(no subject)
Sun, Jan. 25th, 2004 01:53 amSo. My sister is leaving in a few hours, and I am quite sad =(. Actually, I'm just incredibly homesick in general, and I really want to go back to Taiwan. Not enough time there at all. And it was very fun this time around because it was New Year... I haven't spent a New Year in Taiwan for about four years now. Plus, because of that, my dad got vacation time as well, and I actually got to see a good deal of him.
I got a haircut the first day (new and improved hair!), and then sat around and listened to a whole bunch of aunties gossip about celebrities, which was actually incredibly funny. Then my family headed off to Hualien (east coast of Taiwan) -- gorgeous. It's hard for me to believe sometime because of the vast concrete expanse of the cities here and the pretty apparent gap between the rich and the poor, but the island in and of itself is really very beautiful. Hualien was tall mountains and gorges with blue, blue water and the ocean right next to it, clean sea air and high altitudes. Taiwan's all about the mountains -- they're everywhere, kind of round and looming and green with all sorts of weeds and trees growing rampant. One of the days we rented bicycles and just rode around the coast -- I rode on one of the tandem ones with my sister! Very nifty. It was also fun just dancing around and being silly with my family.
Then back to Hsinchu for two days, one of which I headed down to meet up with an old high school friend (more precisely, an old grade school friend). I miss my high school friends -- I've been horrible at keeping in touch with them during college, and I kind of regret that. It also feels weird, because I've only really known most of the people from college for about three years, while I've known a lot of my high school friends since fourth, fifth or sixth grade. And it was just so good, sitting down and catching up on the past two years. Sigh. I wish more people from my class were around this area.
Then to Taipei for New Year's! I ate waaaay too much. Had tons of fun as well ^_^. Not that I didn't eat waaay too much on all the other nights as well, but I'm particularly impressed with New Year's because my aunt cooked everything! Sad to say, she is a much fancier cook than me and my mom, although she taught me a bit. Mommy says next year if I go back at New Year's, she'll take me grocery shopping with my aunt so I can see the stuff prepared. For New Year's Eve, we had jellyfish and cold jellied ham and chicken, soft boiled tea eggs, stir-fried crab, steamed sea bass (yum, I love Chinese steamed fish, covered with a little soy sauce, some oil, and loads of scallions and ginger), stuffed mushrooms, little meatballs with rice on the outside, Dong Puo pork (I think -- marinated in soy sauce, with about an inch thick layer of fat on top, named so because apparently the poet Su Shi aka Su Dong Puo loved it), spring rolls, chicken soup, and more. Then some taro paste and tang yuan (sticky rice balls filled with peanut or sesame paste, boiled) for dessert. And I miss New Year's! I miss the giant fuss around Taiwan -- it's like a combined Christmas and New Year's celebration because it's so big on the tradition but also so exciting and ru nao ("hot noisy"). We didn't end up setting off firecrackers, but the people living around my aunt's house definitely did. I got red envelopes with money (yay!), bought new clothes to wear for the occasion, and just in general ate tons and goofed around. It was also in part more fun because my cousins are four years older than when I last saw them and grown up enough to play with us -- we gambled with dice, played blackjack and mahjong. I even won money!
Weren't all that big on the traditions this year, although there was a great deal of running around on New Year's Eve with my mom trying to quickly clean the house, and on the next morning, making me and Ning run around and tape up the red signs wishing luck and all sorts of stuff. I found it highly amusing that my dad or mom taped a "man" (full) sign on his wine refrigerator thing. Me and Ning stuck the "fu dao" and "chun dao" (characters for luck and spring reversed because reversed in Chinese sounds like arrives) on our door because we want luck and spring to come.
