小兒郎台灣行日誌（3/4～3/10）BB代貼

BB註：其中3/14那篇中文日誌，因係簡體字轉檔，有些亂碼，請大家發揮想像，自動填補． Travelogue March 4th 2005 Friday in Taitung, day 14 Tell me not, in mournful numbers, life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, and things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! and the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, is our destined end or way; But to act, that each tomorrow, find us farther than today. Art is long, and time is fleeting, and our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating, funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, in the bivouac of life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! be a hero in the strife! Trust no Future, however pleasant! let the dead past bury its dead! Act, act in the living present! heart within, and God overhead! Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, sailing over life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.. This famous poem is written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a 19th century American poet, I learn it by heart in my college freshman English lesson, it was going with me throughout most part of my life since then. You can never imagine how it lifted me up during those spiritual low moment. So, whenever I got a chance to go to Cambridge, Massachusetts, I always jogged to his memorial bridge by Harvard to worship him with my heart. I thought about him at this moment, because Taitung is so much like the place he used to live, from Maine to Boston, so calm, peaceful and full of deep-hearted characters. The unexpected morning rain gave us a shower before we could get to our regular breakfast place, ※the little green house ※ for protection, we met Lin-tzi-long, store owner`s uncle, a local poet and folk costume collector. He invited us to his house for afternoon tea. It is a three-sectioned ordinary household building full of woodcrafts, stoneware and carved custom folks. A thick heavy root table top with TV remote control spread over on top shows the narrow place for Mr. Lin＊s collections. There is also a pavilion outside the house, on one side of the beam says a paragraph, §Hsin(1)-ding(4)-tsai(2)-ke(3)-ping(3)-cha(2)-hsiang(1)§ (You can only know the taste of Tea, when you have calmed down). I quietly put a followed sentence showing the feeling of my heart, ※Ching(2)-du(3)-fang(1)-neng(2)-zhi(1)-ai(4)-nong(3)§ ( Only if you are deeply in love, you won`t know what love really is§ We drove to a small tourist spot called ※Shrei(3)-wang(3)-shang(4)-liu(2)§(The Water flows upstream). Scientifically speaking, only the fish can swim against the current, like we can see very clearly in the water tunnel built for the salmon inside the dam of Columbia river in the States, .how could the water do this? It is against the law of gravity. Buses carried loads of people here to observe this ※curious§ phenomenon everyday. In reality, it`s just a perception error caused by an upward walkway leading to a very long small stream with little change of relative pitch. I thought it`s very misleading to general tourists who needed to be educated in the right way. If there is a sign or something giving people an explanation, it will make this place a little bit worthwhile to visit. This misleading spot clearly identify the ability of the bureau of tourism development for this region. I believe, there is a long way to go to make beautiful Taitung a paradise for nature loving people, worldwide. Travelogue March 5th 2005 Saturday in Taitung, day 15 Most of wild dogs on the streets are fat and strong here, I think there are too many good-hearted Buddhists or very few Cantonese around. The population of whole Taitung County is about two hundred thousand, the same as forty years ago. The wild dog population growth rate must be higher than human beings here because they won`t go out to look for a better life. But the less development actually could make this area a superb spot for retirement and tourism. There is a small but famous duck-meat preparing place in town. They cook the same duck in two styles. First style: Slice the skin, add large scallions and sweet paste, wrapped them with ready made thin egg-roll skin, we normally call it, Peiking style, then chop the rest of the duck into heavy flavored sauces as the second style. We bought a big bag of it and drove to a little town, Li-ji, for lunch. We found Jing-li farm on top of a hillside where goat milk coffee is their specialty. There is a very good view, overlooking a bad land and a grass toboggan field. My Bonnie is over the ocean, my bonnie is over the sea, I got in close touch with my ocean finally. We drove to Jin-zhun beach in the afternoon to enjoy the ocean waterfront for the first time after I arrived the east coast. It`s a gorgeous miles long sandy beach by the mountainside, the beautiful reef scattered around making the beach more tasteful. I pretended to pick up shells on the sands to fool my sister but eventually jumped into the breaker to enjoy the chilly water. I was the only one in the water. The ocean force is very fierce if you don`t know dearly about it. I had two near death experience some years ago. I