Reasons #18 and #19 to Love Taiwan

Hey, look at the foreigner!

#18 - the way traditional practice and modernity collide in vaguely amusing ways. It is not all that uncommon to see one of the Eight Generals (bajiajiang) toting a cell phone, or see an idol being transported by MRT or high-speed rail.

#19 - the amazing friendliness of people, beyond the usual guidebook platitudes of how friendly the Taiwanese are. Yesterday in my Big Serious Work Thing I had someone say that she didn't really like Taipei - she had studied in Tainan and found that people from Taipei were, in her opinion, rude.

As someone who has lived in Washington, DC, I do find that what constitutes good manners in Taiwan is completely different and sometimes annoying (that slow sidewalk shuffle thing is a personal pet peeve) but I feel it's not at all true that people in Taipei are "rude".

The other day, I was chatting with Mrs. Zhou, our Stinky Tofu Lady (yes, we have one) and mentioned that we have two microwaves and a printer, all broken, that need to be discarded...but we don't know how to get rid of them. I wasn't expecting help or even advice (although advice would have been nice), and yet what was her reply?

"Oh just bring them to me. I take broken appliances to A-Po. Do you know A-Po down the street?"

"I know a lot of women who could be called A-Po but not the person you mean, I think."

"Well, she takes this stuff and sells it for scrap. Just bring it to me - I'll give it to her."

Seriously, even if Mrs. Zhou is going to get some spare change for the broken electronics, who cares? How many people in the USA would respond with "hey, I'll take care of your broken stuff for you!"? Any at all?

Cultural Preservation

Why should the woman on the left be treated with any less respect than the man on the right?

Sometime in the Autumn of 2003, I was heading from Bhubaneshwar to Puri - I had secured a seat by dropping a scarf onto it through the open window and I'd climbed aboard to claim my place. A Telugu man, who looked exactly as though he'd been fashioned out of two balls of gingerbread dough and iced with a white shirt, black pants, glasses and a cartoon mustache plopped down next to me and stuffed a duffel bag under his seat. I rode with my backpack on my lap - partly because I was afraid of razoring and petty theft, and partly because it was so big that I had no choice.

The bus started with a grimace and we began hurtling across the jungled countryside. Mr. Gingerbread introduced himself as Ashok ("My pleasure to make your acquaintance. May I kindly ask your educayshional qualificayshiuns?") and began a thoroughly pleasant discussion with me, mostly asking what I liked about India.

Finally, after assuring him that the dirt was no problem, that I found the auto-rickshaws kind of charming in their way, that saris were beautiful and salwar kameezes comfortable, that I enjoyed studying Tamil, the crowded buses were just par for the course and the food was ridiculously good, he paused.

He then sheepishly asked - "Is there anything you don't like?"

I paused too, because there was something I didn't like. Well, beyond the corruption and poverty, which nobody ever likes. Normally I'd wave this question off with "aaahh, no country is perfect, isn't it? Of course there will be small things, small small things only, that I don't like" (my semester in Southern India made it so that whenever I returned I picked up bits and bobs of the local speech patterns. I do the same thing in Taiwan), "but they are small and generally I like it." With emphatic bobbling of the head.

But I decided I could trust Mr. Gingerbr-err, Ashok - I liked his style. I hadn't told anybody in India about this thing I didn't like - although it ranks right up there in human rights reports with corruption and poverty - because my not liking it (like a little "thumbs-down" on Facebook, not that anyone outside of college used Facebook back then) wasn't going to change anything. Meaningful action would, and saying "I don't like it" isn't meaningful action.

At least I didn't think it was back then. I feel differently now.

Whatever the reason, I told him.

"There is -" intake of breath - "one thing I don't like."
"Oh, and what is that thing?"

"Well, it's...

...the women's rights issue. Basically I think that women have made a lot of progress in India and now you can see many female doctors, politicians and professionals...but in so many ways they're still treated badly."

Should we expect this woman to do her job sweeping the temples and then go home and take care of all the housework?

"What are you meaning by 'badly'?"

