Wall Remains/城壁

以前、台南の城壁の事をこのブログで書いた。勿論、このブログのファンの皆さんは私の書いた事を一言除かずに暗記したと思う（恐らく毎日寝る前にブログの内容を念ずる人も居るかもしれない。）でも、もしかしてちょっと忘れた人（なんで忘れたと！？駄目ばい！）も居るので、復習しよう。

台南は清朝時代に都市の周りに城壁が建てられた。日本時代には、町の改造のため、城壁が殆ど取り除かれたけど、大南門などの一部が現在も残っている。私は以前、門だけじゃなくて、城壁自体も少し残っていると聞いた。残っている部分は国立台南大学の辺りに有るから、簡単に自転車で成功大学から見に行く事が出来る。

私は本当にこういう史跡が大好きだ。入場費などは無い、というか、小さな看板、石碑と史跡自体以外は何も無い。そこで生活している人の中に、史跡だと気付いていない人も居るに間違いない。下の写真をご覧下さい。

I have written previously about the Tainan city walls.  They were put up around the city in the Qing period, but they were mostly torn down during the Japanese period as a result of Japanese plans to modernize the city's layout.  There are a couple of gates left, but there is also at least one section of wall left as well.  I heard about it a while back, and I had been meaning to visit it when I had some free time and a nice sunny day.  I had both last Sunday, so I headed out on my bicycle to the remaining section of wall that is near the University of Tainan campus.  It's only about a 15 minute ride away from Cheng Kung's campus if you don't get lost.  Of course, I got lost.  But I did find it eventually.

This is my favorite kind of historic spot.  Not only is there no entrance fee to see it, but it's so low key that if you don't notice the plaque, you might never even know that it was something historic.  I'm willing to bet money that there are people who live in the neighborhood who have never realized that the wall they pass by on their scooter every day dates back to the Qing Period.

普通に清朝時代の城壁の前にゴミ収集の場所が有るみたい。おい、おい！汗と血を流して城壁を作ったご先祖は泣いているよ！そこにゴミ置くのか！？
Exhibit A for how much a part of the neighborhood the wall is: This space here appears to be a garbage collection site.  (Either that or people are just illegally leaving garbage there.)

これで史跡だと分かる。
This is how you know you are looking at history.

城壁についての説明が書いて有る。「1788年に二年間かけて建てられた。その後、（西暦が無いので、いつか分からない）木材から粘土（？）と石の城壁に代えられた。その後の日本時代に、廃墟と成って、ちょっと崩れてきて、雑草が生えて来た（と書いていると思う）。長さは６４メートル、高さは約５メートル。最近少しは修理された。（そして訳分からん事沢山書いている。）」
A plaque!  I love plaques!  This one says:  "The walls were constructed in 1788 and took two years to complete.  They were originally wood and later converted to mud/mortar(?) and stone.  (There's only an imperial date, no western date, and I don't feel like looking up the Qing Imperial calendar, so I don't know when the walls were converted.)  Afterwards, during the Japanese period, the walls fell into disrepair and weeds grew from them.  (Something like that.)  The wall is 64 meters long (so, like 70 yards maybe) and 5 meters high (a little over 5 yards).  Recently the wall has been fixed up a bit.  (Then there's a bunch of stuff written that I don't really understand.)

格好いいさぁ！

以上で、台南市の城壁の残っている一部だ。こういうのが台南に沢山有るから、台南は面白いばい！
Imagine driving by this every day on the way to work.  That's Tainan for you.  It's got lots of random historic stuff scattered around the city, and some of it, like this wall, is very much a part of the neighborhood fabric.

幽霊が居るらしい／Ghost Campus

この間台湾人の友達からこの話を聞いた。キャンパスの古い一部が今廃墟されて、そこには幽霊が出て来ると言われている。

行ってみたら、そこまで怖いところじゃなかった。まあ、昼間に行ったけど。今度夜にでも行ってみようと。

今このところの建物は改造中だから、以後は台湾学部がここに移動するらしい。俺は友達に幽霊気を付けてねと注意した。

ここの建物は元々日本時代に作られた物だ。格好いいだろう？

A Taiwanese friend of mine told me recently about this one part of the campus that is old and not being used.  She said that there are ghosts there.  I went and checked it out, but I didn't see any ghosts.  Of course, I went in the middle of a bright, sunny day...