lost my dear friend, Hsu-chun-hsiung , he drawn by accident in one scuba diving attempt. We bought some famous Tung-he bao-zhi(Chinese meat and vegetable bun) in the town of Tung-he for supper then drove through a tiny lovely tunnel built by Japanese years ago in Tai-yuan. Over the tunnel, it＊s another world, we drove around from another newly built road to come to the ouside world. I heard Taiyuan used to be a place for keeping prisoners. We went to Zhi-ben Hot Spring as a regular homework in the evening. To swim in a non-flavored shallow hot spring water pond only made me feel like taking a hot bath at home. Too much of it will eventually slow down my spirit I guess. I personally prefer to cold showers even during wintertime. It will prevent you from catching cold, enrich your ability to combat against all kinds of weather condition especially on top of the high mountains or in the cold streams and most of all, it will cultivate your strength of ability to fight against all evils. But a friendly ostrich walking on the street, a restaurant for small eating at the corner near the hot spring make the trip meaningful. Travelogue March 6th 2005 Sunday in Taitung, day 16 Min(3)-shu(4)( Bed and breakfast) is rather popular for ordinary residents to make extra income in Tatung area these days. Peng-chuan-yin, a long time friend of my sister, arranged a lunch banquet in a mountainous area near Tai-ma-li for a bunch of friends several days ago. Her close friend, interesting Li-sheu-wen, gave us a ride touring around from town to town before reaching Jingfong County. More than fifty years ago, the Yi-yuan Ming-shu owner, Chen-huang, came over Taiwan with the retreat army from Hunan, China. He married a minority woman and built his family in Taitung. He told me he missed his hometown in some midnight dreams. His place is high up in the mountain, he and his wife cooked a big table of food for us. Most dishes were from his vegetable garden and poultry farms, the pheasant is one of the delicacies. I did see those pretty chicks were run around in the farm a while ago, it made me hard to chew their meat. Chang-jin-ru, one of the guests, a schoolteacher in town, sitting next to me on the table, exchanged some point of view concerning education philosophy in Taiwan with me. Later, I visited quite a few min-shus nearby and realized that most of the operators were minorities. I believe an organized group is needed to help them to attract customers from outside. On the way home I pictured many bonze statues showing general characters of ordinary living in this minority village. In the evening we went to ※fisherman§ Wang-ping-zong`s house for sukiyaki dinner. Wang is a retired teacher, very fond of fishing. Every morning we would pass by a small temple by the beach before we entered the park for a morning bike riding. Wang was always there, chatting with lots of folks about fishing philosophy. Sashimi (raw tuna or salmon fish) with wasabi(a real spicy, irritating spice) almost became my daily plate ever since I reached this wonderful city. How lucky am I to have this opportunity to enjoy it! Wang gave me three books he wrote with the names as, §Life§, §Truth§ and ※Enlightening§. Mostly, it is doing the inducing and the deducing work of daily life philosophy for ordinary people in town. Travelogue March 7th 2005 Monday in Green Island, day 17 Green Island, a sixteen square kilometers island, is about 33K east of Tatung City. This would be my last place to visit before my round-Taiwan trip takes off again. I waked up at six in the morning in order to catch an early boat to go to the island. Unfortunately, I found a flat on my bike`s inner tube before departure. I have no choice but pumping the air in with my newly bought air pump from Hong Kong, wishing the tire will hold before reaching Fu-Gang fishing market, the nearby pier is the harbor where the boat departures. My sister and brother-in-law accompanied me to the boat in time for taking off. I paid an unexpected charge of one hundred Yuan for my bike. The round trip ticket for the tourist passenger is eight hundred Yuan in the low season like this. I paid five hundred Yuan as a resident by backup of a store owner on the island who was a student of Wang-ping-zong who gave us a dinner party last night. I later found the five hundred boat fee for two thousand residents on the island is way too high for them to pay, comparing with their income level. They`d rather stay home without traveling to know more about the outside world, and eventually the speed of development of this area will be affected by this behavior pattern. Green Island is opened for development over fifty years so far, but stayed as a deserted place as is for a reason. I was treated as a VIP, and being invited to the captain`s cabin as an honorable guest by the officers after knowing my respectable touring activity in Taiwan. But I enjoyed more by staying outside, getting the freshest air, waving hello to Bei-Da-wu Mountain, the highest summit in southern Taiwan, Seeing flock of dolphins swimming along with our boat. The gust was too strong for ordinary passenger to survive, I got no company with