Grandaunt Tigress

Legend has it that Koxinga, who drove the Dutch away from Taiwan in 1662, brought a pair of tigers to the island from China. The tiger and the tigress, however, made good their escape from their cages in Fort Zeelandia, which is present-day Anping in suburban Tainan. Fort Zeelandia was the seat of the Dutch colonial government. When the tiger was prowling near a small unnamed fishing village in southern Taiwan, villagers hunted it down and killed it. But they didn't know what the animal was. They thought it was a very big dog. So they called their village Takao (打狗) in memory of their successful hunting of the dog. The place was so known until the Japanese changed its name. The Japanese colonialists transliterated it into Japanese. Only the Chinese characters were changed. They were written Taka-O (高雄), High Male. No new name was given it after Taiwan was restored to the Republic of China in 1945. Takao in Japanese is kept. It is pronounced Kao Hsiung or Gao Xiong in Mandarin. The port city the Japanese developed is now the special municipality of Kaohsiung.

The tigress, on the other hand, went up north from Anping. She was killed at present-day Minhsiung or Minxiong (民雄) near Chiayi or Jiayi (嘉義). Hunters who killed her regarded her as a big cat. So they called the place where they hunted her down Taniao (打貓) in memory of their hunting the cat down. In time, it was corrupted to Tamiao, and the Japanese who colonized Taiwan transliterated it just as they did for Takao. The Japanese called it Tami-O, written in Chinese characters as Min Hiung or Min Xiong (民雄), meaning People Male. It's the township of Minhsiung or Minxiong.

She sired one of the most popular Taiwanese bedtime stories.

People believed the tigress wasn't killed in Minhsiung. She survived as a very old tigress. They called her Ho Ko-bo (虎姑婆) or Grandaunt Tigress.

Once upon a time, there lived a mother with two daughters in a small house in a very remote village, the story begins. One day, she told her daughters she had to pay a visit to a grandaunt – sister of their deceased father – who lived in a neighboring village not too faraway from theirs. “While I am away,” the mother said to the children, “you have to take good care of everything at home. After sundown, don't forget to close all the doors and bolt them. Close the windows, too. And don't let anyone in.”

“Yes, Mother,” the daughters said. Convinced they would be safe at home, the mother left on a long trek to see the grandaunt in the faraway village. The children closed all the windows and doors after their mother had left. The doors were bolted, too.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email