"Well, marriages are still arranged and while that affects men, too, it disproportionally affects women - the men's families size criticize the potential brides far more than the bride's family takes issue with the groom. He basically just needs to be same-caste, maybe, and making a good salary. She has to be accomplished, but not more accomplished than he is, and pretty, and fair, and slender, and a good cook and housekeeper. Basically, those marriage ads do care if the woman did well in school but are mostly concerned with looks and housekeeping. I think that's not fair. At home women are still expected to do most of the housework, or supervise the help if they have help - even if they work. If there is a divorce the woman still gets more blame than the man. He can go back to his life - she might get disowned by her family. There are still dowries.

"I just think..." I continued, "I just think it's not fair. It's not good for women. I love India. Don't mistake my meaning. I love to be here, but I want to see this change. I want women to be equal. It makes me sad that I can't do it on my own."

I didn't mention things such as dowry deaths, wife-burnings and domestic violence or emotional abuse because while I did want to be honest, I wanted to wait a bit before delving into those heavier topics with a stranger.

I have no message with this photo, I just like it.

Ashok was silent for a second.

"But...this is our traditional culture! The Indian women understand this! We all have to do what we can to preserve our heritage. The wife will traditionally handle the domestic issue only."

"It may be your traditional culture, but it's not good for women's equality today. It means that women will always have to do these things, even if they don't want to, and men don't have to do them. That means men will always do better in their careers than women. That means women will never have a choice."

"Men don't have a choice either. We have to do our career and make some money, isn't it?"

"Yes, but you can choose your career. You can do what you are interested in. Because men don't really do housework, it's easier to pursue hobbies if they don't like their job. Housework and child-care doesn't give any choice. It's always the same work - you can't choose to do housework you like. You just have to do it, and being in charge of all that means less time for hobbies...although of course many Indian women do have hobbies."

Why isn't this woman allowed to enter a mosque (I know - religious reasons. I'm not actually up for debating that).

"Well, we can't always choose our career. Our parents sometimes choose," he smiled.

I smiled, too, because he had me there. Three years previously I'd sat on the linoleum of a fan-cooled Indian living room while host mother's daughter in law taught her 9-year-old son, Shiva, how to do complex multiplication. Maybe Jenna can answer this one, she said, terrifying me. What's 17 times 42? Errrrrr.... "714!" Shiva had piped up. "Great job," I said. "You could be a mathematician." "He's going to be an engineer," Meena replied purposefully. But he's only nine years old I thought, and said so more politely. "Yes, and he is going to be an engineer."

Shiva's probably an engineer now.

Why should these girls get fewer opportunities and endure more social expectations and criticism - especially regarding looks, marriage and children - than the boy?

Ashok pulled me out of my reverie. We can't be dismantling our traditional culture!

I hear it so often. I heard it in China, too. I've heard of it in Japan and Korea. You'll hear it said in Central America and to some extent the Philippines (although less so). Sometimes I hear it from the far religious right in the USA. I've read it on the Intertubes (I know, but still) and seen it debated in anthropology books talking about groups like the Quechua and tribes of northern Laos. I've seen and heard it all before: women's rights remain an issue, and yet gender roles play a big part in this traditional culture.

I thought then, and still think, that this is utter bollocks (pardon my British).

As I told Ashok, and still believe, it is entirely possible to preserve cultural norms while allowing for greater equality. In cultures where minorities or tribal groups were discriminated against (which is to say all of them, basically), those groups have gained greater rights, treatment and equality without fatally wounding the culture of a place. (I realize some fans of the antebellum south would pause - yes, freeing the slaves did wound pre-Civil War Southern culture, but certain aspects did not die out completely - red velvet cake, debutante balls, certain wedding traditions and cultural norms. Regardless, I think paving the way for a group of humans to be treated as, well, humans was worth the loss).

Look! Men doing laundry! It's a miracle! (I kid - I realize that they're Brahmins washing their own dhotis, and anyway, my husband does laundry of his own volition).

I fail to see how allowing women to be equal members of society with the same expectations as men - physical safety, sharing of housework, career goals, education, right to an opinion, respect regardless of looks, equal work and salary opportunities and freedom from harassment or discriminatory treatment - would "destroy" Indian culture, or any culture.

It might change it a bit, but that change would be heralding half of society gaining equality. I do not think it would change things so much that there would be reason to fear: the fear that Ashok felt, and that many feel even now, is made-up. It's a "Future Bogeyman", a fear of change, not a fear of any realistic outcome.

