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Sugar (Taiwan), Oyster (Britain) Industrial Railway Tidbits

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The history of the Colchester oyster dates back to Roman times.  Off-season oyster beds. Smelly discarded shells. @Colchester Oyster Fishery 2023 At Horse-New-Year lunch, we talked about our mutual friend Dafydd’s new book - " The Twilight Years of Taiwan’s Sugar Railways" and conversations went quite interesting -  Hawaii’s Sugar Trains On Narrow-Gauge Rails We all think an amazing and relatively unknown fact is - Taiwan’s narrow-gauge railway built in 1907 adopted the (successful) transport method from Hawaii . Then I remembered a bottle of some  'Sugar from Northern Taiwan' I was shown at Kew Gardens London - donated (or sample collected) in 1882 by a Brit Thomas Watters (who if I remember correctly also donated tea to Kew).  And of course on the subject matter here is Tamsui's miniature railway system which served Tamsui-Sanzi (淡水 - 三芝) during Japanese colonial era.  Thomas Watters (1840-1901), who had joined the British Consular service in 1863, was Robert...
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Catayo/Etayu 塔塔悠/達戈紋 - How Did (Over 100-Years) This Word Spread from South, West, to North and East ? The Extinct Dog?? (Note 297)

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  How did this word ethatao (Dutch Georgius Candidius 1627) spread from South ( Siraya ) all across Western plains-indigenous ( Pazeh ) to North ( Basay/Ketagalan ) and East ( Amis/Kavalan ) over 100 years?  👉Because of the now extinct long white-hair dogs roaming in the village?? Ethatao  塔塔悠/ 達戈紋 (17-18 century) 悠/ 紋 is the weaving pattern  紋. Lower-Upper Catayo (or Etayu by 許's credible account)  -  E - tayu    ē-tayu .    ē  means lower  下   in Hokkien. I believe lower Etayu existed before upper. Whether lower (下 -   ē   in Hokkien ) word ' ē ' has something to do with the original E-thatao (17th century). Possible ... I don't know. Interesting, isn't it. READ 17th Century White Dog Hair, Red Zaitun Flower, Quanzhou Settlers and Plains Indigenous Georgius Candidius and  his wife   Saartje Specx (half Dutch half Japanese)
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LONDON - Great Connecting Taiwan for the Cross-Culturally Minded (Anthropology Note 296)

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Beads (put on by servants) and Lily - Symbols of status, Egypt @The British Museum London I have since (2022 after Covid) discovered that LONDON is a great place for connecting Taiwan - for the cross-culturally minded.  Kew Gardens Needless to say, for my own case, an informal visit to Herbarium Library @Kew back in 2022 inspired Dr Cheng and I to co-author ‘ The Story of Taiwan Tea ’ which was published on the 80th anniversary of   ‘The Sinking of Shinsei-Maru.’ （ Commemorating the 80th Anniversary of the Shenjingwan Disaster - The Story of Taiwan Tea Published ） Purchase Note - 'The Story of Taiwan Tea ' link above is our US vendor. For academic purchase (bulk orders) outside Taiwan, substantial discount can be authorized by primary author Dr Cheng. For one copy at a time "authors' copies" now available for academic purchase at a substantial discount plus shipping.  If interested, contact me. Suggested Read Plant Collectors' Notebooks 採集人野帳 - Taiwan's ...
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Pu:Tu 本岛 Means Taiwan (Land and People) in Comics (TiBE 2026 Discovery II) (Note 295)

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(TiBE Taipei International Book Exhibition) - third time running since 2024, I have been making interesting and surprising discoveries. Quite rewarding - knowing that I have been going about things in a constructive way and that things fall into places of their own accords eventually.) PEOPLE Indigenous Identity Pu:tu 本島/ 漢人  means Taiwan  Moto  本島/客人  (dialect) means Hakka A-mutou-ra 未漢人化 means Saisiyat. Related Article  WE/PEOPLE/HUMAN Identity 人 Seeding Bale/Truku Balay (Beautiful, Truly, People)   Slave 僕' Puyuma name historically for the Amis ? Korko Ta'ai And His Wife (Pick Loanwords - Bag Indigenous ) Ninety-Years On (1930-2025) Validating hypothesis for research appears to have become unworthy of doing, uninteresting, unimportant, and unappreciated. Indulgence and encouragement on hypothetical etymologies and arbitrary use of loanwords claiming indigenous or proto-Austronesian, on the other hand, becomes worthy cultural significance, interesting, im...
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