Hakka

The first county centre gone through, that of Tsengcheng, was full of new construction. After it, the language on the road right on into the Meihsien prefecture was Hakka.

We passed through a large Hakka town (Hakka is a Chinese language, one of the three official languages in Taiwan; more on that in later posts) and then began to pitch and roll through a series of white-knuckling switchbacks up Hsinchu County Road 22.

As a mainland China national, the counter for our trial was fluent in English, Putonghua, and the Sichuan dialect, and was familiar with a number of other major Chinese languages such as Cantonese and Hakka.