Wild above, wild below, a cheerful and bright wonderful place
Stepping out of the ban tiao snack shop, I wiped my greasy mouth and prepared to head to the next destination, which was also the part of this trip I looked forward to most. The address looked easy to find: Zhongshan Road, the name of the main thoroughfare in more than half of the townships and towns across the country, and this town was no exception. There were no densely packed commercial storefronts along the street, so when I first saw the rolled-down metal shutter, I reasonably suspected I might have come to the wrong place.
Following the number painted on the shutter, I called the phone number, and the voice that answered was young and female. She sounded a little shy as she said she had gone home for lunch, then changed tack and sincerely said her home was nearby and she could come right over to reopen. Now it was my turn, the customer who had made a wasted trip, to feel deeply apologetic. This kind of home-style way of doing business stirred up a nostalgic feeling.
After a stroll through the tropical tree garden and the Yellow Butterfly Valley outside the street, I returned to Zhongshan Road, and the shop door was already open wide. The still-warm afternoon sunlight poured into nearly half the space inside the shop, and the goods on the shelves all shone, just like my elated heart. Wild and Field, a small shop selling cultural and creative goods, was something I had discovered a few years earlier at a small-farmer market stall in the city (the Bow Market). Amid a wave of cultural and creative industries in Taiwan, China, Wild and Field had a uniquely fresh feel and a depth of locally rooted knowledge that especially drew me in. And the source of Wild and Field's creativity, Meinong, was a place where, during the surging community total empowerment movement of the 1990s, local young people took a step ahead of government cultural policy and used a diverse community cultural movement to oppose a reservoir construction plan (historically known as the "Meinong Anti-Reservoir Movement"). Not only did it achieve the goal of blocking the reservoir construction, but this spontaneous community empowerment movement also continued to be passed down far and long, so that this southern Hakka small town is absolutely not limited to the ban tiao street seen today; to a certain extent, it had already reached the standard of a pilgrimage site.
Having come all this way from a major northern city, this small town held for me a geographical distance in space, a historical distance in the development of community total empowerment, and the distance in time of eagerly awaiting Wild and Field's once-in-a-long-while trip north to set up a stall, so how could I not be elated! My inner "lady of leisure" soul began to revive at this point, and my inner monologue went like this: "These, those, wrap them all up for me!" Perhaps the girl running the shop sensed my burning gaze, because she once again shyly told me that the goods displayed in the shop were actually not far off from the items they sold when they went north to set up their stall. And the new year calendar I had especially remembered, I learned only after asking, had its production and printing plan for the following year suspended because this year's sales had earned almost no profit. Just think: if there were support from public and private sectors, this little shop's operations should be able to get closer to the model most people are familiar with. There is no good or bad in that, but the original intention held by these young people who call each other "partners" might gradually lose its place to stand.
I was holding a stack of goods ready to check out, and at the same time casually picked up a folded map on the counter to leaf through. The girl began talking freely about the whole story behind making this folded map, even though it was a small item consigned for sale by peers from out of town. Afterward we talked about my upcoming itinerary, and I said I wanted to take a walk in the old street of the neighboring small town. This once again triggered the girl's local intelligence network, and she effortlessly produced a whole string of sights worth visiting and foods worth eating, more than enough to plan into a one-day mini trip.
The girl was a very good storyteller. After this second meeting with her on this trip, I became even more convinced of it. At our first encounter at the market, she described every item I picked from the stall as a unique organism full of life, as if freshly picked from the farming countryside soil I sincerely admired. How beautiful, every piece made it hard to choose, and I wanted to own them all. She also used shop products she had made with her own hands, just like farmers eating crops they had produced themselves, secure and satisfied. As a result, I was able to share with her the cutlery pouches or small canvas bags we both owned; we chatted happily, as if we were classmates chattering while shopping together after school.
It is said that the next day the metal shutter broke, so the shop had to close for a day. The good luck and good mood of that day will be stored especially deeply in my travel memories. (This article was written on 2013/12/5; Wild and Field later moved to No. 14, Section 1, Zhongshan Road.)
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