me at all in those forty five minutes. Xiao(3)-mao(1)-kon(1) Tea House, named after famous Taipei, Bei-tuo`s setups, is located next to the harbor. The steps going up to their house is too steep to a sixty one year old man with his broken bike. The hostess, Kuo-hsiu-BAO, gave me a very big welcome smile, it made the sunshine day even brighter. She cooked an all vegetarian meal while I was fixing my bicycle tube. In a little while, there came back the host, Tian-rei-ming, a simple-minded and kind gentleman who built this place up and also worked as a welder, taking care big and small related jobs on the island. He returned for lunch with his three temporary assistants from a nearby working spot where he was installing an automatic electrical folding gate. He showed me around his property and asked me some travel related questions. What he wanted the most was to have his son, Tian-kuen-cheng, back from the city, to talk to me about the future development of the place. But his son, after buying some construction material, were waiting for the freight boat schedule to return. The power plant director, Cheng-chao-min, a regular customer and friend, came over to chat with us for about an hour, he gave me a general description of the island. The Green Island Harbor sits on the west side of the island. There is a well-paved cement highway circling around the island for about eighteen K. After 2K of congested residential area up north, I saw a beautiful lighthouse in the northwest corner by the beach, next to the airport. Most lighthouses built in Taiwan are kind of fat in its shape, but this one is rather slender. There is a story behind the scene: About may be a hundred years ago there was an American ship ran into underwater reefs by the island and was rescued by local people nearby. Later, those Americans not only built this lighthouse for them but also gave those poor residents three years of food supply. So the native farmers needed not to harvest for three year, but came another three years of starvation as a result. There were two painters giving may be the third coating of white paint to that already white enough light house environment. Another 3K passed, came the Oasis Vila, the place used to be a jail for political prisoners during the era when the Nationalist Party was controlling Taiwan politically, now a memorial hall. I spent a whole hour here, trying to remember the time of my childhood spending under the ruling government without love and tolerance. How could they treat the people with different political point of views as prisoners! After the memorial park, may be with anger in my mind, I made a terrible uphill turn to the only mountainside ride by the seashore, more than half an hour later, it ended at the same point before the memorial park, I turned around trying to fix my fault, it actually doubled my mistake. This experience gave me a good lesson of not studying and memorizing the map good enough before taking a trip. I passed by Zhao-ri hot spring without stop for their high priced ticket. I`d rather use the not too fancy spot used by the locals for free next time. There is an international standard camping ground, built not too far from the hot spring, with wooden platform and other facilities ready for the campers. I didn`t see any attendant in the neighborhood, all the grounds were full of weeds. The same situation as I experienced years ago in Hong-Kong surrounding islands, it`s quite a waste for spending money with no succeeding plan to attract people to use. I met the director, Cheng-zhao-min, with his cute dog by the roadside again before I finished the whole island by sunset. He showed me a safe spot for swimming by the roadside. The pure green water around the island together with the outstanding reef statues and beautiful rock formations made an unique scenery. When I came again next time. I`ll try to swim around the island to enjoy it to the extreme limits, or may be trying to find a small raft to boat around, imitating the act of Robinson Cruise. I think it will take three days to really enjoy Green Island. Supper served with Sashimi, made of freshly caught green fish, Ah-Bao told me his husband has to take some meat with the meal for his daily nutrition. We were trying a plan to catch crabs in the evening but a small cup of wine made me drowsy and couldn`t hold any longer. I normally don`t like to stay in a place like hotel, spending time with people who want to please you for economic reason or staying with buildings of no emotions. But the living quarter built by Tian`s family was quite comfortable to me, the extra height of the ceiling, the design of the fixture and even details of a small corner were thoughtfully considered. I had a sound sleep without dreaming of any lions. Travelogue March 8th 2005 Tuesday in Taitung, day 18 I got up not too early and found my fixed tire flattened again and short of time doing fixing job. Later in Taitung I found I didn`t clean the inside of the tire wall well enough in my first fixing job as a result for the second one. After breakfast, Tian`s family insisted of not taking any fee out of me and I liked the feeling of being