The Peace Correspondent (14 page)

It is all the racing they can do until the little cars with the big engines come back for the next Grand Prix.

THE scrawny old man in baggy black pyjamas Brushes the Tail of the Sparrow, Bails the Moon from the Bottom of the Sea and Embraces the Tiger to Return to the Mountain. With slow motion t'ai chi ch'uan Chinese shadow boxing movements, the wizened warrior destroys imagined enemies while far below, Taipei, provisional capital of the Republic of China, awakes to another busy work day. Two dragons leaping from the upswept roof of the massive, Sino-Rococo Grand Hotel blink their bulging, 500-watt eyes at the hundreds of Taiwanese surging up the wooded hill to greet the dawn with t'ai chi, badminton, calisthenics or simply a walk.

Having slept in to the decadently late hour of 5 a.m., I scurry out of my little room, which is buried in the depths of the ornately decorated Grand Hotel, to join the crowds streaming up the mountain. Skipping up the stone steps in my black kung fu slippers, I am soon lost in a warren of paths, temples, clearings, courts and exercise yards. All around, Taipeiers greet the day in their own ways. Students in bright sweat suits jog up and down
the paths, do warm-up exercises and play volleyball or badminton.

In a clearing to my left, 10 swordsmen slowly eviscerate illusory foes in unison with crude aluminum blades. Old gentlemen in baggy pants do ballet type stretching exercises, hooking their legs against tree branches. An old woman, grey hair chopped straight across high on her neck, sits on a marker stone facing the rising sun her head nodding up and down rhythmically. To the right, early risers, matutinal regime complete, gather at a temple cafe to drink tea and eat congee (rice porridge).

In this clearing, five would-be warriors flail in unison in the age-old movements of temple boxing, kicking, punching and lunging - with restraint - at the air. As they move easily from Golden Cock Stands on One Leg to a graceful Arabesque, I wave goodbye to the kung fuers and scurry down the mountain. Colonel Chan, Kuomintang Army, retired, has promised to educate me in the culture and ways of the East.

Over SCREAM BLED EGGS, as the menu calls them, the colonel gives me a quick rundown on Taiwan. This Holland-sized island, a province of China, is, he insists, the custodian of Chinese heritage and the best place to observe the true Chinese way of life. It became a protectorate of the Chinese Empire in 1206, the year Mongolian conqueror Ghenghis Khan founded the Yuan Dynasty. Occupied by the Dutch, Spanish, French and Japanese, the island was restored to China after WWII. (Although the colonel doesn't mention it, this wasn't entirely suitable to the native Taiwanese who revolted in 1947. The Nationalist Chinese army put down the brief rebellion.) In 1949, as the Communists took over the mainland, Chiang Kai Shek moved to the island with two million supporters and set up his “provisional” capital of China. But the colonel promises the nationalists will return.

Meanwhile, the Nationalist Chinese brought the vast collection of art treasures of the Imperial Collection in China with them to Taipei, founding the National Palace Museum. This is our first destination, and my first lesson in Chinese culture. Jumping into
a Yueloong taxi, we swing out into the broad, straight “American-style” streets.

I am sure even the colonel will agree that Taipei is not a pretty city with its dull streets, grayness and traffic. You have to look closely to see the beauty and the life, but it is there in the ancient city gates, grand and small temples, and the bustling street life.

Colonel Chan explains that Hong Kong tourists come here because of the open countryside, a break from the congestion of their city and for the culture. Americans and Europeans come for the food, and for the culture. Japanese tourists, well, the Japanese developed a taste for the sulfur baths and accompanying rituals during WWII.

Around us, modern cars and buses pass, while slinky, Terry and the Pirates comic strip Dragon Lady vamps in high suede spike-heeled boots ride by on the backs of Hondas, reminders of how much more wealthy and sophisticated this city is than when I first saw it more than 10 years earlier. Taiwan has the second-highest standard of living in Asia, and it shows in the dress of most of the people.

At the museum with the statue of Sun Yat-sen, father of modern China, the colonel wangles me an official photographer's arm band - number 009. Museum guide Miss Celilia Hu explains that the museum, founded in Peking in 1925, houses more than a quarter of a million objects. Most of the collection is stored in a tunnel behind the museum, and even though exhibits change every three months, it takes 10 years to show the entire collection.

No superlatives could adequately describe this impressive museum of the world's oldest civilization, a must-see for anyone interested in Chinese culture. Certainly, one day is inadequate to take it all in, and as we jog down the rows of exhibits of bronzes, jade, pottery lacquer ware, enamel ware, carvings, religious implements and paintings, I pause to note only the most unusual.

Look at this Shang bronze wine vessel with the Tao-tieh in relief. The Tao-tieh is an ogre, a cross between a horned lion and a griffin, sometimes called a “glutton for a literal translation of the
name. Imagine waking up after too many draughts of the bronze wine cup facing that grotesque creature and the word “glutton” ringing in your head. Perhaps the design was meant to encourage temperance. Early Chinese artists relied heavily on imagination rather than copying nature, Miss Hu explains. I hope this little beauty springs only from imagination, and perhaps a few too many pulls from the bronze wine jug: an owl head figure in marble with ram's horn, monkey's eyes, eagle's beak, wings of a coiled serpent, elephant legs, human eyebrows and ears and body covered with fish scales. This night guardian of an emperor's tomb can walk, swim and fly.

But on to more pleasing exhibits, such as a jade battle ax with entwined serpents or 48-piece jade screen. On another floor, we see traditional Chinese paintings with the familiar jagged peaks, gnarled trees and lowering clouds and a carved ivory stand surmounted by 21 concentric balls each one carved in fine openwork design so you can revolve them separately.

