淡水人的經驗: 淡水冬季的冷,全國聞名,但也沒文中形容的那麼慘.文中的north-easters (東北風) 應是冬天從西伯利亞來的西北風之誤.此時淡水人圍爐取暖,順便烤烤年糕魷魚,樂在其中.夏天的颱風則與各地受災機率相同,當然有大屯觀音兩山保護,可能還佔些便宜.
The climate in the Tamsui district is not healthy even for Chinese, far less for Europeans. From the latter end of November to early in May is the rainy season. The dampness of the air makes it cold, and chills are frequent, although the thermometer shows a high register as compared with the same latitude on the coast of China. The rainfall of Formosa is doubtless responsible in a large measure for the continued and almost cloudless sunshine experienced on the China coast between Foochow and Canton, during the N.E. monsoon. The constant rain in north Formosa is due to its propinquity to the Japanese Gulf-stream (the Kuro Shiwo, the Black current of the Japanese), over whose heated waters the north-east wind blows. The wind, coming into contact with the lofty mountain ranges of Formosa, precipitates its surcharge of moisture on the island, and about twelve miles west to seaward. The wind then passes to the South China coast, relieved of by far the greater part of its moisture, and China thus escapes, at the expense of Northern Formosa, the very trying and depressing winter weather. The summer heat is tropical, and the changes sudden. Tamsui is occasionally visited by violent storms. In the dense tropical forests of the interior highlands, where the sun, owing to the thick foliage, rarely penetrates, dangerous fevers are frequent among the aborigines, while to the Chinese settlers they are deadly. Few Europeans have yet tested the forest climate. The rain falls about half the number of days in the year, the rain-fall being about 120 inches. For two-thirds of the wet season the sun is completely obscured, the mountains being hid, and the ground saturated. It is, however, [p. 198] the continuous character of the rain which tells, resembling closely our 'Scotch mist,' or mountain rain. The aspect of North Formosa is dreary and cheerless beyond description during the regular 'north-easters.' Typhoons are frequent between June and October, their occurrence being very irregular. Sometimes these are of singular violence and do a large amount of damage to life and property.
"The climate in the Tamsui district is not healthy even for Chinese, far less for Europeans."
回覆刪除Taiwanese still adamantly stick to this point of view; it's one of the reasons I can't entice my wife to go home-hunting out there. I'd think think the pollution levels are lower. Put this together with the history or soul of the place, and the great view and I think it's a pretty good bet. To tell the truth, I don't think the climate is particularly unhealthy. It's a touch more maritime / less tropical. But this kind of post is a good idea, as it keeps people away (like when the early settlers to lovely Iceland named gave it a scary name).
The Siberian express always comes unhindered, blowing straight into the mouth of Danshui River in the winter time. I think it is the howling northwest wind that has scared people away. Not that I am not unhappy with it. I am truly disgusted with the over-development of Danshui. One particular monstrosity resembles the Egyptian Necropolis - now that is a scary name for you.
回覆刪除Happy St Patty's Day, BTW.
Do you have a picture of this Egyptian Necropolis? I am back in Manka (艋舺). There's an interesting photo group at flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/619891@N25/ Perhaps there is also one of Danshui.
回覆刪除Our home is about a five minute walk from the Danshui River and the site of the KMT killing fields. From this point, I can reach Danshui in one to two hours, depending on the bike traffic along the river trail. Between Manka and Danshui, there's one more historical harbor, Da Dao Chen (大稻埕). I often think about how vibrant traffic on the river, between these three spots, must've once been, with boats for trade and ferries to get across at every place. Now the river is peacefully empty; it's the only desolate place in Taipei.
I'm curious about these points:
1. Ships coming up the Danshui, perhaps to Manka. Was that possible?
2. A Manka Harbor area? Now, the area is like a park.
3. When did the big river walls go up? There are only a few gates for people to get near the river, maybe four or five, from Jing Mei (景美) to Danshui. The city closes the gates during typhoons, which seems ridiculous to me as the walls are a good .5 km back from the river. I wonder if the walls were just another device of the Japanese and KMT to control the locals.
