Taiwan Day 3: Goat Foetus
Back in Taipei and hello Internet connection! Sad that this is such a damned plus point for me, but along with the rest of civilised living comes a certain lack of cricket sounds outside my window, frog calls when I’m walking back to my room and none of my mother asking me to take deep breaths in the morning for “true mountain fresh air”.
I think one thing we take for granted in Singapore is the rarity of getting hit in the face with the smell of sewage. I know it’s more common in other countries, and boy was I reminded of that fact tonight. The good news though, is that I’m able to tell the difference between fermented beancurd and human waste, having been exposed to the two smells alternately and repeatedly all day.
I’ve not been exposed to very much of this outside of China and Korea, so I’m going to assume it’s an Asian thing: You know, when your tour guide talks in passing of a national product, and coincidentally brings you to a little place where they do a presentation and then proceed to sell you exactly that product at exorbitant prices?
In China, it was Chinese medicine and tea. In Korea, it was manuka honey. Today, it was ling zhi and tomorrow I have a feeling it’ll be jade, going by the tour guide’s diatribe in the bus on how to avoid jade of inferior quality.
But I’ve never been accosted so aggressively. I mean, usually they let you leave the shop with just a few nicks and cuts, but today, my father and I were cornered by two salesgirls (dressed disconcertingly as tribeswomen with large feathers in their hair) and yelled at in broken English.
So your eyes are assaulted as well as your senses. I can’t recall if we bought anything, because my memory blanked out moments after, but I do recall her asking:
Lady: You speak English? You not understand Chinese? Just now we talk you no listen??
Me: Umm I listen yes.
Lady: But you not understand so you listen now!
Me: To…?
Lady: See ling zhi very good, mind strong, your mind not strong?
Me: I don’t know…
Lady: Not strong! Forgetful! Slow!
My dad: I do take it in capsule form at home.
Lady: NO GOOD! You buy Eu Yan Sang one? NO GOOD! FAKE. FACTORY. Our is nature, very nature, Eu Yan Sang is CHEAT MONEY!
My dad: Actually I do buy it from there…
Lady: YOU NEED LING ZHI NOW! See you smell you smell!
*hands out a round, brown, bony structure and I sniff it*
Me: Ling zhi?
Lady: GOAT FOETUS!
And that’s the bit where my memory blanks out. Clearly, goat foetus is the kryptonite of ling zhi.
Regarding the presentation and sales, I understand this is how it works:
Often, tours to China/(other countries) include packages at ridiculously low prices so that you wonder the tour agency makes money. Recently I went on a 8 day trip to Jiangnan: 5 cities of Suzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and one person paid only $700+ inc. airport taxes. This includes accommodation, lunch, dinner (most days) and air-tickets!
Because every day we’ll be visiting some factory which sells jade/silk/tea/etc and the commission is split between tour guide, factory, tour agency. I understand the tour agency operates on really low margins and taking a risk, hope to recoup from such factory sales.
So I assume you’re paying rather low prices for the tour…?
Okay, rant over…a little lengthy.
GRARGH i wasn’t prepared for that! DAMNIT VICK! *&%^$!!!
ahahahHAHAHAhahahAHAHAHhaHAhHA
youz ahz tooz funniez
Christ. Next time, remind me to read the titles of your posts.
Anyhoo, I trust you’re having a good time in goat foetus land.
hahahhahahahahha.
gret trip. get some back for us!
no jade. we go china buy. $2-$10 per piece. who cares if its of inferior quality.
Kum Hean> I don’t know, actually; my sister paid for this. But I’ll bet they do this routinely to most tour groups…
I think it’s a tour-group-made-of-35-chinese-singaporeans-on-a-bus thing. It’s tailor made for us.
My rickshaw driver (cyclist?) kept taking us in his dingy rickshaw to all the tourist traps shops in Agra, even though I was _desperate_ to get to the Taj Mahal. On second thoughts if I had gone along with him and didn’t make it to the Taj that day, maybe I would still have a girlfriend. :)
I’m surprised you didn’t faint at the attack of the head feathers!
So is goat foetus the “balut” of Taiwan as duck foetus is to the Philippines??
Haha.. good one.
Btw, i won’t stay in a hotel that doesn’t have reliable in-room broadband connection (not wireless) if i could help it either, holiday or no. I suppose it is slightly sad.
Pop> I do believe so too, yes. The fact that you got it in India surprises me though; I figured (from China, Korea, Taiwan) that it was an “oriental” thing. I mean, you know what they say about us yellow people…
morpheus> It isn’t…it was a hardened, preserved foetus and they grind it down into powder so that you can mix it with water and um, drink it. Yes.
stasher> Only slightly. ;)
Love your blog and great photos. Who the hell discovered that you can extract a goat’s foetus, dry it, grind it down and then add to food?? More importantly, WHY?
SO THAT PEOPLE CAN BUY THEM?!?!?!
ROTFL, LMAO, LOL, HTTP, WWW, XXX
max> Thank you. :) It actually smells pretty uh, meaty. I’m not sure if you add it to food though; you’re supposed to add it to water and drink it. Ha ha ha, the pain.