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ADVENTURES IN ASIA WITH LADYB, LAOLAO AND GONGGONG
Story #27: Welcome to your new baby brother, gifts and let’s talk about Taiwanese food. YUMMY!
Puli Town (our home), Taiwan, with gifts from the Mainland and Taiwan Province.
This is going out today at the post office!
Dear Granddaughter Mila and now, TA-DAH, Grandson Liam,
Welcome to Planet Earth, Liam, humanity’s only Pale Blue Dot. You are in good hands with your parents, big sister Mila and Grandmother Maflor all the way from Normandy, France to ride shotgun and help out! LadyB, Laolao and I are so happy for all of you and send much Sino-love from across the great Pacific.
Let’s get the gifts out of the way first. Now with two grandkiddos, it’s double the work, but double the pleasure too.
Since Liam has just sprouted his wings, we’ll start with him.
First, I hope you got your silver baby bracelet that I sent to Mila in April, to give to you (https://radiosinoland.com/2025/04/10/adventures-in-asia-with-ladyb-and-gonggong-story-21-a-teeny-taste-of-vietnam-after-our-return-home-and-all-about-your-family/).
Photo #1: Liam, I’ve already given 2-3 of these hand-sewn silk bags to your sister, with coins in them. I’m putting a special Taiwanese coin in your first one. It’s only 50 Taiwanese dollars (about US$5.00), so you can’t retire just yet. But this coin is big, heavy and beautiful, with a portrait of Sun Yat-Sen on the front. He founded the Republic of China in 1912 and is revered by all Chinese around the world for ending China’s imperial dynasties. In our little town of Puli, we have a tall statue of him in the middle of a roundabout, gazing down on his people.
Put this bag and coin under your mattress for good luck and great health! It works for the Chinese!
Photo #2: I also gave your sister one of these, so now you have a matching set. But, the words and colors are different. In the middle is the ubiquitous character Fu (富). It means wealthy or abundant. It also happens to be in my Chinese name, Bu Jiefu (卜杰富)! The four big characters in the corners say, Ronghua Fugui (荣华富贵), which means Glory, Splendor, Wealth, Rank, or simply, High Rank and Wealth. We’re counting on you, boy!
The top phrase says, Wealth, High Rank, Peace, Happiness (富贵安乐). The bottom phrase states, Have read five cartloads of books (学富五车), meaning, To be very learned. Again, no pressure! Just joking.
Photo #3: This is a handmade amulet or bracelet. It can also serve as a key chain, but since you aren’t going to be able to drive until 2041, it would go great on your bed post at some point. More good luck, since the little drum amulet is a Buddhist prayer wheel, the big ones they slowly spin in temples as they walk by one and give it a slow push. Regardless of religion, prayers are always comforting and healing.
We are surrounded by Confucist/Daoist/Buddhist temples, right outside our door. The monks and nuns sell handicraft to fund their daily living and keep the temples in good shape.
Photo #4: This is a beautiful refrigerator magnet from Nanniwan, in Yan’an, Shaanxi Province, where I just finished traveling to (https://radiosinoland.com/2025/07/27/amirjeffs-excellent-china-adventure-series-2025-hunan-jiangxi-fujian-and-shaanxi-provinces-red-tour-short-videos-captioned-photos-articles-and-commentary-the-real-chinese-people-you-don/), and the whole one-month trip will be the basis of my next book.
I ran the numbers and calculated that the chances of someone named Liam from Oklahoma, USA owning a Nanniwan frig magnet, from the boondocks of Yan’an, Shaanxi Province, China is statistically ZERO! You are the only one, so don’t lose it…
Photo #5: Enclosed is this postcard from Ruijin, Jiangxi Province, China. As you can see, Ruijin is proud of its noodle soup, complete with two bowls of veggies and one of white mushrooms. It is so pretty and colorful, I want you to have it.
We’ll get to some more dee-leesh food, but first, your big sister wants her gifts too.
Photo #6: This photo shows gifts to both of you. These are framed scissorcut papercuts from Yan’an, Shaanxi Province, China. I met the artist, Mrs. Gao Zhiqin and we had a nice chat. The one on the left is for your brother, since he was born in 2025 Year of the Snake. You, my dear, were born in 2022 Year of the Tiger, on the right. Aren’t they beautiful? All cut by hand, hours of meticulous work. Both zodiac animals are in front of the other celebrated Fu character (福), which means good fortune or blessings. Sometimes in life they come in handy!
Photos 7 and 8: In my last post and package, I sent you a bigger stuffed fantasy tiger with snakes on its back, to represent you taking care of your little brother Liam (https://radiosinoland.com/2025/08/10/adventures-in-asia-with-ladyb-laolao-and-gonggong-story-26-big-sister-tiger-helps-little-brother-snake-carry-the-weight/). Fantasy tigers come in all different colors and sizes, all handsewn.
The character on their foreheads is Wang (王), which means King.
You can see the artists use every kind of fabric, usually scraps, like quilts being made with all the colorful, irregular patches. Laolao is a professional-level seamstress and she says they are amazing! Now, you have Big, Medium and Small fantasy tigers, just like Goldilocks and the Three Bears…
Photo #9: In many Chinese museum gift shops, they hand make and sell custom-ordered bracelets. You sit down with a nice young lady and choose what you want to put into your bracelet, selecting from open boxes and boxes of beads, jewels and trinkets. You can spend a lot of money on semi-precious stones, like Tiger’s Eye, Malachite and Opal, but most people get lower cost options. I hope you like it. The little yellow lion head is in fact a lens. When you look into the glass lens on the top of his head, into a bright light, you can see a tiger image inside, in honor of your birth year!
