The Secret of Christmas

Vanessa Carlton, Hear the Bells




Ella Fitzgerald, The Secret of Christmas

Getting Ready For Christmas

Paul Simon, Getting Ready For Christmas Day




Sting & Mary Macmaster, Christmas At Sea

Two Holidays

Tori Amos, Christmastide




Lisa Loeb & Renee Stahl, Light

How To Be a Buddhist Monk in 489 Steps

Rather than live like a monk when I was at the monastery, I lived like someone who was there to study Buddhism. The monks had their schedule and I had mine. Different groups of monks had different schedules. It was almost like working in an office building. Everyone was there at the same time, but not all doing the same things. My schedule was designed for students, but as far as I know, there were no other students there at the time.

05:00 Daban
At the crack of dawn, someone banged on the 起板 (qiban), which they called 打板 (daban), telling everyone it was time to wake up. There are no satisfying English translations for daban, anban or qiban. They are wooden boards that monks tap on to signal a specific time or event. As with anytime anyone rang a bell, there was a specific pattern that matched whatever was being announced. It was essentially a monastic alarm clock. Though there were computers and smartphones all over the place, they still followed the tradition of keeping time through chimes. Everyone knew what each pattern meant, and I knew that most of them had nothing to do with me. Daban meant it was time to wake up. Of course, people could and did wake up earlier. I always did. But tapping on the wooden board was the signal to all that the day had officially begun.

05:30 – 07:30 Morning meditation
Every morning, most of the monks went into the large Amitabha Chanting Hall to chant jing for two hours. Unlike meditation, chanting was done while standing. For two hours. Monks, in general, are not known as the most athletic people in the world. They spend a lot of time reading and meditating. I never saw any of them on an elliptical trainer. But every single one of them could stand still without straining and suffering. Or at least without showing it.

I was not unwelcome to participate, but told rather bluntly that this was a more advanced practice that I was simply not ready to learn. I was gradually taught some of the jing, but never expected to know any of them as well as the monks. Without knowing the jing, I would have simply stood there for two hours, which would have been pointless.

Instead, my morning meditation was scheduled during the morning chants. That meant Laoshi had to miss his chanting to teach me how to meditate, but he was happy to do it and I was glad he was there. I have been taught how to meditate by a few different people, and all of them taught me something different. The only real similarities were clearing the mind, controlling the breathing, and going full lotus. Different teachers will have different ideas about how to meditate, but everyone agrees that the lotus position is the only proper way to sit. Half lotus is only acceptable if you are just starting out or have joint issues, and no one approves of sitting criss-cross applesauce. Full lotus makes the most sense. If you can get yourself into position, it has to be one of the sturdiest ways to sit. You can knock over someone in a half lotus with a feather, but someone sitting full lotus could fall asleep during an earthquake and never fall down.

Fo Guang Shan practices Chan meditation, which has its own rules and regulations. You could fill a book with all the rules. In fact, people have. I read one of them. The main point is mostly about breathing and trying not to think about all of life's daily bullshit. I was given a personalized mantra, but my takeaway was that any mantra will do since repeatedly chanting pretty much anything will automatically shift your focus. But you don't want to chant jing because most of them are too long and you would find yourself concentrating on the jing rather than the meditation.

My morning meditation was not coincidentally scheduled during the sunrise, just as my evening meditation was during the sunset. On the first day, I wondered why we were doing it outdoors rather than in the giant Meditation Hall. I assumed it was because I was just learning while the monks in the hall were there for serious business. Teaching me would have been a distraction. But then the sun went down and I understood why Laoshi chose a spot uphill, facing west. It was one of those magical moments where you are relaxed and generally content and suddenly feel the sun's warmth on your face. I thought it was beautiful. Until Laoshi pointed out that if I was truly meditating, I would not have noticed the sun setting at all. The following morning was the same, except we were facing east instead of west. I felt the sun rise on my face, which is kind of hard not to notice, which only pointed out how much I was failing.

08:00 – 08:30 Breakfast
Breakfast was served in the dining hall; a large, open rectangle of a room with at least fifty long rows of folding tables placed end to end. All of the utilitarian seats faced in one direction so that no one sat with anyone facing them. Everyone sat side by side, in rows, facing the backs of the rows ahead. The reason immediately became clear. Meals were for eating, not talking. The oldest monks sat first, followed by the younger monks, then the novices, students, and miscellaneous laity. I was close enough to the end of the line where it never mattered what order anyone was in. After all the monks, it was first come, first served. Though there is a hierarchy at the monastery, seating was not about obedience to any chain of command. It was purely out of respect. In any situation where groups had to wait in a line, the oldest were always at the front.