This part of the campus has buildings from the Japanese period when the school was originally built.  They're fixing them up right now, and they're going to move the Taiwanese Literature Department into this area when the construction is all done.  That's the department my friend is in, so I told her to watch out for ghosts.  I'm helpful like that.

It's pretty overgrown in between the buildings.  Because it's warm all year round here, I think it's hard to keep weeds in check.  It's the same reason why the bugs are so big.  Winter is good for killing unwanted pests, so places that don't have it have more pests.

俺はよく台湾と沖縄を比べるけど、ここも似とるなぁと思った。キャンパスのこのところは今使われていないので、建物の工事以外は人の手があまり入っていない。台湾はすぐこう成ってしまう：草ボーボー。一年中、寒く成る事が無い地域はだいたいそうだと思う。毎回沖縄に行った時、日本の他の地域と比べて、生い茂っている感じがした。又、長崎に住んでいたけど、長崎とニューヨークを比べても、基本的に長崎の虫が大きかった。冬が無い地域は特に雑草と害虫に悩まされているだろう。

今回はあまり言う事が無いけど、このキャンパス本当に格好いいと思った、絶対写真載せたかった。台湾学部にでも入ろうかな。
I don't actually have much to say this time, but it was a nice sunny day, and the buildings here are pretty cool, so I really wanted to put these photos up.  If the Taiwanese Literature Department is going to be located here, I think I might just choose to study Taiwanese Literature.

Cold is in the eye (skin?) of the Beholder

It's so cold here!  It's 20 degrees out!

...wait, that's 20 degrees Celcius.  (68 F)  And that's just the temperature it's falling too in the evening.  It isn't cold at all; actually, it's quite comfortable.

But most the Taiwanese people I've talked to today have said the same thing: It's so cold all of a sudden!

It's funny how much one's perception of cold changes based on where you grow up.  Do people from Alaska laugh at New Yorkers when we throw on our jackets for 40 degree weather?

今日は夜が２０度まで下がって、台湾人の知り合いは皆「うわ、寒い！」と言っとる。ウケる。これはちょうどいい、めっちゃ気持ちいい天気やろう？ジャケット着とる人も少なくなかった。

でも以前沖縄に行った時も同じ体験した。冬に沖縄に行って、地元の人は皆「寒い」と言っとったけど、普通にTシャツ一着でいい位寒くなかった。

まあ、俺は沖縄人や台湾人を笑っとるけど、北海道やシベリアの人は俺を見て笑うやろう。「え〜！ゼロ度だからジャケット着るのかい？弱虫！ウオッカ一杯でも飲めばいいのに。」とか言いそうだろう。

Graphic of Taiwanese Political Change

I saw this neat poster at a cafe near campus recently.  It shows the political change in Taiwan over the last 100 years.  I think the "white with a red dot" should be obvious.  That's the Japanese period.  (Which started in 1895 actually.)  The blue refers to the KMT, the Chinese Nationalist Party, Chiang Kai-Shek's political party.  The green is the DPP, the Democratic Progressive Party.  They actually didn't entirely control Taiwan during the period depicted, since, I believe, the KMT still held a majority in the Legislative body during that time, but they did hold the presidency, and the president in Taiwan is a decently powerful position in the government.  The current president, Ma, has just started his second term.  You can see his first term in the picture where the last 4 Taiwans are colored blue.
Admittedly, this is a dramatically simplified version of the Taiwanese political situation, but as a graphic it's kind of cool.

