"Auspicious" Road

A long-time family friend of the co-director of the program responsible for this wonderful scholarship took us to a road dedicated entirely to the coming of the Chinese New Year. By "Us" I mean Cheryl Choy, the administrator of the program, Domenico Napoletani, her husband and a research professional in Applied Mathematics, and myself. The road was PACKED with individuals looking to collect auspicious items to bring them luck in the new year.

 Within the market we found many specialty meats that you would never think of eating (specially me as a vegetarian!) but were apparently quite delicious, as well as assorted candies, grains, nuts, fungus, teas, and many many other sorts of snacks and specialty food & drink items. The marketing techniques of these small stalls were quite interesting. A couple of the stalls had hired young men to sit and direct traffic into the store with orange vests, and we watched in amazement as 90% of the crowd complied with their requests.

From Left to Right: Domenico, family friend of the director, and myself. The man that brought us to the market was one of the most amazing human beings I have ever met. I had never felt such a strong sense of distress in the language barrier as I did being unable to communicate him, as just being in his presence was very calming. His overwhelming sincerity, kindness, and genuine concern created a projection that left all of us feeling very uplifted just in his presence.

 An old temple on the road known for the presence of the matchmaker deities within. I was told that people come from all over the area to pray to these deities although they are present in other temples, this temple is widely known for their activity. I was glad to have already done my informational research on the deities present at Longshan Temple as it gave me a basis of background information while I was at this temple.

 This is one of the braziers that are often present at the temple. Often Jade Emperor is present at the temples as the "god of the gods" one usually offers a prayer to him before continuing on to pray to another god. One can also pray to Jade Emperor to make another deity answer your prayers if they seem to be ignoring you, as he has power supreme in that realm. I was upset that I was unable to determine if this was his brazier or not. Patrons will purchase incense sticks from the temple, then pray and spike them stick-down into the brazier to create a never ending stream of incense smoke.

An assortment of highly esteemed FUNGI!

A particular fruit that is not allowed in
Longshan Temple because it looks like one of the
Deity's Head and insulting to him.

Research Update

The time of my stay here in Taiwan has come to a close and looking back on the journey I have found a shift in the methods I approach my research with. I spent the 3 days after my last post conducting my research within the temple. I found there to be a slight language barrier while communicating within the temple and resorted to collecting information, then going back to the hostel and using the generous help of many of the researchers in Taiwan, as well as my own analysis to determine what was going on within the temple.
Through these methods I was able to determine the significance of each action that I observed people performing in the temple. I also learned about each deity, their history, what they are prayed to about, as well as particular do and don'ts of the temple. I also learned about the role of the temple economically on the surrounding area, and concluded that little to no social interaction occurs between locals within the temple, only tourists. These are just a few of the things I learned! More to come in a cohesive manner upon the completion of my paper. I was extremely thankful to all of the help and hospitality I received from Professor Heylen, Fabian, Yvonne (for translating), Professor Wong, and many others who helped me unquestioningly in my research.

3 days, 2 missed posts, and a new perspective later

Roasted nut snack, came with a
 tool to break nuts open and eat
 fleshy insides

After resting up from an early New Year's Sadhana (4 am yoga & meditation), I journeyed out with two members of Ramadasa Ashram for dinner and exploration of the local area. We had dinner at a vegetarian pasta restaurant and I was again reminded of the different concepts they have of each dish. My pasta was a ball of noodles with some cabbage, shredded nuts, carrots, and other veggies on top. The meal wasn't bad, it was more just an unusual taste coupled with a small portion that left me feeling slightly unsatisfied. 

We finished dinner and headed to a large book store called Eslite. The book store wasn't as large as I was used to, even though it was supposed to be the largest in Taiwan, however there was a wide selection of specialty books. They may have only had 15 cooking books, but many types of specialty meals were represented on the shelf. 

