A few thousand National Treasures, A Thousand Steps, One Longshan Temple, A handful of Night Markets, and one Typhoon

So this weekend, I've been busy trying to meet with my Taiwanese friends that I met while at the U of M last summer. Chanel took me to the night markets of Shaunglian and gave me a great bag of stationery goodies courtesy of Hewlett-Packardt. Some of the items alone, such as mouse and a USB storage device, would cost a pretty penny back in Canada. Xie xie [thank you] Chanel! We played a game that was like the carnival version of mah jong, and another that was like a cross between PLINKO!, pin ball, and the one armed bandit. Not surprisingly, I did not win. But the experience itself was worth the cost (which I don't actually know, because Taiwanese hospitality forbids them from letting their guests pay for things -- and they're quite adamant about it). We ate a ton of food like dumplings, chicken heart (which is kind of squishy), coated corn, candy strawberries, noodles, so much food! I felt bad though, for Chanel, because some of the things I didn't like so much, yet she was being so generous! While Chanel herself is a corporate business woman, complete with nice dresses and a busy lifestyle she took time to introduce me to her family, who run and live in a ma and pa glasses store, complete with its own diagnostic machine (apparently many Taiwanese don't actually see an optometrist, but glasses retailers are trained to assess prescriptions). Her father, who doesn't speak much English, warned me that there was a typhoon coming, and that I should stock up on food in case the stores closed.

The next day, I went out with my friend Rena, whom I also met at U of M, and she took me to Taiwan's famous National Palace Museum -- also known as major thorn in China's side. Rena, like Chanel, was also very generous with paying for things, despite her being between jobs, a student, and in the process of moving from one part of Taipei to another (Taipei County, the Greater Taipei Area, is a mass of urban sprawl pocketed between jungled mountains. For the Taiwanese, all the various pockets are somewhat far from each other, though to Canadian ears the distance often seems laughable). Like many of Taiwanese, she is also quite modest about her command of English, apologizing for it when no apology is necessary, especially when considering the dire status of my Mandarin.

Anyways, the National Palace Museum is Taiwan's crown jewel museum, which houses the royal treasures of Imperial China, as built up by Emperor after Emperor, before they were saved/stolen from Communist China by the fleeing Nationalists. The Museum is very modern, somewhat like Canadian museums though considerably less tacky. The collection of artifacts is so large that only a portion can be shown at any given time. The "Mona Lisa" of the collection is the Jade Cabbage and its accompanying formation (that looks surprisingly like a slab of meat), both of which seem smaller in person (also like the Mona Lisa) but are nevertheless quite amazing feats of Chinese craftsmanship. There are many artifacts so intricately designed that you need a magnifying glass to view them (which makes one wonder how they were made in the first place before such devices were invented). Jade is the favoured medium, but many others are used as well, including the very non-Chinese medium of rhinoceros tusk (they apparently had a trade route with Africa). There are also collections of maps (including ones from early Western explorers), paintings, calligraphies, and of course a gift shop. With Rena's assistance, I was able to read some of the characters, including the one for king which is also Rena's last name (she didn't say which dynasty she was from).

After the museum, Rena took me to Longshan Temple, a big temple in Taipei. Longshan means "Dragon mountain." After seeing many large, ornate, but save for tourists empty churches in Quebec, I was suprised to find Longshan full of practioners on a Saturday evening. As we entered, Rena who had claimed to be non-religious, began to engage in a ritual ceremony, proper for all Taiwanese entering the temple. She was suprised when I agreed to join in, as most Westerners, with the ten commandments firmly in mind, love to spectate but refuse participation. The ceremony involved lighting incense and going around to various altars throughout the temple, bowing 3 times, saying a prayer, bowing again. Each altar/god represented a particular aspect of life, such as child bearing or seafaring (not unlike the patron saints of some forms of Christianity). When it was all done, Rena performed a special prayer to the main god Guanyin, whereby you hold two moon shaped discs and drop them after your prayer is finished (Prof. Marshall back at BU performs this feat in our Chinese religion course, but it is quite a different feeling when you have people performing it of their own accord all around you). Depending on how the discs land, whatever question you asked the goddess will be answered with a yes, a no, or a laugh. Alternately, you can ask the goddess if you can choose a number from the bin, and if she says yes, you pick a stick randomly, and match the fortune to whatever number is on the stick. Ironically, mine came out to read, "You are wise to travel away from your hometown."