Breakfast Spot: 伯朗咖啡館 (Mr. Brown Café)

So in my last post, I talked about a typical Taiwanese breakfast which consists of 蛋餅、土司、三明治 and 飲料 such as 豆漿、柳橙汁、紅茶 and the likes, but what if you wanted a more Western-style breakfast? And other drink options? Preferably ones that won't break your wallet? Well then, might I recommend 伯朗咖啡館 (Bó lǎng kāfēi guǎn), otherwise known as Mr. Brown Café?

伯朗咖啡 Mr. Brown Coffee is actually a series of canned coffee products which you can find sold in any convenience store or vending machine in Taiwan. They also have a café, 伯朗咖啡館 Mr. Brown Café, which is a little similar to Starbucks--they have a variety of coffees and teas, a baked good sections, and other food items, all of which while are a little more expensive than a typical breakfast, are still pretty affordable.

Mr. Brown Café serves both breakfast items (before 11 am) and lunch items (after 11 am), but as I have only ever gone there for breakfast, I shall be writing about the breakfast items. I have also never tried their drinks beyond what was included in the breakfast set so no thoughts on that either.

As I mentioned, the drinks tend to be a little more on the expensive side (over NT$100), and the breakfast items as well, but they do have breakfast sets available and for NT$100 you can choose a breakfast item as well as one drink (out of the choices of iced/hot 紅茶 black tea、iced/hot 咖啡 coffee、and 柳橙汁 orange juice). A little more than I'd like to spend on any one meal, especially for breakfast, but it's still pretty decent.

Their breakfast menu includes choices such as club sandwiches, bagels, cheese toast, ciabatta sandwiches and pancakes (although I have not seen that option at the store near my dorm), and their servings are actually pretty large and come with a little scoop of (I believe) egg salad and some vegetables on the side. Not too bad for a little over US$3.

I got a 火腿磨菇蛋巧巴達三明治 ham and mushroom ciabatta sandwich along with a glass of 冰紅茶 iced black tea the first time I went--you can't really see it but there is an egg salad and cucumbers behind the ciabatta

The second time around I opted for the 煙燻雞肉焗烤土司 smoked chicken cheese toast and a glass of 柳橙汁 orange juice which came with sides of egg salad, mushrooms, and a little cherry (plum?) tomato

The breakfast food here is pretty good, it's more like a Western-Asian fusion as some of the choices for the sandwiches were flavors like teriyaki pork or teriyaki beef but nothing outrageous and I recommend this place if you're in the mood for a more Western-style meal.

The atmosphere is also nice too, especially at around breakfast time. It's not crowded but not completely empty either and it's nice to just sit there and chat with your friends.

Taiwanese Breakfast

Living in Taiwan means access to a great wealth of food for a relatively low price (I can usually get away with spending less than NT$200 a day on food), while living in a university area means a wide range of places nearby to eat. That includes breakfast places too, some of which open as early as 6 am (or even earlier for all I know), which is especially important when you have three 8 am classes a week (some of my friends have 8 am classes everyday). Now granted, I usually eat after my class ends, but occasionally I'm hungry enough and have enough time to spare before my class to be able to sit down and have breakfast beforehand (I prefer not to eat in class even if the professor doesn't mind).

Now as I mentioned, my sister's friend was in Taiwan recently and the first few days he was here, he had been going to convenience stores such as 7-Eleven and Family Mart to buy breakfast. I admit that when I first arrived, I had been doing that also, because it was cheap, convenient, and didn't require struggling to read a menu. However, by the time he had gone back to the States, he still had not had a proper Taiwanese breakfast. I was aghast and hence, decided that a post was in order.

Now if you want a truly traditional Taiwanese breakfast, you can have congee or rice with some meat and veggie dishes (which was basically what they served everyday at the first hotel that my Chinese class stayed in when we came last year), but what I want to talk about is 蛋餅、土司、三明治 and 漢堡 which is what you will typically find served in a breakfast place and they're usually pretty cheap as well. A 蛋餅 typically costs around NT$30 (about US$1), while a 土司 and 三明治 will cost anywhere from NT$30 to NT$50, with 漢堡 being a little more expensive at anywhere from NT$45 to NT$70 which is still pretty cheap in US standards. Drinks as well should cost no more than NT$50. I spend on average anywhere between NT$50 to NT$75 for a breakfast of one drink and one food item which is around US$1.50 at most.

