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 Travel--Far More Tubas Than Needed

Tubas, fried squid, and teapots
March 7, 2009 Saturday Taipei, Taiwan (still rainy, windy and about 56 degrees F)

Trudging for teapots, the National Taiwan Museum, street demonstrations with way more tubas than needed, and the Chinese calligraphy store. Hard rain—has not let up since I arrived; the temperature about 60 F with gusty winds.

Originally, I just went out to buy a teapot.


I refused to pay $US150 for a teapot I was just going to use for everyday tea and leave here. People take their tea and tea pots VERY seriously here—Taiwan is the Napa and Sonoma Valleys of tea for many Japanese collectors—and fine tea shops in this area of town will not disgrace their teas by selling inferior teapots. Teapots here are no bigger than a Christmas ornament, often smaller, and the jasmine brewing teapot I needed is no bigger than an American coffee cup. Brewing tea here is nothing like an English method.

I couldn't just keep brewing tea in a old cereal bowl.

There are whole books written on the proper methods to brew tea, so it's not going to be the subject of this newsletter.

April 2005 my previous teapot vendor

Last time I was here, I just walked up Zhong Shan Rd, ducked into the alleyways and finally found a vendor selling used teapots for about $US 15. The weather's been so bad, I am not going to go walking that far and I doubt there are any little old men selling teapots out of crates lashed to the back of their scooter in this weather.


Layered in tee shirt, shirt, vest, and windbreaker and umbrella, I took the camera out, heading to Hua Shan market. It was almost 9 AM and not many people on the streets or shops open. I seriously wondered if my favorite eatery would even be open.

I should not have worried. At 8:50 AM there were TWO lines stretched out the door!
Saying the heck with it, I wandered east along Zhong Xiao Rd.
I took photos of sidewalks for a short article on Taiwanese sidewalks. (Everybody here is responsible for the sidewalk in front of their building, so there is a variation in the concrete and other materials that would drive an American—certainly Cary, NC's—city planners mad.) See the photo at the top of this letter.

Along the way, I stopped at a street stall, plopping out NT$ 39 ($US 1.12) for three sausage and cabbage dumplings. That was breakfast. Trudged the alleys all the way back, winding up behind the Sheraton. Passed several tea shops—all selling teapots for far more than I wanted to spend.

I passed two “barber shops.” Here barber shops are often a front for sexual services. One was shut up tight, but I could see clearly into the other. “Barber chairs” made up like beds reclined in an oddly lit atmosphere. Women in smocks beckoned to me, waving hair dryers suggesting it was not my hair they were going to blow dry.

The rain was not letting up, so I wandered on back to the TAV, had some hot jasmine tea (brewed in a cereal bowl), called Joy and read the news on line. I had a pear-apple and small bowl of muesli, then decided to walk on down to Shin Kong department store to see if they had an inexpensive teapot on the 9th floor in housewares. I spent a while first walking the shops in the Taipei Main Railway Station. (Despite much ballyhoo, zero progress has been made in making the main station more tourist friendly in the past four years.)
I walked the new underground shopping mall. No tea ware there either.

So. I finally arrived at Shin Kong Department store.
There were no inexpensive teapots on the 9th floor. What did I expect? They were selling them in the area next to Hummel figurines.

I did ride the elevators a few times just to ogle the elevator operators. If you ever wondered whether the rubber dolls from the movie LARS AND THE REAL GIRL found steady work and happiness, relax. They're all dressed now as Pan Am stewardesses from 1962 and working department stores in Taiwan.

I resolved to walk through the alleys behind Shin Kong and take a chance finding some little store selling teapots.

On a rainy day in Chinese alleys, you want to bring along a compass. You can't see the sun; you can't read the signs, and it is more than easy to get turned around. I hadn't brought along my compass or camera.

Luckily, after a half hour's walk, I emerged suddenly onto a main road right in front of a French Belle Epoque style building. Banners flying in front announced it to be the National Taiwan Museum.
www.ntm.gov.tw

I'n a sucker for museums, so in I went. The Taiwanese are fighting unemployment by having four people with three computers in the front selling 60 cent (US) admission tickets. You get a colorful ticket big enough to use as a bookmark and a handsome color guide in English to the museum included in the ticket price.

Built in 1908 under Japanese rule, the building was designed to be a museum from the beginning and has been well updated to keep up its mission. I toured exhibits of aboriginal tribes' clothing and tools; a large exhibit on Taiwan's six national parks; enjoyed a photo exhibition of sculpture made by Czech artists from plastic drink bottles and toured the top floor show on museum conservation techniques.

