ORIENT Magazine Article - Village In The Clouds

Village in the Clouds
by Tony Coolidge

Last summer, I was blessed with the opportunity of a lifetime. Twenty-five years after my family and I left Taiwan for the land of baseball and apple pie, I was offered a chance to revisit my birthplace. As a half-Asian, half-Caucasian son of an American soldier and a Taiwanese mother, I was born in Taiwan but raised in the United States. I feel proud and privileged to have been raised as an American, but still there was always a part of me that seemed dormant, a side of me I had yet to discover, a whole culture left unexplored.
Twenty-three hours of flight time from Orlando, Florida gave me ample time to anticipate what I would discover in this "foreign" land. There were hundreds of relatives I had never met. There were sights, sounds and smells never experienced. And there was a new language to learn. Most Taiwanese are multilingual, speaking Mandarin Chinese as well as a Taiwanese dialect. My relatives are Santijen (San-tee-ren), the Polynesian natives who first settled the island, and they have their own aborigine dialects. To make things easier, I chose to learn the official language, Mandarin Chinese, and crammed during the long journey.
Darkness had already settled when we touched down at the modern Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport. I was stunned by the mass of people and the unfamiliar environment. After being processed through the Customs meat grinder, I was rescued by my uncle. We escaped with all of my luggage and squeezed them into his car. Traveling on the roads of Taiwan was a frightening experience for an unadjusted American. As my uncle navigated through a sea of taxicabs and motor scooters, I instinctively grabbed for my seatbelt. To my surprise, this brought laughter from my uncle, who obviously had never used a seatbelt in his life. He continued on, driving on pure instinct. I only managed to catch brief glimpses of the famous landmarks as we drove through Taipei, the capital city. I was preoccupied, staring nervously into the unpredictable traffic ahead of me. As we left the urban sprawl and headed into the mountains, I noticed we were leaving behind all of the bright lights of the popular tourist locales. I realized that what I had to look forward to was a unique perspective on life in Taiwan, one not seen by the typical American tourist.
Most of Taiwan was asleep when we arrived at my uncle's house. I pulled myself out of the cramped Toyota and stretched my neck and shoulders to loosen the knots. After we lugged my suitcases up a steep hill to the house, I had my first real contact with the Santijen people. There were about two dozen relatives with outstretched arms. It was an emotional reunion because my mother had passed away last year and many remembered seeing me when I was a baby in her arms. I got by with a few simple phrases I knew, it was frustrating at times. I resorted to my trusted dictionary which I always had at my side, but when all else failed, I performed 'charades.' With the little conversation that took place, I did learn the importance everyone placed on family. All of my cousins called me 'brother' and made me feel at home. We ate and we drank. With every cup of rice wine, I felt more at ease. I learned it was polite to drink in unison, with someone making a toast, and everyone else raising their glasses to each other. Not once in Taiwan did I see anyone drink without raising a glass to others at the table. I was showered with toasts and affection by people I never met. They made me feel as if I had known them all my life and that I was accepted unconditionally. All of a sudden, I felt as if my 'family' grew from a dozen to hundreds of caring kinfolk. It was an overwhelming feeling I carried with me as I turned in that night. I was grateful for the songs of the tree frogs outside which lulled me to sleep.
First light was at 5:30 am, and I found myself awake and alone on the front porch. I stood spellbound, gazing at the mist-covered mountains the sun so graciously illuminated for me. The steep mountainsides, green with palms and bamboo, cradled the aborigine village of Wulai like a loving mother. Waterfalls and cold streams were everywhere, pouring into the river that flowed through town. It was the most beautiful scenery I had ever seen in my world travels. I sat for hours soaking in the peacefulness, sharing the morning with the countless butterflies of all sizes and colors. I later discovered that the island of Formosa was a butterfly collector's paradise, where many rare and beautiful species thrived. As I watched, I was certain their beauty was most appreciated there among the flora of the bamboo forests and not in glass display cases. There, among the lilies and wildflowers, they fed, providing the pollenization necessary to keep the beauty of the bamboo forests alive. My spirit was lost in this shrouded jungle, and only the piercing crows of roosters disturbed the tranquility of my thoughts. I thought about the month to come and the wonders of the land and the people I had yet to discover.
In the month that followed, I quickly took care of business for my company, giving myself plenty of time to explore the island nation. I experienced the hustle and bustle of cities like Taichung and Taipei, where the East collided head on with the West. In Taipei, there were fabulous temples, luxury hotels and department stores among the expanse of high rises. Mazes of open-air markets could be found everywhere, assaulting the senses with everything from jade statues to cobra soup. With the best of the East, Taipei also had the worst of the West. There was the nightmare of traffic that made New York City rush hour seem like a joy ride. With that came air pollution so bad that it prompted many of the pedestrians to wear face masks. With its millions of residents, Taipei had its share of social problems. As for me, the worst experience was the tiny, soggy hamburgers at McDonalds.

