Soaking at Yi-lan (宜蘭), Taiwan

 

October 2011

During my trip to Yi-lan (宜蘭), sometimes it rained heavily with strong winds. On occasions this caused flooding; and once, while we were exploring the farms on foot during such a storm, the water came up to our knees. A friend had advised me to buy a rain coat and this was a very good idea; it kept me dry and warm, and it also protected my belongings against thieves. Some of my friends only had umbrellas and they got wet from head to toe.

Unfortunately, I could not keep myself dry for long. I took off my rain coat when we had lunch. I was sitting in a narrow place behind a wall. One of my friends almost upset the table as she got up, spilling a glass of warm tea onto my shorts. I was wet through and had a big wet patch on my jeans now. Luckily, it was raining so I thought people would think this was because of rain rather than other possibilities. When I stood up to show everyone my wet jeans, they laughed.



The entrance of the restaurant, Yi-lan (宜蘭), 2011.

Have you tried jellied soup (糕渣)?
Yi-lan (宜蘭), 2011.



Chef recommendation, Yi-lan (宜蘭), 2011.

We were wet and cold. We did not want to go back to our hostel but at the same time, we didn’t know what to do as a lot of the tourist attractions were closed. So we put on our swimming costumes and went to have a hot spa, where we had a nice long soak together in the warm water. 

Spa rooms. 
We're wearing swimming costumes &
took pictures out of a spa room. Yi-lan (宜蘭), 2011.

This is Jellied Soup (糕渣),
but we didn't know what kinds of food they cooked in jelly. 
Sorry, this wasn't what I likes.
Yi-lan (宜蘭), 2011.

A Spring Onion Pancake in Taiwan

October 2011

Yi-lan (宜蘭) is an area of intensive farming on the northeast coast of Taiwan.  My first impression was of a peaceful, beautiful place with fresh air.  It is famous for its spring onions.  There are bigger than my finger, and twice the length of the ones in Hong Kong.  There was a small exhibition devoted to the cultivation of spring onions.  This was quite simple, but interesting.  I never knew spring onions could be used in so many different ways.


The small exhibition, Yilan, 2011

Inside the exhibition, Yilan, 2011

Spring onion pancakes are one my favourite savoury snacks in HK.  When I saw they were popular over there, I tried many of them from corner stores or street vendors which I passed along the street in the first two days.  After trying lots of pancakes, I found the best ones were sautéed in oil, not deep fried or burnt.  Eventually, I found a street vendor in Taipei, whose pancakes were delicious.  His handcart was surrounded by people, and he grumbled at a man for taking pictures of him.  I wanted to do the same thing, but I was anxious he would object.  Fortunately, he did not get angry with me, but smiled instead.  I thanked him for making good food and gave him a thumbs up.

The best pancakes in Taiwan, 2011

 

A Malteser Lover

An extremely fat man got on the MTR. He must have been three-hundred pounds. He was so big he took up two seats. He was carrying a large white plastic bag and holding a box of Maltesers. The box was a new design; the opening was just big enough to get one Malteser out at a time. Eating is not allowed on the train, but he ignored this. 

Evidently, he was enjoying the chocolates and he stuffed them into his mouth one by one. He had eaten them all by the next stop. He threw the empty box in the plastic bag, and took out a new box. When he finished that he took out another box. Who knows how many boxes he ate. He carried on his journey gobbling down his delicious Maltesers.

I could not see how many boxes there were in his bag, but there seemed to be about half a dozen. How many boxes had he had before he got on the train? How many boxes had he bought? How many times a week did he treat himself like this?

Maltesers boxes with new design, HK, 2015

A wad of $1 notes

I was sightseeing in New York, and I wanted a taxi. I saw one stop nearby and a couple got out. They left the door open, so I went to get in. When I bent down, I saw a wad of bank notes lying on the seat. I immediately thought one of the couple had forgotten it and I should give it back to them. I grabbed the money and walked towards them, saying, 'Execute me'. They did not realise I was talking to them and kept walking towards a building. I knew I would be late if I did not get the taxi, but I could not keep the money or take it to the police station. So I hurried after them and tried to stop them. Fortunately, the man turned around, but he did not see me at first. He looked down, and I said, ‘You dropped some money in the taxi.’ I held out the notes, and put them into his hand. Then I got into the taxi and got Broadway in time for my show.

When I got back to Hong Kong, I told my family what had happened. My brother asked how much there was. I had not checked. I had only seen the first note was a dollar, but I had seen the edges of some of the notes underneath were not the same. He thought the man might have been puzzled why a stranger would give him money; perhaps the money was not his.

An ex-millionaire

A man spoke in a loud voice at the end of the MTR train. He walked from carriage to carriage, asking the passengers a question one by one. His question was, ‘How much money is a lot for you?’ Some of the passengers held their heads down, or pretended to be sleeping. Some walked to the other carriages. The man was in his early thirties and plump. His shirt was hanging out, so his gut was faintly visible. 

The train began to fill with people and he had to stay in one place.  So he started asking the same question to the people around him. Since nobody answered, he started to talk to himself. He clearly believed he had won the Mark Six at some time, and on this theme he rambled on from one subject to another: his manager had upset him by asking him to pay attention to his work instead of the Mark Six prize money; his landlord had asked him to find money to pay his rent if he wasn’t going to win the mark six again; if he was rich, his friends would not criticise his ideas and personality; he had given one or two million dollars to his father, but his father had spent it all; he shouldn’t have listened to his father’s advice, he should have bought a house rather than putting the money in the bank; he had won nothing on the Mark Six since 2009.