このポスターを近所のカフェーで見掛けた。2011年迄、百年間台湾の政治状態の流れを絵にされた。日の丸は勿論、日本支配の時代を意味する。その後の青は蔣介石の国民党による支配時期だ。そして、八年間の緑は台湾の二番目に大きい政党、民主進歩党が大統領の席を獲っていた時期だ。その八年間は、実は国民党はずっと立法院（台湾の衆議院に当たる組織）をコントロールしたけど、台湾の大統領はかなりの権限を持つので、一応緑の「民主進歩党によっての政治」の意味は合っているのだろう。最後の青は現大統領、馬、の最初の任期だ。（今年から馬は第二の任期を始まった。）
この図は結構簡略されているから、これだけ見たら台湾の政治状態と歴史が分かる訳ではないけど、分かりやすい図としては兎に角面白い。

Squirrels in Palm Trees/椰子に居る栗鼠

私はこの間変な事を見掛けた。というか、本当は別に変じゃないけど、私から見ればちょっと変な感じがした。

その「変な事」は、椰子に登っている栗鼠だった。

考えてみれば、別に変じゃないだろう。だって、栗鼠は木に登るのが好きだろう？椰子も木だろう？でも思いっきり変に感じた。

その後私は考えてみて、なぜ変に感じたかを思い付いてきた。台湾の栗鼠はニューヨークのとちょっと変わっているけど、だいたい一緒だ。でもニューヨークには、ブロンクス動物園の熱帯動物の展示みたいなところ以外、椰子の木は無い。だから、馴染みの薄い椰子の木に馴染みの強い栗鼠が登っている風景を見て、違和感を感じた。

台南とニューヨークの気候があまりにも違うから、こういう体験をしょっちゅうする。或る日、台湾人の友達となぜか雪の話をしていた。彼女が「私は雪を見た事が無い」と言って、私は凄くびっくりした。冷静に考えてみたら、そんなに珍しい事じゃないだろう。雪を自分の目で見た事が無い人はこの世に沢山居ると思う。でも、子供の時、毎冬雪の中で遊んでいた私からすれば、やはり「雪を知らない」と言う状況は想像しがたい。

I saw the squirrel in the photo above running around in this palm tree the other day when I was practicing.  For some reason, the image of a squirrel in a palm tree really struck me.  I think it's because the squirrels here--while admittedly a little different from the squirrels in NYC--are mostly the same, but palm trees are definitely not something you ever see in NYC unless you go to someplace like the Botanical Gardens.  Something about seeing the familiar-looking squirrel in the exotic, foreign palm tree really struck me as odd.
I had a similar experience the other day when I was talking with a Taiwanese friend.  For some reason we got on the subject of snow, and she mentioned to me that she had never actually seen snow.  I have to say, I was more surprised than I really needed to be.  There are plenty of people on this earth who grow up in tropical and sub-tropical areas and who never see snow, but it's really hard for me to imagine.  I got to play in snow just about every winter when I was a kid.  It was just a thing that was out there.  Occasionally I'm hit by reminders of the fact that I'm in Taiwan, and it's different from NYC.

Beach Party

本当に時間が経つのは速い！後もうちょっと学期が終わるけど、寂しい事に既に国に帰ったクラスメートが一人居た。彼の送別会として、皆でビーチに行ってピクニックをした。中華センターで勉強する人は毎学期来たり去ったりするから、これからも寂しいお別れと新しい出会いが沢山有ると思う。悲しい気持ちも楽しい気持ちも味わえる中華センターは案外人情溢れ、わびさびが有る！

、、、というのはちょっと大げさかな。でもこの学期私のクラスは本当に良かったから、学期が終わるのは本当に寂しい。

以前この写真をフェースブックにも載せたけど、今度は人物じゃなくて、わびさびを考えながら風景を中心にしたい。

We had a farewell party for one of our classmates who had to go home a little early.  We all went to the beach and had a picnic.  I can't believe it's already almost the end of the semester!  It's hard to believe it's come so quickly.  Since the Mandarin Center does not itself offer a degree program, I think there are going to be a lot of goodbyes every semester.  But there should also be lots of new faces as well!

I posted these photos on Facebook already, but this time I took out all of the people photos, so we can just appreciate the beautiful scenery.

 カニが見える？有るよ！

ここは もしかして、台南での最高のデートスポットかも。

 And on the way home we saw fireworks!  I'm not sure why.  It's probably just some local temple's festival.  There are lots of things like this all the time.

