directly out of central casting. Younger monks following him just shook their heads in amazement at how well this old fellow did. Well worth clicking on the photos here to see the enlargements. Note he has an ID card clipped to his front.

a variety of antique stone chops

A carved dragon to top a larger more formal chop at Mr. Ho's chop booth. Below, the elvin and charming Mr. Ho himself who does NOT use a computer to carve seals (chops). He has brought all his seals and tools large and small on the scooter barely visible behind him.

Then, if they want to visit the EVEN LARGER flower market further along the area under the elevated highway, crowds cross the roads again to enter a space more than a third of a mile long and as well appointed and much better stocked than any mega garden store in the States. Bonsai and orchid dealers have areas next to exotic fruit vendors and makers of all sorts of gardening tools. Ceilings are so high here, trees large enough to haul away on a flat bed are for sale. There are stands selling all sorts of teas to drink and more port-a-potties are set up at the this market, too.
If you just can't find what you need or want at the jade market or the flower market, you cross another broad street to enter The Artists' Corner. This is the final space, about 100 yards long, where the elevated highway comes back to earth. Here, there are enough day glow paintings on velvet to outfit every trailer park in North Carolina, along with sellers of silk cloth, tea pots, pirated DVDs and CDs, and purveyors of a very broad definition of the term "what not."

Below, the HUGE hall under the highway encompassing the flower market.

Below, a serious amateur jade dealer dickers with a buyer.
Below, typical shot of dealers and tables crowds were down one weekend. These fellows sell pink carved coral and white carved coral. Like the carved ivory sold here, probably not legal for EU or North American residents to bring back.

All the markets seemed crowded enough, but one vendor in the jade market told me it was a very light crowd and many, many dealers were not here. Crowds and vendors alike had gone to the countryside for "tomb sweeping." April 3, 4, and 5 are the days of the festival of tomb sweeping. It is such a large event that a sign in the main train station advises customers all seating is reserved tickets only. Unlike the Latin American Day of the Dead, this seems to have a more practical bent. Everybody packs picnic lunches and goes out to do upkeep on relatives' tombs. Certainly incense is burned and prayers said at the tomb, but, for the most part, it's yard work and visiting. People return to their hometowns for these events and so, see old friends, neighbors, old school mates, etc. who have also come back to the graveyard for tomb sweeping. Taipei City ran hundreds of special shuttle buses at the rate of sometimes one a minute from the city to the large cemeteries; tools such as clippers, scythes, etc. were provided free at the cemeteries as well as free baby sitting services. I can't imagine an American city doing that for a public holiday. I don't know if tomb sweeping always coincides with Palm Sunday, but both events are determined by the lunar calendar.

A typical Taiwanese tomb overlooking the tea fields in Muzha, Taipei
To see more photos of a typical Christian-and-everybody-else graveyard click the photo

The jade market sells plenty of doo-dads for tourists and a sprinkling of what appear to be serious amateur jade dealers catering to the serious amateur jade collectors. The really high end jade carvings selling for tens of thousands of dollars (US) never appear at a market like this, the grand masters of carving having their established clientele and their time being well booked into the future.
But there are chop carvers, even wood carvers and sellers of exquisite tea pots.

Above; batches of jade charms tied to red "Lucky knots" They are tied together in batches of ten and dealers ask about $2 a string, so you can argue them down to about $1 a string. A batch of ten might cost as little as $8 to $12 depending on your skills. Click on the photo to see my album of jade market photos and to download some photos like this one or the photo at the top of the email to use as computer wallpaper.
Below, an ivory carver displays wares.

Carvings of ink stones and other calligraphy supplies are on sale. Coral carving and items made from a curious form of Indonesian tube like coral are used to make the handles of ink brushes, pens, and other small items. Several vendors sold small carvings made from pink coral.

Red or pink coral carvings for sale. Click on the photo to see an enlarged version

A table of offerings a cut or two above the rank tourists offerings. Perfume bottles in stone, chopstick rests and cases, stone bowls, etc.

Below, more typical of the tables offering low end stuff for tourists.

Click on the photo of a carving below to see an enlarged version. Amazingly to Western eyes, this is not particularly good jade carving.

Rock collectors come here. Not the sort of rock collectors we might have in the West with a geologist's bent, but collectors of interesting shapes, rocks worn by time into designs of elegance and the only reworking of them has been the discerning eye of the collector and perhaps mounting it on an elegant stand.
Crystals are believed to concentrate auspicious powers. Many geodes and quartz crystals are sold to small businessmen to place near their cash registers.

Gift wrapping is very rare here. Gifts are given in elaborate gift bags or or in these very ornamental gift boxes made of wood and silk. This man specializes in selling a box that will make your gift of jade look special.

The most interesting rock collections--and I regret not having any good photos of these--are pink landscape rocks. The best ones are reputed to come from eastern Taiwan. (Eastern Taiwan, by the way, is the world's second largest producer of high quality marble after Italy, but I shall cover that in a later travel letter when we go to the city of Hualian in a few weeks.)
Rocks are sawed in sections and the exposed surfaces polished. A delicate, lacy interplay of black and white veins across the pink background often form patterns surprisingly like brush paintings of landscapes done in the Chinese style. It is rather like staring at the grain in wood or wood knots to see a "face." One almost never sees a face, but one almost always sees a landscape of trees and mountains, a possibly, animals and small figures, in the polished surface of a landscape rock.

The fellow below is actually selling rocks to be carved, rather than simply to be admired.

Below, a view of the market showing the girders holding the highway overhead and the access roads running along each side.

Below, with business slow, some dealers play a game of Chinese chess. It is very popular. Pieces move on the intersections not the squares rather like the game of go, but this more closely resembles a complex version of Western chess.

An incense burner. Well worth clicking on the photo to see a greatly enlarged version.