Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.
Werner Heisenberg
In this chapter, I…
- Arrive in Tainan
- Learn about Tainan’s history at temples, shrines, and museums
- Experience one of the scariest nights of my life at one of the world’s most dangerous festivals
- Receive a multi-day private tour of Tainan courtesy of a local I met in Japan
- Explore every single attraction, nook, and cranny in Tainan, both the interesting and the dull
- Eat my way through Tainan’s inexhaustible local specialties and ascend to foodie heaven
- Ride a boat through Taiwan’s Mini Amazon, try exotic fruit, and taste life in a tropical climate
- Find my favorite dish in Taiwan
- Attend Tainan’s Lantern Festival
23 February 2024
- 10:15-10:20 Ximen station to Taipei main station bus number 260, 11:00-15:20 bus to Tainan bus station, 15:45-15:55 bus number R4 to Chest Hospital
- Tainan city museum (30m)
- Koxinga shrine (30m)
- Lady Linshu Temple (15m)
Tainan
I checked out of my hostel in Taipei after a month of volunteering and took the bus to Tainan. The fisherman from Hokkaido I’d met in Onomichi in December had just docked in Keelung. Shame we’d missed each other.
After my hiking accident yesterday, a bulbous spot had begun adorning the crown of my head. It was no longer bleeding. But my tailbone and back hurt whenever I moved and walked.
Alighting in Tainan, AKA the Kyoto of Taiwan, gave me déjà vu to Jeonju, South Korea’s biggest hanok town. As always with Taiwan, no matter the comparisons to Japan, it kept reminding me of Korea.
Locals buses were even more spacious than Taipei’s, with all the curtains drawn. It was hotter in the tropical south.
Tainan City Museum
Soon after checking in, I visited Tainan City Museum. This was the first developed city in Taiwan. In 1624, the Dutch East India Company had established a European and Asian commercial town on a sandbank off the coast of Formosa, between Batavia and Nagasaki. Indigenous tribes, European merchants, plus Chinese and Japanese officials had all converged here.
As the converging point of warm and cold currents, the Taiwan Strait on the west coast had provided ample fishing resources. It had become a midpoint port along the trade route. The Dutch had assumed this land was uninhabited, and tried to quell the indigenous tribes. A tale as old as time.
Meanwhile, in China, Zheng Chenggong, son of Emperor Tang, had sworn revenge. His mother had committed suicide during a battle against the Dutch in order to maintain her chastity. He had commanded an army and conquered the southeast coast land of Mainland China by 1650.
In 1662, Chenggong, also known as Koxinga, he had overthrown the Company’s rule of Taiwan. He’d banished the Dutch and renamed the harbor Anping. The Zheng period was characterized by expansion of maritime trade and land reclamation. More conquering of indigenous lands, this time by Han Chinese immigrants. Sirayan people, for example, had been forced to escape to the mountains.
In 1684, the Qing dynasty had established Taiwan prefecture in Tainan. Chikan Tower had become the new political and administrative hub of the island. Merchants had built city walls, while Anping Harbor had introduced locals to Western medicine, education, and values.
In 1887, Taiwan had become a province, and the prefecture was renamed Tainan Prefecture.
Then the Japanese occupiers had overhauled Tainan. They’d demolished the city walls and introduced Western-style architecture.
Koxinga Museum
Outside the museum stood Koxinga shrine, a half-Japanese design with aquamarine roofs and crimson walls. After dying in 1662, Koxinga had been enshrined here as the Holy Pioneer of Taiwan. Girls in lavish red and gold outfits, holding matching fans as tall as them, were posing for a photoshoot.
There was none of the psychedelic Taoist horror vacui. With neither animals roaming the roofs nor blackened deities (for lack of incense), the shrine resembled more the Korean Dancheong. I found it a small yet gorgeous spot to learn history and bask in well-balanced architecture. Not too gaudy, not too dull.
Lady Linshu Temple
The adjacent Lady Linshu temple was small yet properly Taoist, with all the visual and olfactory features I’d come to expect. I loved the last remaining flames licking at a few Taoist papers inside the turned-off kiln. It seemed so dark and mysterious. I realized that Taoist temples, unlike Shinto and Buddhism, stimulated all the senses.
The gaudy imagery.
The smelly incense.
The melodious chanting.
The free candy, eaten for a blessing.
The prayer sticks and burnable paper.
For this reason alone, they were worth a visit.
I rested at the park between the temple and shrine in a tranquil, Korean-like pavilion. The sun was setting; a pleasant breeze was blowing. A guy was walking his pet rooster.