Seriously, if you start treating women as equals, what will happen? Well, saris and salwar kameezes will still exist because they're fashion items - plenty of women wear them because they want to - not because they have to. Temples and templegoers and the panoply of gods will remain the same, as will their methods of worship.

Does she deserve any less than her husband?

Food might be cooked more often by the men of a household, but it will remain largely the same - expecting men to share an equal burden at home doesn't mean that channa masala will suddenly cease to exist, or that butter chicken will disappear through a space-time distortion.

More women might drink alcohol, and more women might travel alone, but is this such a huge deal? More men will have to pick up dustcloths and brooms and hold crying babies - is this the end of the world? How does this meaningfully change the culture?

(No, it changes it because women traditionally swept the house and held the babies doesn't count, because I used the adverb "meaningfully").

The divorce rate would likely go up, and there might be more pre-marital sexual activity. You could see these as downsides, but really a huge number of those divorces would be as a result of women leaving abusive or loveless (or affair-strewn) marriages - that's a good thing. I don't actually believe that India's currently lower divorce rate means that those who are married are any happier than in any other country, just that they're unhappy but still married. Pre-marital sex is something to be cautious of, for sure, but it would be little more than leveling the playing field (plenty of Indian men have premarital sex, and comparatively fewer women who do not live in major cities do, although it certainly happens and is now more common in bigger metropolises). This is nothing that better sex ed couldn't handle.

I don't mean to say that no Indian men help at home (many do) or that they all have these expectations (many don't). I'm speaking very generally, because there are a billion people in India. If you are going to say anything at all, you by necessity have to be either very general or painfully, almost individually, specific.

Guess what - if we end gender discrimination in India, this bit of cultural history will still be there. It won't disappear.

But, you know, Taiwan has managed to transition to a culture of relatively equal gender relations - problems persist, but it's at the top of the heap in terms of progress in women's rights...and yet has retained a remarkably resilient traditional culture. The food is still there. The night markets are still there. The temples and fortune tellers are still there. Cultural norms, expectations and modes of expression and communication remain largely unchanged other than the normal rigors of adapting to the modern world. The only difference (besides a higher divorce rate, especially in Taipei), is that women can fully participate and not be treated as expectation-laden beasts of burden.

Taiwan is, quite refreshingly, one of the places where I have not heard this pile of steaming crap about how keeping women down is imperative to preserve this amorphous thing called "culture". Taiwan is also one place where I can say with conviction that traditional culture has successfully transitioned into the modern world. Japan and Korea share a similar distinction, but deep gender issues and discrimination persist.

Although there is still work to be done, Taiwan is an example that they don't have to.

My parents have a remarkably egalitarian marriage, as do my in-laws. Choices made are choices made together (I presume, but with confidence), and yet are they any less "American" than couples 150 years ago where the woman had no chance of owning property, voting or having a career in the professional sense?

So...bollocks to all of it. You can have deep cultural roots - roots so deep that you don't even know from where they're growing - and treat women as equals. Yes, you can.

More Clothing Options for Western and Plus Size Women in Taiwan

About a year and a half ago, Catherine wrote a great blog post on finding plus size clothes in Taipei with a link to an article she wrote on various options.

I want to add to that today with a find and in my next post, a suggestion. The find:

Best Buy
Taipei, Shilin District (Tianmu), Zhongshan N. Road Setion 6 #764
台北市士林區（天母）中山北路6段764號
(02)2876-8550

It’s on the east side of Zhongshan and a short walk south of International Square and the American School (as well as a short walk north of the Community Services Center and some other schools), right underneath where Whose Books used to be.
Basically, they sell American clothes that either fell off the truck, were slightly imperfect or were overstocked from American shopping malls. This means that:

1.) 80% of it is horrible – stuff you’d never wear, but…

2.) …the 20% you would wear is well worth searching for because it’s made to American body shapes. There is a men’s section but women will find this the most useful as our body types have much greater disparities.

In the USA I never had to shop in plus size stores, but I’m used to it here, because I do realize the size and body type differential here. My issue with the other plus size stores in Taiwan is that, while great to have around, they’re meant for plus-size Taiwanese women…which is fantastic, except I’m not a plus-size Taiwanese woman.

