Email 13: I’ll Blog Home for Christmas 2 (with a Vengeance)

My second Christmas was really only Christmas in that it took place on Christmas Eve. The girls I met when wandering around the sheep fields invited me to go with them on a day trip to Pingdong on December 24^th.

Pingdong is only an hour or so away from Gaoxiong; it has a Hakka Cultural Center there which we went to visit. Hakka people originate from southern China and many immigrated to Taiwan from Guangdong. They are now the second largest ethnic group in Taiwan (about 20%) and they have their own language (though they all speak Mandarin now too).

The Hakka Cultural Center is a circle of buildings surrounding a giant replica of a traditional Hakka house, which looks a lot like a much warmer igloo. Once you get through that you can wander around the different exhibits showcasing (surprisingly enough) Hakka culture. One thing they’re famous for is painting paper umbrellas. They have an umbrella station full of beautiful art we can twirl.

The second artistic stop was the painted rock studio. Here, a master of painted rocks who has been doing this kind of work for over forty years displays his finest rocks. He was excited that I could speak Mandarin and we ended up speaking for an hour about his traditional paintings. He explained the different sayings and paintings of the Hakka, and before I left he gave me a rock with a popular Hakka saying: Work in the sunny season, study in the rainy season.

Meanwhile, during my long chat with the painter, my friends were all busy painting their own miniature umbrella with their names, dates, and a small flower. They asked me to add my name and flower, and then they gave it to me as a memento of the trip! The Taiwanese (speaking generally) are so kind and friendly (particularly to Westerners) and I felt so fortunate to be invited on their trip. They’re all best friends, so it was nice of them to drag me along.

After the arts and crafts, we visited the history part of the exhibit, and then wandered out into the courtyard to score some thick Hakka noodles and amazing bean paste dessert buns. Because it was Christmas Eve, the courtyard had singers set up and they even had a gingerbread-making station where you could pay an exorbitant amount of money to decorate the cookies yourself. The girls were all excited about the new experience, so they sat down and made cookies while I took pictures. Then we wandered around the lake area where, in typical Taiwanese fashion, we had to stop and take a picture with every strange rock or flower.

Around 4 that evening we hopped back in their cars and headed into the town of Pingdong. There’s a big white Catholic church that was decked out in bright lights and sported a huge Christmas tree in the courtyard. 

As we walked through the streets, I was the only one who seemed to notice that interspersed between the bells, angels, and Santa Clause decorations were some bunnies and four-leaf clovers. I asked my friends why they were there, one said matter of factly: “Well, it’s the year of the rabbit.” Ok…, but what are they doing with Christmas decorations??? I guess the people hanging them up figured they’d kill two holidays with one stone. 

Then someone else interjected “And the clovers are lucky!” Luck is a huge part of Taiwanese religion; it seems every god and every festival can bring fortune or keep away bad fortune, so mixing in Western fortune with Western religion just seemed like the natural thing to do. Near the car park was a giant Christmas tree made of lights with a Santa sign in front where kids could write their Santa wishes and hang them around the tree. This is another perfect example of the blend of cultures in Taiwan because traditionally (and even today), children write their wishes on yellow paper and attach them to doors at temples or schools. Now, instead of wishing for good grades from Confucius, they get iPhones from Santa.

After we wandered the streets and enjoyed the lights, we all went back to one girl’s house where her parents had a huge meal waiting for us. The lantern festival was quickly approaching (it’s in February and coincided with New Years this year) so her mom made us all some tang yuan (soup balls). They’re rice flour mixed with sweet potatoes, taro (a purple potato), and, well, potatoes, which are then rolled into balls and put into soup (hence the name…). They’re a little sweet and are therefore considered a dessert. When you’re a kid, you’re supposed to eat them to add more years to your life, but as a joke they say grown women shouldn’t eat them because they make you age a year for each one you eat!

