Indonesians & Indigenous Taiwanese Share Taichung Park

    

     Yesterday, while I was bike riding up the Han River to read a book, my wife sent me a Line message; would I like to visit Bobao in Taichung Park? "Of course," was my reply. I feared another boring weekend day in the condo avoiding the crowds around Taiwan. Instead, I took a deep breath and when I got home from my ride, we hopped on the scooter and headed over to Yi-Song Street for lunch before crossing Jin-Wu Road into Taichung Park. 

     Bobao is the Tai-Ya man we met in Guguan
http://taichungjournal.blogspot.tw/2015/08/a-trip-to-guguans-hot-springs-and.html, the one who makes the traditional Jew's Harps called le-ong and does cultural tours around Taiwan and the world introducing Taiwan's indigenous people's culture. There was to be a fair at the park with his booth included among the other colorful traditional clothing and homegrown produce; tangy apples from Pear Mountain. 

     Taichung Park is tiny

compared with Prospect Park in Brooklyn, but it is still big enough to lose your way once you enter. Like blind-man's bluff with an elephant, one side of the park feels like a sports center with tennis courts, another side has shrines left from the Japanese park's creators, defaced by the Kuomintang, of course, replaced by the DPP, of course. Another side of the park has a running track for Guang-Fu Elementary School. To the center of the park lies the heart of Taichung, the landmark twin pagodas on an island in the middle of a rowboat lake, high fountains, and birds in shady trees. Where was Bobao's booth? 

      The Facebook post said Bobao was near the red bridge leading to the pagoda island. Entering from Yi-Song Street, one first passes the running track and sees the large twelve-year-old goat lantern. Alas, we found tents and heard a sound stage. Surly Bobao was there. We crossed a green lawn
  with dozens of picnickers' blankets, hundreds of picnicking people with snacks, beverages, some alcoholic, even some smoking cigarettes and bidis, the traditional smoke of Asia Minor. We realized we had walked into the weekly Sunday gathering of Indonesian guest laborers enjoying their day off from the factories they toil at in Tan-Tzu, Feng yuan, and areas around Taichung. From miles around, Indonesian guest laborers, many of them practicing Muslims, make their way on Taiwan Railroad and walk the mile or so through the downtown Taichung business district to Taichung Park. With their finest clothes, men and women in modern t-shirts and caps, the more orthodox women in saris and burkas, they don't feel alone far from home. Too bad the good Han Chinese of Taiwan are having none of it. 

     To most Taiwanese, Taichung Park has been 'taken over' by the foreign laborers on weekends. Having already 'lost' Taichung Park on weekdays to homeless people, the nights to prostitutes and unsavory sorts, local Taiwanese have painted themselves into a corner in this; one of the most beautiful gifts left by the Japanese when Taiwan was their colony from 1898 to 1945, a colony fully incorporated into Japanese territory with amenities for the locals such as parks, shrines, railroads, department stores, willow washes.
     The Indonesian government will be ending their foreign worker contract with Taiwan in 2017 because of the booming economy and the need for more workers back home, but until then, the 174,662 Indonesian foreign care workers (30% of the 580,000 migrant workers; another 20% Filipino) will continue their 'blood-sweat' jobs for decades of their lives working more than ten hours a day caring for Taiwan's elderly, with little time off and exclusion from protection under the Labor Standards Act. When they leave Taiwan, they will be replaced by migrant workers returning from Vietnam, and now Myanmar and Cambodia to help ease the labor shortage in a rapidly aging population. 
     Sunday is their glorious day, thanks to Allah, to socialize in Taichung Park. 

       Taichung Park had had its Taiwanese heyday in the sixties and eighties until downtown was abandoned by Far Eastern Dept Store after two fires, the movie theaters closed, and seedy pachinko parlors catered to errant youth lost in modern western schlock culture, on amphetamine. Even Sea King Restaurant and McDonald's restaurants fled the Taichung's skid row as the affluent-minded, Mayor Hu, abandoned the beautiful old city hall building and moved Taichung's government to the Westside. The politicians gave up downtown and Taichung Park; not the people. The underworld and foreign laborers then took it over. 

Curious Indonesian Onlookers 

     Now with the downtown revival movement picking up steam, thanks to our new Mayor Lin, Taichung Park is benefiting from the rehabilitation with the space used for the Lantern Festival, and events such as the Indigenous Festival we went looking for yesterday.   

Bobao's le-ong stall

     Finally, we found it, across the stone bridges over the lake, near the entrance to the park on the east side, there was Bobao's stall occupied by he and his lovely wife, drawing interest in the bamboo creations he had on display, playing his le-ong, holding a mini-workshop for the much too few Taiwanese

Taiwanese checking out their indigenous culture

who came to be part of the festival. Meanwhile, the Indonesian guest laborers looked on in curiosity, basically leaning on the ledges of the bridges and the walkway behind the lake, not getting involved much with 

the Indigenous festival, though there were some brave souls who literally crossed the bridges to join the other side. As few as there were, there were hardly any Han Taiwanese who crossed the other way besides an enterprising lottery card hawker. Taichung is not going to become an international city so long as there is suspicion and prejudice against the two sides. It seems like only Taiwan's indigenous people are capable of bridging that gap, though they have to learn some sensitivity, too. 

     Whoever had the idea to roast a whole pig and display it near the festival was unaware of the un-halal pork to the Muslims from Indonesia. Call it half-assed planning, but whoever oversaw these two festivals on either side of Taichung Park, spent no time interfacing or incorporating the two. 
     It almost felt like a Sunday afternoon in  Central Park, NYC, where steel kettle drums share the space with t'ai-chi dancers, hipsters, sunbathers, rollerbladers, and families on their way to the zoo. Taichung Park can be just like that, but someone in government has to try harder to do so. Mayor Lin is trying.

    Mayor Lin has the idea of turning First Square into an international food court.  First Square is the old First Taichung market built by the Japanese and used for years by locals for the freshest produce and meats. It has come into the old pattern of not being kept up with the times and becoming relegated to the second-class foreign laborers, and shunned by Han Taiwanese.

     Mayor Lin, feeling the strength of Taichung’s powerful international community, is making First Square into a palace. The old adage applies: "When the good Lord gives you broken lemons, you make lemonade." The foreign laborers are already here; let's give them their place at the table and integrate them into Taiwan's mosaic. But will the Han Chinese of Taiwan balk?There is a lot of prejudice that has to be exposed, dealt with, and overcome.
     Making an international food court for Indonesian, Filipino, Cambodian, Indian, Japanese, Myanmar, Korean, Thai and Indian Asian neighbors is the ticket home! The color barrier that Han Taiwanese put up must be put into its racist grave. If they are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem. 

Downtown Taichung: No Longer Going Down the Drain