The clothing at H&L, MiniMe and 5XL is made in larger sizes, sure, but it’s made for women who are shorter, less curvy, straighter-hipped and smaller-chested and narrower-shouldered than Western women, meaning that while it all “fits” me around the waist, it doesn’t “fit” me in other ways – busts are too small, shoulders too narrow, hemlines too short – plus size Taiwanese girls are still not necessarily 5’8”! So yes, there are places to shop at if you are a US14, but they won't help much if you've got height and curves to match.

That, and the clothing often follows Taiwanese fashions, which are sometimes fine but sometimes…just not my style. I’m not into the “let’s add lace and some glittered English words that say things like “HAPPY LOVE!” and SEQUINS, oh we need SEQUINS and this top needs at least twelve more ruffles and puff sleeves and ooh, let's take this romper, stick some tights on it, add a few extra lapels, rough it up a bit and add some raggy bits of fabric hanging goodness-knows-where and a zipper that can't be used” look.

Best Buy, after you sift through the stuff you’d never purchase, has more American looks – there are horrid ruffled tops but there are also unadorned necklines, hems that are realistic for taller women, and a dearth of glitter.

They also sell interesting costume earrings and some cool scarves.

It also veers away from the all-too-common “this shapeless shift tunic fits you! You can buy it! It fits you!” (yeah, because it’s a sack that allows for absolutely no waist definition - thanks but no thanks).

Other choices where I've had luck:

Danee/SkinJoy 100% Silk

Locations all over Taipei - there's one on Changchun/Songjiang and one at Roosevelt/Jingmei MRT Exit 3.

Don't go here looking for high fashion - go here for soft pure silk cardigans, camisoles and blouses (they do sell skirts, pajamas, pants and other items as well) for work if you work in an officey environment or want to buy something in your size that is high-quality and comfortable - great for under-pajamas clothing in the cold winter months with no central heat, and great for basic button-down cardigan-style shirts for work and blouses to go under suit jackets.

Wuchang Street Market Indian Import Store

Ximen/Taipei Main area off Wuchang Street near Bo'ai Road

From Zhongshan Hall (Ximen/Hengyang Road) facing Bo'ai Road, turn left and you'll come to Wuchang Street - down past Ximending this turns into a cinema street, and closer to here you can find Taipei Snow King. Cross Bo'ai and follow Wuchang until you see the entrance of a small covered market. A little ways in and on the left is a small Indian import store (you can tell by all the bellydancing stuff). The racks here are laden with good finds for women of all sizes. I bought one of my favorite skirts here and another friend bought a cool, embroidered-collar rust-colored wrap shirt.

Taipei Graffiti

加油！Graffiti extolling the virtues of both being awesome and reggae music. I didn't know there were Rastafarians (or Rastafarian wannabes) in Taipei.

If you ride the Taipei MRT with any frequency, you're certain to come across backlit billboards on station platforms or mezzanines that have a big "slash" sign through some ugly amateur graffiti and the phrase "Graffiti is bad for the city's image".

I suppose for the ugly kid-with-one-spray-can-and-no-talent-writing-his-name graffiti, I'd agree, but I have to admit, there is some guerrilla street art (as I like to call graffiti) that is done with an artist's precision and knack for size, form and color.

While I'd be fine with doing away with the scrawled signatures in black or white spray paint, it would be a shame to group these vibrant works with run of the mill tags, and an even bigger shame to whitewash them.

I find that well-done graffiti, which many American cities are starting to embrace and even fund (for real graffiti artists) as a form of beautification, doesn't hurt the city's image - it colorizes it. Kaohsiung has started to allow mural-style wall art at Pier 2, and I do think that the Taipei government quietly tolerates the artistic graffiti along the bike trails.

I'd like to see Taipei throw its graying cement and tile arms around the idea of graffiti - we might get some really cool stuff going on, like this building - which was once clearly quite ugly - on Wooster Street in New York:

...and I honestly think that could improve how much of Taipei looks. Sure, we might get some political graffiti as one can find all over Central America:

Bus stop graffiti in Nicaragua urging people to re-elect Sandinista president Daniel Ortega.

...but that might not be the end of the world. It might get the Taiwanese youth more politically engaged, if anything.

I support any kind of artistic talent, whether it's on metal pull-down doors...

...or it's along the walls that separate the riverside bike trails from the rest of the city.

