Indigenous Story: Mountain People 1 – Village Life Overview

Lesser known to the travelers, Taiwan actually offers tremendous outdoor activities and cultures outside of its capital city Taipei. Formed at a complex convergent boundary in the Pacific Ocean, Taiwan has several peaks over 3,500 m, numerous canyons, gorges, submarine volcanoes, rapids, point breaks, and natural hot springs. Translation: FUN!!

We would recommend focusing on the east part of Taiwan for your adventure holidays. Dominated by five mountain ranges, it includes more than two hundred peaks with elevations of over 3,000 m (9,800 ft). The highest peak Yu Shan (a.k.a. Jade Mountain) at 3,952 meters (12,966 ft) makes Taiwan the world's fourth-highest island. The seafloor contains of various types of rocks and corals, which makes the coast great for water sports. 

Photo souce: wiki

Besides the obvious outdoor fun adventures, the East coast also presents the diversity of the culture in Taiwan. It is the homeland of indigenous people. Researchers believe that the native people in Taiwan are Austronesians that first migrated to Taiwan 15,000 years ago.  

Nine officially recognized tribes live in the villages scattered along the coast and in the high mountains. Many of them still preserve their traditional beliefs, languages and practices. They still hunt for food in a certain season. Most of villagers have their own veggie gardens, farms, hog logs, poultry rings, or goat pens. 

Living in the village for a few days and joining their activities is the best way to experience their life style. Though once famous for their headhunting custom, modern indigenous people are friendly and hospitable… trust me. :D Nowadays it has become a culture adventure without sacrifices.  We highly recommend this unique travelling experience in Taiwan. Please contact us if you questions or need help to set up a trip to the tribe.

We will cover more stories about the indigenous people, the village life style, and their interaction with other cultures in the Indigenous Story series. We hope these stories will help you understand the indigenous people and enhance your travel experience in Taiwan when interacting with locals. Stay tune.   

Please see links below for more information:

Taiwan travel information: indigenous people in Taiwan

Taiwan travelinformation: Austronesian

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Friends in Taiwan
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Chasing the XXL swell this weekend?

source: surfline

Find the best hotel deals here:

Hotelcombined 

Booking.com 

Agoda

Lay over Taiwan for a R&R post XXL swell vacation with food, hot springs, foot massages… and perhaps some fun surf and adventures?!  : )  Surfline forecasts 5-6 ft for South East coast (Taitung and Pingtung) of Taiwan for the next few days.  If you live close by, hop on a plane for some fun waves in Taiwan!!

Surfline:

“A massive storm in the southern Indian Ocean will set up the largest swell of the year, thus far, for West Australia and Indonesia later this week and this weekend. This will likely be one of the largest swells of the past several years for both regions as well.”

Besides Indo ad Australia, we will see the swell in Maldives, New Zealand, and Fiji.

See full report here.

Magic Seaweed

“A giant storm forecast well over a fortnight in advance will hit Indonesia and beyond on the weekend of the 27th / 28th June. While it won’t be the largest swell ever seen, or even the largest in a typical season, it’s unusual in its intense, focused energy and peak period. Less juggernaut and more high speed bullet train, this swell should produce epic conditions in the Indian Ocean, but more incredibly could produce waves over 11,000 miles away on the coasts of the Americas. This is one storm which will be heard around the world.”

See full report here. 

Taiwan Surf Forecast 

Pingtung and Taitung shares similar reports on surfline.

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Friends in Taiwan
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Tofu Pudding and a Hot Seller

A picture of a guy in a tofu pudding shop in Taipei, Taiwan went viral in the local market recently.  I thought it is a great opportunity to talk about the delicious snack… and of course the guy.

Photo Source: Tonji Tofu Pudding

What is tofu pudding?

Touhua is the Chinese name of tofu pudding. The delicious snack is originated from China and evolved in various forms in different parts of Asia. The Taiwanese style of tofu pudding is made of soft tofu and some sort of sugar water.

What makes good tofu pudding?

It might look simple but there are many techniques hidden in this simple recipe. As mentioned in our travel website, food is a big thing in Taiwanese culture and the industry is competitive. This little simple snack is not an exception.

Vendors compete on the ingredients and techniques of making sweet tofu. Majority of tofu pudding places make their own tofu and every shop has its own special taste. Some health conscious vendors make tofu with non-GMO soybeans or black soybeans.

