Go Pull the Radishes

For as low as NT$50 dollars, you can pull and take home as many white radishes as you can, as long as you can fill them all in one bag, and one bag only.

It was a government-sponsored festival in Tamsui over the weekend. City folks like me, who's never spent any time in the farm, were invited to have fun for the harvest of white radishes, or moolis.

White radish is the core material for fried carrot cake, or Chai Tow Kway (蘿蔔糕), a very tasty dish that can be found in most local breakfast eateries.

I ended up taking home 13 giant radishes.

If that's an indication of oversupply, local farmers are probably facing a very difficult plight here, considering how much backbreaking work that they needed to put in to harvest so many radishes, for so little money.

Radishes come in many colors and forms.

A bag can hold at least 10 radishes. An estimate of 1,500 radishes were pulled from this farm on Saturday up in the hill of Tamsui (Danshui).

The hands that pulled out this radish belonged to a 6-year-old girl. It's not hard to pull it out of the soil.

See? Super fresh.

The long radish is Japanese variant, while the oval one is local version.

檢視較大的地圖

Pig, Apple and the new Photoshop Express

On a rare occasion, I saw a pig on display that was placed on an big block of ice as an offering to God in a small temple right on the corner next to the business building where my office is located.

The pig was positioned in such a way that it somehow looked comic or, should I say a bit cruel to die in such an awful way. An apple with a few burning incense sticks was stuck in its mouth. Whatever inside its belly was obviously removed to accommodate the block of ice underneath. And from behind, I felt it's a bit blasphemous for me to say what's on my mind.

Although it's quite a common practice to see a newly-slaughtered pig offered in one whole piece in a temple for some sort of religious activity, it sure is rare to see one right in downtown Taipei, And it's actually the first time for me.

PS. I tried to manipulate the photos with Adobe's free browser-based Photoshop Express. I like the new online service, which enables me to do one more thing online without ever downloading and installing anything.

Yes, We Can. But Sorry, It's Not Barack Obama

It's the last weekend before people in Taiwan go to polls and vote for the next President on 22nd March.

Both Ma Ying-jeou and Frank Hsieh, who represent the nationalist KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) respectively, had major rallies on Sunday to energize the passion of their supporters.

On Sunday afternoon, I went to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall for a big rally to support Mr. Hsieh, who is the obvious underdog in the race.

When I arrived, I happened to see Ma's supporters in the hundred of thousands passing by, leading by several horses, the symbol of Mr. Ma's surname in Chinese.

"Wow, DPP's supporters are outnumbered 10 to 1," I thought to myself.

But then, maybe it's not that bad. A lot of people did come out to show their support for Mr. Hsieh.

I noticed something very different today. The crowd in general was definitely younger. A lot.

Newspapers that take a preference for KMT has been jeering the aging DPP electoral base, which they said were mostly composed of old farmers and workers from the south who didn't know better.

But that's not true from what I saw here.

Several horses led the way for Mr. Ma's campaign rallying.

Before entering the premises of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, one would encounter a sea of Mr. Ma's supporters marching on the same street.

Kids. They were everywhere today in this festive political rally for Mr. Hsieh.

Frank Hsieh, DPP's presidential candidate, exchanged a high five with his supporters. The high-five gesture was today's secret password for the crowd.

Mr. Hsieh's campaign slogan, Reverse and Win (逆轉勝), says a lot about his winning chance. It's pretty slim, and he surely needs a reversal of fortune to win this game.

The Winner sticker on the face of a beautiful young girl.

A giant Trojan horse. What the DPP tried to convey was that Mr. Ma, who proposes one-China common market, would bring disaster to local people when we open our market to China.

Along the marching route, you would be expected to slap endless raising hands of your fellow supporters. It had a lot fun, especially when you saw a lot of fresh young smiling faces.

Short of a miracle, Mr. Hsieh couldn't win it in this race against Mr. Ma, the super hero with a good-looking face from KMT. But the hope is not lost to all who took part in today's high-five party.