I have noticed that while Central America goes for political messages and the USA is concerned partially with art and partially with tagging and gang politics (something I absolutely do not support - I'm about art, not hate), Taipei graffiti tends to be picture-oriented - sometimes with an almost existential feel like the above, or sometimes with a clearly anime/modern Japanese aesthetics bent, as below:

I'm a fan of the anime-influenced guerrilla street art, in particular - it lends Taipei graffiti its own ineffable quality (I don't think I've ever seen graffiti in Japan, so generally you'd see it here, not there) and brings out the more "yes, we are in Asia, we're not just imitating New York" aspects of the art.

And you know, if someone with one spray can and no talent wants to write something worth reading ("Ming-de wuz here" need not apply) that makes you smile, not cringe, well, I'm all for that, too.

Awwww.

Another thing I'd like to see? More graffiti in Chinese (or Taiwanese) - you see a lot of scrawlings in English, but rarely do you come across big, colorful Chinese characters saying something interesting. Heck, even if they don't say anything interesting, I do think that graffiti'd Chinese would be cool - think about it, a language associated with delicate calligraphy and Confucius bending over a book millenia ago, all associated with erudition and rarefied precision, now used as modern and often illegal street art in a different and fascinating sort of contemporary public calligraphy. The youth of Taiwan, taking over this whole "ancient inheritance of Chinese characters" and using them for their own artistic purposes. I've never thought of Chinese characters as something indie or individualistic, but they could be in this context.

That would blow my mind. That would kill. At the risk of sounding too "naughts", that would pwn. Or own. Or whatever the young'ins are saying these days.

Finally, I'm not sure this counts as "graffiti" per se, but it is a kind of art and it probably was not sanctioned - in my book, it counts, and it's super cool.

Bonus points if you can identify where in Taipei I took this picture:

So as far as I see it, long live Taipei Graffiti! Bring on the bug-eyed anime creatures.

Fourteen to One.

I was working in Xinzhu Science Park last night and the subject of science park dating life came up (don't ask me how - it just did). I heard a statistic that hadn't come up before that very much affects not just the marriage rate, but the gender disparity in the tech industry. That's not just a problem in Taiwan, but I have to say it's quite striking here.

Remember how back in my last post about the low marriage rate - of which there have now been two - Catherine mentioned in the comments that a huge reason for this is that the Taiwanese simply work too hard? If you're in the office all day, slaving away for a wage far lower than you deserve (the average salary for those entry-level Office Ladies is about NT$30,000, and considering the hours they work, that's just sad), the odds grow against the likelihood of finding the time to meet, date, get to know and possibly marry someone.

That is absolutely true, especially for the Science Park, where people continually admit to working twelve hours a day not because there's a special project or something in particular that requires temporary extra effort, but as a matter of course because every project is urgent, understaffed and requires this effort. One can technically refuse and go home on time, but if that's you, expect to be the first person placed on mandatory unpaid leave and the last person to be promoted.

There's an added layer to all this, though: the ratio of men to women in the science park is 14 to 1. Fourteen men for every woman. Fourteen times as many men as women. Fourteen times. I shudder to think that a lot of the women who do work in the science park are generally secretaries or in marketing or HR, leaving the ratio of male to female engineers something astonishingly disparate.

(To their credit, Mediatek's ratio is about 8 to 1, which, while not great, is an improvement).

I've seen this play out in my classes - of my long term courses at tech companies, most of the classes are entirely male. At one company there was one woman working in R&D out of 11 students. I have another class with 4 students, including one woman, which is sadly unusual. I will say that at Acer, where I teach no permanent classes but do a lot of training seminars for recent recruits, there are generally quite a few women among the new hires...at least in my classes.

"So is there a 'science park dating scene'?" I asked.

"A little bit. People do date, even between companies because we all live in Xinzhu. It's not a big city...but how can we have a dating scene? Fourteen to one! Who would we date?"

"Besides," he added. "Many of my coworkers are 35 and have never had a girlfriend. They don't know how to speak to women. The ones who are married usually married a classmate. If you don't do that, it is really hard to date."

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the disparity between men and women in the Taiwanese tech sector is entirely discrimination or milder but still pernicious assumptions about gender roles - although that is probably partly the case.

I do think this is an issue that needs to be addressed by that industry - there's way too much acceptance of "men become engineers, women become accountants".

