This morning, my grandma, her cousin, her cousin’s husband (the retired principal who I previously interviewed) and their grandson drove to Guanyin visit some relatives and old houses.

Our first stop was my grandma’s grandfather’s old home (so my great-great-grandfather’s home).  He was a doctor and quite well-off, and his family lived in a type of house called si-he-yuan, a house with a courtyard surrounded by buildings on four sides, also called a quadrangle. Although the houses we visited had buildings on three sides.

As we drove in, we were greeted by large dogs running around and barking.  My grandma’s cousin’s family lives there, and they have the dogs to protect the house. They were quite fierce, and I counted six of them. There were three at the front (pictured below), and there was another one right in front of the house (pictured above, resting in the shade)

The center room is a shrine for the ancestors, and there were large portraits of my great-great-grandparents.  If you look closely at my great-great-grandfather’s portrait, he had long fingernails.  Chinese doctors back then grew long fingernails so when they are measuring their patients’ pulse, their nails steady their hands.

The doors also had pictures of gods on them.  These are door gods, and they are supposed to protect the house.

My grandma showed me around the house, and she talked about how as a kid she used to play in the courtyard, and about how people cooked back then.

Next we visited a relative of my grandma’s cousin (the one who we were traveling with).  He is skilled in Hakka weaving. When we got there, there were a few people weaving baskets.

He owns many old Hakka artifacts, such as baskets, cages for holding ducks and chickens, cages for catching shrimp and lobsters, tea kettle warmers, etc.  The middle picture is the tea kettle warmer, and it is lined with traditional Hakka floral fabric.

He has participated in a Hakka arts festival and showed us a hut with woven objects inside.

He also had a couple garages filled with old Hakka objects, including a millstone to grind rice and a thresher for harvested grains.

For lunch, we went to a nearby restaurant and ate Hakka foods like bantiao (soup with wide rice noodles) and duck with a sauce that is a mixture of soy sauce and orange flavor.

The restaurant is right next to a Buddhist temple that my grandma’s family used to live right next to.  The temple has been around for probably 100 years, although it probably got renovated at some point.  My grandma said that when she was little, her mother took her and her siblings to the temple to look at a picture of Hell.  It depicted souls getting punished for bad things they did in their lives, such as liars getting their tongues cut off.  My grandma said it scared her and her siblings from doing bad things.  Unfortunately, the picture is no longer there.  The temple was beautiful though.

We also stopped by to look at a lighthouse and the coast, which had a lot of wind turbines nearby.

Finally, we went to Mr. Zhang’s old home.  It was also a quadrangle.  Mr. Zhang and his wife go there every week to sweep the house and to burn incense for their ancestors.  Their house was not as big as my great-great-grandfather’s house, but it was quite organized.  They have family photos on the walls with labels next to them about who the people in the photos were, and the old Hakka artifacts are also labeled.  Since they grew up in the Japanese occupation era, they also had some old newspapers from World War II.

They showed us around their house and told us about the artifacts, including old wardrobes that belonged to their parents, wine vessels, dishes and more.  After they paid respects to their ancestors, we went home.

In the evening, I interviewed two students.  Fortunately, they live really nearby, so we met at a tea shop called Lattea that is a two-minute walk from where my grandma lives.  Unfortunately, the music was quite loud in there, so we moved to the park across the street to do the interview.  They are both half Hakka and don’t know the language well, but they learned Hakka in elementary school because now elementary schools have mother tongue education.  However, they said what they learned was not helpful because it just taught the Hakka language from a book and did not teach practical phrases.

Afterwards, I went on a walk with my grandma.

And that’s my day.  I definitely learned much today about my family history and Hakka culture from long ago.  It’s amazing to see people so dedicated to preserving family history and culture.

Today it was 102.2 degrees outside.  I kid you not.  Sometimes it feels like it’s too hot to do anything.

Anyway, I’ve had a good last three days.

July 19 – I went to Taipei to meet up with my cousins.  They are my dad’s uncle’s grandnieces and grandnephew.  I had lunch with them and their mom.  I haven’t seen them in eight years, so it was great to see them.  Afterwards, Chiaen and Gina (the grandnieces), as well as Chiaen’s boyfriend, took me to a mall where we walked around.  In the evening we went to Shilin Night Market, the biggest night market in Taiwan.  We browsed stationery stores and tried various types of foods, such as flavored fish balls, egg-shaped cakes, chilled noodles and oyster egg pancakes.

July 20 – I didn’t have anything planned, so I stayed home and worked on contacting potential interviewees, writing follow up emails and other things I needed to do.  Something I realized is, answering messages and emails take up a lot of time.  I didn’t do any transcriptions, but I realized that it’s probably unnecessary to transcribe every interview.  I took notes and recorded every interview, so what I’ll do when I work on my article is look through my notes, and if there’s anything important to transcribe, I’ll go back to that recording and just transcribe the parts I need.

In the evening, I went on a walk with my grandma, and during the walk, we bought some mangoes from some Buddhists, including a Buddhist nun.  They were raising money to help support people who were previously incarcerated and who may have trouble finding a job.

July 21 – Today I traveled to Tamsui for an interview.  I first had to take the train to Taipei, and from there, I took the MRT to Tamsui, a sea-side district in New Taipei City.  The MRT is fast, as it is powered by electromagnetism.  It’s definitely way faster, way cleaner, way more reliable and way more efficient than Chicago’s el.

When I got to the Tamsui station, I met up with my friend Didi.  The person I was interviewing is Didi’s friend, so we took a bus to her house.  I interviewed her friend, who has a 1-year-old baby, and she identifies as Hakka and knows how to speak it, and she hopes to teach it to her child.