I finally got home around 9pm that night, a full day’s travelling, but the Taiwanese Christmas Eve celebration was far from over. Walking down the little alley that led to my house, I was quickly caught up in a huge parade, the biggest I’d ever seen near that temple. There were 10 foot puppet dancers who represented the god’s warrior protectors, lion dances, lines of drummers beating out the chants, mock battles, and, of course, the god itself carried in on people’s shoulders. I stayed for the fireworks towards the end and managed to get a teenage boy to explain what was happening. 

He said it’d been running all day long; I stayed for an hour, and then finally went home but it was still going strong when I left. This was another god’s birthday, but apparently he was a very big god (the boy wasn’t sure why, he just said he protected everyone and brought good fortune, which is what they all seem to do. I’m sure there’s a more detailed explanation somewhere, but he didn't know). Even during this religious festival, there was a little Western influence seeping in as several groups of parade participants were wearing Santa hats as they marched through the streets!

Once home, I collapsed in bed and then got up the next day for Christmas at the church. Bree and Luc gave me an AWESOME umbrella sword 

(back home I have a sword that looks like an umbrella, now I have an umbrella that looks 

like a sword, my life is complete). We had a big pot-luck dinner afterwards that included a healthy blend of Western and Taiwanese food, much like my Christmas celebrations had been. Then we all went our separate ways and prepared for the next big holiday, Chinese New Year. 

I’ll Blog Home for Christmas (If Only in My Dreams)

Hello all,

As the more astute of my readers will have noticed, it’s August, and therefore no longer the Christmas season. I have been extremely busy and, unfortunately, the blogs have suffered as a result. I’ve decided, as always, to continue chronologically, so welcome to the two part Christmas blog (woo!). As a personal update, I have been offered a full-time job here in Taiwan, so I’ll be staying for another year in order to save up some money before going back to the States. I went home for a month’s reprieve last month and saw many of you, which I really enjoyed. Yesterday was a typhoon day (like a snow day, but wetter) so I had all day to lounge in my PJs and write my blog (you lucky people)!

This (well, last) year I had a very bipolar Christmas over the course of two consecutive weekends. The first one was a standard Western celebration in a mountain cabin; the second was a very non-Western celebration in a town called Pingdong (but you’ll have to wait for the next typhoon day to hear about that one I think…).

A few weeks before Christmas, the young adult group from New Life Church hired a few vans and we all spent about six hours driving up the steep mountains that run through the center of Taiwan.

We left at 10 pm that Friday since most of the teachers (myself included) work until 9 at night. Due to my carsickness we all came to the mutual conclusion (and by that I mean I threatened them with lots of vomit) that I would ride in the front of one of the vans. My friend, Josh (the one in a Santa hat later), who has been in Taiwan several years volunteered to drive. In the back, were about 6 Taiwanese girls, none of whom I’d met before. We had a fantastic drive up. They wanted to learn some Christmas carols, so Josh and I would sing and teach them line by line (with me translating their meaning as we went). Then I had them teach us some Chinese songs in return. Luckily both Josh and I love singing, so it worked out well. Once we got to the hotel-cabins, I bunked with my Taiwanese van-mates and we all went to bed on arrival.

The destination of this trip was Nantou, a beautiful village in the heart of the mountains and (to complete my Western-themed Christmas scene) it is full of pointy western architecture, angel statues, as well as some inexplicable windmills, all of which have contributed to town’s nickname: “Little Switzerland”. We even stayed in fancy wooden cabins with tall balconies overlooking the mountains!

We spent Saturday wandering in the little village behind the hotel. Well, I say “village” but it’s actually more of a tourist attraction. They had the world’s highest 7-11 convenience store (something we can all be proud of), as well as a little shopping area complete with Starbucks. The most exciting place, however, was a little shop that sold hand-made wooden toys of all shapes and sizes. They decorated the outside with wooden  cat carvings, they had a full train model (with a real cat sleeping on top of it), and they had an entire park called the “Swiss Garden” full of their creations including a full horse-drawn Cinderella pumpkin-carriage. 