New Year's day was a bit more non-traditional, although we headed over to my aunt on my mom's side's house (New Year's Eve was with my dad's brother) for lunch -- more food! More fish, more spring rolls, and nien gao (rice cakes stir fried, verry tasty), and tons and tons of fruit. I miss Taiwan fruit still. We had the Taiwan oranges I love so much (apparently they're called "ponkan") with the slightly baggy and wrinkly skin, but large and sweet and extremely juicy. Me and Ning ran to the supermarket before we had to catch our flight and bought six more! One on the car and two on the airplane for each of us. Had dates, which I miss, oval and spring green and slightly apply and figgy in taste, nicely crunchy, and strawberries. Also had a lot of apple prior to this, giant sweet Japanese Fuji apples that taste of honey and, well, apple and crunch pleasantly. Had wax apple (lien wu, I think they're called) as well -- hard to describe what they taste like and look like. They're a pretty wonky looking fruit, but extremely yummy. Ate at a Japanese restaurant with some of my dad's high school friends and their kids later. So I didn't really get to do the whole New Year's hang around Taipei for a week (because it's both my parents' hometown) and go around receiving visitors (and red envelopes!) and visiting others. But I kind of got a bit of a taste of it, setting up fruit platters and snacks like watermelon seeds and sundry goodies brought home from Hualien.
It sounds kind of stupid, but I miss being Chinese. I didn't do a lot of this stuff in college because none of my friends were Chinese -- I mean, I tried to wear red on New Year's and hung up the red banners in my room, but no real big party. It doesn't feel quite right without a ton of noise and to-do. I wish I could stay for the end of New Year's, two weeks later, and watch the Lantern Festival and people parading around with their lanterns and eat youzi (ugli fruit? giant citrus fruit, white-pinkish flesh). I haven't seen the Dragon Boat Festival for a long time, or eaten moon cakes at Mid-Autumn. Not that we really take tons of time to celebrate, but it's the traditional food bit ;). Food is very important, imho. And I kind of miss hearing Chinese spoken and being able to go karaoke, and the pop songs and the slightly different brand of humor. And all of this is kind of silly too because goodness knows I'm pretty Americanized myself. I guess I wish I could hop between both worlds more easily. But I'm feeling a sort of desperate need to move back, although I know I'd be kind of lonely there too and not speak the language that well too boot. And there's the boy. Sigh. Oh well. Will try to dig high school friends out of the woodworks in the meantime.
I want to go back home.
I got a haircut the first day (new and improved hair!), and then sat around and listened to a whole bunch of aunties gossip about celebrities, which was actually incredibly funny. Then my family headed off to Hualien (east coast of Taiwan) -- gorgeous. It's hard for me to believe sometime because of the vast concrete expanse of the cities here and the pretty apparent gap between the rich and the poor, but the island in and of itself is really very beautiful. Hualien was tall mountains and gorges with blue, blue water and the ocean right next to it, clean sea air and high altitudes. Taiwan's all about the mountains -- they're everywhere, kind of round and looming and green with all sorts of weeds and trees growing rampant. One of the days we rented bicycles and just rode around the coast -- I rode on one of the tandem ones with my sister! Very nifty. It was also fun just dancing around and being silly with my family.
Then back to Hsinchu for two days, one of which I headed down to meet up with an old high school friend (more precisely, an old grade school friend). I miss my high school friends -- I've been horrible at keeping in touch with them during college, and I kind of regret that. It also feels weird, because I've only really known most of the people from college for about three years, while I've known a lot of my high school friends since fourth, fifth or sixth grade. And it was just so good, sitting down and catching up on the past two years. Sigh. I wish more people from my class were around this area.