For dinner, I ate milk and red bean ice cream, plus frozen taro, milk, and peanut cubes. I found the former a bit odd. Then I bought a pineapple cake at a tiny and old stand. Finally, I got to try the most famous cake on this island.
Both shops were locals’ spots devoid of English. Everything on my list for Tainan today had come from the Taiwanese uncle I’d befriended in Kyoto back in November. None had surfaced from my research online. He’d told me about this city and recommended I visited in February, during the Lantern Festival. Moreover, he’d translated the menus for me in advance.
My hostel was quirky and fun, with movie posters, action figures, plushies, and a Super Mario themed staircase. But it was also Korean-style in its cramped outline and shower-head-over-toilet-seat bathroom. My first night of paying for accommodation in Taiwan.
With the only other guest already snoring at 20:00, I had a quiet evening to myself in the common area, finally writing about and processing my last fortnight in Taipei. The distance might have helped.
Today’s highlights: Koxinga shrine; Lady Linshu temple; red bean ice cream; pineapple cake.
Stray observations:
- Every parking spot in Tainan includes an electric car charging station.
- Pedestrian crossings feature no lights. Took me a few risky attempts at crossing a storm of scooters to realize you need to follow the vehicle light instead.
24 February 2024
- 1h ride from Tainan to Yanshui
- Yanshui beehive fireworks festival – daytime procession (2.5h)
- Lunch @ the temporary market
- Yanshui beehive fireworks festival – the main event (2h)
- Dinner @ Yuejin lantern area
- 45m ride back to Tainan
Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival
Day trip to Yanshui. Tainan was the most convenient base for it, since local accommodations were overpriced and scant.
I met Teddy in the morning, a 30-year-old from the countryside in north Tainan with thick cropped hair, full lips, round cheeks, and spectacles with a black frame. Like a good-looking human version of a teddy bear.
He drove us in his BMW from Tainan to Yanshui. The seatbelt contracted automatically to meet my dimensions.
At my first drive-through, he bought us takeout from McDonald’s: fish steak with cheese, fries, tea, and a salad. His English was only slightly better than my Chinese, so talking was awkward at times. We often resorted to translation apps. But sometimes words were unnecessary.
“Good?” He’d ask.
“Good,” I’d answer.
That was enough.
Yanshui was a tiny, old town that became hell each year for one day. Today marked Yanshui Beehive Fireworks, one of the world’s three biggest and most dangerous folk festivals. Firecrackers would be launched at festival goers tonight to rid themselves of bad luck.
No sooner had we arrived than a procession started toward the main shrine. Grandmas carrying puppets of men like backpacks; men carrying portable temples and horses. I even noticed someone with a temple backpack. The pre-game started with firecrackers ignited in the middle of the road, right next to everyone. Deafening and dangerous.
A huge, temporary market offered endless variety of food – yet only four vendors sold protective gear for tonight. Scalpels. This year, we heard, the rules were strict. Cops would bar entry for anyone without a helmet, a thick cotton jacket, a cotton scarf, cotton gloves, jeans, and sports shoes. An outfit too expensive for us.
A procession departed from the temple. Five people or so, all Taiwanese, followed it into the countryside. Teddy and I passed farms with them while bearers of portable temples blasted traditional music and nightclub pop. I even got to beat a gong.
We crossed a single-lane countryside road as firecrackers detonated on the shoulders. Every house on either side of the road had people burning Buddhist paper in kilns or fireworks.
“It’s good that you came to Taiwan,” one of the elderly bearers said. “Safer than Israel.”
Fresh holes from firecrackers had punctured his vest.
At 16:00, we returned to Yanshui. Colorful fireworks exploded in the middle of the road. I had to retreat due to the noise and smoke. Everyone else seemed unfazed.
Teddy left to get a haircut at his local hairdresser friend’s. I wondered if this was a new and ridiculous excuse for ditching me. But his jacket was inside my bag.
At the market, I devoured fried oyster eggs, stinky tofu skewers, and a cheese tortilla. Crowds were turning Yanshui into a giant standstill. I met a German guy who had volunteered before me at the same hostel in Taipei, plus his Taiwanese-American friend, who had volunteered with him at the largest monastery in Taiwan.
The former had bought the protective outfit from a vendor; the latter, fit for a Taiwanese, had come prepared. She had a helmet, an oversized denim jacket, jeans with duct tape around seams and loose threads, rubber bands around her ankles…
She was also petrified, worried about what might happen. Her relatives had participated in this festival in the past, and given her the above tips. She was short and well-equipped; no reason for concern, I deemed.
