Yesterday, while I was bike riding
up the Han River to read a book, my wife sent me a Line message; would I like
to visit Bobao in Taichung Park? "Of course," was my reply. I feared
another boring weekend day in the condo avoiding the crowds around Taiwan.
Instead, I took a deep breath and when I got home from my ride, we hopped on
the scooter and headed over to Yi-Song Street for lunch before crossing Jin-Wu
Road into Taichung Park.
Bobao is the Tai-Ya
man we met in Guguan, the one who makes the traditional Jew's Harps called
le-ong and does cultural tours around Taiwan and the world introducing Taiwan's
indigenous people's culture. There was to be a fair at the park with his booth
included among the other colorful traditional clothing and homegrown produce;
tangy apples from Pear Mountain.
Taichung Park is tiny compared
with Prospect Park in Brooklyn, but it is still big enough to lose your way
once you enter. Like blind-man's bluff with an elephant, one side of the park
feels like a sports center with tennis courts, another side has shrines left
from the Japanese park's creators, defaced by the Kuomintang, of course,
replaced by the DPP, of course. Another side of the park has a running track
for Guang-Fu Elementary School. To the center of the park lies the heart of Taichung,
the landmark twin pagodas on an island in the middle of a rowboat lake, high
fountains, and birds in shady trees. Where was Bobao's
booth?
The Facebook post
said Bobao was near the red bridge leading to the pagoda island. Entering from
Yi-Song Street, one first passes the running track and sees the large
twelve-year-old goat lantern. Alas, we found tents and heard a sound stage.
Surly Bobao was there. We crossed a green lawn
with dozens of picnickers' blankets, hundreds of picnicking people
with snacks, beverages, some alcoholic, even some smoking cigarettes and bidis,
the traditional smoke of Asia Minor. We realized we had walked into the
weekly Sunday gathering of Indonesian guest laborers enjoying their day off
from the factories they toil at in Tan-Tzu, Feng yuan, and areas around
Taichung. From miles around, Indonesian guest laborers, many of them practicing
Muslims, make their way on Taiwan Railroad and walk the mile or so
through the downtown Taichung business district to Taichung
Park. With their finest clothes, men and women in modern t-shirts and caps, the
more orthodox women in saris and burkas, they don't feel alone far from home.
Too bad the good Han Chinese of Taiwan are having none of it.
To most
Taiwanese, Taichung Park has been 'taken over' by the foreign laborers on
weekends. Having already 'lost' Taichung Park on weekdays to homeless people,
the nights to prostitutes and unsavory sorts, local Taiwanese have painted
themselves into a corner in this; one of the most beautiful gifts left by the
Japanese when Taiwan was their colony from 1898 to 1945, a colony fully
incorporated into Japanese territory with amenities for the locals such as
parks, shrines, railroads, department stores, willow washes.
The Indonesian government will be ending their foreign
worker contract with Taiwan in 2017 because of the booming economy and the need
for more workers back home, but until then, the 174,662 Indonesian foreign care
workers (30% of the 580,000 migrant workers; another 20% Filipino) will
continue their 'blood-sweat' jobs for decades of their lives working more than
ten hours a day caring for Taiwan's elderly, with little time off and exclusion
from protection under the Labor Standards Act. When they
leave Taiwan, they will be replaced by migrant workers returning from
Vietnam, and now Myanmar and Cambodia to help ease the labor shortage in a
rapidly aging population.
Sunday is their glorious day, thanks to Allah, to socialize
in Taichung Park.
Taichung Park
had had its Taiwanese heyday in the sixties and eighties until downtown was
abandoned by Far Eastern Dept Store after two fires, the movie theaters closed,
and seedy pachinko parlors catered to errant youth lost in modern western
schlock culture, on amphetamine. Even Sea King Restaurant and
McDonald's restaurants fled the Taichung's skid row as the
affluent-minded, Mayor Hu, abandoned the beautiful old city hall building and
moved Taichung's government to the Westside. The politicians gave up downtown
and Taichung Park; not the people. The underworld and foreign laborers then
took it over.
Now with the downtown revival movement picking up steam, thanks to
our new Mayor Lin, Taichung Park is benefiting from the rehabilitation with the
space used for the Lantern Festival, and events such as the Indigenous Festival
we went looking for yesterday.
Finally, we found it, across the stone bridges over the
lake, near the entrance to the park on the east side, there was Bobao's stall
occupied by he and his lovely wife, drawing interest in the bamboo
creations he had on display, playing his le-ong, holding a mini-workshop
for the much too few Taiwanese
who came to be part of the festival.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian guest laborers looked on in curiosity, basically
leaning on the ledges of the bridges and the walkway behind the lake, not
getting involved much with the Indigenous festival, though there were some
brave souls who literally crossed the bridges to join the other side. As few as
there were, there were hardly any Han Taiwanese who crossed the other way
besides an enterprising lottery card hawker. Taichung is not going to become an
international city so long as there is suspicion and prejudice against the two
sides. It seems like only Taiwan's indigenous people are capable of bridging
that gap, though they have to learn some sensitivity, too.
Whoever had the idea to roast a whole pig and display
it near the festival was unaware of the un-halal pork to the Muslims from
Indonesia. Call it half-assed planning, but whoever oversaw these two festivals
on either side of Taichung Park, spent no time interfacing or incorporating the
two.
It almost felt like a Sunday afternoon in Central
Park, NYC, where steel kettle drums share the space with t'ai-chi dancers,
hipsters, sunbathers, rollerbladers, and families on their way to the zoo.
Taichung Park can be just like that, but someone in government has to try
harder to do so. Mayor Lin is trying.
Mayor Lin has the idea of
turning First Square into an international food court. First Square is
the old First Taichung market built by the Japanese and used for years by
locals for the freshest produce and meats. It has come into the old pattern of
not being kept up with the times and becoming relegated to the second-class
foreign laborers, and shunned by Han Taiwanese.
Mayor Lin, feeling the strength of Taichung’s powerful
international community, is making First Square into a palace. The old adage
applies: "When the good Lord gives you broken lemons, you make
lemonade." The foreign laborers are already here; let's give them their
place at the table and integrate them into Taiwan's mosaic. But will the Han
Chinese of Taiwan balk? There is a lot of prejudice that has to be
exposed, dealt with, and overcome.
Making an international food court for
Indonesian, Filipino, Cambodian, Indian, Japanese, Myanmar, Korean,
Thai and Indian Asian neighbors is the ticket home! The color barrier that Han
Taiwanese put up must be put into its racist grave. If they are not part of the
solution, they are part of the problem.
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