蛋餅 (Dàn bǐng)

Please ignore the little puppy nose peeking in from the corner--I took this shot to send to my sister and the lighting on my other pic was kind of poor

When my Chinese class first landed in Taoyuan International Airport last spring it was still in the wee hours of the morning, thus only a few of the food stands were open. McDonald's was one of them and a place selling more traditional Taiwanese food was another. As I didn't want my first meal in Taiwan to be American food, I opted for the Taiwanese breakfast and got this delicious 蛋餅 which is basically an egg crepe.

I never thought I would be able to study in Taiwan, let alone eat more of this delicious breakfast item, but here I am, trying different types of 蛋餅 in different places along with other delicious breakfast items.

生菜蛋餅 and a bowl of hot 豆漿

As I mentioned, this is basically an egg wrapped inside a slightly crispy crepe. The one I got at the airport was your standard 原味 flavor, but they also have different meat flavors (火腿 ham or 肉鬆 pork floss), different vegetable flavors (生菜 lettuce or 韭菜 leek), and a personal favorite, 起士 cheese. You can also add different 將 sauces to it such as a slightly sweet teriyaki sauce or some spicy chili paste--sometimes there will be a sauce "station" in the place for you to add yourself, other times they'll have added for you already.

火腿蛋餅 to-go with a bit of black pepper cooked in too

起士蛋餅 with a cup of 奶茶 to-go from a different breakfast place, with sauce added--theirs was of the less crispy variety

I think my favorite has to be the 蛋餅 from 永和豆漿 (where I also had the 生菜蛋餅) just because their 蛋餅 are not only big, but pretty generous with the fillings as well so it's actually a pretty satisfying meal. They also have a little sauce station where you can add whatever you want--as you can see below, I drizzled some sauce on my 蛋餅 with some chili paste on the side. The nice thing about this place is that while other breakfast places tend to close by noon, this place will be open at night too (for all you breakfast-for-dinner folks out there) and they have non-breakfast dishes as well. The atmosphere wasn't exactly the greatest however as I saw a few bugs crawling around the table once and the second time there was this creep staring at my friend (we're not sure if he works there or not), I think because she was non-Asian.

起士蛋餅 with a cup of 仙草奶茶

 This here is 小小福 which is a little commissary on campus where you can go for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Although there are only three stands there's a pretty good variety of food there and a nice little seating space under a giant tent-like structure so it's sort of like eating both indoors and out. There's even a sink there. The one annoying thing about eating here though is that they only accept exact change.

This is actually not a 蛋餅, but a 蔥抓餅 (Cōng zhuā bǐng), which is a scallion pancake. It's similar to a 蛋餅 as there was also an egg inside of this (they don't always have egg), but for the outside, instead of the slightly crispy crepe wrap, there's a thicker, chewier dough-like wrap with scallions cooked into it. This I also recommend (and I don't even like scallions).

土司 (Tǔsī) 、三明治 (Sānmíngzhì)、漢堡 (Hànbǎo)

Basically, toast, sandwich, and hamburgers. Haha. These three words are actually all loanwords (as you can probably tell); sometimes you'll also see toast written as 吐司 (pronounced the same). 

These are also common breakfast items sold at breakfast places. Now, in the US when you say "toast," you'd think of a slice of toasted bread, maybe with some butter, maybe with some jam, maybe with some cheese. Here however, 土司 refers to two slices of toasted bread put together with whatever filling inside--basically a toasted sandwich. I've had 花生 (peanut) and 抹茶 (matcha) toast before which were okay, but the layers of peanut butter or matcha were spread pretty thin, and there definitely could have been more.

I don't know if you toast your bread before making a sandwich, but I always used to do that. However, the 三明治 here do not use toasted bread, which is fine, I just thought it was worth a mention. 三明治 come with different flavors--most Taiwanese breakfast places will have fillings like egg and a meat of your choice (火腿 ham, 肉鬆 pork floss, 雞肉 chicken, what have you), but the sandwiches at Louisa Coffee, which are more Western-style, have lettuce and tomato in addition to ham, chicken, or beef (and cheese if you want), and some sauce. They also have a choice of whole wheat bread or multi-grain.

漢堡 like the 三明治 have a variety of different fillings you can get. I recently went to try out 拉亞漢堡 (Laya Burger), which is this lovely little breakfast place near my dorm. They have a variety of food items there and the first time I went, I tried their 抹茶土司, which as I mentioned was alright, but the second time, I decided to be adventurous and get a 米堡--a rice burger!