Seeing that both of my companions were ready to participate, I caved in and bought a helmet. We saw toddlers in helmets and people on wheelchairs. There was no way I was going to stay on the shore.
The swelling on the crown on my head hurt under the pressure of the helmet.
The girl gave me her extra pair of earplugs and gloves. I put on my Japanese neck warmer and a mask, against the gunpowder fumes. My waterproof rain jacket was super thin to protect my torso.
The Main Event
Darkness fell and excitement erupted. We followed a sea of helmets to the intersection by the market and main temple. Instructions in Chinese advised everyone to bounce to prevent firecrackers from sticking. No police officers barred anyone entry.
It was impossible to even move an inch. Every street, every corner was teeming with participants in helmets and oversized gear. They pushed us down the main road, until we stopped by the next intersection. Bearers were carrying a Taoist boat toward us.
I felt like an astronaut. Everything seemed blurry through the visor of my helmet: lights magnified and blinding, as if gazing from a spaceship window at the sun. Deafening megaphone instructions, loud chatter, incessant shoving. I was breathing heavily, jittery with dread and excitement. When would the festival start? I wondered, my head smarting under my helmet, as a more pressing question struck me: had I lost my marbles during my hiking accident?
A man without any protection stood on top of the boat and yelled a bunch of things. Everyone was fidgeting. The sky was black, the streetlamps were bright. The walls of the boat came off and revealed hundreds of firecrackers.
We’d walked straight into the lion’s den. As if some kind of a cosmic power had pulled a spaceship toward a black hole.
The guy, girl, and I were standing closest to the firecrackers. I wanted to backtrack – I wanted some distance – I was sweating, trapped by moonwalkers and rocketeers –
A blast exploded. I heard the firecrackers before I could see anything. It sounded like a rain of shooting stars; luminous rays were spurting above me. And around me. And under me. Like missiles made of light.
I started bouncing alongside everyone else. This made the hem of my jeans pull up. Firecrackers were hitting my ankles. Another hit the thumb of my left, exposed hand, which was recording this scene on my phone.
Horror. I put on my left glove and ducked, praying to avoid direct hits to my body and phone. My thumb was stinging, yet I couldn’t stop to check for blood. The guy and girl were nowhere around me. The boat was swaying from the ferocity of the shooting mechanism. I wanted out, I wanted out – but the firecrackers, they were so mesmerizing and melodious, like golden arrows.
Then the cacophony stopped. Hundreds of cosmonauts stopped rocking the paved road. Fireworks shot to the sky from the boat. Red, green, yellow.
Silence.
I rushed to find the guy and girl. His protective coat was punctured with holes. She’d taken off her helmet to reveal hair glued to a clammy face.
“A firecracker almost burned my hair off!” she said, pointing at a hole on a towel taped to the bottom of her helmet. “And people kept patting me at some point. I caught on fire!”
She exclaimed this with a smile. She wasn’t scared anymore.
How the turntables. I insisted we backed off.
“The more rockets hit you, the more luck you’ll get,” the guy protested.
1% of the people around us wore no protective gear. Mostly the staff. Brave souls.
“MOVE!” bearers were screaming in Chinese, pushing through the crowd. “MAKE WAY!”
Preparations for round two were already in full force. I ventured into the mob of deranged cosmonauts. The road was covered in faded red remains of firecrackers.
I watched the second round a few meters away from the boat. It looked like a giant cannon shooting fire at volunteers.
None of the firecrackers hit me. They “purified” only those closest to the boat. Instead, I was able to get a good look of their canopy of gold. Like Priori Incantatem from the fourth Harry Potter, where a dome-shaped web of gold had enclosed Harry and Voldemort.
I reunited with the guy and girl afterwards. We stood closest to the third boat, the largest of the night. Bearers screaming “MOVE” were pushing portable temples toward us.
The guy and girl remained on the frontline. I backtracked a little toward the temples, so that they would bite some of the bullets. As soon as the bearers started rocking them, I started filming myself, and braced for the worst.
It was among the scariest minutes of my life. The shower of firecrackers was like missiles with targets. They hit my phone and almost set it on fire. My visor was dripping with so much moisture, that I couldn’t see anything. I just felt a firecracker penetrate my neck warmer beneath my helmet and hit my jawline.
My face was exposed – my hands were stinging – I was bouncing while crouching in fear –
But I was also inside the fireworks. As if I’d been transported into outer space, to a different dimension. Bouncing as if floating in zero gravity, firecrackers as dazzling as the sun bursting, like spaceship fuel, into a black void.
