Tainan's Provintia represents the rise and fall of Dutch colonial power in Taiwan

Few Taiwanese knows the name: Provintia; but they know the name Zeecando 赤崁樓 because today every Taiwanese call this fort in Tainan as the Zeecando fort. Its original name was Provintia. This fort facing Zeelandin (today's Anping Fort) across Taichiang Interior Sea 台江内诲 (see the attached map) in the 17th century was built by the Dutch after they suppressed Kuo Hwei-I's 郭懷一 rebellion in 1652. Kuo Hwei-I's rebellion was triggered by the Dutch's ruthless ruling and unfair tax system. In that rebellion, 4000-5000 Han-Taiwanese (about 1/4 of total Han-Taiwanese population) participated in the freedom struggle against the Dutch. The Dutch allied with Aborigine-Taiwanese and successfully suppressed Han-Taiwanese with superior weaponry and firing power.

In 1661, Koxinga 国姓爺 retook this fort and used this fort as a base attacking the Dutch defending the Zeelandin (Anping fort). After 9 months, the Dutch surrendered and with the surrender, the Dutch lost her colonial domination in Taiwan in 1662.

Did Dutch ever thought about re-taking Taiwan after 1662? Yes, they did. In 1664, Dutch allied with the Chinese (Ching dynasty) and attacked Keelung; but both the Chinese and the Dutch were successfully repelled by Taiwanese under Cheng-Chin's 鄭經 administration. After 1664, Dutch influence over Taiwan was reduced to only missionary work and nothing else. Well, I learned about this part of history only recently. How about you?

Regarding 台江内诲 or the Taichiang Interior Sea, it now completely disappears. You only see the high-rise building and land in today Tainan's landscape.

A Tainan's To-Fu delicacy takes a strange name...

What is this in the picture? It is called the coffin plate, 棺材板. Actually, it is a name of food, a Tainan's special delicacy. The outside of a square box is made of fried Tofu; inside the box is a paste made of eggs, starch and oyster. It is yammi- yammi, or O-Yi-shi (in Japanese) even the name of the food is disgusting.

Jamal was almost perfect; and Salim was more like a regular human being...

Jamal in the movie, "Slumdog Millionaire" was almost flawless in character. He was compassionate to give shelter to Latika who just lost her parent and gave $100 to his blind begging friend Javed on a Bombay street. He was courageous to rescue Latika from a local gang. He was honest to give detective complete account of the story. However, he and his brother did cheat (pretending to be tourist guides) at a famous Indian museum to earn innocent American tourists' dollars.

Jamal's brother, Salim, on the other hand, was a complex character. On one hand, Salim was courageous not to follow Mr. Chi's direction to betray his brother. Salim also help Jamel to rescue Latika from Mr. Chi. At the end of the story, he helped Latika escape knowing in doing so, he could be killed by the gang. On the other hand, Salim was also selfish. He locked up his brother in the outhouse so that Jamal could not get the autograph from a famous movie star; he turned his back when Latika asked silently to come to the shelter with the boys (Later, he reluctantly allowed his brother inviting Latika to join them by pretending to be asleep.) The most ugly part in Salim was he forced his brother Jamal at a gun point to give up Latika and took Latika by force.

The complex characters in Salim are almost reflection of a real human being at different circumstances.

Jamal won 200 million rupees. But behind the winning, it was blood, sadness, and love...

I went to see the movie, "Slumdog Millionaire" with 4 students of Chung-Hsing University on April 7, 2009. I was very moved by the miserable and sad stories behind the winning of 200 million rupees of Jamal. It will take several posting for me to re-tell this story in my own words.

The character Jamal Malik was an 18-old boy grew up in a slum in Bombay with his brother Salim. How he could possible know every answer of the questions asked by Kumar who was hosting a show, "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" For example, how could Jamal know that the portrait in the $100 US dollar bill is Benjamin Franklin? Jamal told the police that his blind friend, Javed told him. Javed was singing and begging on a Bombay's street. Jamal recognized Javed that Javed grew up together with Jamal, Salim (Jamal's brother), Latika (Jamal's friend) under the supervision of a local gang, Mr. Chi. Mr. Chi picked up orphans from Bombay's street and gave orphans food and shelter. Being a gang, Mr Chi also drove the orphans to beg on the street to make money for him. In the evening, he would teach the kids to sing. Do not think Mr. Chi a good guy because he was teaching kids to sing at night. Once the kid knew how to sing well, he made the kid blind because a blind singer-beggar would get more money for him on the street. (The scene of making the kid blind is too graphic to be described here in the post.) Javed was one of Mr. Chi's victims; both Jamal and Salim escaped Mr. Chi's control. Out of sympathy, Jamal gave Javed $100 dollar bill. Javed asked Jamal, "who is on the bill?". Jamal said he did not know the name but he described the person to Javed. Javed said that the portrait was Benjamin Franklin and was a $100 bill.

