Food for Thought

        We start our days in a leisurely fashion around here. We all generally wake up around 10:00 and make our way to my aunt's parent's house, where we congregate on the second floor. The way the duplex is laid out, the first floor is their studio where they keep all of their sculptures, the second floor houses the living room and kitchen, and the top two floors have bedrooms. The mornings here are spent watching daytime television, which is just as b-rate and over-dramatic here as in the U.S. Most of the shows on around noon are soap operas and travel documentaries, so they are easy to follow even if you don't speak the language. It is interesting to watch the T.V. here, because the all of the shows have Chinese subtitles running along the bottom. Most of the shows are in Chinese, but they also have these subtitles...I still haven't figured out why.
        In the afternoons, we go around Chiayi county visiting relatives or visiting tourist attractions. For instance, today, we went to Alishan which is a gorgeous mountainous area where one can relax in one of the parks, visit the shops, or collect rocks. If you read the previous installment of this blog, I'm pretty sure that you can guess which category we fall under. There are actually trains around this area that wind around the mountains  giving tourists a scenic view of the countryside. However, none of the locals ride the trains because it is extremely dangerous. Several years ago, Taiwan suffered a major earth quake, and now the mountains in the area are not very stable anymore. So, every once in a while, entire sections of mountains will fall in a tremendous rock slide, and occasionally, that section of the mountain will take a train with it. Every few years, about one hundred people will die in one of these train accidents. For this reason, we decided against taking the scenic train ride.

     
WARNING: The following is a tangent that reflects views that are solely those of the sponsor. It neither drives the above conversation forward, nor has a good ending. In other words, it is a random blurb describing one of the author's observations. 
        I had always thought that Americans liked to eat. Just take a look at the huge food industry in the U.S., and the ever-increasing obesity problem that the country is facing, and you can see where I got this idea. However, I'm realizing that this is not true. Taiwanese people like to eat. Nearly every place you go, whether it is to a relative's house, a night market, or a tourist trap, there is always something to eat. People are constantly eating, and with such wonderful food to choose from, one can easily see why. However, there aren't reports of an obesity epidemic in Taiwan. This is because the people here eat to enjoy the food. Like the French, Taiwanese savour their food. The food is also made with a wide variety of fresh ingredients, (even the food from McDonald's! The chicken nuggets actually look like they are made out of chicken). In America, the mindset is that food is simply a means to an end. I'm hungry, so I eat something to satisfy that hunger. Meals tend to be eaten quickly, and with little attention to flavor. Now, I'm generalizing here, I realize that not everyone in the U.S. thinks this way about food, neither am I saying that no one in Taiwan (or France) thinks this way. I'm merely stating the prevailing trends here. It is an interesting concept though, and it makes me want to rethink the way that I personally look at food.