My Reflection on Zhongli City Presentation

I am familiar with the Zhongli City since it is close to my native place. I used to go there very often when I was a child. The place I went most often was the Yi Ming Temple (義民廟). It used to be a temple to worship those citizens who used to fight against the foes that attacked the village and died in the war. However, if you go to Yi Ming Temple nowadays, you can find several Gods of Taoism, and Buddhism insides.

Whenever I went to that temple, I went for the ceremony of worshiping “God Pig” (神豬). According to the elderly in my family, it is one of important activities for the Hakka people to worship for good luck in the following year. The farmer would bring and kill the heaviest pig that they raised to join this activity. The one who brings the heaviest pig would win the competition and get a great deal of money as reward. It would be a great honor to a farmer.

However, I didn’t like that kind of competition at that time since I felt that it was inhuman and kind of scary to see pig to be placed with that kind of position. Whenever I saw the “God Pig’s” eyes, I felt sense of guilt and sorry for the pig’s condition. Hence, I never go to that kind of ceremony when I grow up.

I like Zhong Li County since I can meet lots of Hakka people who are very friendly and hospitable and eat a variety of Hakka food, which is quite similar with the ones made by my grandmother, over there. Thus, whenever I go to Zhong Li County, I feel a sense of familiarity.

I like Silvia and Carol’s presentation a lot since they introduced several aspects of Zhongli city. Some points that they introduced like the exotic cuisine, and the foreign culture of Zhongli city are the ones I wasn’t familiar with before. I would like to experience the night market and the special foreign cuisine restaurants some day in the future.