After the interview, we went back to the Tamsui station.  Didi had to go back to Taipei. I walked along the old streets and the sea, and I ate some snacks like fried mushrooms and fish balls. Also, like I said, it was over 100 degrees, so I drank iced winter melon tea and a large cup of a fairy grass jelly beverage.  I would’ve loved to stay longer and explore, but it was too hot.  Still, it was definitely fun to walk along the port!

July 14 – I went to Hsinchu to interview two professors at National Chiao Tung University.

First I interviewed the dean, Professor Wei-An Chang. Professor Chang helped me a lot while I was writing my research proposal, and he gave me a lot of information about Hakka cultural preservation today, the trend of the declining language and culture, where to find statistics on this, and about the College of Hakka Studies at NCTU and how he hopes to promote more education about Hakkas. Then I had lunch with him, a researcher and the other professor I was going to interview, Professor Ya-Chung Chuang, who specializes in anthropology, urban studies and sociology. It was great opportunity to be able to talk to them about their research. After lunch, I interviewed Professor Chuang, who focused on social movements.

Afterwards, I met up with Len-Hou, the son of a friend of my mom’s.  He is a master’s student at NCTU, so he showed me around the main campus (the College of Hakka Studies is not on the main campus). Finally, I took the bus and train home.

July 15 – I didn’t have to leave Zhongli this day.  In the morning, I interviewed a Hakka student who I met at National Central University last week.  He is a graduate student at NCU’s College of Hakka Studies.  He is currently doing comparative research in Hakka and Christian cultural preservation, and he is very interested in the Hakka culture and actively involved in various Hakka activities and events.  We also talked about his research and why he was interested.

In the afternoon, I interviewed another student, the same one who I interviewed on Monday who is actively involved in Hakka Facebook groups.  Both the interviews I did that day were pretty long, as they were with students who were especially interested in Hakka cultural preservation.

July 16 – I took the train to Taipei to interview two students.  First I met up with a student at a coffee shop near National Taiwan University.  I had a lot of time until my following interview, so I walked around the National Taiwan University campus.  It’s a large campus and very beautiful, with a long wide road with arching palm trees on each side.  In the late afternoon, I interviewed another student.  I met up with him at the Taipei Main Station, and then after the interview, we had dinner together.

July 17 – So I actually didn’t have anything planned for the day, so I met up with Yang-Yang, my grandma’s friend’s son.  We went to Houtou and Jiufen together.  Houtou is now known as a cat village.  It used to be a mining village, but now it’s pretty much full of cats, and because of this, it’s a tourist destination.  There are signs everywhere of cute cartoon cats, and everywhere there are cats lying around.

Afterwards, we went to Jiufen Old Streets, which was in the mountains and has narrow streets and stair steps.  There were outdoor vendors and lanterns hanging everywhere.  We tried many foods like dou-hua (kind of like a cold sweet tofu soup), baked mushrooms, sausages and a peanut and ice cream crepe.  Also, apparently, “Spirited Away” was based off of this place.

We also went to a Taoist temple.

July 18 – This morning, I went grocery shopping with my grandma.  We went to an outdoor market, where people sold fresh fruits and vegetables from stands.  In addition to vegetables and bamboo shoots, we bought some fish.  The fish were still alive and flopping on the display stands, and if you want to buy a fish, the vendor will kill it for you.  It’s weird watching the fish flop around and jump up and down, but it is true that it tastes better when it’s fresh (we ate fish later that day).

In the afternoon, I went to Taipei to interview two girls.  Both were students who took classes at National Taiwan University hospital, so we met up there (at different times for separate interviews).  So fortunately I didn’t need to travel anywhere in between the interviews.

Now I’m caught up!  Tomorrow I’m meeting up with my cousins, and I have some more interviews and transcribing and research next week!

Wow, it’s been a week since I’ve blogged.  I was on a roll blogging everyday and then I got busy/lazy and stopped.  Well, here I am again.

Here’s what I’ve been up to this past week:

July 11: My grandma and I went to the Hakka Cultural Park in Miaoli.  We got a tour of the museum and learned about the history of the Hakkas in Taiwan, as well as about what the Hakka Cultural Affairs does.  Afterwards, I interviewed a researcher for the Hakka Affairs Council and a tour guide.

July 12: Today was a pretty chill day of visiting my grandma’s friends.  In the morning, we went to my grandma’s friend’s house and chatted while eating home baked bread.  I also interviewed her son, who is Hakka.  In the afternoon, we visited my grandma’s cousin, and I interviewed her husband (the one who wrote the Hakka dictionary).

In the evening, my grandma met up with another friend, and we went on a walk. We walked by a river, where there were bats flying around and stray dogs crossing the water.  We also walked to a night market, which Taiwan is famous for.  These are outdoor markets that open at night, and people often like to buy snacks and drinks there.  We didn’t buy anything, but we just walked through.  It was really hot because of the vendors cooking food and because of all the people there.

July 13: In the morning, I took the train to Taoyuan to do an interview.  My interviewee currently works as a teacher, and she is of Hakka background, but she never learned the language while growing up.  Then I went back to Zhongli for lunch.  In the afternoon, I had another interview, but in Zhongli.  This interview was significantly longer because this student, who recently graduated college, is very passionate about Hakka cultural preservation and is active in Hakka Facebook groups.  We agreed to meet up for another interview on Wednesday because my grandma and I had to go to an appointment in Taoyuan to get her hearing aid checked.

Will update more tomorrow!