A traditional Chinese New Year with my Taiwanese family

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After four years of dating Emily and living with her family in Taipei, my time has finally come to participate in what some call the largest annual migration of people in the world: the Chinese custom of 返鄉 (returning to one’s hometown) to celebrate Chinese New Year. With New Year’s Eve falling on a Saturday this year, the highways are bound to be clogged, but getting a pre-dawn head start we effectively avoid a the standstill traffic jams that the holiday is famous for across the Chinese-speaking world.



Emily’s paternal ancestors are likely descendants of an early migration from China to Taiwan in the 1600s. These settlers from the mainland, most of who were fishermen and pilgrims looking for new land, first arrived on the coastal areas of Tainan and Chiayi, the latter being the location of Emily’s father's hometown. Emily’s family name is 鄭 (Zheng), the same as 鄭成功 (Zheng Cheng Gong, or ‘Koxinga’), the Chinese merchant pirate who is revered in Taiwan for having defeated the Dutch at Tainan in 1661-1662, and is considered one of the founding fathers of Taiwan.



The rural landscape surrounding my soon-to-be father in law’s hometown, 洲仔 (Zhouzai) - a tiny village near the harbor town of布袋 (Budai), where ferries depart for the offshore islands of the Penghu Archipelago) and less than an hour’s drive north of Tainan - looks like it has hardly changed in 300 years. Zhouzai is only a few kilometers inland, and the countryside consists mostly of canals, waterways, and fish farms. Elevated roadways give the impression that we are driving on the sea, dotted here and there with explosively colorful temples, which form the focal points of villages and hamlets such as the one where we will stay. Most of the local inhabitants still live off of the sea, or channel its waters into their fields (with soil that is already too salty to grow substantial crops), as they have done for centuries.



Chiayi sits right on the tropic of cancer, and is hot (by my Canadian standards) year round. The smell of ocean life permeates the air as we step out of the car. Zhouzai only has a few streets, all of which lead to the main temple. Overflowing baskets of giant oyster shells stand in the courtyards of nearly every home, with elderly women often seen hunched over, painstakingly prying the clunky shells open one at a time. Emily’s grandmother’s home is a mere 100 meters from the ornate temple, from where announcements are made every hour or so, typically regarding the arrival of a truck selling this kind of fish or that in the temple’s parking lot.



Only four nights prior, I’d slept for a night in that temple. Emily’s grandmother had passed away, and with so many relatives spending the night to wake for the 7am funeral, we were accommodated in the temple dorms. The funeral has put a damper on this year’s New Year festivities, with fewer relatives making the return trip only a few days later than would normally be expected. The traditional funeral was a new experience for me, in which I wore a white cloak and hat, crawled on the cement around the coffin, mourned into a microphone for the grandmother I’d met only once, and touched my forehead on the ground while prostrating in the street. Ghost money was also burned by the barrel full in the days leading up to the main funeral ceremony; some 180,000NTD (6000USD) worth of it I’d been told.



Once the funeral was officially completed and a grand lunch ensued, I’d made it known, upon meeting countless new faces, that I could drink. Taiwanese-style drinking, particularly in the South, is a fiercely competitive affair - a sort of hospitality-by-forced intoxication - with the ultimate goal, as they state openly, being to “knock you off your feet”. Well, on my feet I was knocked, or rather mostly on my hands and knees at the side of the highway and in rest stops, vomiting my brains out, as we made the 5-hour return drive to Taiwan that afternoon.



With three whole days to spend with the relatives this time around, I have to learn how to pace myself in the face of their aggressive calls to 乾杯 (gan bei), literally, “empty glass”, or in Emily’s family ‘kan pai’ (the Japanese pronunciation, given that Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945), or of course, in Taiwanese (‘gan bui’ or ‘hou da la’), the first and often only language of many of those in attendance.



One technique that can be adopted to avoid immediate intoxication when drinking with rural Taiwanese folk is to say 隨意 (sui yi) instead, meaning “as you wish” (i.e. only take a sip), but they don’t usually let me get away with that. Another tactic that I adopt is to switch to hard alcohol, that is, 高粱 (Gaoliang), the potent distilled sorghum liquor that is brewed on Jinmen Island off the coast of Fujian province, and is the firewater of choice across Taiwan. Ranging from 38-63% in alcohol, this may not sound like the smartest choice, but in fact when consuming the poison you are only expected to take a small sip instead of pounding the whole glass, as is the custom with beer. I’d been finding that what was making me throw up was not so much the level of intoxication as the habit of chugging numerous glasses of foamy beer in a row, as is the Chinese custom, directly after consuming an enormous meal. A final trick that I employ is to just casually disappear and hide out discreetly at a small fishpond down the road, with willows at its side that provide me with ample camouflage from family members.



