Nov. 24-25
In our wanderings Friday night we had crossed a large paved plaza connected to a palatial building. Over the door were three Han characters—in Cantonese “chung” (central), “san” (mountain), and a third that Joanna translated for me as “hall.”
Later she learned that its Mandarin name is Zhongshen Hall, sometime transliterated Zhongzheng, and is named for Sun Yat Sen, the father of the Republic of China.
The hall has rooms for meetings and exhibitions, and also a dining room where the three sisters used to have tea. The sisters, named Soong, were wives of the leading heavy-hitters of the republic.
One married Sun Yat Sen. Another married Chiang Kai Shek, and the other married the head of the Bank of China.
The hall is about two blocks from the hotel, so we had to go there, if only to acknowledge the three sisters.
We had some tasty stir-fry and green vegetables in a pleasant, old-style room on the second floor. We could look out the windows at the park.
There is a glorious white piano among the tables. I believe it provides the music for high tea in the afternoon. Given the building’s connections to politics and intrigue, maybe it’s there so Humphrey Bogart can hide stolen travel documents.
The hall and our hotel are in a district named Zhengshen in honor of Dr. Sun. The plaza is surrounded by government buildings, including the national police headquarters.
A Zen Buddhist organization, Dharma Drum Mountain, also occupies a high-rise at one end of the park.
We stopped in the library there, and also peeked into a meditation room with a Buddha on an altar, a wooden drum, bronze bell, and a gong. And just about nothing else but a highly polished wooden floor.
The colors were muted earth tones for the most part.
It’s quite a contrast to the Kwun Yam and Tin Hau temples we have seen here and in Hong Kong. Their palette is dominated by red and accented with blue, green, yellow, and black.
The air is thick with incense and the space filled with ritual objects, effigies, and offerings.
This was Saturday. We got near Ximending, but didn’t go in. The streets were jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with people.
Besides, we had enough excitement in store. We had reserved tickets to the opera at a venue called TaipeiEYE, which is dedicated to teaching modern audiences about traditional Chinese entertainment.
We got there before the box office opened and had dinner across the street: Pea shoots, beef with Chinese broccoli, roast chicken, and a surprisingly good local lager, Taiwan Gold Medal.
When we picked up the tickets, Joanna asked if we could see the actors putting on their makeup for the performance.
What neither of us realized is that watching the actors prep is part of the standard preshow activities, which are on the second floor. When we got off the elevator, we found three actors already sharing a table and dishes of paint.
At the end of the room a lady in the final stages of makeup was being fitted with her wig and headdress. She later posed for photos with visitors.
There was also a lady playing a Chinese lute called a pipa. She was playing traditional Chinese folk melodies. At least I think that’s what I heard.
Every once in a while a bar would sound almost familiar. I was reminded how folk art, including music, has similar echoes around the world.
I do admit, though, that I laughed out loud when she struck up the "Ode to Joy." It’s the happiest piece of music Beethoven ever wrote. It crops up in the funniest places.
It plays a hilarious part in the film “Copying Beethoven.” It’s a great movie all the way through. How do you top Ed Harris as a curmudgeon wearing a fright wig and an ear horn?
Well, you do it by dramatizing the debut of the Ninth Symphony’s choral movement. The instant the choir breaks loose is by itself worth the price of admission.
I can’t hear the piece, though, without thinking of Ringo and the tiger in “Help.”
Another feature of the preshow entertainment gave me the photo of the day. Visitors get to dress up and pose for photos in front of an opera screen.
That’s not the Dowager Empress. It’s Joanna in imperial yellow.
The first half of the show featured acrobats and illusions. A dancer backed by a chorus of young women would pass a fan over his face for an instant and just that quick his mask had changed.
After he had gone through maybe a dozen masks, he danced for a while without a mask. He had glitter on his eyelids that flashed. Then he gave his head a flick, and yet another mask appeared in a blink from somewhere as we watched.
A juggler got 12 dishes spinning on top of quivering rods.
A young lady (one of the masked man’s backup dancers, perhaps) climbed onto a table and balanced on a board with a free-rolling cylinder under it.
She juggled bowling pins and then put a metal bowl on her head. She was able to catapult other bowls from the end of the board and catch them in the one on her head.
I could have lived without the man who kept stacking chairs in an ever-more-precarious tower and doing handstands on it.