In a stairwell to the third floor, I stumbled across a young woman dressed in a ultra frilly thong, frilly miniskirt, frilly cap and jacket (all in red and white) and wearing high heel lace up boots. She was provocatively draped on the 1908 era window sills.
She was having her wedding photos made.
Soft porn wedding photos are a HUGE business here. People may snap a few photos at the actual ceremony, but ranking just behind the wedding banquet in complexity and cost, are the 6 to 12 weeks worth of fashion magazine/Maxim like photo albums created of the bride to be and her groom to be. Often, they're exhibited at the wedding banquet.

This is a subject worth a separate article, but I imagine it is pretty startling to Westerner with no advance knowledge. Her circa 1900 “French maid” outfit went perfectly with the building and her hired photographer and crew knew that; had probably used the location and costume before.

I perused the museum shop's books on early Taiwanese history, noting titles to come back to buy (when I didn't have to lug them around in the rain.)

The weather let up just enough to allow me a half hour stroll through 2-28 Memorial Peace Park behind the museum.

2-28 refers to Feb 28, 1947 when riots against Chiang kai Shek's corrupt government and the Chinese army's behavior erupted in Taiwan. Reacting with ferocious brutality, rather than address the problem, the newly installed Chinese government killed thousands of people, arrested and imprisoned thousands more. A “White Terror,” suppressing any dissent on the pretext of “fighting Godless Communism” commenced for months. (Chiang nominally converted to Christianity since his father in law was a Presbyterian missionary and it strengthened ties and good publicity with Western powers.) For years, if the matter were even referred to at all, it was referred to as the 2-28 Incident. Calling it an “incident” in terms of political impact and casualties is rather like referring to the First Battle of Bull Run as an “an incident at Manassas.”

(A newspaper article just published this week in the Taipei Times with a more detailed account of “the incident” in the town of Keelung north of Taipei.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/03/09/2003437977

As a first step towards modern reconciliation between Chinese and other Taiwanese groups, the 2-28 Memorial Peace Park was established.

I entered it by crossing a small bridge over a lotus pond behind the National Taiwan Museum. A quarter of the park is taken up with a large amphitheater for music and stage performances. A pond with a small pagoda or temple covers part and there are quiet walkways lined with unnaturally square trimmed azaleas forming unnaturally box shaped blooms.

The large monument in the middle to the victims is surrounded by a small reflecting pool. You reach the center of the memorial itself by walking on carefully placed stone pavers to reach the center. Under the memorial sculpture, one looks up into a large Chinese style bronze bell. Unlike most of Taiwan's public places, there is no English signage. That's as it should be. This is their monument, not somebody else's.

(To learn more about the park and its back ground, I refer you to a very succinct article in Wikipedia at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/228_Memorial_Park )

Almost on cue, as I finished walking around the 2-28 Park, the sky opened up again. I unfurled my yusan (umbrella) and fled back into the alleyways. It was long past lunch so I was happy to find a small street stall selling breaded fried squid. “Just the thing!” I thought, and soon I was on my way with a large paper sack of fried squid doused with cayenne pepper and ginger sauce. A bamboo skewer is thoughtfully provided so you can stroll, munch and not get too greasy.

Halfway through my bag of squid, I came upon a tea shop with just the teapot I was looking for! Looking beyond the window display I saw racks of fine teas and a glass counter with large cakes of tea, tea trays, etc. Well dressed staff worked behind the counter and in the very narrow aisle. They even wore neckties.
I felt too awkward with an umbrella, wet clothes, and clutching a bag of smelly fried squid, to go in.
I really wanted that teapot, though. It was the kind for jasmine tea, of which I have more than a pound, and I was getting tired of brewing it in a cereal bowl.
The elegant family in the store must have wondered at the gray haired “waigeren” (pro. wye guh run) munching squid in their alley and standing in the rain so long looking into their window.

You have to understand, buying a teapot in this store would not be a short and simple transaction as in America.

I would have to have several cups of tea with the family; make complimentary and semi intelligent comments on the tea; make small talk and answer questions about America; tell them how much I like Taiwan; then—and only then—express an interest in a teapot. God forbid it be the one I am actually interested in. Then I shall have to argue with the owner, convince him he really does have teapots worthy of even showing to a foreigner, and then, reluctantly being offered 3 other teapots at five to ten times the price I ever intend paying before I finally suggest the most moderately priced teapot in the window (about $US 12) Out of politeness, a price will have to be negotiated on that, even though it may be just a nickel or less off, so that all sides are seen to save face.
The merchant will be visibly disappointed to have spent so much time with “a rich foreigner” only to sell him a $US 12 teapot, so I shall be on the hook to save face all around by buying $US 25-50 worth of tea I do not need and do not have a developed palate to appreciate.

Just going back to Shin Kong Department Store, ogling the blow up dolls working the elevators and forking over $US 50 for a teapot is beginning to look better and better.

By the time I got back up to Shin Kong, though, there is some sort of street demonstration going on. As a matter of policy—I have learned this on previous trips—it makes me nervous to be around political demonstrations about which I do not have a clue and people waving signs I cannot read. Last time I stumbled onto one of these back in April 2005, there were three groups of demonstrators and a dozen busloads of National Police in riot gear involved.