For most of the monks, breakfast was the only meal of the day. They are strong believers in fasting throughout the day, but also recognize that people need to eat. In English, breakfast literally means break fast. That is exactly how the monks use it. But in Chinese, 早餐 simply means early meal. Some of the monks ate dinner, which was called the medicinal meal because it was for those who might have medical issues with only one meal a day. As a student, I was never expected to fast all day, and I am currently trying to gain weight, so fasting would not be ideal. In addition to breakfast and dinner, I was always free to eat at any time in any of the restaurants on or near campus. The museum down the hill has an entire food court. But I would have to pay for any unscheduled meals, and I wanted this experience to be as authentic as possible. Getting snacks from the 7-Eleven down the hill does not strike me as particularly monastic.

Breakfast was always rice porridge. Every single day. Just like dinner, for those who participated, it was quick. Everyone sat down, the monks did a quick chant, everyone ate without any conversation, there was another chant at the end of the meal, and everyone left the room in an orderly fashion. At the monastery, the purpose of a meal was to eat. Anything else was a distraction. Everyone had too many things to do.

They handed out a lot of wisdom nuggets in the monastery. Sometimes too many. It must take years just to remember all the aphorisms. But one that really stuck with me was the idea that food is medicine. You should only take what you need. In the monastery, no one lives to eat.

08:45 – 10:45 Reading
After breakfast, my reading time was pure independent study. Most of my day was spent with at least one other person, guiding me or watching to make sure I did not break anything, but when it was time to read, I was on my own. They gave me books and told me I could sit anywhere, indoors or outdoors. Sometimes I would find a quiet nook in one hall or another, but most of the time I read outdoors. A few of the gardens were on the side of a hill and not the worst place in the world to read.

11:00 – 13:00 Lecture
The daily lecture was exactly how it sounds. One laoshi or another spoke for two hours on subjects ranging from meditation to jing to Dharma to the difference between Humanistic Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism to the Buddha's life and a lot of what he said. The lesson plan was whatever that particular laoshi wanted to talk about on that particular day. I would have preferred to know what the lecture was going to be so I could read up on that subject beforehand, but that was not the way they wanted to do it. I was not arrogant enough to tell them that my way was better than what they had been doing for two thousand years. Even so, the lectures were highly educational and entirely too much to absorb in such a short period of time.

13:15 – 14:15 Gardening
Just after what would have been lunchtime, I worked in one of the gardens. I was there to study rather than work, but manual labor is a routine part of any monk's day. There are a few gardens throughout the monastery, mostly maintained by a combination of monks and civilian professionals. Somewhere on site was a vegetable garden that provided most of the food eaten in the monastery and the museum. I never saw that one, but I walked through several gardens and worked in an herb garden. I think they had me working with the herbs because they were easier and safer. Had I killed all the basil, meals would taste slightly different for a little while. Killing an entire crop of vegetables would be disastrous. I also doubt it was a coincidence that I was working around food at the same time my mind was supposed to be thinking about lunch. Buddhist monks are big fans of denying pleasure, and for a lot of people, eating is one of life's greatest joys. What the monks never knew was that I have no appetite and can easily go all day without eating.

14:30 – 15:45 Free time
The monks were encouraged to take a nap in the afternoon. The Meditation Hall had alcoves to sit and meditate or take a nap in between all that meditating. There was always someone in the Meditation Hall, and I'm pretty sure a few monks spent the entire day inside, napping in between meditating. There is a strong work ethic at the monastery. Everyone pulls their weight and everyone does some kind of labor that people in business suits would deem beneath them. But when you wake up at dawn and work all day, you need the occasional nap. The older monks generally stayed awake all day, doing all their monk business. At nap time, I could always find younger monks sleeping here and there.

I spent nap time jogging around the monastery, or last least the parts less frequented by the public. My exercise routine was neither encouraged nor discouraged. The monks believe in staying healthy, but prefer to do so through meditation. As long as my afternoon run did not get in anyone's way, no one had a problem with it. Nap time seemed like the perfect time since most of the monks were indoors for an hour or two. Afternoons are not the ideal time to exercise in the heat and humidity of Kaohsiung, but my mornings were pretty busy.