Slightly later in the night I made my way over to The Cat's Pajamas, a hostel where I am staying the remainder of my trip. It was there I met Yvonne, a woman from Hong Kong who I tagged along with for a few days in the exploration of some of the jewels Taiwan has to offer.

 The next day we set out to explore the Blue (Nangang and Banqiao) line of the MRT station. The first stop we explored was the Ximen station, home to the Red House, a cultural and historical center in the local area. On most days you can find markets surrounding the center with shopkeepers looking to share their wares with potential buyers, and trick the unwary. Sadly the market doesn't open on Monday's and we were unable to see how the surrounding area functioned around this historical building.

 The next stop on our line was Sun Yat Sen Memorial, a building dedicated to Dr. Sun Yat Sen. The name of the building in Chinese translates to "National Father of the Nation Memorial." Inside were great works of art, as well as a huge statue of Dr Sun Yat Sen sitting in his chair. The statue was guarded by two members of the guard. Every hour a guard change would occur with a strange, highly touristy ritual of gun presenting, kick-dancing and other strange motions. I took a video of the proceedings which I will link at the bottom of the post...but in all honestly it was one of the most boring things I had seen in awhile.

 From the Memorial Hall we walked to Taipei 101, Taipei's largest tower. Inside the tower we took the fastest elevator in the world to the 91st of the 101 floors

A pregnant looking tree I saw on the way
to Taipei 101.

and got to see the landscape of Taipei. The city wasn't as impressive to me as the vast mountains covering

 the flank of Taipei. Inside the tower there was also an exhibition of Taiwanese Coral and other precious stones. These two photos don't do the coral justice. There were many beautiful pieces with the most intricate of detailed carvings. They obviously tried to sell the coral alongside these amazing pieces and I couldn't help but wish I knew where the coral came from in the city to buy it at a reasonable price.

 From Taipei 101 we made our way with a friend of hers graciously guiding us to the "Taipei Story House." Sadly this, along with the nearby art museum and flower exhibition were close on Mondays.

From Taipei 101 we continued on to Chiang Kei-Shek Memorial Hall, a beautiful area made up of 3 separate, monstrous structures. An ornate gate served as the entrance to "Freedom Square." The square was bordered on three different sides by the rest of the memorial. On the right was a theater building (orange roofed building pictured below), to the left an opera house and concert hall. Straight ahead was the Memorial Building with a statue of Chiang Kei-Shek himself and another guard with ritualistic changing patterns and methods. Of all the buildings I had seen during my stay, these and the Sun-Yat Sen had been my favorite. Their terraced roofs and particular architecture couple with their enormous size was quite a site to behold.

 From C.K.S. we continued on to the Shilin Night Market. This is one of the many night markets Taiwan is famous for. Being in these markets reminded me of Chor Bazaar in India, most things are extremely cheap, and many knockoffs are present but it makes you wonder about how quickly the goods will deteriorate. I saw ties for $2 a piece and felt tempted for a minute, then decided they would probably fall apart just as quickly. The more famous part of the night markets are the snacks and food. Many Taiwanese locals and tourists alike will come and have a snack or dinner. Many of the snacks I saw made me happy to be  vegetarian and after trudging from shop to shop for awhile I returned to the hostel and was grateful to be going to sleep after a long day.

 

 The next day Yvonne and I headed off to the area surrounding Taipei to a sleepy town in the mountains. Within the town we walked up and down a famous street that had been featured in a very well know (but completely unknown to me) Chinese film. There were many shops for me to find souvenirs and other little fun things and despite the miserable rain persisting through the entire day I enjoyed myself.

In the night we traveled to another night market out in the other city and most of the shops seemed to be similar to the ones represented in the first market. I got to try some fruit on a stick with caramelized sugar coating it which was quite good, although rather sweet. Once again at the day's end my legs were glad for the rest and a warm bed. 

Since the start of my travels and original Longshan post I have learned a lot more about my research and plan to post about it tomorrow--stay tuned!