Where and how Jamal got this $100 bill and who is Latika? Those stories will be reported later if you are interested in reading more.

Wu-Feng Presbyterian chuch had 45 minutes of ancester's memorial service on the weekends of Chingming Festival Weekends.

What are the differences between the Presbyterian Church in the United States besides the language of the service? I am now reporting one major difference is the annual memorial services for the deceased members. The dates of the service are different; it is the All Saint Day in the United States while in Taiwan, it is on the Sunday of the Chingming Festival (清明, literally means clear and brighter) the Tomb-Sweeping Day which is on April 4. The other difference is the degree of elaboration of the celebration. In the States, it was about 5 minutes, with the somber bell-ring to show the respect to the deceased church members of the previous year. At Wu-Feng church, it was 45 minutes service for deceased church members for many generations.

Chingming Festival is a big holiday for Taiwanese, especially for Han 漢-Taiwanese. On this holiday, Han-Taiwanese of folk religion would sweep the tomb of ancestors, burn the incense, and place paper-silver-money (money used in the deceased world) on the tomb, and offer food and fruit to the ancestors. Han-Taiwanese Christians do not burn incense, do not offer deceased-world-money. They do the memorial service and offer a bow and flowers instead.

Taiwanese loves fire work

In the United States, fire work is allowed only on the US national day, or July 4. The police can fine a person lighting up a fire work illegally on the street.

In 2007, Meeilei and I were in Mexico. We both found that Mexican loves fire work much more than the Americans. Three days out of seven when we were in Mexico, Mexicans did spectacular fire works.

If you say the number of fire works in Mexico is three times as much as in the United States, then the number of fire works is Taiwan will be 5 times as much as those in Mexico; and would be 15 times as much as those in the United States. Taiwanese will find any occasion to celebrate with the fire works. Fire work on Lunar monthly first and Lunar monthly 15th day that are slated for gods' offering days. Lunar monthly 2nd day is slated for the Earth God, or Tu-Ti-Kon 土地公. Of course there are no violation of the law if you choose to celebrate Tu-Ti-Kon's 土地公offering day with the firework.

The biggest occasion for Taiwanese to celebrate with fire work is the month of goddess Ma-Ju's 媽祖 birthday (Lunar March 23). This year, hundred of thousands worshippers started their pilgrim journey from Ta-Jau township 大甲镇 of the Taichung county on March 23. The worshippers walked or biked with a whole journey of 323 km to Hsing-Kan 新港 of Yun-Lin 雲林County. On March 28 when I was in Chang-Hua, the pilgrim crowds were in Chang-Hua and in the evening, the whole Chang-Hua city became a fire work city; it was literally all night celebration: Forget about sleep. Mother would tell her kids that it is a celebration of Ma-Ju 媽祖; on this day, sleep can take a second priority.

Photo was download from a web site

http://blog.yam.com/meson/article/20103625 describing the celebration of Ma-Ju's 媽祖pilgrim at Ta-Ja township 大甲镇 in 2008.

I have friends come-over today; and it was very good...

I have lived at school's residence more than 6 months. Thing begin to accumulate at the place. Last weekend, when my brother, Wen-Kai 文楷, and my sister-in-law, 翠美, came over my living quarter, I felt a bit of embarrassment. I think it is a time to have a spring clean-up.

Then, I got an idea. Why don't I ask friends to come over my place? This will give me a strong motivation to clean-up the place. The strategy works very well. I mopped, wiped, and work all day long on Thursday to clean up the place. By the time this morning, the place is sparklingly clean. My residence is presentable.

My ki-kong's friends came over after their morning ki-kong's exercise practice. I greeted them with breads, milk, soy milk, fruits, peanuts, coffee and a big smile. We had wonderful time. This is a group that I had ki-kong's exercise every morning. I had good time with them all through the year.

Photo shows the group picture taken at my residence.