16:00 – 18:00 Evening meditation
Evening meditation was just like morning meditation, only facing west in an attempt to block out the sunset. It took a long time, but I could eventually reach the point where I never noticed the change of light and heat. I even had a time or two where everything around me just faded away. I think that is at least mildly impressive since I was surrounded by nature, which is often hard to ignore. Birds especially have a way of mocking your meditation. I could only get to that point with a teacher. Try as I might, it never happened on my own. I never learned how to levitate or do anything crazy, and I was nowhere near the on-ramp to the freeway that eventually leads to the neighborhood next to Nirvana. At best, I would say that what I experienced was piece of mind.

18:30 – 19:00 Medicinal meal
Dinner, the optional medicinal meal, was as organized as breakfast, but with a wider variety of food. There was a different dish each day, either at random or in a pattern that I never recognized. There was usually rice, but sometimes noodles, with vegetables and a variety of soy products. There was almost always soup. The evening tea was noticeably different from the morning tea, but no one told me what it was and I never bothered to ask. At this point in my life, tea is tea. As long as it has no caffeine.

19:30 – 21:30 Dharma lesson
The evening's Dharma lesson was just like a regular class. Rather than a private lesson, like my lecture time, it was a class full of monks taught by a senior shifu. Just like in school, we were all expected to take notes, and there were periodic tests. Oddly enough, it was the most informal time of the day. The monks were always serious when it came to meditating and chanting, but they smiled and laughed in the classroom, even though everyone was expected to learn every ounce of the lessons.

Afterward, I was free to do whatever I wanted for the rest of the night. Some of my favorite time at the monastery was walking around after dark. The tourist side closed at 17:00 and that was when the spirit of the place really came to life. After the sun went down, the grounds were lit up with lanterns and more than enough electric light. It is almost a shame that the monastery is not open at night, but the lack of tourists made it far more beautiful. Monasteries are not natural tourist attractions.

22:00 Anban
At ten o'clock on the dot, someone hit the anban, which was just like the daban, only a different pattern. All the monks knew what it meant, and I figured out the difference right away. Of course, it helped that one was in the morning and the other was at night. That made it a little obvious.

Once the day was officially over, the monastery fell silent. It was never a particularly loud place to begin with, but in the dead of night, even the crickets kept it down. I went for a few walks after anban, which were always interesting. If you want solitude in the city, early morning is always better than late at night. Taiwanese generally stay up late, and the only people out before dawn are going to work. It was the exact opposite in the monastery. While I always saw at least one other person out and about at night, the place was deserted compared to the mass of motion during the day.

This was a unique experience that I can always repeat, but probably never will. Getting the most out of it requires spending more time in the monastery. If I have the time, I am more likely to travel somewhere. Studying in the monastery is a great way to learn a great deal in a short amount of time, but it is far from a vacation. While my brain was flooded with all things Buddhist, I doubt I will retain most of it. Sooner or later, I will forget most of the jing. And as much as I think meditation is helpful, there are never enough hours in the day.

Seeing Buddha's Lightor At Least a Tiny Spark From a Great Distance

If you want to be generous, you could say that I am an expert on maybe one subject. At most. Buddhism is not it. If you want to learn about Buddhism, there are a few million people who can tell you more than I can. In fact, there are more than a few books on the subject, written by people who know what they are talking about. Some of them were written at Fo Guang Shan Monastery. They will happily give you a book or ten. Even the museum hands out free books. One of Fo Guang Shan's primary missions is to educate. They have founded and/or sponsored more than a few universities, high schools, and elementary schools. Something all schools have in common is books.

After a couple of weeks at Fo Guang Shan Monastery, I now know infinitely more about Buddhism than I did prior. Unfortunately, one of the things I inevitably learned was that I know almost nothing about Buddhism. The farther one travels, the less one knows. That is Tao, but the same concept.

Buddhist monasteries tend to be on top of mountains, when available. That is mostly for seclusion. 佛光山 (Fo Guang Shan) means Buddha's Light Mountain. It was built just off the Yushan mountain range, which cuts through south central Taiwan. While the unobstructed views are nice, it was built there to make it harder for most people to reach. But it was opened to the public over the years, with streets and ample bus access, and became a tourist attraction. More than a few monks told me that the large museum was built downhill to draw people away from the monastery while still providing a Buddhist day trip for civilians.