I realized I was in actual danger, and prayed to leave this purgatory in one piece. I was truly mad for coming here.
Then it was over. A five-minute explosion of fireworks ensued, as if a cannon on top of the boat was firing all its ammunition in one last effort. It was violently colorful, mesmerizing even, for such a cacophony that sounded like rifles and guns.
Everyone, including the guy and girl, started walking toward the junior high school for more shenanigans. A fire truck was shoving through their wave.
I stayed behind.
I couldn’t do it. Not another round. I’d chased enough pain.
Plus, Teddy had texted that he was waiting for me outside the festival. I could venture into a fourth purgatory, or return with him to Tainan.
Yuejin Lantern Festival
Crossing Yanshui toward Yuejin lantern festival area felt like leaving a battlefield. Cars vrooming, motorcycles dashing, people in helmets rushing to the picket line. Police officers whistling their whistles, car alarms going off, astronauts detonating firecrackers wrapped around their bodies. The chaos around me was screeching and smokey, full of gunpowder and heat.
What a strange war. No enemies, no sides, just pain inflicted toward the self. We were all pushing our luck, risking injury, defying common sense, simply to feel something, experience something, go through an event that would stimulate our senses, and vanquish the mundane.
Was there anything beautiful in this world that didn’t hurt?
Teddy grew visibly worried at the sight of me. Even through my helmet, my face must have seemed shocked. He immediately bought us boba tea.
That first sip of cold, milky, herbal liquid… there was only one delight in my past that compared.
The Hong Kong guys and I strolled afterwards through the sleepy town, our boots stepping on puddles of snow. It was quiet and pretty, dark and romantic.
Four onsens had dehydrated me so much, that I was desperate for a drink. We bought a seasonal melon milk at Family Mart and drank under a dim streetlamp. No beverage could’ve worked better at 23:00 on a snowy night, after a day of scalding onsens.
I couldn’t believe that I was living through this moment.
“The Cold Spell” (22 December 2024)
I downed the boba tea in a manner of seconds. There was nothing I needed more.
Teddy tried to comfort me, and suggested I removed my helmet. Even around this pretty lake, illuminated by lanterns and bustling with musical performances and street food, I could hear blasts from the festival area, smell gunpowder, and see fireworks. My helmet stayed on.
We stood in line for sweet tempura and ice cream. I noticed holes on my gloves. And neck warmer. And backpack. A temple trinket hanging from one of its zippers – a miniature, traditional blouse cross-stitched with Chinese words – had suffered a hit, too.
I took off my helmet. Teddy pointed at my jaw in horror. I hadn’t even felt the wounded spot.
Oddly enough, my jeans and thin rain jacket were as good as new.
We strolled around the river. I put on my ear plugs and mask again. The fireworks reached us even here. I felt like a was taking a walk outside a warzone.
With an actual war ravishing Gaza and Israel, I wondered how one place on the same planet could engage in a 2,000-year-old bloodshed, while another was busy chasing thrills and celebrating festivals.
At 23:00, Teddy drove us back. Tonight was one of my most memorable. Probably the craziest, scariest, most dangerous thing I’d done. But also one of the best.
Japan’s Akita Kanto, Korea’s Yeon Deung Hoe, and Taiwan’s Yanshui Beehive. In my opinion, the holy trinity of festivals. No other festival in those three countries could hold a candle.
At midnight, I crashed on my bed.
Today’s highlights: McDonald’s drive-through; joining the procession; street food at the temporary market; surviving the firecrackers; boba tea.
25 February 2024
- 10:55-11:00 Chest Hospital to Tainan station bus (red main line)
- Chikan Tower (45m)
- God of War temple (20m)
- 六興境保西宮 temple, Snail Alley, 慈蔭亭 temple, Grand Mazu temple… (1h)
- 18:00-18:20 Tainan station to Eternal Golden Castle free shuttle bus (green line G1)
- Tainan Lantern Festival – Anping venue (1.5h)
- 20:15-20:50 Anping temporary market to Tainan station free shuttle bus (green line G1)
Tainan’s Student District
This morning, I checked into my new hostel. The entrance was from inside the Family Mart outside Tainan station.
A hostel inside a convenience store.
But it was very comfortable, with an unbeatable location.
Then I reunited with the Taiwanese uncle I’d met in Kyoto. Apparently, he’d planned five full days of sightseeing together, for my entire time in Tainan.
I needed time to work on my visa application and explore Tainan on my own, but couldn’t say no. I suspected he’d already taken days off work.
Day one started with buried grouching. We crossed Tainan station from the front to rear using a paper ticket that allowed one to enter through the ticket gates. Ancient station indeed.
