Taiwan Taipei Talk

italiano

Taiwanese cuisine lives often in the shadow of the one from the continental China. In fact only very few Taiwanese dishes differ from the rest of China ones.

But in these days I spent in Italy I read an interesting news paper article regarding a famous Taiwanese restaurant which, after conquering the entire Asia, with its branches in Japan, China, Singapore, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, and after reaching US and Australia, seems to be interested in opening new restaurants in paris and London (L’Espresso 1 may 2008, pag. 193).

The first DinTaiFung (Ding tai feng) restaurant was opened in 1958 by Bingyi Yang, who, from the Chinese province of Shanxi, decided to try his luck in Taiwan travelling by boat till the Taiwanese province of Hualian.

In 1993 the reputation of the restaurant becomes global after the “New York Times” rates DinTaiFung (Ding tai feng) as one of the top 10 gourmet restaurants in the world. Few years later DinTaiFung (Ding tai feng) start to open branches all around Asia and the world: the first step was the near Japan …

DinTaiFung (Ding tai feng) cuisine is the traditional Chinese cuisine from the eastern China and its speciality it Xiaolongbao a kind of steamed dumpling. But other famous DinTaiFung (Ding tai feng) dishes are fried rice, soups, Chinese noodle and other lovely Chinese dishes.

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Where

DingTaiFung has 3 branches in Taiwan:

Xinyi Restaurant

No. 194 (entrance of Yunkang Street), Xinyi Road Sec. 2, Taipei

TEL:886-2-2321-8928

Zhongxiao Branch

No. 218 (Alley 216), Zhongxiao East Road Sec. 4,
Da-an District, Taipei City 106, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

TEL:886-2-2721-7890

Fuxing Branch

B2F., No.300, Sec. 3, Zhongxiao E. Rd.,
Da-an District, Taipei City 106, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
(B2F Fuxing SOGO Department Store)

TEL:886-2-8772-0528

how to go - gallery - italiano

Ying-ge, in ancient Chinese language means “eagle” and this word is the name of a small village in the south-eastern Taipei county worldwide famous for its pottery’s industry. This name is related to a nearby rock formation said to resemble such a bird. According to legend, this stone eagle produced a miasma that disoriented, sickened, and sometimes killed passers-by. One day, General Koxinga led his army past the rock. When they were caught in the miasma, he ordered his cannon to fire against the rock. When the neck of the stone eagle was broken, the miasma lifted and the troops could continue on their march.

Nowadays Ying-ge is a small town devoted to the production and commerce of ceramics. Once arrived to the Ying-ge station it’s just a short walk to the elegant artistic center of the town. Along this walk there are already few shops selling ceramics, and the walls are decorated with mosaics depicting teapots and other craftmade items. Passed the Da-han river there is the center of the characteristic town of Ying-ge.

During the week ends the village is crowded with people busy buying beautiful pottery items. You can buy anything: tea-sets, plates, glasses, cups and mugs, lamps and an incredible variety of ceramics items. Prices for an European or American tourist are really low: for 20 euro you can buy a beautiful refined tea-set. There are also, of course, much more valuable and expensive items.

Along the streets of Ying-ge it is also possible to behold the craftsmans busy in the creation of their pottery items, it is even possible to try the potter’s wheel! Obviously the village of Ying-ge is also plenty of tea houses, free tea-testing bars and shops selling local and foreigner tea.

 

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How to get to Ying-ge

Get to Ying-ge is very easy from Taipei: take the southbound train from Taipei Main Station and stop in Ying-ge, it takes about an hour to get there. There is also a regular bus service to Ying-ge also from the near town of Tao-yuan.

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Images of Ying-ge

italiano

Happy St. Patrick day to all taiwan-talk.com readers!
You may feel strange about an article on St. Patrick day in a site about Taiwan, so I like to make clear about 2 points:
1) St. Patrick Day is the occasion for this post and not the topic, which is beer!
2) I spent 4 years in Ireland and I have been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day for many years, even here in Taiwan: the first time in an American pub in Tai-zhong (Taichung), the second time in the “Shamrock” pub in Nan-jing east road in Taipei. This is the first year here in Taiwan for me without a pint of Guinness in a pub!

What am I drinking tonight then? … Taiwan Beer! Here we go: the real topic of this post is Beer in Taiwan.
It may be disappointing that most of the beer in Taiwan is imported, this mean that it is possible to find the most popular beers in the world like Heineken, Budweiser, Guinness, etc … you can buy beer anytime and anywhere, night and day in the convenient stores.

