The Story of a New Year

This is the second part of the story of my trip to Kaohsiung over the new year break. On New Year's Eve, my friend Karina and I left in the morning for Kaohsiung's city center (this time not locking our keys in our scooter). Our first stop was Lotus Pond and Kaohsiung's famous Dragon and Tiger Pagodas.

The twin pagodas sit on Lotus Pond and are guarded by two gates, one carved in the shape of a dragon and the other in a tiger. Local tradition states that if you enter through the dragon's mouth and exit through the tiger's mouth, you will reverse your luck from bad to good. Whether or not one believes this, the pagodas themselves are architecturally beautiful and one can climb almost all the way up the spiraling staircases while viewing vibrant wall paintings of nature and folktales. The inside of the dragon contains walls of relief sculptures depicting demons and torture, whereas the tiger contains sculptures of historical scholars and legendary heroes, correlating with the supposed reversal of fate one has just undertaken.

Besides the beautiful art and gleeful fun of walking through the mouths of gigantic creatures, the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas offered some wishful thinking for the new year. 2018 was a difficult year for a lot of people personally and for the world in general. So let's hope for anyone who went into the belly of the dragon in 2018, that they may come out the mouth of the tiger in 2019.

We saw a couple of other sights in Kaohsiung (mainly the Dome of Light in the MRT station and the Pier-2 Art District on the harbor) before returning to Qishan for dinner. We were expecting a low-key New Year's Eve, given that the locals had told us Qishan was pretty quiet most nights and that the people who worked at our hostel had invited us on a 7 a.m. hike the next morning.

So we went out by ourselves on the balcony of our hostel to ring in the New Year with a little bit of banana-flavored wine. But of course, since this is Taiwan, we were surprised at the stroke of midnight by fireworks going off right down the street from us. The fireworks only lasted for about a minute, but it was cool to be able to see them so close and so unexpectedly. At the end, I shouted out "謝謝!" to our neighbors for helping up celebrate the new year.

Bright and early the next morning, we met up with the two brothers who worked at our hostel, their sister, two other guests from Taipei, the local junior high teacher, and one of the brother's two year old son. After a quick breakfast of danbing (sort of like a Taiwanese omelette) and milk tea, we began to climb the mountain that watches over Qishan.

We were less than 20 minutes into the hike before we spotted a group of four monkeys, macaques with grey-brown fur and pink faces, peeking out at us from the trees. Next thing we knew, we were completely surrounded by an entire troop of monkeys. They jumped from branch to branch and watched us as we passed by. Luckily, we didn't have any food with us because, one of the locals told us, the monkeys are known to steal.

The hike wasn't quite as intense as Qixing, the last mountain I hiked, but it was still 600 steps up a steep incline. We all made it to the top, even the two year old. From up there, we could see the wide expanse of countryside, with its farm fields and tiny clusters of homes. In another direction, we could see the town of Qishan and all its old buildings and streets. In yet another, we could see a line of sharp, green mountains, peaks moving away from us until they faded into the morning clouds settling on the land. It was the perfect first scenic view of 2019.

Happy New Year! In 2019, I look forward to exploring more of Taiwan and learning more about its language and culture. I hope to continue to create in a variety of ways, whether its my fiction writing, my lessons plans, or this blog. I hope to practice kindness and patience with everyone I encounter. And I hope to continue to have good luck, fortunate accidents, and great adventures here in Taiwan.

The Story of the Banana Kingdom and Fo Guang Shan

Thanks to New Years Eve and New Years Day, I had a four-day weekend last week, so my friend, Karina (another ETA in Hualien) and I took a 6 a.m. train to Kaohsiung, a city on Taiwan's Southeastern coast. Since most of the hostels and hotels in city were booked for the holiday, I reserved two beds in a hostel away from the city center. I didn't understand just how far away until after we had driven two hours on our rental scooter to get there.

Our hostel was in the Qishan township of Kaohsiung. Qishan is a charming, historical little community with many buildings and streets dating back to before the Japanese colonial period. It also happens to be the banana capitol of Taiwan. Banana cakes, banana tea, banana shakes and merchandise. Our hostel was called the Youthbanana Hostel and was located above a "Banana Creativity Shop." The entire place smelled of banana bread. The parks have banana sculptures and even the 7-11's have banana-themed wallpaper. Of course, we tried the fresh bananas, and yes, they were worth the hype.

Tiny banana cake

Banana bread

Banana-themed 7-11

The people in Qishan were friendly and helpful, even more than Taiwanese people usually are. They don't encounter a lot of foreigners there, so many of them came up to talk to me, which gave me a lot of opportunity to practice speaking Chinese. After we chatted for a while, they would often tell me that my Chinese is very good. I know they're just being nice to this sun-burnt blonde chick barely pronouncing tones, but I also think my Chinese has improved a lot while living in Taiwan.

Banana cart outside our hostel

The next day, we intended to set out at 9 a.m. for the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Museum, at which point we promptly locked the keys in the scooter. I began to panic, believing we were stranded and our day of sightseeing was instantly ruined, but we slowly began to figure the problem out. After we tried the nearest mechanic (closed) and the nearest key shop (also closed), I found another mechanic online and called them. Meanwhile, it seemed like everyone in the hostel came out to check on us. The mechanic drove to where we were, opened the front of our scooter, popped the trunk, and we had the keys back. I tried to give the mechanic money, but he refused, driving away without any pay.

So we finally got on the road to the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Museum. This sight, run by one of Taiwan's largest Buddhist organizations, is a massive complex containing several museum halls, hotels, a school, and a monastery. We entered through the main hall (which contained multiple buffets and a Starbucks) and exited onto a white tile courtyard. The courtyard, boarded by eight pagodas, lead toward the 40 meter tall, bronze-cast seated Buddha the site is famous for. Looking up at the shining statue gazing down with peace and kindness upon the visitors, one can understand why so many people make a point to visit this place while in Kaohsiung. In total, we spent over six hours at the site looking at art depicting the Buddha's life and disciples, visiting various shrines, practicing calligraphy, and sampling tea in the twins pagodas in the museum's garden.

However, the most moving part of the day for me happened when we first arrived. As we entered the main hall, we noticed young women in gigantic dresses and golden, lotus-shaped headpieces walking about, followed by men with drums and trumpets. Next thing we knew, we were front row for a performance by a college dance troupe from the Philippines. Right in front of us, the women and their partners danced and twirled as the trumpets blared. It was a beautiful, festive musical offering with which to start out the day. And I kept thinking about how if we hadn't locked the keys in the scooter, we wouldn't have arrived at the exact right moment to have that experience. Just like if I hadn't had to book a hostel so far out of the city, we wouldn't have experienced Qishan and all its charms. So much of my time in Taiwan feels like I'm stumbling from one mishap to another, but that stumbling at its worst leads to minor accidents and at its best leads to incredible experiences.