I spent most of my stay exploring the countryside away from the McDonalds, where I found life more peaceful and less disagreeable to my stomach. Taiwan is over ninety percent mountainous, so the landscape is dominated by steep terrain. I explored the peaceful forests and waterfalls near Wulai and fell in love with its steep, green mountains. The mountains of Wulai, however, seemed like molehills when I took a trip to the central mountain range of the island. We began with the majesty of Sun-Moon Lake, a famous alpine resort near Taichung. We felt adventurous and took the central highway from Taichung to Hualien, and I use the word 'highway' loosely. This roller-coaster road hugged steep passes, spanned impressive gorges, and cut through at least a hundred tunnels. In many places, the two-lane marvel of engineering was reduced to one lane or less because of the rock slides. Luckily, we were in the skilled hands of an experienced Taipei city taxi driver. Every blind turn through the clouds revealed wondrous surprises, sometimes another car or truck and, occasionally, a blaring bus. There was always a thousand-foot drop just a few feet away. My life must have passed before my eyes at least a dozen times during the drive. During one stretch, the road snaked over chilly peaks that were over ten thousand feet high. On the last leg of our trek, we toured the immense beauty of Taroka Gorge, nature's own masterpiece of marble.
Finally, our journey ended at the cliffs of Hualien, a popular seaside resort. This one-hundred mile trip 'above the clouds' took us nearly seven hours and was the most exhilerating drive of my life.
I must have met hundreds of people during my stay, each with their own interesting story to tell. I learned some interesting things about the Taiwanese people. I was surprised to find such a low crime rate on this island of twenty-six million people. Anti-crime measures are extremely tough, and guns are banned. I believe the traditional values and strong family systems that still exist in Taiwan are largely responsible. Elders are treated with respect, and families usually live together or nearby. Meals are enjoyed as a social event, and family discussions are a part of every day life. Most of these people work long, hard hours and, usually, six days a week. So Sundays are especially important to the Taiwanese, who relish what little leisure time they have. I was surprised to find so much hope and prosperity from people living so precariously with their 'big brother' next door. All males are required to serve in the military, as the shadow of China has always shaped the lives of these people. It was hard for me, as an American, to imagine living with my freedoms threatened daily.
I spent most of my time with my Santijen relatives, so I became most familiar with these people and their culture. The Taiwanese people generally consider the aborigines lower in social status because of their different background and primitive social history. With round Polynesian eyes and faces, the beauty of the Santijen is widely revered.
The Santijen are simple people with a colorful past similar to that of our own native American Indians. They lived off the land, worshipping it for all it had to offer. They farmed the hillsides and hunted on the mountaintops for monkey, snake and other game. (I only had the nerve to try a few aborigine delicacies like flying squirrel and wild mountain pig.) It was a peaceful co-existence with nature. The natives performed rituals in colorful native costumes, perhaps inspired by the colors of the butterflies and flowers around them. Headhunting was a tradition of some tribes until the 1930s. Close-knit aborigine tribes valued fertility and were often polygamous resulting in large clans. With the settlement of Formosa by Portuguese and Chinese, large populations of Santijen have disappeared, and most of their culture along with it. Nine aborigine tribes now share the island, each with its own dialect. There are only about 250,000 left and all have been 'modernized' by explorers, missionaries, occupying Japanese troops, and Chinese settlers. Some aborigine culture has been preserved, however, in aborigine villages as tourist attractions.
My relatives did not have more than one wife nor did they try to make off with my head. Those days were long over. They had become adapted to their new society, becoming business leaders, government officials and teachers, all finding a place on the social ladder. My relatives were closely tied to their traditional values, with large families, kinship and worship still prominent in their lives. Their customs, generosity and beauty were inspiring to me. But on one occasion, it did catch me off guard. At a festive family gathering, they summoned a young local girl I had just met. They had definite opinion about my being single and who was right for me. It was an awkward moment for us as they sat her next to me and bombarded her with questions. She was obviously very shy but respectfully answered. I found it hard to believe when they told me that if her parents did not have a good background, she would be no good for me. Nevertheless, they discovered the identity of her parents and were pleased. They were thrilled when they found out she was still a virgin. I was pulled aside by the family patriarch who suggested I give her a gift of 1000 NT (about $40). He said it was a traditional gesture of affection, but I refused on the grounds that I was an American and could not accept the idea. We spent the rest of that uncomfortable evening smiling and having our glasses filled for us as my relatives celebrated. The local girl and I did become friends and helped each other with our language differences.
By the time I left, I had finally become comfortable with speaking Mandarin. After being treated like a king, I had collected my priceless memories and was ready to return home. There were memories of my newfound family. There were memories of a home on the other side of the world. And there were memories of generous people working hard on their tiny island, nurturing their nation to grow and prosper.
Taiwan was truly a paradise, with people as colorful as the butterflies in the bamboo forest. I brought back with me something more valuable than new business clients, the knowledge that I was a part of something as rare and beautiful as the Santijen.

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