He must have won several million dollars on the Mark Six, but he was young, so he can’t have managed his money very well or else he had wasted it. Whatever, there was nothing left. Maybe he thought he could win the money again rather than using his hands to make his millions.

A review of Lamb to the Slaughter

A happily married housewife, Mary Maloney, is six months pregnant and is waiting for her husband to come home from work. When he arrives, to her horror, he wants to get a divorce. Stunned, she takes a leg of lamb from the freezer, telling him there is lamb for dinner. He stands with his back to her, and tells her he is going out. She hits him over the head with the leg of lamb and kills him. Then she puts the lamb in the oven and turns it on, calms down and goes to a shop to buy vegetables. When she returns, she cries over her husband’s body and calls the police. The police search the flat for a murder weapon until late at night. When they are tired and hungry, Mary offers them the lamb for dinner.

The story is short and simple, but has an amusing twist at the end of it. Also, Mary is an unexpected character. At the beginning of the story, the couple seem to love each other, but the wife is betrayed and left by the man she trusts. And, the pregnant woman moves slowly, but she has the strength to kill her man. While she is sobbing, she waits for an opportunity to tell the police to eat the leg of lamb, the weapon. At the end of the story, she sniggers because her improvised audacious plan has worked.

A review of The Sensible Thing

A young man, George O’ Kelly, wants to get money and success quickly so he can marry his fiancée, Jonquil Cary. For this reason, he quits his job as a construction engineer, and moves from Tennessee to New York City to work as an insurance clerk. He gets fired when he applies for some time off work to visit Jonquil. While they are together, they have a quarrel, because they do not have enough money to get marry. So, they split up and this is the sensible thing to do it. After this, George goes to Peru, and he becomes a successful engineer. A year later, he goes back to the girl, and he realises that he can have her now, but his feelings for her have changed.

Maybe F Scott Fitzgerald based the story on his own early relationship with his wife, Zelda Sayre; George’s love for Jonquil parallels his love for Zelda. George puts love before practical matters, but he is rejected by Jonquil, because he does not have enough money to marry her. At the end of the story, George has become more mature and sensible, and his feelings for Jonquil have changed. The author probably wants to say George still has a chance to decide whether Jonquil is suitable for him, whereas the author has regreted his marriage; if he had not married Zelda, perhaps he would not have had serious health and financial problems. Another point of view is people want things more if they can’t have them; when their relationship is possible, George’s feelings are not as strong as they were before.

A review of A Christmas Song

 

The main character, Clara, is a talented music teacher, who sells sheet-music and records in a music shop. Her wealthy neighbours, The Williamsons, are fond of giving parties several times a year, and Clara and her family are always invited. But this Christmas Eve, she decides not to go. However, one of the Williamson sons, Freddy, goes to her place and persuades her to go. Before they set off, a young man comes to the shop. He came earlier in the day and tried to find a love song to surprise his girlfriend. Eventually she found the song for him and now it is echoing in her mind. When she stands in front of the Williamsons’ house, she thinks of the song again.  

Clara probably feels her life in the town is dull: the scenery, the few songs that people want to know, the Williamsons’ parties and the crass behaviour of the guests. This winter she longs for snow; perhaps this means she wants more a colourful life. When she meets the young man, she might be attracted to him by his shyness, his romantic quest, or his interest in music. We get the impression the song is a metaphor for the life Clara wants; it seems to be within her grasp, but then it floats away. In the end, the frost crackles under her feet. Perhaps this represents the end of her dream of finding a more interesting way of life. It is hard to move somewhere else, so she asks herself what her future holds in terms of her prospects and her love life.

A review of The Jilting of Jane

The main character, Jane, is a servant. She has been engaged to a young man, William, for three years. She considers his behaviour, his prospects and his family background, and she believes he is a very good match for her. William is second porter in a draper’s. However, when he is promoted to head porter, he finds a new girlfriend, a milliner. Jane follows the new lovers a number of times and tells the milliner that she is William’s fiancée. But in the end, William marries the milliner and when they come out of church, Jane throws a boot at the bride, but it hits William’s eye instead. 

 

The author, HG Wells, uses the story to criticise class divisions. The narrator, the master of the house, keeps his distance from his servants, and he probably does not talk to them. Jane is a servant and an orphan, so she needs to find a man who has prospects. She has social ambitions and she is a snob. Since Jane believes William is a respectable man, and his relatives are not labourers, if she married William, it will give her a little bit of security and improve her social status. But, she does not see William as a social climber; he keeps up his good work, reads a self-help book to improve himself, and dresses up to improve his appearance. He also joins a religious group which his employer also belongs to. Eventually, he probably thinks a milliner is better than a servant; the milliner might make hats for him or he may be able to set up a business selling hats, whereas Jane buys him a tie so far.

A review of A Shocking Accident

The main character, Jerome, is a boy of nine, who is told that his father had been accidently killed by an overweight pig falling from a balcony. When he grows older, he realises people are unable to suppress their laughter or amusement at the comic aspect of the story of his father’s death and this makes him reluctant to tell the story. In the end, he dares not tell it to his fiancée, Sally, but his aunt does. To his surprise, Sally does not laugh, but she feels it is a horrible accident.

When People usually hear about somebody’s death, they feel sad, and sympathise with the relatives. The author, Graham Greene, is good at observing human nature and this can be seen in the story; when people hear about Jerome’s father’s unusual and unexpected death, they react in different ways. The reactions are very believable and you might think if you heard a similar story then you would react in the same way.

The author uses the characters in the story to show that there are many ways to tell the story of Jerome’s father’s death. He contrasts serious and comic aspects of the story, in particular the serious idea of death with the ridiculous way in which it occurs.