Vendors also compete on the “sugar water”. They don‘t just mix sugar and water. It is like the soup base to beef noodles or ramen. It plays an important role. Vendors usually cook and filter their own sugar water from the sugarcane juice or honey. Some would add ginger in the mix. Milk is a new alternative for those who want to try something new.

Besides sweet tofu and sugar water, most of vendors also provide extra toppings, such as peanuts or boba (i.e. tapioca balls. Please see this post for more details)

The tofu pudding guy in the news

Photo source: blogger Yuanba

Recently tofu pudding becomes a hot topic in Taiwan due to a viral picture of a hot and shirtless seller at a local tofu pudding shop posted online. According to the post, the author claimed that he followed the long line outside of a local tofu pudding shop and discovered that it was the hot tofu pudding server, not the tofu pudding, that attracted ladies in line. The series of candid shots of this tofu pudding guy went viral quickly. But many people argued that it was yet another marketing campaign of the model agency that the hot server worked for or a campaign of a mobile phone company, Samsung that the author mentioned at least 10 times in his post. Haha.  

Is he the hottest tofu pudding guy you have ever seen in Taiwan? Please leave a comment below and let us know. If you are travelling in Taiwan, stop by the shop and check out yourself. Don’t forget to taste the delicious Taiwanese snack. People watching can be an alternative tourism sightseeing attraction in Taiwan.  Haha. According to the post, he is nephew of the owner and he doesn’t work in the shop every day.  BUT the good news is that the tofu pudding shop is well known for the great taste and their all nature tofu. THAT is guaranteed. 

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Friends in Taiwan
info@friendsintaiwan.net | FriendsInTaiwan.net

Indigenous Story: One Graduate, 300 Guests

Photo source: Heping Elementary School

Taiwan’s east coast is the homeland of indigenous people. Researchers believe that the native people in Taiwan are Austronesians that first migrated to Taiwan 15,000 years ago.  Nine officially recognized tribes live in the villages scattered along the coast and in the high mountains. Many of them still preserve their traditional beliefs, languages and practices. They still hunt for food in a certain season. Most of villagers have their own veggie gardens, farms, hog logs, poultry rings, or goat pens. However, the valuable tribe cultures are under the threat by the urbanization and tourism expansion.

Mini elementary school in a tribe is an example. Urbanization causes more and more young people migrate to cities. China’s outbound booming tourism not only brings tourists but also investors to buy out indigenous communities and their land. The two factors cause less and less students in the tribal elementary schools and therefore the problems of resources and quality of education in the tribes.

Photo Source: Heping Elementary School

Heping elementary school in Taitung, Taiwan is one of the mini tribal schools. Located just a few miles away from the Pacific Ocean, the Amis tribal school celebrated a graduation for their one and only graduate, Ting-Wei Chen yesterday, with 300 guests. (Amis is one of the nine officially recognized tribes). The school invited the tribe and tourists to the carnival-like graduation ceremony. Guests experienced the tribal coming of age traditions, tasted local food and tried fun activities in the farmer’s market set up in the school. At a corner of the market, real estate ads written by the students showed how the Heping community was more valuable than the real estate prices the outside investors were paying to acquire the land. The event raised the public awareness on the impact of the urbanization and tourism boom. The school will be demoted next year due to the lack of students. That means the current 21 students will have to commute between a larger, further school and their mini local branch school due to the limited educational resources. Check out the school’s facebook page for more photos.

 

As mentioned before, the east coast of Taiwan offers many outdoor activities and a great diversity of cultures. Visiting mini tribal schools is a tourism attraction to many people. If you are interested in interacting with local indigenous kids, such as teaching them easy English, a song, or playing soccer, baseball.. etc, we could help you set up a tour. Long term volunteer tours could be arranged as well.  The unique adventure would enrich both your Taiwan travel experience and local kids’ growing experiences.  Contact us today for more details.

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Friends in Taiwan
info@friendsintaiwan.net | FriendsInTaiwan.net

Taiwan Seafood Guide in PDF Now Available

Taiwan Fish Database released a PDF version of Taiwan seafood guide. Please feel free to download here. We think it might be easier to save the screen shots on your phone when you travel to Taiwan. But if you would like to print it out or download the pdf to your phone, this would be a great choice.

To save the screen shots of the seafood guide, visit Taiwan Fish Database website.

Know before you go! For the complete story, check out our previous post about Taiwan seafood guide.

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Friends in Taiwan
info@friendsintaiwan.net | FriendsInTaiwan.net