Pork I believe this was with a cup of cold 紅茶

Your food comes in this cute little basket

I had rice burgers both in Korea and in in the US before, though they didn't seem to be very common (less so in the US), but never for breakfast. I think part of the reason I like the rice burger so much here is that I feel like rice dishes are harder to come by and I'm used to having rice practically everyday. Rice is also makes for a filling dish, whether you have it for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner. 

That's not to say however that I only got the rice burger because I wanted rice--I truly enjoyed my rice burger. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I got it again the next time I went.

The wrapping through which you can still feel the heat of the burger, but it does prevent the grease from getting on your hands!

They could work on aligning the patties a little better but it was still a delicious meal!

My friend's 漢堡

Despite being a little on the small side, the rice burger was quite filling, being that not only was it made of rice, but also was quite generous with the meat and vegetables. It is pretty hot though, so be careful not to burn your tongue (or hands) when you first take a bite out of it.

飲料 (Yǐnliào)

Or beverages. If you noticed, in all of my photos above, my breakfast was accompanied by some drink or other. After all what's breakfast (or any other meal for that matter), without a drink (no, I'm not talking about the alcoholic variety and yes, water counts too) to wash down the food? 

In a typical Western breakfast, your meal is usually accompanied by a cup of coffee or tea or perhaps a nice cold glass of milk, some orange juice, or a smoothie even. While Taiwan is famous for being the creator of 珍珠奶茶 or bubble tea, and while there's no lack of bubble tea stands all around, it's not exactly the go-to breakfast drink. So what constitutes are typical Taiwanese breakfast beverage?

豆漿 (dòujiāng), or soy milk, would probably be the most common breakfast drink. And I'm not talking about Silk milk either--Asian soy milk is quite different from American soy milk--it's much better. Haha. If you don't believe me, try Vitasoy soy milk--just don't get the sugar free one because it's not as good. 豆漿 can be served either hot(/warm) or cold (熱/溫 or 冰). If you're eating in and get it warm, they'll usually serve it in a giant bowl for you (as in the picture of my 生菜蛋餅 and 豆漿above), otherwise you'll get it in a cup.

米漿 (mǐ jiāng) or your brown rice milk. I've never had rice milk in the US so I don't know how the two compare. 米漿 is not bad, but not really my cup of tea. It's a lot thicker than actual milk or soy milk and has a nutty scent to it (although it doesn't taste nutty) and is slightly sweet. Again you can get this cold or hot though I've only ever tried it cold.

奶茶 (nǎichá) or milk tea, another popular breakfast drink. Nice and refreshing whether you have it cold or hot and I really like how there's the most subtle hint of tea in the aftertaste.

紅茶 (hóngchá), literally "red tea" but translated into English as "black tea" (don't ask me why). It's slightly sweet (I usually have it chilled) which means they probably add sugar to it, but it's still good.

咖啡 (kāfēi), of course we can't not include coffee on the list. I'm not much of a coffee fan myself so I can't attest to the taste, but I think they usually serve it black.

柳橙汁 (liǔ chéngzhī), (or 橘子水 júzi shuǐ for the Mainlanders), is your orange juice and well, it pretty much tastes like any store-bought orange juice, although I believe here they actually use a juicer so there's pulp.

蘋果汁 (píngguǒ zhī) or apple juice. I've seen this a few times on the menu too, which was kind of surprising as I don't think I've ever had apple juice for breakfast. I haven't gotten it yet, but I'm sure it's just like your standard Tropicana apple juice.

There you have it--the basic guide to common, typical Taiwanese breakfast food items. If you're ever in Taiwan be sure to try them out!

Spirited Away to 九份 (Places You Must Go)

So a few weeks back, I had the pleasure of meeting a friend of my sister's who was in Taiwan for the week. He was with a friend of his from Japan who had in turn invited a Chinese co-worker/friend who also happened to be in Taiwan. They all spoke Chinese although the Japanese friend and the Chinese friend mostly spoke to each other in Japanese while my sister's friend and I spoke a considerable amount of English to each other (and some Cantonese, hooray for Canto! Haha) (Although we did transition to using Chinese later when we were all conversing). We had brunch at a nearby Japanese restaurant in the Gongguan area (although my sister's friend had some mishaps when trying to order from their fancy touchscreen menu--I'm not kidding, when you enter, there is a giant touchscreen display showing pictures of the food items with the name underneath in Chinese and after you press what you want, you insert money in, while a server stands nearby in case you're in need of assistance, after which you take your receipt upstairs to be seated--whatever happened to the good ole days of having a person take your order??) and my sister's friend even insisted on treating me to lunch despite being the guest.

