A letter to the Traveler

Enjoy Leisure, Experience Wellness

City raised but maintained all the wholesomeness and warmth of a country villager, every time I travel I make friends wherever I go, and always invite them “to visit me if you ever come to Taiwan”, even if we only met by chance. Everyone who knows me that one of my strong suits is that I enjoy friends, or that’s one of my weaker personality attributes you may say. The upside is that my list of friends grow longer and longer, and the downside is that all of my family, relatives, even friends at home, have to play goodwill ambassadors along with me.

　There are many must-see places I recommend to foreign friends when they come to Taiwan, but a tour to a leisure farm is definitely on the top of that list. Leisure farms are ubiquitous in Taiwan, although slightly trite but they are the true eyewitnesses to the traditional beauty preserved today. Instead of using the word “tradition”, it’s perhaps better to say that they are the most original, the purest form of the charming Taiwanese race, one of the best attractions when journeying in Taiwan.

　It is really fun to visit a leisure farm! Want to know why? Daniel, a foreign language teacher who spoke very little Chinese, stayed at a tea farmer’s place in Ilan for one week, where he got to put on a straw hat and helped with picking tea leaves and apprenticed in tea-making; he learned how to become a tea farmer the Taiwanese-style, learned tea appreciation, even how to make smoked tea eggs (a local delicacy where hardboiled eggs are smoked with tea leaves) first hand. Daniela was from Germany, who could not speak Chinese at all but went to the Shangri-La Leisure Farming in Ilan, and experienced fruit-picking in a fruit orchard for the first time. Seeing the trees rich and abundant with succulent pomelos, she was moved beyond words. However it was the purple coffee she drank at the San-Fu Garden and Resort that stood out as the most unforgettable memory, for which she’s willing to come back just to have another sip.

　Therefore, if one is curious to know where a traveler has been, all one needs to do is to open his/her sack to see the loads of gifts, native goods, and Taiwan’s unique children’s games and toys, to immediately discern that that they were the presents and forget-me-not souvenirs given by hospitable farm owners and a hosts of chance-meeting friends from Taiwan.

　Now that "What a Taiwan! - Leisure Farming Travel Guide" is published, even if you don’t understand Chinese, you can tour around Taiwan in total enjoyment. I cannot wait to get a copy of this book, after seeing and hearing so many foreign friends use this book to have such a good time in Taiwan. Next time, don’t rely on an interpreter, but instead take this book along and enjoy Taiwan at your own pace, find out more about the beauty of Taiwan personally.