Buffalo Surfer

By Pete Brown

Ilove life in Taitung County and my days here are an even mix of the familiar and the unexpected. Below is a diary of just such a day …

I woke up a little late because it’s summer time so my son doesn't have to be at school as early and the wind won't be up till the afternoon. I was at the pizza shop yesterday evening spinning dough for a healthy group of athletes from Belgium. A pretty gal named Christine was kind enough to film me while standing on a stool in the kitchen to compose the shot. One of my staff held their phone close to the gal filming to broadcast a golden oldies Taiwan song by Teresa Teng asking for a kiss. I two-stepped to the beat while I danced with the flying dough. With help from Jimmy, my young hip manager, we made my first Tiktok video. I sawed out a couple Cajun fiddle tunes and played banjo songs about being lost at sea. Then things got busy and I was running plates, washing dishes, sweeping, vacuuming, taking orders and making pizza. I was tired on my way home driving through Dulan but I spotted my old buddy Mark on the side of the road with a huge fish he’d just speared, so I stopped into Wagaligong to chat with the fellas. All of the above put me in bed a little later than normal.

My first chore of the day was to check on my water buffalo and make sure they had water. I had a twenty-kilo bag of oatmeal in my van that I bought at the feed store behind the 7-Eleven in Dulan. As I pulled in to my friend’s farm where my buffalo were feeding, I slowed down to watch a wild pheasant until I spooked it and it flew away squawking. The view to the east is all coconut groves, jungle, rice paddies and ocean with Green Island sitting on the horizon and steep mountains to the west. To the south there is the village of Longchang, but from my point of view I only see a few rooftops. To the north it’s all mountains and sea. Snoopy, a fouryear old bull was waiting for me at the gate like an excited puppy. I filled two buckets with oatmeal and took a handful for Lodong the monkey that lives on the farm. Lodong snatched the oatmeal away from me but he didn’t snarl at me like he did yesterday. I made Snoopy do a couple of maneuvers with a touch stick—when his nose touched the end of the stick I gave him a little oatmeal. He loves this game and we continued to play while the water basin was filling.

After a few minutes I started wondering about my other buffalo. She is usually the first one to greet me and I called her “Lucy!” accenting the U into a low cattle call. She didn’t appear and I started to think that someone had run off with my buffalo or maybe that she’d wandered off and gotten lost. I walked down to a wooded part of the lot where the wind cooled as it blew through the shade of the trees. The buffalo usually rest down here in the heat of the day, but Lucy wasn’t there. I walked out to the far northeast of the field checking under the shade trees along the way, all to no avail. By now I was drenched with sweat and my brain was racing with ugly possibilities. I moved quickly back to the westerly lot and crossed it hoping to find her in the tall razor grass thicket. Then I saw her standing under a breadfruit tree along the side of the pasture. As I approached, I noticed her baby, lying next to her under a large tuft of grass. I picked it up and helped it to its feet, hoping that it already knew how to nurse. The baby buffalo bounced around clumsily with no interest in its mother’s udders. I led Lucy and the baby to the water basin. By now the water had flown out of the concrete pool into the mud hole adjacent and Snoopy the bull was wallowing in it. The sun was high and we were all hot. While Lucy stuck her nose in the clear, clean water of the small concrete basin to drink, the baby climbed all the way into the water and stayed there till her mother drank her fill. I talked to the baby and called it Tweetie, while I checked Lucy’s udders for milk. To my surprise she let me milk her with no fuss and the milk sprayed out just as I imagined it should. After a couple squirts I left the rest for Tweetie and went back home.

On the way home I passed Bread and Chocolate bakery and bought a delicious loaf of sourdough bread filled with French onion soup for lunch. I’m a keen sailor and am happy that my son is following suit—when I arrived home he was getting ready for sailing class. We drove south of my home passing through Dulan stopping at Dinggo for a wonderful cup of freshly squeezed grapefruit green tea. While I waited for my green tea my wife Sophia bought some fried rice next door at the Dulan Snack Bar. We were a little rushed and ate the rice in the van but arrived at Shanyuan Bay Beach just in time to meet Fede, the sailing coach for a briefing on today’s lesson before we dragged my son’s sailing dingy into the Pacific. I watched four little sailboats tacking into the wind, back and forth out to sea until they were so far out that not even the numbers on the sails could be seen. I washed the sweat off in the gentle surf then joined my wife for a trip into Taitung. We went to the little tepanyaki place, Da

Po ( 大埔鐵板燒台東旗艦店 ), on the corner of Siwei and Zhonghua Road. I love the little onion omelet they make, and the cabbage is seasoned just right. When we finished we went to pick up some curry and crispy fried pork chops for the pizzeria staff who were just finishing their lunch shift.

After dropping off the staff lunch, we received a call from a customer staying at our guesthouse (Sleepy Buffalo) who was unable to unlock the front door. After a quick analysis of the situation I determined that someone had flipped a little safety lock on the inside of the sliding door that only allows it to be unlocked from inside. Thankfully I was able to call a customer inside the house and they came downstairs to flip the safety and no one was upset. Sophia went to pick up our son B’Odellay from sailing class while Rebecca, Jimmy and I prepped for what turned into another busy night full of pizza, song and dance.

Today, just like so many before it, was an enticing blend of everything that Taitung has to offer— beautiful scenery, outdoors activities, good food, and good company. Bring on tomorrow!