I kept thinking of the Wallendas, a family of aerial daredevils who do stunts like building human pyramids supported by parallel high wires.
They work without a net. Every generation there’s a news story about half a dozen of them getting killed in a fall.
I was glad when he climbed down in one piece.
I had some concern because these acts were all backed by recorded music. Was this going to be karaoke opera?
During intermission singers in costume took turns performing with a six-piece traditional band. The man on the chairs had survived. My last misgiving was settled.
The second half was “White Bone Spirit,” an opera based on an episode from a Chinese classic, “Journey to the West.” Three characters accompany a monk, who is on a quest to India where he will receive sacred Buddhist texts to take back to China.
White Bone Spirit is a demon who wants to attain immortality by eating the monk.
One of his retainers, a trickster character called the Monkey King, is not fooled by the tricks the demon uses to try to lure the monk.
The conventions of classical Chinese music are unusual to a Western ear. The singing is generally high-pitched. The monk sang in falsetto. The Monkey King was maybe a baritone.
The women’s parts are all very high.
When you hear recordings played through inadequate media—like television, for example—the voices sound shrill and often grating.
It was four years ago on Temple Street in Kowloon that my interest in Chinese opera woke up.
Singers performed duets to the accompaniment of musicians. It was the first time I heard the music in person.
What an ear opener. I couldn’t understand a syllable, but everything was punctuated by special effects from the instruments—birds and crickets and wind—and the pathos of the characters came through their voices.
TaipeiEYE does Mandarin opera, which uses acrobatic dancing and juggling as well as music.
Characters were turning somersaults in the air. Someone threw a spear at the demon, who returned it accurately with a kick behind her back.
This was laugh-out-loud hilarious. It ended too soon to suit me.
Joanna said it reminded her of the theater that her father owned in China before the family had to leave.
This was indeed a traditional show, jugglers, magicians, acrobats, and all.
Sunday we set out for a walk in a new direction.
We stopped at a calligraphy shop around the corner from the CityInn. The lady there showed us a sheet for practicing brushwork. It needs no ink. Dip the brush in water and the strokes show up as black, like ink.
They stay with you for a couple of minutes and then begin to fade as they dry.
That was on Yanping South Road, the cross street by the hotel. A right onto Hengyang Road brought us to Cha for Tea.
They have a store selling tea and treats, many made with tea, on the first floor. Upstairs is a restaurant where just about everything on the menu is made with tea.
We had a set meal: beef stew with oolong. a shot of royal tea with lemon and vinegar that tasted like a cocktail, tea tofu, and tea-flavored wonton soup. All very unusual and wonderful.
We had an herbal Jell-Oish dessert called Oriental beauty jelly. It reminded me of a pleasant herbal concoction we had in Singapore a few years ago.
At the end of HengYang Road we came to the 228 Peace Park. Signs in the park gave us as much of the story as it was safe to print. The number refers to February 28, 1947.
After the Japanese surrendered, the city celebrated, but by ’47 had fallen into disorder. Officials in charge were either unable or unwilling (the history was unclear on this point) to curb lawless elements.
There was a reference to the sale of “illegal tobacco” and to an instance where someone attacked a woman. Crowds turned out to protest on Feb. 28, and shots were fired.
Sometime during all this Chiang Kai Shek had moved troops into Taipei. The story doesn’t say who fired the shots or how many were fired.
Over the next several months thousands of people, mostly educated professionals, were killed or disappeared.
When Joanna was reading this, she asked for the meaning of a term. Someone said “The government.”
Which government? “We don’t know,” a kid said.
Later an old lady came up, “You think about. There’s no need to point it out.”
There has been an independence movement for a long time in Taiwan. Maybe they want independence from more than just the Reds.
On the way back we stopped at a brew pub called Jolly. They were serving three ales—a Scotch, a pale, and a Belgian IPA.
The Scotch was not too sweet, which is good, because some Scotch ales are downright cloying, and although the flavor wasn’t strong, it was satisfying.
The pale was OK, but but there are dozens I’d take before this one.
I don’t know if the Belgians make IPA. I think it’s a craft-brew innovation to copy a Belgian ale and hop it like IPA, which is a traditional English brew, originally created for shipment to the colonial market in India.
The combination makes an interesting drink. This one was a respectable entry in the category.
Sweet dreams, everyone. But if you’re drinking ale, not too sweet.
And good night.
Harry
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