The station featured a mobile phone charging station, like in airports; and homeless people, like Taipei main station.
The student area west of the rear station was cheaper by a third. I ate beef noodles, a very famous dish in Taiwan, for the first time. Unaware of my aversion to meat, he’d already planned every meal for us around it, since he disliked fish.
We bought a consoling chocolate milk tea and visited the oldest high school in Taiwan, one of its best, which he’d attended. All high schools on this island were gender-segregated, even today.
The nearby Old Tainan Minister Residence, built during the Occupation, was a mansion combining a Japanese roof, Western columns, and an interior straight out of England. The premises now included living quarters for employees of the high school.
We browsed at a fancy Japanese shop, where he ogled at artworks on sale while complaining about the price. I felt déjà vu to my time with the Morioka woman, who likewise took me to worthless attractions and made me pay for everything, including for her. I had neither time nor money to waste, and hadn’t signed up for five days of this.
The Taiwanese man and I weren’t too friendly with each other, either. Our conversations were short and dry. Like my father, he was an engineer, a former TMSC employee, who never betrayed any signs of an inner world, any passions, any vigor. As with the Morioka woman, we didn’t go beyond niceties, history, and small talk. I’d travelled with other middle-aged or elderly locals in the past year with who I’d run jokes and held engaging discussions.
Then he drove us on his scooter to the old district. If I hadn’t bought a helmet yesterday, I would’ve have had one.
Tainan seemed like a string of massive, and massively ineffective, confusing traffic circles, built by the Japanese. This was a failed experiment to emulate European cities. Local traffic was horrendous.
I saw many establishments with Japanese menus and dishes, plus Japanese-style decorations from the Occupation. As the Kyoto of Taiwan, Japanese tourists flocked here.
Chikan Tower
We visited Chikan Tower, built as Fort Provintia by the Dutch in 1653. Man characters from the Qing dynasty were engraved on nine monuments perched on turtles. A tenth monument standing alone
Both the fort and tower hadn’t survived, so instead the focal attraction was Haishen temple, with a Xieshan-styled, double-eaved roof. Inside, students prayed to Lord Kuixing, enshrined as the god of academic achievement.
A digital screen was counting the number of visitors on the upper floor, to avoid congestion. There, we found scale models of ancient vessels.
Guan Gong Temple
Guan Gong temple, named after Taiwan’s most worshipped deity, enshrined Tainan’s protector. As the god of justice, courage, and loyalty, he could ward off evil. Like most Taoist gods, he was a historical figure deified post-martum. He’d lived during the Three Kingdom era (184~280) and sacrificed himself in battle. Thus, he doubled as the patron saint of soldiers. He’d invented the four principles of book-keeping and become the god of accountants; and admired Confucious so much, that students would pray to him as well. Since he’d always used horses, nearly every temple dedicated to him had an adjacent horse-god temple, and here the latter took the form of a soldier who looked after horses.
His temple here featured a waiting area with even columns. These were usually odd-numbered. The incense burner, always outside the temple, was further inside.
The god’s horse temple stood across the road. Sandwiched between slum buildings, it created a conflicting juxtaposition.
“Many foreigners think the most beautiful thing about Taiwan is the people,” the man said, “because the buildings are so ugly.”
He explained that in Japan, laws regulated building façades, to maintain uniformity. “But here, we do whatever we want.”
We ate a sweet tofu pudding made from bean powder at an eatery whose tables were repurposed elementary school desks, complete with a pen nook and a drawer. Then we walked to Film Street, where hand-drawn posters graced the old theater.
Snail Alley
The tiny 六興境保西宮 temple commemorated a tall, white and a short, black duo of friends. The latter had waited for former under a bridge, and drowned to death; the former had hung himself out of grief. Their strong bond had led to their deification.
“They went to hell and became the messengers of death,” the man said. “If they visit you with a chain, they’re here to take you with them. I was afraid of them as a child.”
Behind the temple, Snail Alley was an old neighborhood with quiet and narrow alleys decorated with snail artworks.
Grand Mazu Temple
After another tiny temple (慈蔭亭), we reached Grand Mazu temple.
“If you put something in your mouth in temples,” he said, pointing at the guardian lions with balls inside theirs, “it stops you from talking evil. Or the lions from barking.”
Maybe this explained why worshippers were encouraged to take a complimentary piece of candy during their visit.
Outside the entrance to the temple, a priestess in gray robes stood with her arms holding one another.
