This morning, we packed our bags and moved across town to Nanning Street, where we are going to be spending the next ten days in the literature house.
We’ve given our residency the title 滋養台南 | Nourishing Tainan. We like the idea of writing as an activity that can nourish us. And we’re intending to make use of this residency to nourish our own writing, and to explore the idea of nourishment more broadly. Our plan is to bring together food, stories and everyday philosophy - because food nourishes the body, stories nourish the spirit, and philosophy nourishes the mind.
Because we needed some nourishment of our own, we stopped off on the way at the Globetrotting Dragon / 四海遊龍, a small restaurant in Nanning street. We ordered some excellent beef soup (牛肉湯), as well as some exquisitely tasty leek potstickers (韭菜鍋貼）, and some blanched greens (燙青菜).
Tainan is famous for its fine dining and gourmet food (美食 měishí), and we’ve already eaten some spectacularly good food here. But for us, often the finest of fine dining in Tainan is not to be found in the big, fancy restaurants, but instead in small, unassuming back-street places.
After lunch, we headed to the literature house to settle in. It’s a beautiful spot, in the heart of the city, but surrounded by green and light — the cover image of this post is the view from our window. And so it’s going to be a great place to work.
As well as thinking about 滋養台南 | Nourishing Tainan, we’re also going to be nourishing our own writing by working on our current projects. Hannah is busy editing her second short story collection. Meanwhile, Will is in the final stages of putting together a proposal for his next nonfiction book. And together, we have another fun project in the works, where we’re branching out into co-writing a graphic novel with a friend from Myanmar/Burma. So there’s a lot to keep us busy.
But for now, we’re just going to relax and sink into life in our new, temporary home, and get to know the local area.