treated as a friend instead of customer. Ah-Bao even wrapped the leftover pseudo-Chicken thigh for me because she thought I liked it. The assistant told me that he would have the fishing gear ready for me next time when I come. We had a dish of seven silver fish he caught last night when I feel asleep. I pushed my bike to Tian`s installing site to see his workmanship and saw him with his ragged non-licensed truck. I reached the Star of Green Island just in time for departing. The captain lifted the freight fee for my bike this time as a friend`s treat. On the way back, in the captain`s cabin I sang that beautiful Green Island Serenade for them, i.e. Chang-chun-shen, Su-zong-song, Lin-chun-de and Chen-zong-yi. I told them this song is very popular in mainland China now, soon after the hostility of both sides of Taiwan Strait is over, Green Island will definitely become a hot spot for the tourists from mainland. I called Tian-kuen-cheng in the city, then came a fine strong young man, loved to work for his hometown, the hope for this underdeveloped region. We talked for a while and I gave him some advices to bridge his idea with the world for future business development as his father wanted me to do, then I took a needed nap for tomorrow`s early departure. I waked up rather late in the afternoon and found all the surprises by the bedside. During my nap time, my brother-in-law went to have my bike fixed in the repair shop, buying a cell phone for me just in case I get stuck on the lost highway, having a long jean for me to protect me from getting hurt if I fall from the bike, having a waist pouch for me for organizing small stuffs. What a brother! We rode together to the park again to grand my wish to swim in the huge eleven hundred meter long ※swimming§ pond. The water was rather chilly and the giant carp is visible. I took a fifteen minute swim with other polar bear swimmers. We went to a photo shop to unload the memory space out of my digital camera to a CD and then went to a barbershop near the county government for a crew cut. Oh my lovely long hair! A very special dinner of mi-feng(a very thin rice noodle) was prepared by Mr. and Mrs. Chen-yuan-ho, a classmate of Chen-chiu-tse, my brother-in-law. He has a modern house with very old pine trees, pond and antiques. The most interesting items were a teapot with a magnet control to the flow and a big build-in tiled goldfish tank, the spotless water made the swimming fish as a living Chinese painting. The well written Chinese of the truth of love from Corinthians, §Love is patient, love is kind,＃.§, to ※ always hopes, always perseveres§, the nice dish of Sashimi, the delicious home-made snacks, plus the great love from another classmate, Wang-jing-kwui, an English teacher who spread his late wife＊s ashes to the ocean. I was so touched in this last evening of my staying in Tai-tung-city. Travelogue March 9th 2005 Wednesday in Hua-lian, day 19 Six thirty, I took an early start when all the truck drivers were still in their dreams. I was fully equipped with a newly custom made rack on, whispering Sayonara to my beloved sister and in law. I couldn`t enjoy more in a week`s stay in Taitung! Trying to avoid the seashore wind I picked up Taitung-rift-valley-highway as my alternative to go up north. The highway goes along with the Central Mountain Range where our young mountaineers always went in for their bravery adventurous climbing. While I was riding, I hardly got a ※valley§ feeling as I thought I should have. Mostly, the rice field covered the land of both side of the highway. The uphill slope of the road started to ease after Taitung County. Lots of young girls with their kids were selling sugar cane juice and sweet corns by the roadsides. I found those products could satisfy most of my energy needs. These young ladies were from Vietnam married to farmers unable to find wives in their local town. They were hard workers in the field but couldn＊t find a decent living in their own country after communist took over scores of years ago in southern Vietnam. Most of them are going home once a year for visiting their relatives. They always give customers a bright smile to show their happiness from the heart. At first, I thought I was going to stay in Yu-li overnight to take a break, but it was only lunchtime as I reached its frontier. I changed to a smaller but prettier county road 195 at Lo-chi, as suggested by Chen-mei-gui in Da-wu. Right at this moment, the direction of wind changed in favor of my riding. What a miracle! This nameless tail wind pushed me through the west coast, waited there for a week and then climbed over Central Mountain Range to catch me here to continue its service for me. Now, I wanted to name it the wind of the King! It helped me cover more than 170K in a day. I called my friend, Hsu-guo-shi, before reaching Hualien City. Through his cell phone I found he is presently in Chengdu , my hometown, looking for me! He gave me his wife＊s number to help me out. Chang-hui-chu used to be Hsu＊s classmate in school, was also a member of Mountaineer Club while we were in college. She has been teaching in Hualien Teacher`s University for