“Pam, pau-pam,” she sang quietly at no one in particular. With a silvery voice and an agreeable smile, she looked and sounded like an incarnation of a benevolent spirit. Inside the temple, a sign read:
“Recently, some unknown persons have been staying in my palace under the disguise of spiritual practice, waiting for an opportunity to harass visitors. Dear virtuous people, please be careful and do not talk to them, to avoid being defrauded.”
Tainan Lantern Festival – Anping Venue
In the evening, we visited the Anping venue of the Lantern Festival. After 16 years, it returned to Tainan to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the city.
Another disappointment. The Fisherman’s Wharf was sprinkled with a few light installations that made me scratch my head. This was the grand celebration?
Only a dome of glittering bamboo balls made me linger.
“Looks like the universe,” he said. Inside the dome, they looked like planets shining.
We watched a brief fireworks and drone show at Lin Mo-Niang Park, named after a 16-meter-tall statue of Mazu.
At 21:00, after taking the shuttle back, I finally enjoyed some alone time
Then I discovered that my hostel threw a free event every night, such as a bartending lesson, or a brownie making experience. I chatted with a Japanese expat from Himeji who was helping around the hostel. He had relocated here five years ago through his job at a Japanese semiconductor company.
“I worked less hard in Japan,” he said, surprising me. “I’ll definitely return there someday.”
Today’s highlights: chocolate milk tea; sweet tofu pudding.
Stray observations:
- Digital signs on highways in Taiwan include ETA to major destinations.
- Confucius stood 1.90 meters tall.
- Taiwanese engineers put a package of cookies inside semiconductor machines once a month for good luck.
26 February 2024
- Anping Old Fort (40m)
- Anping Treehouse (1h)
- Anping specialties for lunch
- Strolling around Anping old street, Deyand battleship, Eternal Golden Fort Park…
- Ride to Sicao Green Tunnel (20m)
- Sicao Green Tunnel (30m)
- Ride to Luermen temple (30m)
- Luermen temple (30m)
- The Spring (20m)
- Shennong street, Puji temple
Anping
Breakfast at 9:00 with the Taiwanese man at Guohua road, section 3. The best street in Tainan for food. Braised pork and shrimp rice pudding, plus fish dumplings.
Day 2 revolved around Tayouan, Taiwan’s first port, renamed Anping by Koxinga. Its symbol was a lion biting a sword.
The old fort was built as Fort Zeelandia by the Dutch in 1624, and rebuilt during the Occupation. The only remnants from the Dutch period were the southern brick walls. A surveillance post, ancient cannons, and a small museum with digital recreation imagery did not justify the cost of the ticket, in my opinion.
The treehouse was a vast improvement. First, at Zhu Jiu-Ying’s residence, a calligrapher and former head of the Taiwan Salt Corporation, we practiced calligraphy. I learned that, since the character for eternity contained all the techniques, it was the first Taiwanese kids were taught.
The treehouse was an abandoned salt warehouse overcome by banyan roots. Banyan was an invasive species that invaded wherever it could. Its aerial roots absorbed moisture from the air and thus thrived in a tropical climate. Tainan was basically a giant banyan playground.
It was also rapidly becoming a skyscraper city, with more and more erected to accommodate the 20,000 workers at the TSMC factory.
At the Old Street opposite Kaitai Tianhou temple, every vendor shoved samples of shrimp crackers to our hands. Each differed in size, flavor, and texture. One could eat an entire meal like this for free simply by crossing this road.
There were shops selling dried fruit like in the Middle East; I tried a red, spicy, baby mango. An egg roll, like a dried omelet, tasted as soft as a fresh batter. Fried shrimp rolls, the local specialty, were a delight just as soft; and an almond tofu pudding for dessert – with a perfectly gooey yet not slimy texture, red beans, and precisely the right amount of sweetness – struck me as the superior version of muhallebi.
“Tainan is a foodie heaven,” I realized at the end of this meal. It unleashed a terrible onslaught on my wallet and stomach. From now on, I embarked on a mission to try all the local specialties.
There were two dozen or so, the most I’d encountered in one city. Why had no one told me that Tainan was Taiwan’s food capital? Apparently, people from the north came here just to gorge.
The Taiwanese man took me to Deyang Battleship, a war ship turned museum, with statues of Transformers and minions. I declined to pay both for this and the Eternal Golden Fort Park, named after its yellow trees that would bloom a few weeks from now in March. As Taiwan’s first modern, Western-style fortress, it was built in 1876 following the Mudan Incident, to protect against the Japanese; yet it hadn’t survived, and now there was nothing inside to be seen.
