Ghost Month and followup

Yesterday my Chinese teacher notified us that it was the first day of "Ghost Month": the 7th month of the lunar calendar, when all the ghosts are released into the world for the entire month. It's the time of year when locals warn against going near water (ghosts might drag you in), changing housing (your new house might be inhabited by ghosts), and going on trips (er...they might follow you?).

There's consequently been even more burning of ghost money and incense on the sidewalk. Great for my lungs, I'm sure.

I've been surprisingly busy since last post, though little of it is because of class. Ah, the blessings of photographic memory on Chinese vocabulary. I have to wonder, though, what will happen if or when we have an end-of-term cumulative exam. Teacher has not made clear whether or not we will have one. The suspense!

I finally went to LUXY on their Wednesday's ladies night, along with every other ABC in Taipei, and some other ShiDa students. It was fun for what it was, and the bartender's fire show was definitely the highlight of the night.

Friday I had dinner with some cousins, then did the nightmarket thing with them, before we all returned to one of my aunts' houses for a late night game of mah-jong. Then we crashed there. My mom flew up the next morning at 6am, but I didn't see her at all that day. I left my aunt's house, went home, and changed for the Sunday Breeze's Saturday pool party. Although I was apprehensive about it, due to the fact that I was going alone and the weather was less than stellar, it turned out to be pretty fun. Went to Forumosa's monthly Happy Hour, this time at the Taiwan Beer Garden, afterwards, which was also a lot of fun.

Sunday was the requisite family gathering to celebrate the arrival of another family member-my mom-to Taipei. The whole lot of us (15) slept overnight at a hot springs hotel in Beitou (北投), though there were more than 20 of us eating together that night. Most of the uncles returned home due to work the next morning. What a strange phenomenon, that most of my aunts do not work, whereas my mother does.

And, finally, I have been to two expos in the past two weeks, the first last Monday to a Computer Expo at Taipei's World Trade Center, and one this Monday to a Comic Expo.

backpedalwhoa (+ racismboo)

So, after my last post, in which I whine and whinge about how unfair life is for poor me, I feel that I must balance out the perspective a bit, as I so often fail to do. Because, to be fair, many of my relatives are purely wonderful, kind-hearted people. Many of them realize that I am different, have grown up in a different culture, and make the effort to understand me. And that is something I truly appreciate, because, really, we are not really all that different, all of us.

I can also understand that they are a conservative clan, having grown up in the circumstances they did, and holding many traditional views about gender roles, respect, education, and filial piety. I am, I know, not as patient as I could be in accepting these cultural differences between me and my relatives.

As of now, all I can do is continue communicating with them, having these talks where we work to understand each other, as I have often had with my aunts regarding dating and race. They are often bemused, or perhaps amused, by my "equal opportunity dating" stance. And while I am not trying to excuse the often blatant racism that exists in Taiwan, I can understand that any homogeneous, conservative society is inevitably going to have difficulty accepting "outsiders" in their midst. I am hoping, through these conversations with my relatives, to help widen that acceptance margin.

And not only are the outsiders of Taiwan many (i.e. all non-East-Asians), but they are also ranked on a graded scale of acceptability. I would say Caucasians are probably at the top, most likely to be accepted (or at least pardoned) by locals here. And, here is no big surprise, dark-skinned and black people rank very low on this scale.

I walk to and from ShiDa every day and see the conglomeration of all these different races, coming for language exchange opportunities, and I love seeing that kind of diversity. But, then I wonder, once they leave the confines of the university and surrounding district, what must it be like to be so starkly different - physically, culturally, and even mentally?

Well, maybe Kevin is right and the current generation is not willing to blindly follow their predecessors into becoming drones of education, and I hope that also means they are more open-minded. I am not seeing that, but of course any change will take time. I am only going to be here for three months, after all.

In all of this, I cannot help but be reminded that, half a globe away back at campus, I have a friend, a black male, who is interested in Chinese and economics and politics, and has this crazy vision of rallying the Asian-Americans to fight for their rights and against racial discrimination in the United States.

Right, well, I think I've babbled on long enough. I have a trip to Thailand to prepare for, and so I will be offline for the next 5 days. What a refreshing change of pace.

Today I went on a little field trip with my Shi-Da class-as well as about 8 other classes and 5 teachers-to Yingge (鶯歌). It was a cool experience in a town famous for its ceramics, porcelain, and pottery industry. Our first stop was to the Yingge Ceramics Museum.

The Heavenly Official Conferring Fortune

Some more modern sculpture:

I love these two pieces, oh so much:

The Ceramics Studio:

My, er, creation...

And my wonderful lunch afterwards! Mmm, I will never get tired of beef noodle soup.

Foreigners blow...

What, exactly, is it that foreigners blow, I wonder.

Heehee!

Sigh, I know, I'm completely awful. But I pass this on my way to class every day, and it's always just begging me to take a picture of it. Literally. Begging.

I actually wish there was more interesting graffiti to photograph. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places...

Ready Steady Go

Another busy start to the week, and also the first day it hasn't rained in awhile. It didn't rain Sunday while I was in Tainan though, either. Speaking of which, Tainan was a very interesting trip. Experienced the luxury of THSR (and the ample legroom was indeed luxurious), arrived in ChiaYi in an hour and a half, and got into the car with my Dad, aunt, and grandmother, just in time for lunch. We ate in Tainan at this amazing noodle place, and then went off to explore. Stops included the Museum of Taiwanese Literature, located in Tainan's old City Hall; a Confucius Temple; Mazu Temple (sea goddess); GuanGong Temple (war god)...

See a pattern?

Oh, and it justed started raining again. Spoke (rather, typed...) too soon. I posted an invitation to start a hiking group at ShiDa's Mandarin Center, but who knows if I'll get any interest at all...

Hopefully the rain won't dissuade people from hiking (and, by the way, hiking in the rain isn't quite as bad as it sounds!), but there's the upcoming Dragonboat Festival to consider anyway. Might be awhile before any kind of hike gets organized, if at all. Ah, well. I keep my hopes up!

---

Pictures from Saturday in Tainan:

The noodle place in Tainan (of which the name escapes me, as most Chinese restaurant names do) has a unique cooking method. Very cool!

Big tree in the Confucius Temple

Incense sticks burning in Mazu Temple

I love the carvings and reliefs on these temples! I believe this was at Mazu Temple as well. I took a lot of photos of temple decoration.

travelog: beginnings

Here I cutteth the ribbon to my travelog. Yay, it's official!

A brief summary:

Today is my 8th day in Taiwan, land of my ancestors and more recent relatives. I am living with a family consisting of an aunt, uncle, and two cousins, their daughters. I currently sleep on a sofa-turned-mattress on the floor of a transformed office room. Rather comfy, to be sure. We are just a short walk from the Shi-Pai Metro stop (石牌捷運站), which is in turn a 30-minute ride from where I will be attending Chinese classes: National Taiwan Normal University (師範大學). But that doesn't start for another few weeks, so I still have some time to wreak havoc (hah!). And play mah-jong. With my aunts.

So far, so good.