Before I could move on, from down the street and leading the signs and marchers, comes the largest marching band I have ever seen parading by in blue and white uniforms (colors of the KMT Nationalists party). I note as I try to put space between me and them, the band has more than 50 tubas!!!
What sort of marching band or political demonstration needs more than 50 tubas????

Some blocks down the street, I finally went into the Royal Chinese Art company, a store I had always wanted to go in, but had somehow missed doing so on three previous trips. Frankly, I thought it might be a safe haven if the tubas broke bad and riot police were called in.

This is THE place for high end Chinese calligraphy and brush painting supplies. These people are to Chinese calligraphy brushes what Montblanc are to pens.

I gazed at exquisitely carved ink stones costing only a few thousand bucks (US!) Some are designed so the true beauty and detail of carving does not reveal itself until wetted with certain inks.
The carved jade brush rests, arm rests, seals (called chops), water bowls, and brush hangers are of a quality to make your jaw drop. Even more astonishingly, I know from other exhibitions of ink stones I have seen that, while these are high quality, they only run-of-the-mill high quality. I have not worked my way up to seeing the really expensive stuff yet.

Dressed as I was—and still smelling of fried squid, I am sure—I did not even dare to ask to be taken down stairs where they probably keep items that would fit in the National Palace Museum collection.
There were brush paintings for sale, too. At least two of them approached Hokusai's wish that when he was 100 years old he would be able to paint a dot perfect in its ability to convey everything he wanted to say.

As a sculptor and writer, I think a high end Chinese calligraphy store is the perfect combo.
Just wish I could afford it.
Good thing I brought a nice suit and tie. I plan to dress up and go over there a few times, eventually working around to asking about bringing a camera in.

Back at the Taipei Artist Village, it was supper time. I went up to room 401, studio of a young Japanese wood sculptor I had met the day before, Abe Nyubo. Abe's been working the past two months preparing large wood sculptures for an exhibition opening here at the TAV March 27. His wonderful wood carvings are made all the more appealing because he works in Taiwan's native camphor wood. The weather has been awful the past week, so he's moved all the work into his room and keeps on carving. The room is ankle deep in wood chips and smells overwhelmingly of camphor. We rousted his fellow countryman from next door, Kohske Kawasi, a music composer. Both these young men are mega talented artists and I will write more on their work in the future.
I suggested supper and they quickly agreed.

Abe (pronounced AH BEH) took us on a hike four or five blocks down the street to a hole-in-the-wall Taiwanese place he knew. Both Abe and Kawahsi are crazy about Taiwanese food. Tastier and cheaper than what they get in Tokyo according to them. There were no menus in English--or Japanese--we just pointed to stuff and relied on Abe's previous visits to let us know what was good.

We had pickled string beans with red peppers, tofu slices with 6 spices, beef tongue slices with three spices, and a plate of four translucent green, hard boiled duck eggs topped with several unidentifiable but delicious spices.

And that was just appetizers.

Our bowls of beef, cabbage, and soy noodles arrived.

Kawahsi got the double size bowl of beef extra spicy, while Abe and I got the cabbage and beef with noodles. We washed it all down with endless cups of iced tea, talked about art, Kawahsi's obsession with Taiwanese food and romantic music, and laughed about Abe's many girlfriends calling on his cell phone. Abe's girlfriends don't speak Japanese and he doesn't speak Chinese, so they communicate in broken English. Abe finally got fed up with the girls, turned off his cell phone and we turned our attention to the big screen TV at the back of the restaurant to watch Japan beat the tar out of Korea in the World Baseball Classic. The Taiwanese, like the Japanese are huge baseball fans.

(I took the photos below when I went there by myself the following night)

the kitchen is out on the street--you see a little of it to the right

Here is one of the cooks--facing the sidewalk

seaweed, tofu, sausage, hard boiled eggs, etc. ready to be chopped and served as appetizers

I picked up the bill—for all of us it came to just under $US 18 tip included—despite our gluttony. The young men protested, but not more than polite. I told them they could buy the beer for the evening.
A block later they ducked into a 7-11, emerging with four 20 oz bottles of local beer and a bag of potato chips. Well provisioned, we went back to Abe's room where we looked over his drawings and listened to some of Kawahsi's compositions.

Then Kawasi and I watched as Abe went into a panic realizing he had promised to meet a girl in the bar downstairs in a few minutes—an art dealer interested in his work, he claimed.

The panic passed when Abe realized his watch was still set to Japanese time and he had an hour yet. As Abe finally went off downstairs, I made my way to my room—it was not even 9 PM—and Kawahsi set out to see if the 7-11 had some candy he'd forgotten to buy.

And I, to quote Samuel Peyps, muttered, “...and so, to bed!”