Sicao Green Tunnel
We left the city to visit Sicao Green Tunnel in the northern outskirts, nicknamed the Little Amazon of Taiwan. There, bamboo rafts sailed through a stream lined with dense shrubbery, mangroves, and Lumnitzera trees. I was the only non-Taiwanese.
No sooner had we set off than a raft was returning. We played collision cars and made way for them to pass. Roots had risen from underwater to breathe, while crabs were emerging from holes in mud.
Trees bended over to reach for our wide straw hats. They gradually elongated to kiss each other, so that we had to crouch. Canopies of leaves rustling in the breeze made the sunrays penetrating them dance on the water. Like an unspoiled piece of nature from a fantasy movie.
Afterwards, inside the adjoining gallery, a mother-and-son whale skeletons were wrapped in red temple bows, like guardian lions.
Luermen Temple
Further north, we continued to Luermen Temple, a gargantuan complex heralded by colossal statues of deities acting as Mazu’s assistants: one saw everything, the other heard everything.
It was the biggest temple I’d visited in Taiwan. Laid out like a Chinese palace, there was even a photo studio, a LED hall, street food vendors, a vending machine serving cotton candy shaped like a lotus flower, and walls covered in black-and-white photographs of couples praying for love.
It felt like a circus.
Food Heaven
Back in Tainan, we ate takeout egg cakes at The Spring, an abandoned-market-building-turned-public-park. A shallow pond and columns of the former edifice. Then, dinner at 17:00 was at another locals-only spot.
I was served a metallic bowl with a viscous brown soup drowning noodles and eels that had been freshly stir-fried at a tiny metallic kitchen station right in front of me. The simplest of eateries.
It didn’t take more than a few bites for my eyes to pop.
A slight taste of sea, a slight sweetness to the sugar and black vinegar sauce, with chewy yet slurp-able egg noodles, and a tender eel.
“Wow,” I was muttering in-between ferocious bites. “This is amazing!”
Instantly my favorite dish in Taiwan.
“These noodles are special to Tainan,” my companion said. “They’re stir-fried upon production, then again before serving, alongside eel.”
As I gulped the soup, I realized there was something otherworldly about its unique flavor. Like honeyed sea. It almost seemed like alien food.
“Everything in Tainan has a sweetness to it,” he said. “The locals love sweet.”
My kind of locals.
We grabbed star fruit juice (weirdly sour) and strolled around Shennong street, a hipster area. Quirky shops and stylish bars. A shop worker with an electric bat was zapping hundreds of mosquitoes per minute by standing on her spot and waving the bat.
Canopies of lanterns, hand-painted by local children, decorated the streets. Just in this month, like Korea in May. Puji temple, for example, was adorned with them and a yin-yang on the roof of its hall.
Today’s highlights: Anping treehouse; egg roll; fried shrimp rolls; almond tofu pudding; Sicao Green Tunnel; egg cakes; stir-fried eel noodles; strolling around lanterned Shennong at night.
Stray observations:
- Accommodations in Taiwan that are recognized by the government are marked with a symbol at the entrance, a painting of a countryside house.
- Despite countless of stray dogs in Taiwan, there have been no documented cases of rabies.
27 February 2024
- Tainan Judicial Museum (1h)
- Tainan Confucious temple (35m)
- More local specialties for lunch
- Museum of Literature (30m)
- Hayashi department store (20m)
- Tiangong temple (15m)
- MORE AMAZING LOCAL SPECIALTIES and uniteresting obscure “attractions”
- 17:10-17:40 Tainan rear station to Shalun station local train (Shalun line)
- Tainan Lantern Festival – HSR venue (1.5h)
- 19:50-20:15 Shalun station to Tainan rear station local train (Shalun line)
Day 3 started with Tainan Judicial Museum, a former court built by the Japanese in a Neo-Baroque style. Trials had been held here until 2001.
We explored it for half an hour before joining a brief, guided tour to the restricted roof. I dressed as a judge and played inmate at an in-house prison cell.
Tainan Confucius Temple
Next, we visited Confucius temple. Established in 1665, it marked Taiwan’s first institute of learning. It was smaller and simpler than the newer one in Taipei. Back then, its walls had been painted with pig’s blood.
The Gates of Righteousness standing in the garden, according to Confucian philosopher Mencius, could be passed only by a “person of noble character”.
Then we saw Chinese tourists in traditional Confucian costumes filming themselves recreating ceremonial scenes at the main hall. One was chanting something while a group was doing prostrations.
“Their clothes are very cheesy,” the Taiwanese man said. “Recently, there’s been a trend of Chinese people going abroad and wearing Chinese clothes. It makes us Taiwanese people sensitive.”
