A ranted furiously: "B is really outrageous, picking my family's zongzi leaves." The village women chattered and asked B about it, but B answered righteously, "I saw some on the mountain, so I cut them. Who knew whose they were." A was even more clever - he rubbed his nose and went off to cut C's family's zongzi leaves.

What the people of Shanlin call zongzi leaves are shell ginger leaves.

This is because there is no sun to dry them, so they were put in the refrigerator.

 

More segments on boiling shell ginger leaves

 

A somewhat complaining afterword

A while ago I heard from a friend that one of the leaders of the new residents scolded the former district office officials for not properly developing Shanlin. Jiasian has taro, Cishan has bananas, Meinong has tomatoes and paper umbrellas, Liugui has mangoes…… but Shanlin has no distinctive feature at all. He said that if paragliding is good, then there should also be hot air balloons or something. I have no objection to the first part, but hearing the latter I felt it was absurd! Shanlin is just a simple rural village. It has a unique laid-back character, suitable for relocating to for retirement, but simply not suitable for becoming a Transformer. Even if there were to be hot air balloons or other commercial development, it should come from residents spontaneously planning it slowly, not from a massive budget using destructive construction to bring in tourism. That would not be Shanlin at all. More accurately, the people of Shanlin would not have the strength to participate in it either. So in reality, whether old residents or new migrants, none would benefit much from the officials' construction - except those in power.

Every one of our Shanlin Hakka zongzi made with Qin Fen Mei's recipe, our native pumpkins, Honghaier papayas, loofahs and other gourds and fruits and agricultural products all represent Shanlin's indelible local value. It is just that our ancestors chose not to amplify Shanlin's life and culture, or rather not to over-commercialize the place where I grew up. Small-family-scale Shanlin farmers only think about smoothly handing their agricultural products over to the farmers' association or the market agents, farming to feed a family, and then living their lives well. They do not have much ambition to develop tourism or anything like that. They also very much want to protect their own homeland, but because young people have moved away and the population is aging seriously, when they look back at themselves now they have also reached the age where they no longer have the strength to maintain traditions or beautify their homeland, so in outsiders' eyes they appear even more down and out.

But the things no one cares about still play out in my village every day and every night. Whenever the season comes, we Shanlin people cut pound pak-chi and boil pound pak-chi; dry cabbage and pickle cabbage; boil zongzi leaves and wrap zongzi…… doing everything ourselves. Shanlin people ship their agricultural products elsewhere, but are not very willing to sell their own specialty dishes to the outside, so for Shanlin's shell ginger zongzi, first build good relations with the farming families, then ask if there is a chance to share a meal together.

Overall, Shanlin's shell ginger zongzi preserve a good flavor you cannot taste elsewhere! After all, this is my purest childhood memory. Rather than saying this is half about marketing Kaohsiung's Shanlin, it is more like I am trying to remember Shanlin for the farmers.