Of course I got the Korean style dish--kimchi and pork rice accompanied by a side of (rather fishy) miso soup and a refreshing cup of iced green tea (instead of your standard water)

 As we got onto the discussion of their plans while in Taiwan, they mentioned that they would be going to 九份 (Jiǔfèn) later that day and when I mentioned that I've heard of it but haven't been, they invited me along. After (not very much) consideration, I decided sure, why not? My 8 am for Monday had been cancelled for the week so I could afford to stay out a little later (as it was, I didn't get back to my dorm until about midnight). Plus I did want to go to 九份, if only because of the Miyazaki movie Spirited Away (more on that later) and what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than with some new friends? So off we went!

A Little History

九份 (whose name is literally "nine portions"), is located in 瑞芳區 (the Ruifang district) of New Taipei City and is about two hours away by train and bus from Taipei. Its name comes from the fact that (according to Wikipedia) during the early Qing dynasty, 九份, which was an isolated little village, housed only nine families, hence every time shipments came in, the village would request "nine portions." There was also a history of gold mining in 九份 during the Japanese occupation and as such led to a rapid development to the town due to the resulting gold rush. In fact, a prisoner-of-war camp was set up there during World War II holding captured Allied soldiers who worked in the nearby gold mines. However, after the end of World War II, gold mining declined and the mine was shut off in 1971. Many features of 九份 from the era of Japanese colonization have been retained to this day and as such you can still see many of the surviving Japanese inns.

~*~*~

We took the MRT to 臺北車站 (Taipei Main Station ) and from there bought a ticket on the TRA (Taiwan Railways Administration) train to 瑞芳車站 (the Ruifang Station) which cost only NT$59 (roughly about US$2) one-way. The way back was a little more expensive at NT$75 and they were standing tickets, but the price was still pretty decent. Once we arrived at 瑞芳 we took the bus to 九份, about a 15 minute ride I believe.

The sight that greeted us--as you can tell it was a bit of a cloudy day

九份 is a mountain area

九份 was a lovely little town with narrow, winding alleyways and stairways all filled with shops along the way. Most were food places but there were some souvenir shops too.

We saw 小籠包 and couldn't resist

I'll be honest--I had better 小籠包, but they were still good!

Inspiration for Miyazaki's Spirited Away

As I mentioned previously, part of the reason that I had an interest in 九份 was because of the famed 2001 movie Spirited Away (『千と千尋の神隠し』 in Japanese). Downtown 九份 actually served as the inspiration for the setting of Spirited Away with its more traditional style housing (retained from the Japanese colonization as I have mentioned), its narrow winding roads and stairways, and its overall atmosphere. As such you're bound to see a lot of Japanese tourists in the area (there were also a lot of Korean tourists that day too).

This was actually from a Studio Ghibli exhibit I went to when I was in Korea last semester

Also from the Studio Ghibli exhibit in Seoul--you can really see the similarities to 九份

The bathhouse where Chihiro worked from the movie

As we were going down one of the staircases, we came across this lovely tea house:

In case you can't see it, it reads

"Rare in-line window sills enable light sources to dance within the tea house spaces; which inspired the Japanese animation "Spirited Away" by <Hayao Miyazaki>. Unique masks fills the tea house which is especially interesting when you sip up the cocktails stirred up by A-Mei herself!"

If you're ever in 九份 (where you should really go), I recommend this tea house, A-Mei Tea House. We had a bit of a wait but it was nothing too bad since it was still early in the evening (around 5 o'clock) and so the streets and restaurants, while busy, where not super crowded.

The exterior, featuring the unique masks they mentioned

We had this lovely set which, while a little expensive in Taiwanese terms, would be considered cheap in U.S. terms. For each person, this cost NT$300, which is about US$10, for which you can get a considerable amount of tea, black sesame and sesame cookies, sugared plums, mochi, and green tea biscuit cookies (which are a bit dry so I don't recommend eating the whole thing in one bite as the guys learned). Not bad at all.