Try this one for a real necropolis:
回覆刪除http://images.google.com.tw/imgres?imgurl=http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1436/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1436R-16011.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1436R-16011&usg=___mycNrtlpblS9Zofuv7GFUzGIWQ=&h=228&w=350&sz=53&hl=zh-TW&start=29&sig2=6nhNxiCLjsau1ycswRL8-g&tbnid=lSeIoFo2icbPdM:&tbnh=78&tbnw=120&ei=5Mm8SdbNH5Wm6wO1uITeBA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Degypt%2Bnecropolis%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Dzh-TW%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20
Re your questions:
1. Flat-bottom junks certainly navigated freely, not the tallships, though. In fact, the goods from the aborigines and others were collected in Manka and DaDowChen and shipped to Danshui for export.
2. These junks could dock anywhere along the River.
3. The levees had a long history, originally only along the 水源路 area, essentially to control flooding. Then people began to move into 永和 and 中和 (the original flood plains of Taipei), necessitating the construction of levees on that side of the River. Then the GuanDu narrow passage was widened around 1964, allowing the high tide to rush all the way in from Danshui. The flooding problem during the typhoon season got even worse, not to mention the sea water had killed off many indigenous species, both plant and animal. Now more levees are planned. Dredging the River has been attempted although which was done only half-heartedly or was deemed too expensive, or both. The flood control of Taipei area is not known to be totally organized or logical.
You are absolutely right, Danshui River has see much better days.
RE:
回覆刪除"There are only a few gates for people to get near the river, maybe four or five, from Jing Mei (景美) to Danshui. The city closes the gates during typhoons, which seems ridiculous to me as the walls are a good .5 km back from the river."
Hi there,
Nice to meet you again, Patric.
There are more than ten gates as I know of. We used to go boating at #3 gate near Bannka. The gate near Big Bridge at the end of En-Ping N. Road is #13.
It is surprise to know that nowadays the wall is 0.5 km back from the river; it used be just next to the water.
I have a DVD, which describes how a missionary travels from Tamsui to Jing-Mei and up using a flat bottom boat.
Have a good day.
Cho-San
Cho-san,
回覆刪除I was using the KMT killing fields behind Youth Park as a point of reference for the .5 km. The wall gets closer at different points along the way. It's pretty far back though on the Yung Ho side. I'm going to make a map of the gates; they're a mystery to a lot of people who wander around looking for them.
I'd be interested to see that DVD - what's it's name?
Public TV station of Taiwan published the DVD, I guess. The title is 淡水河之旅 (Trip on Tamsui River, my translation) and it was number 14 of Formosa series. I do not know how many DVDs are included in the series though. The story was based on the British consul Henry Kopsch’s five-day, 1867 trip on the River Tamsui. His report is titled as “Notes on the Rivers in Northern Formosa” see http://academic.reed.edu/formosa/texts/Kopsch1870.html
回覆刪除I understand it is only existing document that describing the riverboat of that time, 15.5 meter long, 2.1 meter width and 0.9 meter depth. In that five-days they went up to 大渓 (Dua-Kee, pardon my Fuken pronunciation) then come down and then up again to 新店渓 (Shin-Tiam Kee). It is an hour-long story; I can send you a copy if you like.
It is amazing to see through the Google Earth that Taipei has changed so much after my near half century absent from the island. No wonder you mentioned the wall is so far away from the water. There was nothing outside the wall except several retired Chinese soldiers using the old cars to teach driving as I remembered.
Cho-San
LOL, my wife learned how to drive down there, on the Yung Ho side of the river. Interesting you mention old KMT soldiers teaching driving. I remember the anecdotes of Chinese soldiers arriving in Keelung in the late 40s. They were greeted by thousands of cheering Taiwanese who, as anecdotes have it, stared in bewilderment as the incomers before their eyes commandeered bicycles they couldn't ride (they had to carry them on their backs) and cars they had no idea how to drive. They did try, grinding gears and with lots of pushing, much to the amusement of the Taiwanese greeting parties. Needless to say, I had to teach my wife how to drive once again when we moved back to the US.