帰る途中、何かの祭を見掛けた。台南でしょっちゅう爆竹と花火の音を耳にする。台湾人は本当に好きみたい。どんなにローカルな祭であっても、必ず爆竹などが有る。

キャンパスアート／Campus Art

Art is Nature, Nature is Art

Alishan/阿里山

I went to Alishan this past weekend with some friends from the university.  Alishan is a park up in the mountains in southern Taiwan.  It's not too far from Tainan.  Because of it's easy accessibility, it's become one of the major nature-tourist spots in Taiwan.  Lots of tour groups go up to Alishan, and one doesn't need to be in any sort of shape to go and check it out.  We went as a group of 6 people and stayed for one night.

週末は学校の友達と一緒に阿里山に行って来た。阿里山は台湾の凄く有名な観光地の一つだ。山地だから、綺麗な自然が見えるし、アクセスからすれば、誰でも気楽に行ける。おばさん、おじさんばかりのツアーグループも沢山行っている。私達は６人で行って、一泊した。

泊まったホテルの窓からの景色。
Here's the view from our hotel window.

盆栽がホテル前に有った。

町（小さいから、町と言っていいかな？）の中心。
Here's a view of the town where we stayed.  It's basically all hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops.

Because we were about 2000 meters above sea level, not only was it significantly cooler, but all of the sealed, packaged snacks that had been shipped up from sea level were blown up from the change in air pressure.
阿里山の町は海抜2000メートル位なので、ご覧の通り、おやつの袋は皆ぱんぱんしている。天気も涼しかった。台南は今も毎日２５度を簡単に超えているけど、阿里山では、夜が10度位まで下がって、昼間でも私達はジャケットを着ていた。

金曜日、授業が終わってから阿里山に行った。結構時間がかかったので、夜に着いた。その後食事して直ぐ寝て、朝４時頃に起きて駅に行った。汽車を最高の駅まで乗って上がったら、日の出が綺麗に見える場所が有るから、そうする人が多い。
、、、でも朝起きたら、雨が降っていた！ガ〜ン。雨男／雨女は誰だったかな、、、
We left for Alishan after class on Friday morning.  It takes a while to get up there, mostly because driving on the twisty mountain roads is slower going than if you were on a highway.  We got to Alishan in the evening, and aside from having dinner we didn't do much.  However, that was because we planned on getting up at 4 am the next day to see the sunrise.  It's sort of a selling point in Alishan.  If you take the train to the highest station, there's a place that's supposed to be nice for seeing the sunrise.
While we did manage to get up at 4, we forgot to call ahead and ask for sunshine, so we didn't see any sunrise, and we got rained on the whole day after that.  Always call ahead.

駅が結構凄い。流石観光客のお金が沢山入ってるだろう。
阿里山は元々台湾の先住民が住んでいた地域だ。日本統治時代に政府は木材を狙って、阿里山をもっと開発させた。この阿里山鉄道は元々木材を嘉義市まで運ぶ為に作られた。

The station at Alishan is really fancy.  It looks like they fixed it up recently.  It's comically large for such a small town, but of course that's because it's not really a commuter railway that people use in their daily lives, it's a tourist railway.
The Alishan area has had people living in it for a long time.  Originally, like the rest of Taiwan, the people living here were Austronesian people.  In the Japanese colonial era, the Japanese government decided to develop the area to get access to the sweet, sweet mountain lumber.  The Alishan railway was originally built for the purpose of hauling lumber down the mountain.

駅に着いたら、既に微かに明るく成っていた。でも日の出を逃したという心配は無かった。だって、雲ばかりでどうせ日の出が見えないと最初から分かったんだ。

この駅が台湾の最高駅だ（と思う）。ここで降りて、日の出の展望台に行って、フレンチトーストを食べながら雲を見ていた。悔しい！本当に何も見えなかった。

This is the highest station in the Alishan line, and probably the highest in Taiwan.  It's 2451 meters above sea level!  There's a viewing platform for watching the sunrise, but we just went up there and ate french toast (there were food stands set up) and watched the clouds while getting rained on.  Oh well.