I know that there are different branches of Buddhism that believe different things, and more than a few disagreements within each branch. Mahayana Buddhism started in India and worked its way to China a couple thousand years ago, where it mixed with Taoism and got stirred around in a big pot until it was hard to tell where Buddhism began and Taoism ended. Fo Guang Shan practices Humanistic Buddhism, which comes from Chan, which is a school of Mahayana.

I know that Humanistic Buddhism is about living people. The temples, memorials, pagodas, and statues are for the living. The Buddha was a human who lived and died, as humans often do. Humanistic Buddhism tends to focus on improving the lives of people right now rather than killing in the name of gods and getting a trophy after death. Ironically, while the Buddha personally ordained the first female monks and Humanistic Buddhism advocates equality, education, and altruism, Fo Guang Shan's founder was a bit of an asshat and a lot of a misogynist. Fortunately, he is 90 something years old and retired. His successors are more enlightened and live in the 21st century. As with most religions, women were only subjugated in later years after some extra sensitive male egos took over. Today, just like 2500 years ago, women can be monks, be seen with the men, and even breathe without permission. That worked out better for me.

Unlike probably everyone at the monastery, I am not Buddhist and have no intention of ever becoming Buddhist. I have studied and/or am studying it for the cultural aspect rather than religious. I never mislead the monks or pretended to have any other motives. I told them upfront that since I am studying Chinese/Taiwanese culture, and specifically the differences between the two, I think I should be studying Buddhism as well. No one can ever understand China without at least a rudimentary grasp of Buddhism. That would be like studying the thousand years of war in Europe without knowing anything about Christianity.

One of the great things about Buddhism, as well as Taoism and Confucianism, is that everyone is welcome to learn as much as they want without any pressure to convert or sign a blood oath. Unlike the western religions, it is perfectly acceptable to mix and match in China. Most of the people who practice Confucianism are also Buddhist, Taoist or something else. Some insist that Confucianism is more of a philosophy than a religion, but all religions are philosophies, in one way or another. What I like is how different it all is from the Judeo-Christian philosophy of kill or be killed, us versus them. Chinese philosophy is more live and let live, we're all in this together.

The not very creatively named Main Shrine
Fo Guang Shan Monastery

Flower and Stone Garden
My favorite place to read

Tathagata Building, Jade Buddha Building

Golden Buddha Building
Golden Buddha Shrine

Dharma classroom

Main dining hall
Cloud Dwelling Building

Meditation Hall
Tathagata Building

Amitabha Chanting Hall
Jade Buddha Building

Dharma Square

Sutra Repository

Lots of Buddhas

Even more Buddhas
Overlooking the Gaoping River

Great Buddha Land
“The highest standing Buddha in southeast Asia”

Dharma Hall

A Brief History of the Buddha

The Buddha thanking his mother for giving birth to him

Fo Guang Shan Museum
Just a quick hike down the hill
Or an elevator ride for those in need

Great Path to Buddhahood
and the Eight Pagodas

Bodhi Wisdom Concourse
Home of the Eighteen Arhats

Sutra Repository Stupa
with one million Heart Sutras

Stupa of Vow

Stupa of Wisdom

Sutra Repository Stupa, Fo Guang Buddha, Stupa of Wisdom

Fo Guang Buddha
I had to pump up the contrast because I was facing the sun
But I think it worked out OK

Meditating On Buddha's Light Mountain

Main Shrine
Fo Guang Shan Monastery


I live about 30km from Fo Guang Shan Monastery, the leading center for Mahayana Buddhism in the country, according to them. I never asked around. The monastery is pretty big, though no self-respecting Buddhist would ever brag about size. Just down the hill is the Fo Guang Shan Buddha Museum, which is one of the most popular tourist sites in Kaohsiung, even though it is practically in Pingtung and at least 35km from downtown. The museum is pretty enormous. Someone told me it was the largest Buddhist museum in the world. I never checked. But it does house the tallest seated bronze Buddha statue in the world. That is easy enough to verify, but one should keep in mind that there are a million superlative Buddha statues. Most of the tallest or biggest will mention indoor, outdoor, standing, seated, reclining, bronze, wood, gold, left handed, right handed or facing east. But again, no self-respecting Buddhist would ever brag about size.

