In search of Great Auntie (大嬸婆) and Third Brother (阿三哥)

Neiwan (內灣) is the home of comic strip "Great Auntie & Third Brother" (大嬸婆和阿三哥). Everyone of our age from Taiwan read this comic strip when we were young. We learned from TV that it will be the Wild Ginger Festival at Neiwan on October 18th. we thought we would visit the village on October 12th to avoid the crowd. We did not succeed in avoiding the crowd (it is always crowded) and we also did not see much wild ginger flower either. The village was quite interesting. From the wooden sign and store front, we could see the county government's effort of making it old and elegant . On the other hand, the merchants have completely taken it over with much more colorful signs and stands. It became a very crowded and very active market. The people is Hakkas. They are famous for hard working. From historical prospective, they are often considered as real Han people. They have migrated from the central part of China to the South due to the war many hundreds of years ago. They speak distinct dialect and have its own special cuisine and culture.

The village has a market street, a working train station, an old theater and a hanging bridge. We had the feeling of seeing Great Aunti and Third Brother everywhere on the market street. The people were very kind and we took a lot of pictures of people going about their business (市井小民). The lady in the photograph with Grace, sells preserved vegetable, which she has a mountain of it. She recommended us to go to an Hakka restaurant and told us to ask for special home cooking and leave it to the chef. We had a great meal for NT500 (US$15).