It was late by the time we finished, we had been in there drinking tea for about an hour and a half, so when we left the sky had begun to darken. The atmosphere in A-Mei Tea House was really nice , after showing us how to steep the tea they left us alone to drink at our leisure (except to return every once in a while to refill our water kettle). There was quite a bit of tea leaves and they could be steeped about three times before you had to change them. In fact, we didn't even use all the tea leaves--there was just that much--but there was a little zip-lock bag provided so we could take the unfinished tea leaves to go. As I mentioned the atmosphere was really nice and cozy and we just wanted to sit there and relax all day.

You can really see the similarities to Spirited Away from the building's exterior

It started drizzling a bit though so as we were trying to get back to the bus stop to return to Taipei, it was rather dark plus with all the stairs, it was a little hard to navigate at times, so make sure to bring a flashlight with you! It also got super crowded and at several points there was just throngs of people pushing to try to get through. We were even holding on to each other at several points just to make sure we didn't get separated.

When we got back to Taipei, it was only about 9 pm so we decided to go to 士林夜市 (the famous Shilin Night Market), but that is a post for another time. 

The postcard we were given from A-Mei Tea House; the bottom right reads:
千と千尋の神隠し [Spirited Away]
湯婆婆の屋敷 [Yubaba's Mansion]

Thanks so much to Johnny and friends for inviting me to come along with you to this lovely little gem of a place! I hope you enjoyed your stay in Taiwan and plan on coming back soon!

Street Talk: 不好意思

Hi and welcome back to another segment of Street Talk, coming to you from Taipei, this is Lillian N. and I'll be your host for today. Let's get started shall we?

Today's phrase is 不好意思 (bù hǎoyìsi), and it's a very common phrase, useful for many occasions.

As I mentioned, this is a phrase of many facets: it can be used to mean both sorry and excuse me (both when someone is in your way or when you are trying to get someone's attention), but it can also be used as an adjective as in 我對他很不好意思 or sometimes even as a verb: 很不好意思他哦.

Confused? Let's break this phrase down shall we?

1. 不好 (Bùhǎo) - Simple enough--不is a negator while 好means good, so together these two mean (literally), "not good"
2. 意思 (Yì si) - This one is a little more complicated; it can be used to mean fun or interesting: "This book is really interesting" (這本書很有意思) or "Is it fun/interesting?" (有意思嗎？); it can also be used to mean meaning: for example if someone says something which you don't understand and you want to ask what it means: "是什麽意思？" or “你的意思是....."

Altogether however, these four characters have many meanings.

1. Sorry - For example when you bump into someone or almost crash into someone and want to apologize, a simple "不好意思," sometimes with a slight nod of the head, will do.
2. Excuse me (When someone is in your way) - Such as when you're in the back of a crowded elevator and need to get out, you can just say "不好意思,"  and people will be quick to move out of your way. 
3. Excuse me (When you are trying to get someone's attention) - Let's say you're wandering around the Da'an district of Taipei and you get a little lost looking for the famed Din Tai Fung restaurant and you see a nice old couple walking by and would like to ask them for directions. A simple, "不好意思，鼎泰豐怎麽走？" will do, 不好意思 to get their attention and (Location)怎麽走 to ask how to get to your destination. 請問, 鼎泰豐怎麽走？works as well and it's really up to you which one you want to use, so ask away.
4. Embarrassment/Inconveniencing someone - As I mentioned before, you can use this phrase as a verb or adjective; in both cases it is used to show your embarrassment for inconveniencing someone. For example, when a group of friends reschedule their plans so that you can join, you can say to them, "不好意思" which can mean sorry but in this case it's specifically to express your apologies for inconveniencing them. As an adjective, let's say someone asks you why you declined your friend's offer to drive you home, and you explain that he (or she) lives in the direction opposite of where you're going, you could say, "我覺得會對他很不好意思," meaning that you feel it's too much of an inconvenience to him. Perhaps that friend is always driving you places and you feel bad about it, in which case you can say, ”我對他很不好意思“ meaning that you feel bad about inconveniencing him.

That ends our lesson on 不好意思 and I hope that you have found this lesson both helpful and clarifying. Join us next time for another segment of Street Talk; until next time!

Typhoon Season

So I received this email from the American Institute in Taiwan recently:

Here is the first paragraph:

"The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) recommends that U.S. citizens read the following guidance closely.