That said, interestingly, the wealthiest person in Taiwan is no longer Terry Gou, it's now Cher Wang, the chairwoman of HTC (also the most powerful woman in the Taiwanese tech sector).

That's something to be proud of, at least.

Loose Leaf Tea

Before I begin, I just want to point out that I was all over the airwaves last night. If you were watching TVBS (argh - I hope you weren't) or another channel, both interviewed me in Chinese about watching the firewalking ceremony at Bao'an Temple yesterday. So that rain-dampened white girl you saw on TV who really needs to work on her tones and punctuates strong opinions with "diu啊！" (not "對啊") - that was me.

As you know if you read one of my previous posts, I had my wisdom tooth removed last week. It was my first one and quite a shock. At some point I mentioned this to a friend, who said "stick some dampened bags of green tea in the fridge and then press them against the sensitive area - it helps". This surprised me, so I did some Google-fu and found out that it was, in fact, true - the tannins in tea reduce blood flow and help stem bleeding and so biting on a moist tea bag does actually have an effect.

Taiwan is famous around the world for its teas, especially its oolongs, and people (locals and expats alike) flock to teahouses regularly to drink it or make it at home: I don't know about you, but we have a full 功夫 tea set - albeit with purposely mismatching cups - at home and a little portable stove to prepare it on. So you'd I'd be able to just run to the kitchen and grab a teabag, no?

Well, no. We do have teabags - some herbal teas, South African Rooibos, some Taj Mahal Indian black tea for chai - but nothing that would make a suitable tannic acid filled bag of tea to press against sensitive, bloody gums. I did eventually use the black tea, but the taste of Taj Mahal is so strong and difficult to swallow when not brewed in a cup that I couldn't take it for long. A nice, light green or oolong would have been better.

That said, I don't know anyone who drinks oolong or green tea from teabags in Taiwan, unless they're at work and it's those Ten Ren teas that every office provides in the break room (I go to different offices for work, so I've seen a lot of breakrooms and drunk a lot of second-rate office coffee and Ten Ren tea).

Instead, we all drink looseleaf tea, because duh, it's better. It just is. I know technically tea in a teabag doesn't have to be inferior to loose leaf tea, but it seems like that's always the case: the fact that it's in a bag makes manufacturers feel as though they can add extra junk to it or simply use lower quality tea, and nobody will notice. I think Lipton's entire product line is based on that principle - "second rate tea for people who don't care". The Taiwanese I know, if they're not in the office and if they're going to drink tea at all, will either do it in 功夫/老人茶 (my namesake!) style, or will brew it in a big pot with a filter and drink it in a cup. The thing that never changes: it's always loose leaf tea. Always.

That right there is a cultural shift I'd never considered until the moment when my friend said, offhand, "just use a wet green tea bag" as though of course I would have green tea bags lying around the house, because I love tea and live in a country famed for its tea - and it neither occurred to her that I wouldn't drink good tea in a bag, nor to me that people actually do keep tea bags on hand, and that some in fact consider them indispensable to a proper cuppa. To me, a proper cuppa is brewed in a little pot and poured piecemeal into miniature cups, or brewed in a big filter and poured in a mug. It is definitely not dunked in a little paper receptacle straight into a cup.

"But loose leaf tea is so complicated!" folks back home say.

"No, you just...put some in the pot, then add water and quickly wash it out, then add more water and let it steep but not for too long, then pour it through this filter into a little pitcher and then pour it into these glasses, and you can use these tools to do it. See, easy!"

"Umm, that's not easy!"
"Sure it is!"

"No it isn't - first, how do you use those tools? Then, you always have to steep, pour and drink quickly enough so that the tea isn't too strong and doesn't get cold, and all you get is barely a mouthful at a time..."

"...do you need more than a mouthful at a time?"
"Maybe I do, yes, and then what do you do with the leaves?"
"Put them in a bowl until you're done and ready to throw the whole lot out."
"Why not just boil or even microwave some water and just add a tea bag?"
"Because it's not the saaaaaame."

"Sure it is."