I spent some time at the Fo Guang Shan Monastery, but not as a tourist. You can certainly visit the monastery, but most people go to the much larger museum. I have been to the museum a time or two, but I went to the monastery for a completely different reason.

Fo Guang Shan has a program specifically for foreigners who want to play Buddhist for the weekend. The “volunteer group” lets people sleep in dorms, do a few arts and crafts, and mostly wash dishes and do laundry. It is probably beneficial for the monastery. They have people come in and do some chores, while the volunteers get a brief introduction to Buddhism. I did not want that.

It should be noted that both the monastery and museum have full time volunteers who are mostly walking information booths for visitors. They are all locals who work at Fo Guang Shan for years and wear civilian clothes with colored vests, depending on location and specialization. If you enter the Sutra Repository, you will be greeted by a monk in brown or gray robes who might not know much English beyond a few words and a volunteer in a red vest who might be able to explain the room in two or three languages. At the Great Buddha Land, you will be greeted by a volunteer or two in yellow or orange vests who may or may not speak any English. The museum has far more English and Japanese speaking volunteers than the monastery. These volunteers, though called volunteers, are nothing like the foreigners in the weekend volunteer group.

Like a lot of temples and monasteries, Fo Guang Shan Monastery has a temple retreat for foreigners. The difference from the volunteer group is that people pay to sleep in the dorms, wear gray pajamas, learn the basics of meditation and chanting, pretend to learn calligraphy, do some light chores, eat three meals a day, watch a tea ceremony, and always stay in their group of however many people are booked that weekend.

Before I went, I did a little research. Most of the information I found was on the volunteer group and the paid retreat, so I initially thought I might pay to stay the weekend. But the more I looked into it, the more it sounded like a waste of time. The volunteers spend little to no time with the monks. They are supervised by a public relations employee of the monastery who is not ordained. They eat in a separate room away from the main dining hall. Almost all socializing is with other volunteers. They sleep in shared dorm rooms, wear whatever clothes they brought with them, and live in their own volunteer bubble. There is no schedule, aside from meal times. Their only obligation is to do assigned chores, which is mostly cleaning things outdoors, washing things indoors, and doing laundry. The paid retreat is more educational than the volunteer group, but far too short and superficial. It is like reading only the first paragraph of a long book. And you have to pay to get in.

Eventually, I figured out that I could stay at the monastery as a student. Student is not really the correct word. In Chinese, I was 學習者 (xuexizhe) rather than 學生 (xuesheng). The easiest translation is learner vs student. Fo Guang Shan welcomes locals who want to learn as much about Humanistic Buddhism as they can cram into their brains. There is no time limit. Some people stay for years before eventually joining the monastery. We all knew I was never going to do that, but I could probably stick around for a week or two. I'm not technically a local, but since I moved here from China, they treated me as if I was Chinese. Being from China or Taiwan is not required, but only the tourist weekends are in English. If you want to study for any length of time, everything is in Chinese.

While I was Xuexizhe, my teachers were mostly 老師 (Laoshi) or 師父 (Shifu), and rarely 法師 (Fashi). While every shifu and fashi is also a laoshi, laoshi and fashi are only called shifu by people further down the ladder. I was at the bottom, so I could call everyone shifu or laoshi. Fashi, of course, is only reserved for specific laoshi. Or shifu. To every fashi and shifu, I was Xuexizhe, but the occasional laoshi called me Xuesheng. I think maybe five people on the entire campus knew my Chinese name, and I only told one laoshi my English name, because he asked and he enjoyed practicing his English with me.

All the monks had names, of course, but they also had Dharma names and courtesy names. This is pretty common in Chinese. Sun Yat Sen was born Sun Deming, called Sun Wen as a child, called Sun Yat Sen in Hong Kong, called Sun Zhongshan in Taiwan, and given the courtesy name Zaizhi. I still call him Sun Yat Sen, the rare time he comes up in conversation, but no one around here knows who I am talking about until I mention Zhongshan. Ironically, the National Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei is not called Sun Zhongshan Memorial Hall. Not that it matters since that is the English name. In Chinese, it is the National Father of the Country Memorial Hall. To avoid confusion, I was encouraged to address the monks by title rather than name. Pretty much everyone I met was either Laoshi, Fashi or Shifu.