May marks the beginning of the annual typhoon season in Taiwan. Taiwan is located in a typhoon corridor and experiences an average of 3-4 typhoons each year.  Typhoons typically occur between May and October.  In most cases, Taiwan authorities and AIT will provide advance warning of an imminent typhoon several days prior to the typhoon’s arrival.  U.S. citizen residents of Taiwan and travelers to Taiwan should prepare in advance.  The following guidance contains good standard response procedures."

With typhoon season upon us in Taiwan, I thought I would write a post about typhoons.

Upon starting this post however, I soon realized that beyond expecting a lot of rain, I don't actually know what a typhoon entails, so I turned to trusty Wikipedia and found, to my surprise, that "The term Typhoon is the regional name in the northwest Pacific for a severe (or mature) tropical cyclone, whereas hurricane is the regional term in the northeast Pacific and northern Atlantic." In other words a typhoon is basically the same thing as a hurricane just in different parts of the sea.

Now being a bit disinclined to rely solely on Wikipedia, I decided to turn to Google, which led me to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which basically told me the same thing: that the only difference between a hurricane and a typhoon (and a cyclone) is the location in which it occurs.

As I also learned in Chinese class, late spring also signifies the beginning of 梅雨季, the East Asian Rainy season (otherwise known in English as Plum Rain, a direct translation of the Chinese name), during which we will experience a lot of cloudy and rainy days. Now I am no meteorologist, so this will be an overly-simplified explanation of what a 梅雨季 is, but basically it is a collision of a cold air mass and a warm Pacific air mass which causes thunderstorms. Now being that Taipei is inland, there is nowhere for this precipitation to go, so the air remains humid. In Taitung and Kaohsiung, both which are by the ocean, it is cooler and less humid because the humid air blows out to sea. That is my understanding of it anyways from what my Chinese professor told us. Haha.

This weather-disturbance starts out over the east China coast, over to Taiwan and Okinawa, where it then shifts northeast over to South Korea and the rest of Japan. Now why is it called the 梅雨 (Plum Rain)? Well according to the Central Weather Bureau, the name 梅雨 is derived from the fact that south of the Yangtze River in China, the continuously rainy months of June and July also happens to be the season for plums. Moreover, the rainy season makes it easier for things to become moldy, hence the name is a play on words, as the word for mold, 霉, and plum, 梅, in Chinese are both pronounced mei.

Another fun little tidbit--the English word typhoon is thought to have partially originated from the Chinese word for a windstorm or a strong wind, 大風 (literally "big wind"), which is pronounced dàfēng in Mandarin and daai6 fung1 in Cantonese.

So if you ever happen to be in Taiwan (or east China or Japan or South Korea) during this rainy season, don't forget to pack your umbrella and rainboots!

Everyday Chinese

• 颱風 (Táifēng) - Typhoon
• 大風 (Mandarin: Dàfēng, Cantonese: Daai6 fung1) - Strong wind, windstorm; thought to have in part been the origin for the English word, "typhoon"
• 梅雨季 (Méiyǔ jì) - East Asian rainy season (literally, "Plum Rain season") 

Identity Talk: 自己人 (Gaginang)

Happy Saturday everyone!

Wow, it's hard to believe how time flies; it seems like just yesterday that I had been blogging about my experiences with the Taiwanese after being here for only a month and a half and now, all of a sudden, I only have about a month and a half left before the end of the semester!

Anyways, today we have a special post inspired by a video I saw on YouTube recently by the Fung bros (and yes, they are actual brothers). For those of you that have never seen their videos, they do a lot of comedy, some music, and lots of vlogging about Asian culture and identity (especially food). Taken from the "about" section of their YouTube page, the Fung bros are "brothers who believe in advancing the education and discussion of Asian and Asian-American topics for people around the world."

They recently did a food video about Chiu Chow food, which was followed up by a video about Chiu Chow identity and this latter video was what inspired today's blog post.

Chiu Chow, for those of you that may not know, is a city in the Chaoshan region of Guangdong in the southeastern part of China. Chiu Chow (which is actually based off the Cantonese pronunciation) can also be romanized as Chaozhou (based off the Mandarin pronunciation) or Teochew (based off well, the Teochew pronunciation).

