Entering the Austronesian world
After lunch, we join Chen for a walk in the mountains. “I hope you can walk slowly. We want to move at about a third of the speed we would on flat ground,” says the lightly dressed senior citizen. Before we start, he puckers his lips and whistles softly, inviting the wind to walk with us.
He tells us, “Out here, you’ll learn things you didn’t know about Austronesian culture.” Locals joke that Tingalaw has “more houses than people.” Though it looks cut off, the village is actually its own world, oriented to the ocean. In fact, according to anthropologists, this area was the starting point for the great seaborne migration of the Austronesian-speaking peoples.
On our walk, Chen teaches us how to “see into the deep parts of the forest”—to spot holes dug by wild boars, trails made by goats, monkey scat, and even ant nests partially eaten by pangolins (who are saving the rest for later). We identify breadfruit and velvet apple trees, both of which Amis use to craft dugout canoes, shell ginger hearts that can save your life in the wilderness, and the elephant grass hearts that village women like to gather.
When we finish our hike, we are 362 meters above sea level and smell coffee. It turns out that tribal leader Xu Yongzhe and his wife, Ye Meizhu, grow coffee here. When the couple retired after working in Taipei, they came back home to Tingalaw and planted two hectares of mountainside in coffee trees. Their daughter now markets their outstanding East Coast coffee under the “Coastal Coffee” brand.
The scent of coffee wafts through the air of Tingalaw, attracting visitors to the village.
Visitors try roasting coffee beans for themselves in the great outdoors.