The trees up here look very different from sea level Taiwan.  Since it's a lot cooler, the vegetation reminds me a lot of what I saw while hiking in Kyushu, Japan.  One of the people in our group was from Oita in Kyushu, and he said the same thing.  I think some of the plants in the area are native plants that resemble the plants in Japan because of the similar climate, but probably some of them were brought from Japan when the Japanese government was developing the area for logging.  It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the pines were planted by the Japanese.  They plant a lot of cedars in the mountains in Japan for logging, so they probably did the same here.

私達のグループの中に、一人は大分出身の人で、彼は阿里山の風景は凄く大分に似ていると言った。長崎に住んで、九州の山をよく登った私も同意だった。阿里山の標高が高いから、他の地域より涼しい。だから、多分九州の気候にとても近いのじゃないかと思った。植物の中には、元々ここに自然に生えた物も有ると思うけど、日本人が持って来た物も多いだろう。日本の山によく杉を植えて、後で伐採するから、もしかして阿里山の杉も人によって植えられた。又、吉野桜も有った。桜はきっと日本人が持って来た物だと思う。

日の出が見えなかったのは残念だったけど、雲のお陰でこういう風景が見えた。

While it was too bad about the sunrise, all of the clouds did allow us to see views like this.

Some real, wood-burning steam trains.  I think they break these out at some times during the year.

本物の汽車だ！走っている姿の写真を見たので、多分決まった時期に乗れるかなと思った。

郵便局だ！
This is Alishan's ridiculously over-built Post Office.

After the train ride in the morning, we then walked around on some of the paths.  The paths are all wood-plank paths.  They do this to protect the soil, but it also means that these are really easy walks.  There's no real hiking involved in walking around this area.

朝、汽車で町に帰って来た以後、町周辺の散歩道を歩いてみた。自然を守る為に、歩道は板道に成っている。そのお陰で、凄く歩きやすいのだ。ここはハイキングじゃなくて、遊歩するって感じだ。

昔、或る木が死んで、そこから別の木が生えてきた。そして、その木も死んで、三世代目の木が同じところに生えている。

おばさん、おじさんのツアー観光客が沢山居た。中国から来る観光客が圧倒的に多いと前聞いた。確かに、大陸訛りの中国語が沢山耳にした。
There were about nine million tour groups passing through here when we did.  From what I've heard, most of them are tourists from China.  I listened to their Chinese, and I definitely did hear a lot of the continental accent.

This building is a museum now, but a sign nearby said that it was originally built in 1911.  It looks so new though that I suspect that this is not the original building.  I don't know for sure.

河合と言う人は日本政府に派遣されて来て、阿里山の木材に関する調査をした。

I took the picture below because this scene reminded me of the Chinese ink paintings at the Met that I always liked looking at as a kid.  The long scrolls especially were often these mysterious quiet scenes of mountains covered in trees and fog, with only brief glimpses of human activity.  There might be a house somewhere, a pagoda somewhere else, a man walking his ox along a path, perhaps an old man in a boat.  But the humans and their buildings were always small and scatted, and the majority of the painting was taken up with clouds, trees, rivers and mountains.

この風景を見て、中国の墨絵を思い出した。子供の時から、紐育のメット美術館に行って、アジア美術を見るの好きだった。特に好きだったのは中国の墨絵だった。雲と木に覆われた山に、僅かに人間の存在が現れている風景は不思議な国の夢みたいな感じがした。この写真を見て、どこから薪を背負っている人が歩いて出て来そうだ、見渡せば、どこかのパゴダの下に、長い顎髭をしている老人が座っていそうだ。

Bridge Capacity: 6 people.  Really.  It said so on a sign.

After finishing with the trails, we got a van to take us down from Alishan.  On the way they dropped us off at a couple of sight-seeing places.

阿里山のトレールを出て、ミニバスで山から降りた。途中でちょっとした観光地にも寄って行った。ちょうどこの日、下の写真の神社で祭が行われていた。爆竹の多くて、音楽が大きく流れていたから、凄く煩かった。
It so happened that this temple was having a festival, so it was one of the places we stopped on the way down back to Chiayi.

That's all smoke from firecrackers!

太鼓、でかっ！

そして、嘉義に着いて、そこから電車で台南に戻って来た。短い旅だったけど、楽しかった。今度どこに行こうかな。
That's it for the Alishan trip!