This picturesque town in the hills of Kaohsiung County is considered a center of Hakka culture and has become a popular destination for domestic tourists.

BY STEVEN CROOK

“A destination that offers something for everyone.” A tired slogan in the tourism industry, to be sure, but Meinong  (美濃) comes closer than most. Even if you’ve never been there, you probably associate this little town in Kaohsiung County with Hakka food, oil-paper parasols, and millions of butterflies.

You may not know that Meinong also has a network of cycle paths (seven in all, each devoted to a theme), and a legacy of tobacco barns that beguile architecture aficionados.

For at least eight months out of every 12, the weather is excellent. Wildflowers bloom throughout the year. And possibly because of Hakka living habits – Hoklo Taiwanese sometimes describe their Hakka compatriots in the same way Italians talk about the Swiss – the buildings, streets, and fields seem to be tidier here than in other parts of Taiwan. 

If you think a place this nice must be inconveniently remote, you are in for a pleasant surprise. As the crow flies, Meinong is 40 kilometers northeast of Kaohsiung City. The town is just 10 kilometers from the Qishan (旗山) terminus of Freeway 10, a high-speed road that links both north-south freeways. For people who live south of Chiayi, Meinong makes for an excellent day-trip.

Meinong is a typical Hakka settlement in that eighteenth-century pioneers would have considered it a third-rate place to live. By the time Hakka migrants from mainland China’s Guangdong Province began arriving in Taiwan, most of the best farming land had already been occupied by Hoklo people (Taiwanese of Fujianese descent). The Hakkas had to make do with marginal areas, such as the remote but well-watered flatlands where the Meinong River emerges from the foothills.

Two brothers surnamed Lin settled here in 1736. They built 24 huts and a bamboo palisade to keep bandits out. The settlement slowly expanded; town walls and gates were added in the 1750s. The population, now a stable 43,000, is still at least 90% Hakka.

Yongan Road (永安路) is the heart of old Meinong. It's worth parking nearby and exploring on foot. The alleyways that branch off are full of traditional pre-World War II single-story courtyard houses, many of them still inhabited and in excellent condition. The old bridge across the Meinong River, built in 1930, is still used by pedestrians and cyclists.

There are at least three parasol workshops on Zhongshan Road (中山路), Section 1.  The stores at nos. 339 and 362 are slick souvenir-selling operations. English is spoken at the former, and credit cards are accepted. The proprietors of the latter can arrange for the production and delivery of customized umbrellas. Both stores also sell delicate paper fans, bamboo chairs, and grass raincoats.

Closer to the downtown, the unnamed workshop at no. 128 was founded by a master craftsman once invited to Washington D.C. to demonstrate his skills. At all these stores prices are similar: An eight-inch umbrella goes for around NT$600; a 19-inch one will cost at least NT$1,200.

In the old days, these umbrellas served both a practical use and a symbolic function. They not only made good parasols (they also retain their waterproof quality for a long time if properly cared for) but because the Hakka word for paper (zhi) is very similar to that for children (zi), they were often given as wedding presents. Also, because the word used to describe the roundness of the top (yuan) has the same pronunciation as the word for completeness, the parasols came to represent the good fortune that causes people to stay together. What’s more, because the word for umbrella (san) is made up of a group of people under a cover, umbrellas can also represent unity.

Making oil-paper umbrellas is a six-stage process: Bamboo is soaked in water, then cut into thin strips, which become the umbrella’s spokes. After the spokes are attached to the shaft, concentric circles of threading are added. The paper cover is fixed in place and painted, often with typically Chinese motifs like dragons, birds, delicate flowers, or wise sages. Once varnished, the umbrella is put outside to dry under the sun.

Another good spot for shopping is Yuan Xiang Yuan Cultural Village (原鄉緣文化村) at 147 Zhongxing Road (中興路), Section 1. Also known as Highway 28, this road is the main artery between Qishan and Maolin (茂林). Often bustling with tour groups, the store (open 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day) has an especially good selection of local dried specialty foods.

The legacy of tobacco

As Meinong has few factories, agriculture continues to be a major source of employment. For 200 years, the area’s farmers grew rice, bananas, black beans, sugarcane, and vegetables. Then something happened that was to transform the area economically, socially and architecturally: Tobacco arrived, not as an enjoyment, but as a cash crop.