回覆刪除I was just flipping through Denny Roy's "Taiwan: A Political History" on this period. He mentions Danshui. He's writing about Chiang Kai-shek's 70/30 pay policy for soldiers: 70 percent scrounging from the locals and 30 cash:
"Chinese soldiers had overrun schools, temples and hospitals at Taipei and it took most of the year 1946 to get them out. Any building occupied by KMT troops became a mere shell. An example was the Mackay Mission Memorial Hospital, which was stripped of its equipment and all metal fixtures, including doorknobs. Many of the wooden doors, door-frames and stair banisters were used by the soldiers to feed cooking fires built on the concrete floors" (Roy, p. 59).
Relevant to where I live, I've heard Chen Yi, the twit that was overseeing this fiasco, was executed in the KMT killing fields directly behind Youth Park in 1950. I've often wondered about this, if it has any validity.
I'd love to get ahold of that DVD: pcowsill@gmail.com
I was wondering about this character: 渓. Is it like stream? I was guessing it was Hoklo (Fukien), then I backed up and noticed you said: pardon my Fukien pronunciation. That is very interesting; I'm curious about Hoklo, Taiwanese, Fukien . . . especially how / if it's ever rendered differently than Mandarin at times (it must be as there are different idioms, expressions, and great curse words - it's a rich language for swearing!). I studied Hakka before and they do have some of their own characters. BTW, it's the first time I've seen a romanization of Hoklo - well done. But I know it must be out there. Last I heard, Harvard, Berkeley, Cambridge, etc. were teaching Hoklo.
回覆刪除I can't resist adding some more comments here:
回覆刪除溪 is pronounced "kwee" in Northern Taiwan, "kee" is heard mostly in the South. Both are Hoklo 福佬話. Hakka 客家話 is an entirely different set of dialects. Hokkien 福建話 consists of a very difficult to understand 福州(Foochow)話 plus the more commonly spoken dialects of 漳州, 泉州, and 廈門話(Amoy). In the 1950s, we were told in school that we were actually speaking Southern Hokkienese 閩南話 (and we thought we had been speaking 台灣話 all along). 閩南話 was an official concoction, now totally confused with Hokkien. You must know that Mandarin Chinese is only a Peking dialect (北京話). It was going to be Cantonese as the national language for a brief while.
Just like British English, American English and Singlish, all the dialects spoken in Taiwan have different idioms etc. I hate to tell you this: the Singaporeans also speak Hokkien, the Amoy version.
I wonder which brand of Hoklo they are teaching the unsuspecting kids with.
Hi there,
回覆刪除Re: “BTW, it's the first time I've seen a romanization of Hoklo - well done.”
The Romanization of Hoklo has arrived with Presbyterian Church in Taiwan. The Romanized Bible is very common in our everyday lives before the WWII; unfortunately, it was listed as the prohibited book by KMT, if my memory is correct. EyeDoc may be a better-qualified one to explain on this matter and may be able to suggest where to get hold on a copy since it is the best book to learn how to spell Hoklo with alphabetic.
Re: “I remember the anecdotes of Chinese soldiers arriving in Keelung in the late 40s.”
It must be in late 1945 or early 1946. If you were in Taiwan at that time, you might have met George Kerr who was once also an English Teacher at Taipei High School, now named 建国中學. By the way, he was teaching at Berkeley and was busy writing “Formosa Betrayed” when I arrived in California. Dr. Tu who was from Tamsui and related to 杜聡明博士, the founder of the 高雄（打狗）Medical School was engaged in verifying his book at that time.
Re: DVD
One more thing, the languages used in the DVD is 65% Mandarin and Hoklo for the remained portion. Hate to ask this but Patrick, what is your proficiency on both languages?
Cho-San
I should also mention that a 溪 is a brook; although some are actually a river - it all depends on the mindset of whoever responsible for naming these things.
回覆刪除Indeed, go visit the Presbyterian Church in Danshui, the bibles there are in Romanized Hoklo. I was "invited" to study the Roman characters but went fishing instead.