Photo #10: When I saw this, I couldn’t resist. She is so cute. She is playing a traditional drum that hangs around her neck and she has a drumstick in her left hand. I don’t want to open it, but she looks like a pendant on a bracelet? Let me know how it works out.
Photo #11: Chinese post cards are really top notch and of excellent quality. This one is from Ganzhou, in Jiangxi Province, China. This little city has bragging rights. It says it represents half the history of the Song Dynasty, which lasted from 900-1200AD, a thousand years ago. I hope you still like the color pink!
***
Now, let’s get to the fun part: FOOD! Taiwanese food to be specific.
Puli is right on the Tropic of Cancer, so it is often rainy and warm. That makes for terrific fruits and vegetables, which are everywhere we turn. Most of them we buy in the markets are locally grown, although it’s too hot for apples, which are imported from the USA and New Zealand. Oranges are local in the winter months and imported from the US and Australia in the summer. Grapes and nuts are imported year round from Chile, the USA and Europe.
Other than that, we have wonderful Taiwanese fruit and veggies. Local farmers come into town and sell fresh-picked produce right off their trucks. Small gardeners do the same. Our area is famous for four crops: passion fruit, shitake mushrooms, jiaobaisun and water garlic. Jiaobaisun is misnamed water bamboo in English, when in fact it is very tall, wild rice grown in shallow water. However, they cut it down before it can make rice heads, so they can harvest the large shoot growing out of the water. When peeled, it’s as big as bamboo shoots, but tastes more like asparagus. Laolao just loves it. She steams them and makes salad sauces or we eat them with melted butter.
Shitake mushrooms are grown in big, covered, dark, black (green) houses in the hot summer months, so the harvests just ended. They are sold fresh or dehydrated and added to dishes after soaking them in water.
Passion fruit grows all over the place and hangs down on vines, like grapes.
Water garlic looks like jiaobaisun in paddies, but is much smaller. They cut down the plants, just as they start forming garlic bulbs and it’s the leaves, like giant, wide, 75cm chives that we buy. When you see big, flat, chopped onion greens in a Chinese dish, that’s water garlic.
Photo #12 and 12a: We eat a lot of fresh fruit. Above is local passion fruit, after eating an orange from Australia. Passion fruit and orange peels are super healthy in tea. As you can see, passion fruit blooms are other-worldly.
Taiwanese oranges are in season October-April. There is also a fresh-pressed orange juice shop and they leave in all the pulp. We buy 2-3 one-liter bottles and freeze them, thawing them out as we finish each one. Their juice is to die for!
Photo #13: All of this is farm fresh produce from our area. We eat salads like crazy, making Dijon mustard vinagrette sauce. Yummy!
Photo #14: A delicious composed salad with Gouda cheese made in Taiwan. We also get imported French cheese at our local Carrefour supermarket. Taiwan is the land of pork and poultry, some of the best in the world. Not so much beef, so at Carrefour, we buy Australian steaks and ground beef, avoiding the USA, since the latter uses hormones and Oz Land does not.
Photos #15 and 16: Sometimes the local produce can be huge. Avocados, like this one, can reach 20cm in length. Ditto mangos and papaya, which can hit 30cm. Since they are from our area, it’s all absolutely fresh.
#17: We’re not super wild about papaya, much preferring mangos, but it’s nice for a change. We squeeze fresh limes on them, of course locally grown, and dry out the seeds for an anti-oxidant supplement. Interestingly, the seeds reduce male sperm production, so are used all over Asia for natural birth control. At our ages, that’s not a problem! Five kids total is plenty…
#18: Like Mainland China, the watermelon here is out of this world. They are super-sized, so are often sold in cut-up pieces. Behind are two big mangos ripening, dwarfed by the mega watermelon, and a banana left from a bunch.
We have banana farms right around where we live, so they are fresh and sweet. Bananas that have been shipped halfway around the world can’t compare. Ditto the local pineapples. They are amazing. The raisins are imported from Argentina.
#19: For Westerners, turnip loaf sound yukky, but it is so good! You cut slices off a fresh block and pan fry them. I like to top them with Indian curry powder and soy sauce. A nice lady goes door-to-door selling it. Trust me, it is out of this world!
#20: Look at the size of this garlic. Again, all locally grown and super fresh.
#21: The Chinese eat coriander/cilantro and not much parsley, the latter which Laolao prefers in her cooking, so we have a few plants in our garden. Like the garlic, tomatoes and onions are all locally grown. Bon appétit!
Photo #22: if you can find this vinegar, it’s the best Laolao and I have ever used and tasted on four continents. Of course, vinegar is very healthy to use in cooking and eating. We go through it like crazy. You can see this is a just-bought five-liter jug! The brand name in English is Kong Yen. They have a white version too, so make sure you get the dark one. You will be glad you did!
Love from Puli Town,
LadyB, Laolao and Gonggong
LadyB is looking for Mila and Liam over the Taiwan Mountains, across the Pacific Ocean and over the Rocky Mountains… WHEW!
###
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Jeff J. Brown is a geopolitical analyst, journalist, lecturer and the author of The China Trilogy. It consists of 44 Days Backpacking in China – The Middle Kingdom in the 21st Century, with the United States, Europe and the Fate of the World in Its Looking Glass (2013); Punto Press released China Rising – Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and BIG Red Book on China (2020). As well, he published a textbook, Doctor WriteRead’s Treasure Trove to Great English (2015). Jeff is a Senior Editor & China Correspondent for The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing and is a Global Opinion Leader at 21st Century. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff writes, interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on YouTube, Stitcher Radio, iTunes, Ivoox and RUvid. Guests have included Ramsey Clark, James Bradley, Moti Nissani, Godfree Roberts, Hiroyuki Hamada, The Saker and many others. [/su_spoiler]
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