Between the late 1930s and the end of the twentieth century, tobacco underpinned Meinong’s economy. Farmers used tobacco earnings to send their children to school (it is said Meinong has produced more Ph.D.s relative to its population than anywhere else in Taiwan), invest in businesses, build more comfortable homes, and endow temples.

In the 1970s, at least one in four Meinong families farmed tobacco. After Taiwan joined the WTO in 2002, however, the government-owned Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp. – the island’s No. 1 maker of cigarettes – began buying cheaper imported tobacco leaves. As a result, fields of tall green tobacco plants have become a rare sight. Nowadays, the most obvious evidence of tobacco’s role in Meinong’s history is the town’s distinctive curing sheds.

These small, sloped-roof buildings typically cover about 40 square meters of land. Each has two floors, and there is always a squat ventilation shaft on top. No two are the same. Some are brick; others have a concrete first floor and a second floor made of cheaper materials. The roofs are usually tile, with some rusting ironwork atop the ventilation tower. A few sheds are made of wattle-and-daub – the wattle consisting of slats of split bamboo, onto which daub (a mixture of clay, soil, rice straw, chaff, and pig dung) has been slapped.

According to a survey carried out by a community association in 2004, Meinong once had 1,814 tobacco barns. By the time of the survey, 402 had been demolished or destroyed by fire; 991 were being utilized as garages, storerooms, or workshops; and another 421 were intact but unused.

If you can recognize one curing shed, you’ll have no problems finding others. They are in every part of Meinong, a stone’s throw from the downtown and in far-flung villages like Guanglin (廣林), a pretty hamlet that deserves a visit even if you have no interest in its tobacco barns. Many have been converted into warehouses, tool sheds, and garages. At least one is now a pottery studio.

The entire field-to-cigarette process is explained in detail – but in Chinese only – in the Meinong Hakka Museum (客家文物館). The museum, at 49-3 Minzu Road (民族路), is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day except Monday.

An alternative way of learning about the industry is to take a close look at one of the sheds. You will notice that the central chamber – where the flue curing took place – typically has thick walls and a thick metal door. If this door is open, gaze inside and you will see that this room goes all the way up to the ventilation tower at the top of the building. Instead of floors or ledges, there are wooden racks on either side. This is where the tobacco was hung for curing. The fire would be under the floor of the central chamber so that hot air (but neither smoke nor sparks) would circulated around the tobacco.

Each year a few more of these distinctive buildings are demolished or collapse of their own accord. Architects seem to find their shape inspiring, however. Faux ventilation shafts and other features were incorporated into the design of the Hakka Museum, and appear on a handful of new private homes.

Meinong is no exception to the island-wide rule that much of Taiwan’s best food is to be had in the least pretentious eateries. Near the intersection of Minsheng (民生路) and Zhongzheng (中正路) roads are half-dozen places where the tables are a bit rickety, the seats are plastic stools, and the food gets slapped down in front of customers with the minimum of ceremony.

Westerners not much impressed by mainstream Taiwanese cooking should not expect epiphanies; after all, even Hoklo Taiwanese describe Hakka cooking as saltier, greasier, and more vinegary than their normal fare. But gourmands attuned to Chinese ways of food preparation will enjoy themselves. And it is very unlikely the bill will top NT$120 per person.  

Ban-tiao and other delicacies

As in other Chinese cuisines, Hakka meals are usually based around steamed white rice, although it happens that Meinong’s most famous form of sustenance is a noodle dish. Ban-tiao (粄條) are broad white noodles – five to seven millimeters wide – made from rice flour. Some of Meinong’s noodle-makers add yam flour to the mixture. Conventional Taiwanese noodles, by contrast, are made from wheat.  

Ban-tiao may be fried with slivers of pork and carrot, or boiled and then served either in soup or dry with a few small slices of pork on top. Several places in Meinong sell freshly-made uncooked Ban-tiao. A portion big enough to feed two typically costs NT$45.

Many Hakka dishes include fu-cai (福菜), which is fresh leaf mustard that has been dried under the sun, then stored in a sealed jar for at least four and usually six months. The resulting pickle is sweet and sour, and is added to stir fries and soups.