I'm fine in Mandarin. My Taiwanese needs a lot of work; it's one of my next projects. Actually, I've never really explored it; hence, my ignorance on Romanization in Taiwanese. Even in Mandarin, I don't have a clue about this. I often use the characters to read pinyin - I learned Mandarin in Taiwan under the bopomofo system.
回覆刪除Roy is using Kerr as a source for events in the 40s stuff I put up.
My wife seems to seems to have her own Taiwanese pronunciation. She says stream in Taiwanese sounds like "kway". Eyedoc,I'm curious about why a Taiwanese person who already speaks the language would need to read the language in a Romanized system (unless they might want to teach it to non-speakers from the West). I would have gone fishing too.
BTW, those must've been the days -eating fish fished out from the Danshui. I met an old guy who told me he used to swim across it. I wouldn't try either now.
Your wife's kway = my kwee, the same northern pronounciation (more like a short k'wae). Reading a text, e.g., the Bible, in Hoklo is not the same as conversing in the language. Do a simple experiment: ask your wife to read a Chinese newspaper article out loud in Taiwanese and you'll see what the problem is.
回覆刪除The Roma-ji lessons were taught right inside the Mackay Clinic, BTW. I actually went to the kindergarten in the Presbyterian Church.
True, you could catch and eat the fish out of Danshui River - I used to fish in the back of the post office and one of my aunts would fry the fish for me. Those old Ron trees are still there. I don't know about swimming across, because the River used to be infested with sharks. I recall some poor kid's leg got chomped off while fishing on a small boat - he was dangling his legs in the water and the shark got to one of them. You could walk half way across on the sandbar during low tides and dig for large clams.
The fish is still there. I saw some caught the other day near a No Fishing sign; the fishermen are mostly retirees, no more kids.
Never heard of anybody swimming across the river successfully but we did swim often to the delta, which was shown on the US military map of WWII but since disappeared.
回覆刪除Ref. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/formosa_city_plans/txu-oclc-6594794.jpg
The best time to get to the delta is at the low tide and the best spot is behind the public market. By the way, living in Tamsui we need not to have a tide table since noontime is always high tide upon the first and fifteenth of the lunar months. The salt-water fish arrived with the tide and the biting only lasts about half an hour. For catching the fresh water fish, like striped bass, you have to go upstream as far as to Kan-Tou 関渡, at the red arch bridge designed by Prof. T.Y. Lin 林同棪of the University of California at Berkeley.
The delta, we call 浮線 (Pu-Swaah, close enough, EyeDoc?) is merely 100 yards away at low tide but the river flow is fast, so aim upstream diagonally and start swimming with full speed, hope you will reach the other side within several hundred yards downstream.
There is nothing on the delta except a single tomb, built by sailors for an orphan. Sailors adopted him but he drowned in the river later.
Navy has a small ship similar to U-Boat parked behind the Police Department, probably 100 yards from the shore. Swimming over and board on the ship time to time, soon we make friend with the sailors. We learn later that the boat is there for a sole purpose, waiting, in case high-ranking offices need fast escape from island. The duty of the sailors is simple just turn on the engine key once every day and make sure the boat will start. Not a high-ranking officer but a VIP, madam Chiang visits Tamsui often, especially near the sunset, probably for enjoying the famous scene.
Ah that clam, it is Hama-Guri in Japanese, （濱栗）means the chestnut of the beach. There is a native kind; sharp edged more like a wedge, however, the familiar kind is new immigrant from Japan and it can grow up to 4 inches size though they are harvested prematurely nowadays.
The common method of clamming is using a rake on the sandy beach that showed up at low tide. For the big ones, we call 老蛤 (Rao-Gyou, close enough, EyeDoc?) we have to dive to get them. Once upon a time, at the lowest tide of the year, I dive into the ship channel, probably ten feet deep and grope with both hands. There are many gravel-sized clams partially embedded into the riverbed every few inches apart. They are the big ones. I have collected almost 20 pounds of big clam that day.
Boil and season with ginger and onion is the best way to make clam soup. For the big ones, we can simply bake it on the fire. It is ready to eat when the shell pops open. Japanese like to add few drops of Sake but I do not. I have discovered a big worm, couple of inches long inside the clam once. It must be a parasite, I guess.