The food prepared by the women in Emily’s family is not much different than what they eat normally, but delicious nonetheless. Fish, chicken, white radish, green vegetables, oranges, and spongy cakes are auspicious foods eaten at Chinese New Year because their names sounds similar in Chinese to words or expressions meaning “good luck”, “earn a fortune”, etc. Dolphin meat is an exotic addition to the feast; whether it is legal to kill in Taiwan or not I am not so certain.



Besides eating and drinking, playing mahjong is a third major activity that accounts for most of the family time spent together at Chinese New Year. I enjoy playing the game at a leisurely pace, gambling with sips of beer or small sums of money, but am shocked by the speed and seriousness with which Emily’s father and uncles play, often smoking with one hand while manipulating and placing their tiles with the other. Each round finishes with little emotion shown by either the winner or the losers, who hand over blue ($1000) bills. Even the children in the family gamble with simple card games, carefully guarding their bowls of coins and betting no more than $10 at a time.



At night, Emily’s uncles hand out 紅包 (hong bao, or red envelopes) to the children, who run excitedly to hand over the cash to their parents. I enjoy watching these affectionate gestures coming from the upper ranks of the family, men hardened and darkened by years of labor in the sun, and with whom I have nothing in common, but much respect, and also with whom I cannot share a word, given that they speak Taiwanese only and not Chinese. These men drink only Gaoliang, regarding beer as a sissy beverage, and when other family members toast, at least one of them shouts out a command to empty their glasses. In fact, tradition dictates that each adult family member arriving to celebrate Chinese New Year, myself no exception, must drink a shot with them first, in descending order (from oldest uncle to youngest).



At midnight, the children go outside to set off firecrackers, fireworks, and sparklers on the street and we go to bed. Fireworks from other homes in the village, and from neighboring villages, are heard well into the night and following days. We retire within the ancient walls of Emily’s recently deceased grandmother’s house, a traditional Chinese 三合院 (san he yuan), or three sided courtyard house, which typically face south. We stay in the quarters of Emily’s grandmother, on the eastern side (the word ‘landlord’ in Chinese, 房東, literally means ‘house-east’), while the family altar is located in the central part, and another group of relatives lives on the west side. The ancient walls smell of time, and do little to keep out mosquitoes at night, or even a bat that finds its way in and circles the main room at night.



In the days that follow I also experience 拜年 (bai nian), the Chinese New Year custom of ‘dropping in on family/friends/neighbors’. Random people show up almost non-stop, welcomed into the mix with shots and food, and then disappear just as quickly. Neighbors from the village (most of whom are related to Emily’s family) accost me and force me to sing KTV in one house; I choose the only two songs on their short list of English tunes that I have even heard of, let alone can actually sing, and my terrible voice is blasted through speakers to the entire neighborhood. Another family invites me in for tea, fresh tomatoes from their garden, and of course, more Gaoliang. Yet another family has an espresso machine hauled down by one city family and make me a latte in their courtyard.



Walking past one household, I notice my father-in-law, along with a dozen or so other men, crowded around a table observing some kind of commotion. As I approach, I note two men holding a small wooden chair above a large table that is padded with a slab of black rubber. They men are beating the chair frantically on the table is bursts, or rather it seems the chair is acting on its own and they are merely keeping it in their grip. An elderly man in a suit and tie, who appears to be in a sort of trance, stands at the side muttering in Taiwanese. Villagers take turns asking questions to the spirits, and the man interprets their responses through the motions in the chair. Next, some ghost money is brought out, the chair draws patterns on the table, and the man writes down some characters on the sheets. Some will be auspicious symbols to be painted later on 紅紙 (red paper) and hung inside and outside of people’s homes; others dictate ritual advice or answers to questions posed. Emily’s father asks about the chance of his cancer recurring; the answer he receives does not seem pleasing.



Day 2 of the Chinese year is called 回娘家 (hui niang jia), when married females return to their parents’ homes. A new mob of Emily’s cousins and their children show up. We had planned to visit the family of Emily’s deceased mother today, but funeral taboos prohibit us from visiting other relatives during the first 100 days of mourning over her grandmother.



By day 3 we are ready to return north, along with what seems like half of the population of Taiwan. I’ve always noticed that Taiwanese families are not as big on helloes and farewells as we Westerners are accustomed to, and our departure is no exception. Few people look up from their Mahjong boards or heated card games as we cart our belongings (and three huge sacks containing about a hundred canned drinks, leftovers from some props used in the funeral) out to the car, and most of the aunts are uncles who live in the village are nowhere to be seen. They know we will all be back again, year after year, to wish one another good luck, fortune, prosperity and bring in another new year together as a family.



For more of my photos and travel stories, or to buy my book "Taiwan in the Eyes of a Foreigner", visit www.nickkembel.com

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Comments

[台北人]

Just for reference
國姓爺(Koxinga) is actually 鄭森 or more widely known, 鄭成功. 鄭芝龍 is Koxinga' s father. BTW, interesting article though. lol