Fu-cai that has not been stored in a jar, but rather tied into bundles after drying, is called mei-gan-cai (梅干菜). It is often stewed with meat, or added to soups and savory cakes.

A dish you will see on many menus in Meinong is ke-jia-xiao-chao (客家小炒), which consists of strips of dried squid and dried tofu stir-fried with peppery bits of pork and seasonal greens. Another popular item is jiang-si-chao-da-chang (薑絲炒大腸), pig’s intestine cooked with ginger and white vinegar. The ginger may come in thin shreds or chunks as thick as your finger; chilies also make an appearance. The pieces of intestine – pinky-gray in color, and cut into sections about two centimeters long – are occasionally crispy, but usually not.

Vegetable options usually include gao-li-cai-feng (高麗菜封), a cabbage dish, and ku-gua-feng (苦瓜封), bitter melon.

Meinong’s most famous ecological attraction is the Yellow Butterfly Valley (黃蝶翠谷). Between May and July you can be sure of seeing small groups of butterflies lapping minerals from shallow pools. If you are lucky, you will find yourself in the midst of a flying cluster of thousands.

Farming and urbanization have destroyed or damaged many of Taiwan's butterfly habitats, but the vast number in Meinong of the species known as Lemon Emigrants is due in part to man’s interfering with nature. In the early days of the Japan’s 1895-1945 occupation of Taiwan, the colonial authorities planted Hophornbeam trees around the area known as Shuangxi (雙溪). The wood, which is exceptionally hard and heavy, was to be used for making railway ties and gun buttstocks. The leaves of this tree are a favorite food of the Lemon Emigrant’s larva. Typically, caterpillars will devour all the greenery on a tree, leaving only the trunk and branches.

The Lemon Emigrant (Catopsilia pomona), also called the Common Emigrant or Lemon Migrant, is a medium-sized, greenish-colored butterfly found in many parts of Asia and Australia. As its name suggests, it usually migrates. However, the Yellow Butterfly Valley differs from the Purple Butterfly Valley in nearby Maolin in that Meinong's butterflies do not migrate anywhere, but spend their entire life cycle within the watershed.

According to some sources, the number of butterflies here sometimes exceeds 50 million. Not all of them are Lemon Emigrants – 110 butterfly species have been spotted here.

If you drive out to see the butterflies, consider making a brief stop on the way at Shuangxi Tropical Viviparous Forest (雙溪熱帶母樹林), where the unusual degree of biodiversity is also the result of human intervention.

To find the forest or the valley, follow the bilingual signs scattered around the township. When you come to the Chaoyuan Temple (朝元寺), turn right. The forest is a few minutes down the road, on the right. The valley is a little deeper into the hills.

The forest, now managed by the Council of Agriculture’s Forestry Bureau, was established in 1935 by the Japanese colonial authorities. They imported and nurtured 270 plant and tree species from different parts of Asia, Australia, and South America, in order to learn which species could thrive in Taiwan. Nowadays, 96 different tree species grow in the forest; 11 are represented by a single specimen. In a few cases, these exotics are the only trees of their kind surviving anywhere in Taiwan.

Visitors should also keep their eyes open for birds, as among the species sighted here are the rare Maroon Oriole and the colorful Muller’s Barbet.

Like many tourist destinations in Taiwan, Meinong now has several homestays. Two in particular have been praised by guidebook writers and bloggers. One, Jhong Jheng Hu B&B (中正湖民宿; 30 Fumei Road (福美路); Tel: (07) 681-2736 or 0937-622-483), is named for a small lake north of the downtown. This body of water (now officially known as Meinong Lake, but still frequently referred to by its old name, Zhongzheng Lake) is perhaps the only “tourist sight” in the town that is not, truth be told, worth seeing.

The B&B's website, www.minsu.com.tw/cc-fu/ , lists prices but in Chinese only.

The other homestay establishment is Renzji Village (人字山莊; 66-5 Minquan Road (民權路); Tel: (07) 661-4684 or 0912-199-926). Again, the website is entirely in Chinese: http://www.5658.com.tw/range/index.htm