years. She took me to a nice buffet vegetarian restaurant, Pu-ti-shu, near the railroad station for dinner. There was a Canadian overseas student, Rik De Busser, from Quebec sitting next table with his lovely girl friend. He came to town for only three months but spoke Chinese fluently. Another young man trying to speak English with me is studying in Hualien High school, where I was planning to visit tomorrow. Travelogue March 10th 2005 Thursday in Hualien, day 20 Last night, after dinner, Chang took me to a place near her university to stay. These office-looking house was used mainly for their guests to stay when needed. I`m very thankful to have this peaceful spacious villa to stay to recuperate after a long distant riding. I got up early as my usual habit and found myself totally recovered after a sound sleep overnight. After some study, I discovered this vila-typed ※mansion§ is located right by the most beautiful beachfront, ※Chi-hsin-tang§(Seven-star gulf), in Hualien. In a nearby newly established shop I met Mathew from Arkansas, spoke the same southerners English as American ex-president Clinton. There is a well-designed bike route going along most of the developed area on the beach. I had a beautiful ride under the sun and mild breeze before going to a fast food place near the university for a big lunch. I used to be a highly praised fried rice cook, the chef in that one-wok kitchen was so surprise to listen to my ※suggestions§ after two big bowls of his specialty taken by me. I met a so-called ABC(America Born Chinese)girl, Gao-ming, from Vancouver when I was approaching Kao-hsing High School. She told me she was touring around Taiwan and found this beautiful place she liked and decided to stay for a while to study Chinese, she is on her way to a foreigner`s bureau for visa extension. Quite a unique spirited girl! I rode such a long distance to visit this not so famous High School for a special reason. There are two songs I always like to sing, Hui(2)-yi(4) and Ni(2)-lai(2). The melody and lyrics are so deeply rooted into human`s loving sensation. The rhythm of the music makes me feel like swim in a fragrant pond full of rose juice. This H.S. is the birthplace of these two songs. The composer, Kuo-zi-jiu, taught music here for thirty-four years, retired and passed away years ago. I went randomly into an art class to listen to instructor Wang to teach. He happened to be a very resourceful teacher, he used computer as a major tool to inspire the kids to understand and define the process of career locating. He said that it took he himself thirty some years to put him on the platform today. Through the help of the guard at the front door, I was introduced to the administrators and got the opportunity to visit the memorial place for their late music teacher in the dormitory area. The place Mr. Kuo used to live was converted into a permanent memorial hall to recognize his contribution to the school and music world. The house is simple but full of discipline. At there, I was trying to find out how those beautiful songs were created. After a while I seemed to get the feeling from his environment of the land, people and culture background. It`s a mixture product of them all. Especially, I felt the importance of the lyric writer, Miss Chen-pei-ling, the beautiful words of this Chinese teacher must play a major role to give the birth of these songs. In addition to the above two popular songs, I felt the Hua-lien wu(3)-chu(3)(dance music) should also be added as an important song of their work. I went to the library to meet the director, Hsie-shi-hsian, and got a precious memorial CD and lots of copies of old information. Before leaving the school, he gave me a website of Hua-lien H.S.: www.hlhs.hlc.edu.tw He suggested the music cultural hall and alumni section for further information. I went to the railroad station to get some important information for me to decide whether to continue my riding up north to complete the riding flu. There is a very nice information center near the station run by the railroad enterprise. With all the information I got, I realized that the next section of high way, Su-hua highway, consists too many long dark tunnels with narrow pavements and only two days ago, there was a big accident happened, a collision of a tourist bus with a big truck full of construction pebbles. For the safety reason, I decided to take the Ju-kwang passenger train with cargo compartment to Taipei tomorrow afternoon. When I was wondering on the street to look for a place for dinner, I happened to meet three lovely youngsters, a boy named Huang-wei-fan from minority county of Tai-lu-ge, two girls, Sun-jia-hui and Wu-ting-er, they are closed good friends studying in a vocational school. We had dinner together in a snack shop, and they suggested a computer Ka(computer with coffee) equipped with separate smokeless rooms next door for me to use. It＊s really a comfortable place for me to continue writing my travelogue. I drank four big cups of ice coffee and stayed there until two thirty before heading back to my mansion in Hualien. The road distance become much shorter after you know how to make turns.