Shopping for Clothing and Dumplings

Well, last Friday, I went to a store in Hukou (near me) to look at Chinese style clothing.  I am a big Westerner who at my thinnest would have trouble finding clothing here.  As one who needs to lose weight, I accept that I am just out of luck here on clothing most of the time.  But, my friend Jennifer accomplished the impossible!  I found clothing in my size.  I did not not have even look for it myself.  I was measured, and then  the proper size clothing was handed back to me.  I bought a pinkish red jacket, with a tropical flower on the back that buttons up in Chinese style, and two larger pull-overs-again like Chinese jackets for  the winter.  When I turned next to shoe buying I was on more solid ground so to speak.  My feet at size six and 1/2  are well within Chinese size range.  So, when I started trying on slip-on thong-like shoes with a wooden heel and gold straps, the ladies in the store complimented me on my "lotus feet."-which used to mean of course feet that had been bound into a tiny shape not so long ago!  My new shoes have straps wide enough to be inscribed with a traditional Tang poem.  My friend Jennifer, a colleague from Kaoshiung, who is as tiny all over as I am big, was wonderful in negotiating a cheaper price for me from this store, which is run like a clothing warehouse.  She is a Tang dynasty poetry scholar; she promised to translate the poem on my shoes next week!   She also expanded on the translation for Hsinchu.  Hsin means "new" and Chu means "bamboo."  So the full character for Hsinchu pictured on this blog  literally means:  New Bamboo.  Jennifer lives in Jhubei, which could be spelled "Chubei."  Bei means north in Mandarin.  Chu still means bamboo.  Therefore, Jhubei, which is very near Hsinchu means: Bamboo North, or North Bamboo.  The same logic applies to towns here.  Taipei can also be spelled Taibei, and means Tai North, or Taiwan North.  Nan means south;  Tainan, means Taiwan South-Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan south of here.  Taichung means Taiwan Middle, and Taidong or Taitung means Taiwan East.  See the related character combos in my pictures.  I am working to learn these place names, because already, just knowing the characters can prevent me from getting lost, particularly in the south-where English signs are not so plentiful.  Taiwan itself roughly translates as a platform for a bay.  But my friend Catherine in the office, who helped me translate this word  said that often Chinese words do not combine meanings so logically for every word or pair of words.  Sometimes two characters are just put together because someone thought the two would look nice together regardless of  the meaning.   This is the picture side of the characters.  She does not think anyone was really thinking of a meaning when Taiwan was originally put together as a character pair.  I think the characters for Taiwan  are pretty-perhaps their pleasing look to the eye is what prompted someone to put them together as a pair.

After buying my new wardrobe, Jennifer and I went out to eat dumplings, a very Chinese delicacy.  They are steamed and have a variety of stuffings and sauces in which one dips these savory little morsels. The sauces are soya, or vinegar based with garlic or ginger.  One goes to a special table to pick one's sauce as carefully as one picks the stuffing for one's serving of  dumplings.  Each region of China and Taiwan has their own dumpling specialty. The trick of course is picking  the slippery dumplings up with  chopsticks.  I managed this pretty well last Friday!  I have learned that the secret is to pick up the bowl while eating-so that I do not have to transport any bite of food too far.  This is the Chinese way, to place the bowl just under the mouth, and then to use one's chopsticks.  Bowls are tiny-so one is never lifting a large amount of food in this technique.

The Tang dynasty ruled China from 600 A.D. to about 900 A.D. and is considered the "Golden Age" dynasty,  in which China became a world power in Asia.  It was in this dynasty that China spread its culture to Japan and Korea, invented printing, and began to dominate this part of the world culturally.  Chinese people learn Tang era poetry the way we learn Shakespeare sonnets in the West.  It is great to have an immortal Tang poem on my new pair of shoes.

There is  the week's snapshot-gracious living-so easy to do here in Taiwan. Shopping followed by a good meal.