Taiwan: Slippery When Greased

Pology Magazine - Adventures in Travel and World Culture.

Photo: Soo Ping Hwang

Photo: Danny Zhan

Taiwan: Slippery When Greased (cont.)

He began to tell me the story behind the several hundred year old tradition. “The poor people from the county were getting too good at climbing the city walls. They steal from the rich. So, the rich people make the competition and invite the village from all the four directions to climb the gleasy pole. The fastest team would get lots of money and rice for their village. And better yet, the village would also receive good luck from the gods.” (Since most of this paragraph is a direct quote from a person who was not a native speaker of English, I did not correct any inconsistencies in the tense of verbs.)

With the pre-show entertainment in progress, featuring a sloppily choreographed ,but nevertheless cute, kids dance routine, our team was ushered over to the tower for some preliminary briefing on rules and regulations of the competition. We were provided with a bag of green and blue rags; green for degreasing and blue for making footholds, and then given a lightning fast demo in unintelligible English of how to tie them into knots.

We had plenty of questions, but they were to go unanswered; and before we knew it, it was show time. I didn't expect the bookies to give us favourable odds to grab the chicken and claim the accompanying 100,000 NTD ($3000) prize for first place, but the word on the street was that the odds of us making it even halfway were 100:1. Mr. Su, loyal till the end, stood in our corner yelling, “I give you suppo,. S-U-P-P-O-R-T”, while clasping his hands together in prayer.

As the first foreign team to ever participate in the competition prerace, we received double the attention from the Taiwanese onlookers as the other teams did. I couldn’t help but think of just how ridiculous the whole scene was.. A random Taiwanese man offered me some bing lang which I accepted for the first time. It seemed entirely appropriate to get the bing lang buzz— a rush of adrenalin similar to the coca leaves in South America— at this precise moment. Though rancid to the palette, the desired effect could be felt in my body instantly. I was pumped.

Vines of firecrackers hanging down from the platform were set off. Once the minute-long pyrotehcnic symphony had concluded, the race would begin. As soon as the final pop echoled around the old city walls, all four teams rushed out to commence the degreasing and claiming process.

I clambered with the grace of an ogre onto my teammate's shoulders, and received a loud roar from the spectators in our corner as I removed the first of many thick slabs of beef grease with the cloth and flung them away to rain down into the ground below. I removed section after section of lard with a great sense of urgency, propelled onward by the bing lang and the urging of our fans. When I glanced over to see the other teams' progress, I'm shocked to see that one team had already scaled up several feet. For the first time it occured to me that I had no idea—none whatsoever—what I was doing. Time begun to stand still as I realized the ridiculousness of the moment, and I decided to do what any dishonorable man would do in this situation; I gave up and jumped to the ground, spending the rest of the competition as an observer rather than an active participant.

Predictably, we did not fair well. Even Graham, a former soldier in the US army, was unable to figure out how to properly make the knots, which were crucial to establish the footholds required to make it up the pole. We had barely progressed a few feet when the eventual winning team had a sole member attempting to negotiate the tricky lip onto the chicken platform. It was the most difficult part of the climb, and it took a good ten minutes of nimble, deliberate maneuvering before he hoisted himself on top. Back on solid ground with Taiwan Beer in hand, I watched as he snatched the dead chicken and raised it triumphantly into the air. The crowd erupted as this year’s Chiang Ku winner was determined.

Afterwards despite our embarrassing effort, we are mobbed by TV crews and our new fans. Our involvement in the competition as foreigners was deemed worthy enough. Siv, who seems to have chewed on a few too many bing lang is screaming, “Taiwan ren ta ka pike! Taiwan ren ta ka pike!”, which is a mix of Mandarin and Taiwanese that can essentially be translated as, “Taiwanese people are loopy!” The whole scene is dizzying, especially after a few more cans of beer are thrust into my hand. I find a clean rag to wipe off some of the excess lard glued to my forehead, turn to Mr Su, still by my side, and tell him that out of all of the bizarre experiences during my stay in Taiwan—including the Yen Shui firecracker festival—this one takes the cake. C-A-K-E.

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