We also see a bamboo carving of the eight immortals of the Sung Dynasty, and an ivory food container that took 100 years to carve. And finally the most valuable piece of pottery in the world, to my eyes a not-exceptional blue on white effort with the ubiquitous dragon.

Thanking Miss Hu and, reluctantly, handing back my 009 arm band, I join Colonel Chan on the steps of the museum and head to the airport. On the way, he talks about the favorite Chinese topic, food. Taiwan, he claims, offers the greatest Chinese food, in all its varieties, in the world. (Hong Kong residents might argue and Pekingers might claim they get the best northern food). While serving dog is now illegal in Taiwan, food stalls in an old section of the city offer “fragrant meat.” Tonight, Chan promises, we will sample tiger and dragon soup (which I learn later is snake and a kind of wild mountain cat.)

First we attend the changing of the guard at the National Revolutionary Martyr's Shrine. Black-clad schoolgirls pose alongside ramrod-stiff marines in crisp G.I. Joe uniforms, white
belts, gloves and scarves, the intricate moon door reflected in their stainless steel helmets. The navy, army, air force and marines take turns providing the honor guard for the shrine to both military and civilian martyrs.

Actually, two guards corps stride into the shrine precincts together: the formal Marine guard, marching with brisk precision, and a ragtag mob of young students doing their best to imitate the military maneuvers. By the time the guard has officially changed, the orange glow on the intricate red and green drum tower has faded to a dull grey and lights are coming on over the city.

On our way to Huahsi, or Snake, Street we pass a temple celebrating its 240th birthday. The streets around the temple are alive with people, lights and color. The Chinese celebrate religious occasions with considerably less restraint than Westerners. Votaries burn joss sticks and offer crackers, algae cakes, cookies and sweets at the altar, then hurry outside to shop in the adjacent streets at stalls lit by the harsh glare of bare bulbs. Black-and-yellow-robed monks hurry past the 12-foot-high floral wreaths, and, in a corner of the temple, a trio of dreamy-eyed ancients saw away on unrecognizable stringed instruments. Is the strange squawking emanating from the overhead speakers a distortion by the antiquated amplifier or an accurate reproduction of the trio's efforts?

Down on Snake Street, that great street, rows of snake and herbal medicine shops vie for the attention of an all-male crowd apparently all fearful of encroaching impotence. Colonel Chan explains that the snake soup and the blood and bile mixtures are good for the eyesight and general health, but I see no women in thick glasses here. We know what is really troubling these men, don't we Colonel?

One tout has hustled a particularly large crowd with his spiel, playing with a Taiwan cobra which sways its hooded head and darts its tongue at the spectators.

Keeping up a constant patter, the snake man feels along the
belly of the reptile, finds the right spot, and with a flash of garden-size shears, rips out the heart and gall bladder which he tosses aside, and drains the blood into a glass. Then, with a sound like the opening of a long zipper, he tears the snake out of its skin with his scissors and hangs the wriggling body from a rope near a dozen other skinned snakes. He pierces the gall bladder, drains the vile green bile into the glass of blood, adds powerful white Chinese wine, and offers it up for sale. Three drunken German tourists buy the potent brew, and to the noisy approval of the crowd, drink it between them. In a corner of the table, the snake heart is still beating 10 minutes later.

The snake man produces a tray with bowls of Tiger and Dragon soup, pops a pill in each one, and leads the way inside the restaurant. The potion is rather bland and a little tough, like barnyard rooster stew, but the colonel assures me I will be warm and “strong” all winter.

Our declining libidos thus fortified, we head for one of Taipei's popular Mongolian barbecue restaurants to feed our bodies. The smoky hall is already packed when we arrive, just in time to get the last table with gas heated hotpot with high chimney in the center. We grab a bowl line up with other diners at the kitchen, and file past a groaning board of beef, mutton, chicken, pork and venison, frozen and thinly sliced. Ghenghis Khan conquered half the world on this grub. Next come the sliced tomatoes, bean sprouts, green peppers, two kinds of onions.

Now we come to the sauces, everyone mixing to taste the soya sauce, shrimp oil, lemon water, liquid sugar, chopped chili, chopped garlic, sesame oil and liquid ginger. At the end of the line, four tough looking cooks surround a four foot diameter griddle heated by an immense charcoal fire. Reaching out of the cloud of smoke and steam, they grab the bowls, slap the contents on the hot metal surface, mix it around with three foot chopsticks and swirl the barbecued meat and vegetables back in the bowl. Above the hubbub of the diners and the sizzle of the stove, I imagine shaggy ponies whinnying as they graze on the steppes
outside a felt walled yurt.

Back at our table, we mix up a “hotpot stew” in another bowl. This time, it is cabbage, bean curd, rice noodles, more mutton and egg white, all poured into the trough of water in the tabletop stove. Almond-eyed, amber-skinned, raven-tressed maidens flit between the tables serving Taiwan beer and shoshi, a foul, fiery Chinese wine. The shoshi burns its way down with the red meat and vegetables.

Finally, gorged, we struggle to the door with loud belches and grunts, and instead of mounting our ponies and riding off into the inky black Asian heartland like the Mongols, we taxi back to the hotel.

Half-an-hour later, Colonel Chan deposits me outside the Carnival Hotel on Nanking East Road, but flushed by the Tiger and Dragon soup, the red meat and the wine, I am unable to sleep. I prowl Taipei's streets impressed by the tonsorial fastidiousness of the locals. Every second doorway has a barber pole in front of it. Finally, tempted by the whispered invitation of “massage, massage” of young ladies in the doorways, I peer in. Young men stretched out on rows of barber chairs are getting massaged. An actual massage in a massage parlor? What has this ancient civilization degenerated to?