But no, it's really not. The quality just isn't there. Forgetting all the meditation /peace/beauty/solemnity/whatever of the Old Man's Tea ceremony (though I won't deny that it's beautiful), it just feels nicer. It's not as hurried, it's more sociable and it's still very much a way of life in Taiwan. When we spent a few nights in Donggang to catch the beginning of the King Boat Festival, the owners of the hotel invited us to drink tea with them at their big old tree stump table. When we stay in Lishan, the owner of the homestay we like has his own tree stump table and makes lao ren cha for his buddies, while guests make tea and cavort outside. When we stayed with Sasha's family in Dashe, her father made lao ren cha on the coffee table two nights in a row.

I feel like, when doing this, that what I'm getting for all my time and effort is quality - good tea from small manufacturers (I'm a big fan of Wang's, and 來自台灣ㄟ好茶, a company that makes Lishan and other high mountain teas has some nice selections, and you can buy Pinglin tea here if you don't feel like going to Pinglin) that pride themselves on freshness and location.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that drinking looseleaf tea is so much more than just drinking tea - it's a connection to an entirely different way of doing things. It's a connection to products of a proud local origin and not just a brand name on a flimsy box. Do you know the name of the town in which Red Rose or Lipton is grown? Could you find the farmer if you wanted to? Probably not, but in Taiwan you can locate the town in which the tea was grown and often it's possible to find the farm itself. It's easier than you'd think to buy tea right from the farmer who grew it (you can do this in Pinglin if you are judicious about your tea purchases). You're getting connections to all sorts of things - not just flavor, but there is that, too - by drinking looseleaf tea that you'll never get by chucking a paper packet in a microwaved cup.

Baosheng Cultural Festival 2011: Why I Love Temple Festivals

Firewalking at Bao'an Temple earlier today

Every year, the Bao'an Temple in Taipei holds a long "cultural festival" to mark the birthdays of its two most revered gods - Baosheng Dadi, god of medicine and Shennong Dadi (I've also seen it spelled 'Sengnung Dadi'), god of herbal or Chinese medicine (there is also a fairly well-known Shennong Dadi temple in Dashe, Kaohsiung County). There are Taiwanese opera performances, talks, awards ceremonies, god parades and finally - the most interesting if you ask me, as it is so rare in northern Taiwan - firewalking.

On a specified date of the lunar calendar, the idols are taken out of the temple and their carriers walk them over a bed of hot coals (made slightly less hot by a white substance, which I believe is salt or salt with rice) while a crowd watches and temple workers form a human shield around the whole thing to keep people from getting hurt.

I thought this was unnecessary until I ran into a woman sporting a pair of tongs, clearly hoping to snatch a piece of hot coal as a souvenir.

The firewalking was held today and not many people attended - it was fairly easy to get a first-line view. I blame the rain, which alternated between pouring and drizzling, for keeping the crowds away.

Ow ow ow ow ow.

I had to postpone at least one engagement to make this year's festival, conveniently held over the weekend. All week long I've mentioned to students that I'm going, as I hadn't been able to attend for years due to the dates falling on weekdays.

The most common response is - "why?"

Or "Baosheng Dadi's birthday? What does that have to do with you?" (for the more fluent ones)

It's not easy to answer, really - I'm not even inclined towards my 'native' religion, so why would I be inclined towards the folk religion of Taiwan?

The answer is that I'm not - do I really believe in Baosheng Dadi, fortune tellers, the Old Man Under the Moon, spirit mediums, firewalking, burning a boat for The Thousand Years Grandfather called in from the sea, Matsu, the Lord of Green Mountain etc. etc.? Do I really believe that bajiajiang, when they don makeup and costumes, become the eight generals that they are representing, or that spirit mediums are truly possessed by gods?

No, I don't, to be honest. I don't believe that any of it is true.

So, why the festivals?

Simple.

Because they're awesome. The Taiwanese - generally - will be the first to tell you that in many ways, these festivals are just as cultural as they are religious. This seems to be a common thread among religions with native roots, that weren't started by a single person or prophet - a belief system so ingrained in daily life and custom that it's hard to even define it as a "religion" in the Western sense.

You would likely offend a few Christians, Muslims or Jews by attending religious services for those religions simply because they're "cool" (imagine, ironic hipsters flooding the church or synagogue!). They'd expect you to be genuinely interested in spiritual matters or at least curious - many might humor you, but on the whole there'd be less tolerance for someone who showed up just because the whole thing was very aesthetically pleasing.