The most famous beer brewed in Taiwan is “Taiwan Beer” (Tai-wan pi-jiu). It’s the most popular beer in Taiwan with a marketshare of almost 80%. Nowadays it is produced in the “Chien-kuo” Brewery in Taipei. This was first brewed in 1920, during the Japanese colonialism in a brewery in Pa-de road, at that time it was the only brewery in the island. In 1945 Taiwan Beer passed under the authority of the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corporation (Tai-wan yan jiu gong-si, a governative manufacture and distributor corporation Taiwan). Taiwanese people love to drink it very cold with their meals or some snack like dried fruit, dried tou-fu (tou-gan) or dried meat (rou-gan).

Those who know Taiwanese people will know that when it comes to drink they get all red just after a glass of beer .. basically they are not great drinkers. The aboriginal Taiwanese people instead have a reputation of good drinkers; traveling in the rural areas of Taiwan it is easy to know why they have this reputation. I used to drink with aboriginal Taiwanese people and it’s interesting (and a little stressful for me) their habit to make a toast for each glass of beer: they raise the small glass and pronounce a friendly “yi-qi” - “together”. However in my opinion aboriginal Taiwanese people are not as good at drinking as the non-aboriginal Taiwanese people depict them: see how many pints an Irish will drink for St. Patrick Day, compare with how many glasses an aboriginal Taiwanese drinker can have and make your own count!

One last curiosity about the way the people of Taiwan drink: I often said “pint” but actually they use to drink from very small glasses … how many small glasses they need before getting drunk?

There are other local Taiwanese beers but actually not so famous. Instead Japanese, Chinese and Filipino’s beers are spread everywhere and this makes the Taiwanese beer’s panorama a little more “exotic”. Common Japanese beers in Taiwan are Asahi, Kirin and Sapporo; for the Chinese beers Tsingao is the most popular; San Miguel is a Filipino lager easy to find in supermarkets and convenient stores; Singha is a nice beer imported from Thailand.

Ok today I don’t have a Guinness but I am drinking a Taiwan Beer in a Murphy’s glass!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of you.

italiano

Chinese Mandarin is the most spoken language in the World! And, yes, Chinese Mandarin is the official language of Taiwan (and Main Land China of course) … this is just a quick post with a “numeric” curiosity, so let’s have a look at the numbers!

The the most spoken language in the World is Chinese Mandarin with roughly 873 native speakers in the world, followed by Spanish and English which respectively count 322 millions (Spanish) and 309 millions (English). These are the statistics according to Ethnologue (a publication of SIL International). If between Spanish and English the difference is not so huge and it is difficult to decide which of them is really the most spoken language, there’s no doubt that the most spoken language in the World is Chinese Mandarin with more then double native speakers then English and Spanish.

So why not to study Chinese Mandarin?

Taiwan is a great place for those who wants to try to learn Chinese Mandarin.

The most famous Universities in Taipei are the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU or shi-da) and the National Taiwan University (NTU or tai-da).

Before arriving to Taiwan you better have some knowledge of the language and I here is a great online tool free to use: ChinesePod. I have recently joined their program and it is really effective!

italiano

The Lantern Festival had recently taken place in Taiwan and in China, traditionally this is the closing event of the celebrations for the Chinese New Year.

During the Chinese New Year is vacation time for companies, offices and schools … making advantage of the time I have been around Taiwan looking for new places. I’ve staid mainly in Hualian County, in the east coast of Taiwan.

One of the first stops, and one of the most charming places I have visited was a small pool in Hualian countryside. No more then a “pool” where are cultivated flowers. It’s a pretty difficult place to find, not famous at all and it’s frequented mainly by locals.

To arrive there needs to walk through a cattle-track bordered by long and wide horizons of wild flowers fields. Once entered the gate of the “pool of flowers” (lianhuachi) the scenary is simple but inspires a unique serenity: a wooden simple house and a quiet pool populated by huge colorful fishes, where watery flowers grows.

 

But the peculiarity of this place is not due only to its beauty, and these flowers are not only ornamental. The uniqueness of the place is that is possible to take a sit in one of the benches along the small lake and enjoy a delicious tea made with the flower cultivated in the pool. You won’t believe it but the tea is offered for free: the teapot with the flower-tea are available for the visitors, and you can drink as much as you like.

Since this tea is really good often visitors buy the dry flowers to make the tea, also as a gratitude towards these free services. I have also bought a package: they are huge dry flowers; one flower is enough for a 1 liter teapot, and it can be reused for 3-5 times.

 

 

However, I hope you enjoy the pictures of this wonderful “fairy” place and I hope you will visit the “pool of flowers” one day.