In Taiwan, don’t be alarmed if you’re offered a glass of a dark liquid. Gruesome as it may look, this murky drink will not upset your bowels, nor is it meant to test your courage. This is actually grass jelly tea, made from xiancao, a.k.a. Chinese mesona (Platostoma palustre). In summer, you have it cold, with grass jelly—also made from xiancao plants—enjoying the smooth texture of the jelly cubes as they glide down your tongue.
What kind of food carries on the dietary knowledge and wisdom of past generations while also being popular with contemporary gourmets and gourmands?
Hsu Zong, a culinary writer whose mission in life is to spread Taiwan’s dietary culture, proposes four criteria: The first is that the food can be stored at room temperature. The second is that it has stood the test of time and is even more valued today. The third is that it must have deep links with local dietary culture.
Did you know that black soybeans do not like too much sunlight? Did you know that despite their somber appearance, they’re either light green or pale yellow inside? It is thanks to their black hulls that the tea, soy milk, and soy sauce made from these beans are richly fragrant and nutritious.
Richard W. Hartzell, an American-born author who has spent nearly 50 years in Taiwan, wrote that century eggs might be the most representative Taiwanese food, because they utterly baffled the imaginations of foreign observers.
The use of technical tools created by combining sensing technology, the Internet of Things (IoT), and smart agriculture is no longer limited to large, well-funded farms. The Taiwanese startup Kiao Farming Company has developed a smart control box that enables farmers to remotely control irrigation and fertilizer application via Line, and which costs one-tenth the price of traditional control boxes.
Taiwan’s indigenous peoples have traditionally had an exceptionally close connection to bamboo, using the plant for everything from food and clothing to housing. These links are particularly evident in their architecture: they have hundreds of years of accumulated experience building bamboo structures that embody their spirit and culture.
In the wake of the government’s promotion of “inclusive finance,” the digital smart platform designed by the financial technology enterprise Eastern Union Interactive (EUI) enables foreign migrant workers in Taiwan to simply use a downloaded app to remit money back to their homelands, with lower processing fees and a better exchange rate than those offered by banks. Thus they can work in Taiwan with greater peace of mind.
Bamboo has been rooted in the hearts and souls of East Asian literati since ancient times. In the Tang Dynasty, Liu Yanfu compared the physical traits of this evergreen perennial plant to gentlemanly virtues in “On Planting Bamboo.” The Song-Dynasty writer Su Shi commented that “the absence of bamboo breeds vulgarity,” and that “one’s residence must be graced with bamboo.” Bamboo has come to symbolize high-mindedness and moral integrity.
“Three, two, one! Open the door!” On the first day of the seventh lunar month, the chairman of the Keelung joint clan association for people surnamed Zhang, Liao, and Jian opens the “shrine door” (a.k.a. “the gate to the Underworld”) at Laodagong Temple to welcome ghosts (known popularly as the “Good Brothers”) to come into the mundane world and accept offerings from ordinary people. This marks the opening of the month-long Keelung Midsummer Ghost Festival.
In an age of consumerism, an infinite array of cutting-edge products jostle for our attention, but we remain fascinated by the unassuming beauty of objects that used to bolster the daily lives of our rural communities. While not all are suitable for modern ways of life, their beauty, cultural meanings, and ingenuity continue to offer inspiration to designers today.