Folk religions are simply not like that - whatever the reason, you're welcome to show up and even take pictures. Many Taiwanese will admit that they practice a lot of the old customs just as much for cultural or family reasons as religious ones - it's a part of a way of life, not necessarily an organized view of how the spiritual world works.

But, you know - bajiajiang, spirit mediums, lion and dragon dancers, tall gods, firecrackers, suo na (those screechy oboe things), drummers, martial artists - it's not only visually stunning, it's not only culturally fortifying, it's also fascinating.

I'm a big believer in people finding their own path - if it works for you and doesn't hurt others, then it's right for you and nobody should be able to tell you otherwise or insist that you follow their ideas of how you should live. Along these lines I respect the views of people of all religions (up to but not including the point where they try to tell me that their way is better for me), I respect atheists and agnostics, and I respect people who follow folk religions such as is done in Taiwan, even if it's just for cultural reasons.

I guess, in a way, that sort of makes me Daoist, though I don't identify as such. Lao Tzu's super hippie "find your own way" and all that.

There's another element to it, though - the wild dancing, the betel nut and energy drink consumed in liver-splitting quantities at the larger festivals, the joyful noise, the firecrackers set off in places that can't possibly be safe, the darker undertones of some of it (what with the gods of the underworld also in attendance at these festivals, the firewalking, the fireworks festivals where they pelt people, the self-injury of the spirit mediums)...it's so very, very un-Chinese.

I don't mean that in a political "Taiwan is not China" sense (although that is also true!) or in a "this is not really Chinese" sense. It is Chinese, but I mean Chinese in the sense that many Westerners and many Taiwanese and Chinese have come to view this culture (as different as it is in Taiwan and China).

How do they view it?

Mostly as something very Confucian.

You know - sit down, do what you're told, respect your leaders, don't talk back, subjugate the individual, let's all dance to terse, dry music in perfect harmony and let's all agree that that's what's best.

As a friend put it yesterday, that view is very KMT: sit down, do what you're told, your leaders know what's best, don't talk back, maintain the status quo, we are your betters. There's a reason why the KMT generally favors straight-laced Confucianism over crazy, earthy, follow-your-own-path folk Daoism.

It barely exists in China anymore (there's Buddhism and great reverence for Confucius, but you'll never get photos like these of folk festivals in China because there aren't any - or there are very, very few), and I feel as though there is a great divide in Taiwan over its continued existence here. Nobody of any clout actually comes out and says "this is for low-class people, this is for tai ke, we're more refined than that", but you know plenty - including most likely Ma Ying-jiu - think it.

I'm not just making this up - we chatted with someone who works at the Confucius Temple and she confirmed that it gets preference and often more funding than Bao'an Temple - or the funding is split because "you are right next to each other so you can work it out" and then before Bao'an can get its hands on it, it just...isn't there.

It's almost like a tiny re-enactment - a play within a play - of broader Taiwanese politics, lobbing preferential treatment, resentment and ideology across narrow little Hami Street in Dalongdong.

As a result, she said, whenever the Confucius Temple has one of their staid and buttoned-up functions, Bao'an Temple comes up with a reason to set off fireworks and beat drums: basically screw you guys and the Analects you rode in on!

Which I totally respect - I think it's very much a part of this system of folk beliefs to basically give someone the finger if you think they're undermining you.

The preference is quite clear. "Follow your own path"? Crazy dancing and folk beliefs? The government allows it but deep down, I think they're a little scared of it.

This is just as legitimately "Chinese culture", but it's the darker, more individualistic, more passionate, more uncontrollable version of it: sort of like the yin to Confucianism's yang. You can let go of "sit down, shut up, respect your elders" and be yourself.

All that blather about how "Chinese culture is homogenous" and "They revere the group over the individual" and "they respect authority" goes out the window.

And I love it. This is the "Chinese" (I'd say "Taiwanese" because you really don't see this in China - you might come across some lion or dragon dancers on Chinese New Year or when a new store is opening, but that's it) culture that appeals to me.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this is a big reason why I'm still here. It's so exuberant. It's so celebratory. It's so individualistic. It's so loud and in your face. It's everything you don't think of when you think of Taiwanese kids (or Chinese kids) taking math tests and doing what their parents tell them to.

You could almost say it's the ultimate Chinese hippie revolt, or the ultimate indie vibe.

It's also loud.
And ebullient.
And maybe a little dangerous.

...and it's very Taiwan.