That night, we went back to the Garden and meandered around its huge pond killing time until the amazing water/lights/fireworks show started that evening. All the trees and carvings were decorated with Christmas lights. The best part was that it was actually cold enough for me to wear my woolen pea coat! Something l haven’t experienced in Taiwan before or since that trip.

After the show, we went back to the hotel’s main meeting cabin (which was full to the brim with tiny porcelain shoes from Holland) and we had a gift exchange. We all put our presents on the table, then drew numbers to decide who got to pick first.  A gift could only be stolen three times, and then it stayed with the last person who got it. The first gift Iopened was a lovely clay tea mug, including lid, decorated with Chinese characters. That was promptly stolen, and then stolen again by my friend Bree. So I chose another one, which was some huge canisters of hot cocoa, which was stolen by my friend Daniel. So, I then stole back my tea cup for the victory! (I knew Bree wanted a pink scarf still on the table anyway…) After that, I found a cat to sit on my lap (with a little coaxing), then we all sang Christmas carols, read some Bible stories, and told everyone what we were thankful for, and finally turned in.

The next day, we woke up early, piled in the vans, and headed to Qingjing Farm. This is one of the strangest “farms” I think I’ve ever seen. On our way up, I’d been told there were flocks and flocks of happy sheep in the meadow (which as we all know, is extremely thrilling for me, and I’m not being sarcastic). So. We arrive. Maybe having lived in Scotland where you have to drive through the sheep on the road to get to work or visiting the Navajo reservation where I got to hold a lamb (and enjoy sheep tacos too) has colored my expectations. Even still,  a 200 NT$ entrance fee, shops full of sheep memorabilia, and about ten sheep hanging around by a fence while the people crowded around thrilled to be near “wildlife” isn’t exactly the “farm” experience I was expecting! It was essentially a glorified petting zoo, complete with little sheep-food vending machines. They even had instructions telling people not to ride the sheep!!!(I hope you can read the English on these, pretty amusing.)

There was also a pony-ride set up, but it wasn’t for five-year olds; they had a couple horses in an amphitheater that adults got to “ride”. I’m not saying I’m cowgirl of the year (I once tried to “help” my mom on the ranch and within the first five minutes I got sunburned, tripped in a hole, hurt my ankle, and then went back inside to watch Spongebob in the air conditioning), but everyone was so thrilled about having a couple little horses walking in circles, it was like being in the Twilight Zone. To be fair, it isn’t really their fault. Taiwan is a tiny island with mountains and beaches, it’s just not suited for grazing animals so people rarely get the chance to interact with farm animals larger than chickens (one of my students actually asked me if I’d ever seen a cow…gee coming from a dairy farming family I guess I’ve seen one or two!).

The area around the sheep is quite nice with hills you could climb for better views. My friends all decided to go climbing up some steep hill or other, not exactly my thing, so I headed off on my own down a different slope.   There, I ran into another group of Taiwanese girls in our party I didn’t know. They invited me to tag along with them (and they will come back into the plot in the next blog, during my second Christmas adventure). We made our way to the aforementioned horse and sheep pens. Truth be told, I actually DID enjoy petting the sheep, but none of the girls I was with were “bold” enough to touch one…I dunno.

We then went up to the “Music Castle for Sheep.”I have NO idea why the sheep needed their own music castle, but there it was, as promised. We walked through the tiny castle-looking building, and then everyone met up at a street market and grabbed some lunch. I had rice steamed in a stalk of bamboo and a cup of plum tea. Then we climbed back in the vans and headed home. Good times had by all!

That’s it for now; hopefully I will get to the second part of the Christmas story before my next Christmas here in Taiwan!

With love,

Amanda

P.S. I know the font on this one is really annoying with those spaces between every line and how the pictures don't line up well, but I have spent hours trying to fix it and I'm fed up, so you'll just have to pretend it isn't extremely irritating...like me...I'm totally over it, really!