Our friend Pearl, the pre-k teacher at KAS, took us out for lunch yesterday. We went to an aboriginal restaurant about 45 minutes outside of Kaohsiung in the foothills of the mountains. It's the first time we've been out of the city in a month (we took a day trip to the countryside the second day we were here) and it was beautiful.

There are a dozen or so aboriginal tribes in Taiwan that represent the people who lived here before the Chinese started arriving. The Hakka were the first Chinese to arrive, about 1000 years ago. The original settlers of Taiwan were probably from Polynesia. Those tribes were forced up into the mountains, out of the fertile lowlands, and treated like seemingly every indigenous group of people worldwide. In the past 20 years or so Taiwan has begun to embrace its past and the aboriginal tribes are getting recognition and some level of respect.

So, back to lunch. We ate at a restaurant that Pearl has been visiting for 20 years and loves to take new faculty to to introduce us newbies to some authentic Taiwanese culture, in her words. Here is the aftermath:

We had steamed fish, pickled papaya, fern and fruit salad, roasted boar, wild mushrooms and for dessert, red bean cake. It was delicious. The boar and the bean cake were not my favorites but the salad, mushrooms and fish were some of the best food I've ever eaten. I can't wait to go back again.