Off The Shelf by Doug Holder

Somerville poet Afaa Michael Weaver is a professor at Simmons College in Boston, and the author of several acclaimed poetry collections, the most recent titled “The Plum Flower Dance” ( University of Pittsburgh Press-2007). I invited him to contribute an article about his recent trip to Taiwan.

By Afaa Michael Weaver

Standing here on the top of Lion Mountain in southern Taiwan, you can see the area of Mei Nong, or beautiful farm.  As you look over to the other side of the valley, you will see the southern end of the mountain range that stretches along the eastern side of the country, forming beautiful seashore areas where, in some places, there is a sheer drop from the mountains to the Pacific ocean.  Here in Mei Nong the mountainsides are home to a variety of wildlife, including monkeys who shake the trees in the morning as they settle down to breakfast.  This farming area is now being turned into a haven for the newly rich, as the old farm houses built by a Chinese ethnic group known as the Hakka give way to hacienda style houses that look like encampments with large metal doors and surrounded by stone fencing.  Mei Nong includes a smaller area called Long Du, or Dragon‚Äôs Belly, an area where two hundred children were born who later went on to earn doctorates.  I was visiting friends who are nuns in a spiritual retreat in the area.  Our guide on a tour of the area was Ah Shan, an environmentalist, photographer, architect, and sculptor.

It was my first time in Mei Nong, and so I did not know the only way I could get around was on the back of a scooter, but there I was, all so many pounds of me.  Of that spectacle I am happy to say I have no pictures.  But one might imagine. 

I visited one of the farm houses built by the Hakka people in Taiwan.  The Hakkas are originally from northern China.  They came to Taiwan in the first waves of Chinese people to come to the island some 300 years ago, and when they came they encountered the Aboriginal cultures who had been there for many years.  The Aboriginal people are believed to be the Austronesian group of people who inhabit areas from Malay to Hawaii and New Zealand.  They have been in Taiwan for a few thousand years, but are now very small in number.  The Hakka gradually inhabited the land area here in Mei Nong, and the Aborigines retreated to the mountains.  The houses built by the Hakka are old and quite lovely.  This one belongs to a popular musician who sings the music of the Puyuma culture.  Academia Sinica University in Taiwan agency information on Aboriginal culture.

Academia Sinica is the national academy for Taiwan and a primary research center for the country.  Dr. Yuan Tse Lee is the president of Academia Sinica and a Nobel Laureate.   Here is the site for information on Taiwan‚Äôs aboriginal cultures.
http://www.sinica.edu.tw/tit/culture/0795_TribesOfTaiwan.html

Ah Shan, the gentleman who was our guide, took us to a pottery shop owned by a ceramic artist and his father.  It was a fabulous moment for me as I am always fascinated by visual artists.  They make things you can hold in your hands or put up on walls.  We poets sing to the soul, and although it is supposed to be a lofty calling, there is something that calls to me from the world of working with wood, earth, and other things.  I guess it‚Äôs the thingliness of things.  In any event, I have spent several precious moments since this trip back in June thinking of what it would be like to retire here in one of these old houses and just write.  Get out in the mornings, do my exercises, and walk for an hour or so before settling in for a day to make art.  Not bad, huh?

Ah Shan teaches children in a neighboring school the art of organic farming.  He is dedicated to living things, he says, and is seriously concerned about what our alteration of the world is doing to the world and to us. 

Ah Shan let me stay in his study while I was there for the weekend, and his three goats were my new friends, mama, papa, and baby goat.  We had a little bit of a conflict.  His study has lots of paper, and you know how goats like paper.  Well, at 2:00 in the morning when they were sure I was asleep, they stepped back a few paces, squared off, and then rammed the door with their heads.  I would go to the window and shoo them off, listening to their feet tapping the stones.  Then a few minutes later they were back.  It was probably papa, or maybe he and mama took turns teaching baby goat how to harden his or her head.  In any event, I won‚Äôt have any goats if I retire to Mei Nong and into a Hakka farmhouse.

I can rise in the mornings greeted by the chatter of the mountainside monkeys and write.