Name: 潮州

English: Teochew, Chiu Chow, Chaozhou

Location: 潮汕 (Chaoshan) in 廣東 (Guangdong)

Dialect: 潮州話 (often referred to as Teochew in English)

The language of Teochew is a member of the Southern Min or Min Nan (Traditional: 閩南話/Simplified: 闽南语) language family and as such, is not mutually intelligible with either Mandarin or Cantonese. In fact, it is bears many similarities to Taiwanese (臺灣話/臺話) and Hokkien (福建話), both of which are also Min Nan languages. In fact, Teochew is considered one of the most conservative of Chinese dialects because many of the archaic pronunciations and vocabulary of Old Chinese, or Archaic Chinese, has been retained in Teochew where they might no longer exist in some of the more modern dialects (Mandarin, by contrast, is considered a relatively new dialect).

 So why the interest in this seemingly random topic? Much of my posts, and this whole blog in fact, is dedicated to documenting the experience of an Asian-American in East Asia, but I thought it would be nice to switch it up for a change and talk about what it's like to be an Asian-American in the U.S. The biggest and main reason however is that I was really able to connect to the topics they mentioned in the video because my family is actually of Teochew descent.

And so, without further ado, I present to you Chiu Chow Identity Talk with the Fung bros:

As mentioned in the video, the Chiu Chow diaspora saw the rise of Chiu Chow communities outside of China in places such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Singapore. Like Olivia's family, my own family is 越南華僑, meaning that they are of Chinese descent, but lived in Vietnam. In addition to Vietnamese and Teochew, my family can also speak Mandarin and Cantonese, but as my surname is a Vietnamese surname, growing up I too was confused about whether I was Vietnamese or Chinese. In fact, since I had never met anyone outside my family who spoke Teochew, I was, for the longest time convinced that it was a made-up language that only my family spoke. 

Another thing mentioned in the video by Kane was that growing up, he was upset about being Teochew, because it was not one of the mainstream Chinese, which I can completely relate to. I grew up in 唐人街, Manhattan Chinatown, which is a predominantly Cantonese neighborhood. As such, a lot of my Chinese friends are Cantonese and spoke Cantonese at home and to each other and while I could understand bits and pieces of what they were saying I felt like it was not something I could really be a part of and I was upset that I didn't have anyone to talk to in my mother tongue (although I have forgotten a lot of my Teochew now). I remember thinking, why couldn't I be Cantonese? and the fact that I was Teochew was a big deal to me because a lot of my friends, both Chinese and non-Chinese, had never even heard of Chiu Chow and I really did feel like this weird subgroup. 

So while I might tell my Chinese friends who ask that I'm Chiu Chow, to my non-Chinese friends, I'll just say Chinese and when they ask if I speak Mandarin or Cantonese at home, I'll just tell them it's another dialect that doesn't really have an English name.

Being in Taiwan though has made me more open to outright saying that I am Chaozhou, partly because Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese students are a lot more likely to have heard of it, partly because I can just say 潮州話 instead of explaining in English, and partly because for those that don't know it, I can simply say, oh it's sort of like Taiwanese, which people will know. 

Actually a fellow student in my Chinese class back at Conn, is also Teochew (coincidentally enough, her name is Lily), and when we found out, we both got quite excited because we had never met any other Teochew person outside of our families and spent the next few minutes speaking in Teochew (or attempting to anyways--her Teochew is a lot better than mine). Even among fellow Teochew speakers however, because her family was from Cambodia, there were some differences in the ways we might pronounce some words or even in the word choices we'd use, so that was kind of interesting.

Seeing as this post has gone on long enough, I shall end here, and if you liked the video you can also check out some of the other works of the Fung Bros (they also did videos on Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Singaporean identities). Have a wonderful weekend everybody!

A Fog Covered Sky

 林峯 & 蔡卓妍 - 一直都在 (To set the mood for this rather dismal post--hahaha)

Just thought I would share some pictures of the grey, rainy day we've been having here in Taipei. It's not often that I find rainy days depressing but today everything was grey, foggy, and forlorn.

Sad sky, grey sky

This past week has been pretty rainy and dismal; the air yesterday even felt heavy and damp--one step outside and you could feel the humidity in the air. I guess that all culminated into one heavy downpour today.

However desolate the day, there was something poetic about the forlorn fog hanging over Taipei

A friend in Tainan told me however that the weather down south was perfectly nice with not a raindrop to be seen.

You can't tell from this picture, but big fat raindrops were pouring down from the skies