Preface

My mother was lousy at cooking. To her, cooking was more like an exciting experiment. You put some of this and some of that in a pot, and you wait and see what will happen. “No experiments, no experiences.” is what she would say when her experiment did not turn out good, and I heard that a lot.

My father was a good cook, and he loved to cook, too. He often said that he got my mother to marry him with a table of delicious food, not with a beautiful ring. “A family needs only one good cook,” he said.

Now I am a cook myself. And I have my own restaurant. I learned how to cook from my father, of course. From him, I learned the art of cooking. But I did learn one thing from my mother. It’s her famous saying: “No experiments, no experiences.”

Small Rice, Big Dream

Central Taiwan News

May 13, 2008

Two years ago, a small town in Changhua started to grow healthy rice. The healthy rice was not grown by farmers but by students from a small elementary school of only about fifty people.

The idea of growing rice came from the school teachers. When making teaching plans, the teachers decided to teach students how to grow healthy rice on school land. They wanted the students to get closer to the land and learn to help each other when doing the rice farming outside the classroom.

What’s better, the school made money from selling the rice and giving farming classes to the public. With the money, the school could help students who wished to go to foreign countries some day. Today the dream is becoming real — the students are flying to Japan to share their special farming experiences, and have fun over there, of course!

"We all feel very proud that even students from a small town can make themselves seen in the world," said one of the teachers.

It was late. I was too hungry to sleep, so I put on my jacket and went downstairs to a coffee shop to get some food. A cute little dog was standing at the door. It looked friendly. I stopped to play with it and I thought it liked me. "Does it have a home?" I wondered. So I decided to ask the clerk whose dog it was. I thought if the dog didn't have an owner, I might take it home and take care of it. "It's my dog," said the young girl. "She's waiting for me to finish my work. She worries and barks a lot if she doesn't see me at night, so I let her stay here with me."

Flower Town in July

Summer is the most beautiful season in Flower Town. In the morning, take a walk in Vendo Park between First Street and Third Street. If you enjoy reading, there is a bookstore in the park.

For lunch, have delicious Hamburger Special in Googie’s. You can walk there from the park. It is just on the corner of Mension Road and Third Street.

When the weather gets hotter in the afternoon, go to the swimming pool on Fourth Street. It is next to Cage’s Café.

In the evening, movie fans move to Second Street. David Stone Theater has all kinds of movies!