Then to Taipei for New Year's! I ate waaaay too much. Had tons of fun as well ^_^. Not that I didn't eat waaay too much on all the other nights as well, but I'm particularly impressed with New Year's because my aunt cooked everything! Sad to say, she is a much fancier cook than me and my mom, although she taught me a bit. Mommy says next year if I go back at New Year's, she'll take me grocery shopping with my aunt so I can see the stuff prepared. For New Year's Eve, we had jellyfish and cold jellied ham and chicken, soft boiled tea eggs, stir-fried crab, steamed sea bass (yum, I love Chinese steamed fish, covered with a little soy sauce, some oil, and loads of scallions and ginger), stuffed mushrooms, little meatballs with rice on the outside, Dong Puo pork (I think -- marinated in soy sauce, with about an inch thick layer of fat on top, named so because apparently the poet Su Shi aka Su Dong Puo loved it), spring rolls, chicken soup, and more. Then some taro paste and tang yuan (sticky rice balls filled with peanut or sesame paste, boiled) for dessert. And I miss New Year's! I miss the giant fuss around Taiwan -- it's like a combined Christmas and New Year's celebration because it's so big on the tradition but also so exciting and ru nao ("hot noisy"). We didn't end up setting off firecrackers, but the people living around my aunt's house definitely did. I got red envelopes with money (yay!), bought new clothes to wear for the occasion, and just in general ate tons and goofed around. It was also in part more fun because my cousins are four years older than when I last saw them and grown up enough to play with us -- we gambled with dice, played blackjack and mahjong. I even won money!
Weren't all that big on the traditions this year, although there was a great deal of running around on New Year's Eve with my mom trying to quickly clean the house, and on the next morning, making me and Ning run around and tape up the red signs wishing luck and all sorts of stuff. I found it highly amusing that my dad or mom taped a "man" (full) sign on his wine refrigerator thing. Me and Ning stuck the "fu dao" and "chun dao" (characters for luck and spring reversed because reversed in Chinese sounds like arrives) on our door because we want luck and spring to come.
New Year's day was a bit more non-traditional, although we headed over to my aunt on my mom's side's house (New Year's Eve was with my dad's brother) for lunch -- more food! More fish, more spring rolls, and nien gao (rice cakes stir fried, verry tasty), and tons and tons of fruit. I miss Taiwan fruit still. We had the Taiwan oranges I love so much (apparently they're called "ponkan") with the slightly baggy and wrinkly skin, but large and sweet and extremely juicy. Me and Ning ran to the supermarket before we had to catch our flight and bought six more! One on the car and two on the airplane for each of us. Had dates, which I miss, oval and spring green and slightly apply and figgy in taste, nicely crunchy, and strawberries. Also had a lot of apple prior to this, giant sweet Japanese Fuji apples that taste of honey and, well, apple and crunch pleasantly. Had wax apple (lien wu, I think they're called) as well -- hard to describe what they taste like and look like. They're a pretty wonky looking fruit, but extremely yummy. Ate at a Japanese restaurant with some of my dad's high school friends and their kids later. So I didn't really get to do the whole New Year's hang around Taipei for a week (because it's both my parents' hometown) and go around receiving visitors (and red envelopes!) and visiting others. But I kind of got a bit of a taste of it, setting up fruit platters and snacks like watermelon seeds and sundry goodies brought home from Hualien.
It sounds kind of stupid, but I miss being Chinese. I didn't do a lot of this stuff in college because none of my friends were Chinese -- I mean, I tried to wear red on New Year's and hung up the red banners in my room, but no real big party. It doesn't feel quite right without a ton of noise and to-do. I wish I could stay for the end of New Year's, two weeks later, and watch the Lantern Festival and people parading around with their lanterns and eat youzi (ugli fruit? giant citrus fruit, white-pinkish flesh). I haven't seen the Dragon Boat Festival for a long time, or eaten moon cakes at Mid-Autumn. Not that we really take tons of time to celebrate, but it's the traditional food bit ;). Food is very important, imho. And I kind of miss hearing Chinese spoken and being able to go karaoke, and the pop songs and the slightly different brand of humor. And all of this is kind of silly too because goodness knows I'm pretty Americanized myself. I guess I wish I could hop between both worlds more easily. But I'm feeling a sort of desperate need to move back, although I know I'd be kind of lonely there too and not speak the language that well too boot. And there's the boy. Sigh. Oh well. Will try to dig high school friends out of the woodworks in the meantime.
I want to go back home.