“In a bad way?”
“Yes.”
Lunch in various eateries scattered in the area was meatballs inside giant dumplings with a delicious sweet chili and minced garlic sauce; pudding at a famous fruit stand; a pork bun; and quail eggs cooked in soy sauce.
National Museum of Taiwanese Literature
At the National Museum of Taiwanese Literature, I learned about my favorite subject.
In 1662, Shen Guang-wen had opened Taiwan’s first schools of traditional Chinese. Local literature from that era had been written by Chinese officials who had visited this “exotic” island.
In the late 19th century, Western missionaries had developed Peh-oe-ji as a romanized, phonetic form of Hokkien, the local dialect.
In 1895, the beginning of the Japanese Occupation had painted literature blue; until the 1960s, when the first generation to grow up in the ROC had, under the influence of the West, resisted censorship.
Back then, colonial and martial-law regimes had forbidden discussion of social issues. In 1977, the Nativist Literature Debate had fought this oppression. Ten years later, the martial law had been lifted.
“We are now living in the most literary time of human history,” the museum proclaimed, “because words are everywhere; not just in books.”
Near the museum, in the Ginza of Tainan, stood Hayashi department store. It featured the first elevator in Taiwan… and a Shinto shrine on the roof.
We snacked on a cold and sweet mung bean soup with jelly – I wasn’t hungry at this point in Tainan anymore, but couldn’t refuse trying more and more dishes – before moving on to Tian Gong temple, Taiwan’s oldest, built in 1854 to enshrine the Jade Emperor God. It was especially popular during the Chinese New Year.
Sometimes the Taiwanese man took me to places neither the internet not the tourist information center had told me about. Mainly hidden food spots. In those moments, I felt grateful for him taking me under his wing. Then he’d bring me to places like Wu’s Garden, or the Former Tainan Weather Observatory, or a tiny photography exhibition, which struck me as a waste of time and money.
After this minor bump, we ate a rice dumpling filled with pork and nuts at a Michelin-starred eatery that still steamed these inside leaves, the old-fashioned way. (Who knew that sticky rice could be so TENDER? Absolute heaven.) A liquid revelation in the form of white gourd tea provided just the right amount of tropical and sweet.
Was Tainan the best place in the world for food?
It was a job to eat here. An evergreen foodie heaven, like Asakusa, Sapporo, Himeji, Jeonju, Tongyeong, and Sokcho.
More quick visits ensued. An obscure shrine without an English translation; Blueprint Culture & Creative Park. Then we took a local train to the HSR station venue of the Lantern Festival.
Tainan Lantern Festival – HSR Station Venue
The train was like Tokyo during vacation. Today was a weekday, and still, I could barely stand on two feet.
At the temporary market, entire hogs were being roasted on spits. I spewed a sample of chicken skin with cartilage. One of the most disgusting things I’d had the pleasure of tasting. As inedible to me as Japan’s firefly squids.
I assuaged my palate with a good old radish cake. Enough meat for a lifetime.
Once it grew dark, we checked out the lantern festival. It was too big.
Animatronic dragons, animated characters, whales, exhibits from various countries… there were hundreds of paper lanterns there, too many to cover. Some recreated traditional imagery, like Luerman temple; others were fun and whacky, like Super Mario or SpongeBob. Japan was the country with the most stations.
When I returned to my hostel tired from three full days of nonstop sightseeing, awkward conversations, endless delicacies, and insufficient sleep, I realized something. During the past year, on this trip, I hadn’t been preoccupied with fantasies for the future or nostalgia for the past. I was fully immersed in my present.
Every leg of my trip had taken it to new heights. Increasing fun, variety, and achievements had born me fruit in the form of growth and life lessons. An equal amount of pain and disappointment had accompanied these. Perhaps the two were intertwined.
As long as I was traveling, I valued my present so much, that I rejoiced over every hurt feeling.
Today’s highlights: Tainan Confucious temple; pudding; mung bean soup; rice dumpling; white gourd tea; the HSR venue of the Lantern Festival.
Stray observations:
- I hate how shaded sidewalks in Taiwan are a series of connected platforms. Take a step up, walk, take a step down… I always have to watch my step. Nightmare for suitcases.
- Betrothed Taiwanese couples always take pre-wedding photoshoots.
- Family-run independent grocery stores have all closed in Tainan since the emergence of convenience stores, apart from one.
- In every city in Taiwan, the two main roads are named after CKS and SYS.
- Garbage trucks in Taiwan play soothing piano music to announce their coming.