Stop 2: Sanyi

As we drove south, we wound through the mountains. Taiwan’s mountains are stunningly steep and sheer; they just rise out of the Earth like teeth, with no foothills buffering them from the rest of the land. We stopped in a town called Sanyi, which is known for its woodcarving. It houses the National Woodcarving Museum, and although we didn’t go inside, we did stroll along the main avenue, which has many high-end art shops and low-end trinket stores featuring carved goods.

At one of the high-end places, a woman explained a bit about the pieces they were selling (and my friends translated for me). She noted that the freshly carved wood was nearly white (I didn’t catch what kind of wood), but slowly, over a period of years, it would come to be brownish and then deep red. I would suppose this is due to some kind of oxidation process, but to her, it indicated that the wood was still a little bit alive, retaining its vitality for years.