I spent most of my days with one monk or another, usually Laoshi. I ate with monks and novices in the dining hall. I met plenty of other people at the monastery. It is almost impossible not to. But I did not see a single foreigner or another xuexizhe. All of the volunteers I met were full time locals who knew what they were talking about, and not part of the foreigner volunteer group. I don't know how often they host weekend retreats, but I doubt any were going on while I was there.

I slept in a tiny, private room, which was more decorated than I expected. It was all Buddhist decor, but I thought it would just be bare walls and a bed. It was more like a small hotel room with a larger than average bathroom, which is not much of a surprise since Fo Guang Shan often hosts monks, scholars, and dignitaries from all around the world. They gave me student robes to wear, which were a different color and style from what the monks or novices wore. The hierarchy of robes was fairly complicated and took a while to figure out. No one was ever going to mistake me for a monk, especially since I had hair, but the clothes announced to everyone exactly who I was, which was convenient. Since part of the monastery is open to the public, tourists sometimes wander into areas not intended for tourists. Had I been in civilian clothes, I would have spent too much time trying to explain why I was there. The robes were an all-access pass, or more like a low-access pass.

There was a schedule for practically every waking moment of every day. It was far from hectic, but I was expected to follow it religiously. I was free to leave at any time, of course, but as long as I was there, they wanted me to be fully there. Being in the moment is kind of a big thing to Buddhists. Best of all, I was not part of any group. I was in a group of one, getting individual attention, except when I was surrounded by monks. My schedule might not have been tailor made for me specifically, but I was the only person on it. Sharing the experience with a group of tourists would have diminished it.

Since Humanistic Buddhism is more about helping the living than mourning the dead, the monks at Fo Guang Shan are not cloistered in a cave somewhere. They operate a wide variety of social and educational programs around the country. They work in village clinics, volunteer in city hospitals, operate rehabilitation services in prisons, run orphanages and senior centers, and do all the usual monk jobs of feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and officiating at weddings and funerals. They go to conferences around the country and other parts of the world. They publish articles, hold seminars, and write books. A lot of books. Every shifu wrote at least one book and the laoshi were handing me books left and right.

I never witnessed any of their outside activities. As a xuexizhe, I was not at all qualified to do anything even remotely close to monk work. From what I saw, even the novices mostly stayed on site. Unlike the monks, I was cloistered, but in a monastery too large and populated to feel claustrophobic. There are usually two to three hundred monks at the monastery, with ample room to hold a few thousand during conferences and major holiday festivals. There was an ordination ceremony while I was there. New monks from around the country came to Kaohsiung to get sworn in. It was wall to wall monks for a few days. I have no idea how many people came to the monastery, but it could have easily been in the thousands.

Something I saw all the time was how much they embraced modern technology. Fo Guang Shan is known for its use of modern technology. They have websites and apps, a couple of podcasts, a public relations and marketing department, and like a lot of other Buddhist groups in Taiwan, they have TV shows. Not shows about monks who go from town to town solving crimes, but single camera lectures where a monk talks to the audience. Sometimes they chant. It is not riveting television. There was no TV in my tiny room, but the entire monastery is a wifi hotspot. Not only was my phone not taken away, I was encouraged to bring a laptop to do online research. Seeing monks with smartphones and other i-devices is common in Taiwan, but for some reason, I did not expect it in the monastery. I had to remind myself that these people were Buddhist, not Amish.

Dharma Square

John Lennon

1940-1980

People say we got it made
Don't they know we're so afraid
Isolation
We're afraid to be alone
Everybody got to have a home
Isolation

Just a boy and a little girl
Trying to change the whole wide world
Isolation
The world is just a little town
Everybody trying to put us down
Isolation

I don't expect you to understand
After you caused so much pain
But then again you're not to blame
You're just a human, a victim of the insane

We're afraid of everyone
Afraid of the sun
Isolation
The sun will never disappear
But the world may not have many years
Isolation

Pearl Harbor

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

“The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

“It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

“The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

“Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

“As commander in chief of the army and navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

“I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

“Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

“I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”

--President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 12/8/1941

Pearl Harbor National Memorial

Never Trust Anyone Over Thirty

The boomers who used to tell you not to trust anyone over 30, over 50 years ago, are now senior citizens. But it was good advice. As they themselves have shown, the older you get, the easier it is to abandon your principles. Rather than save us from the establishment with peace and love, they became the establishment, as every generation does. Peace and love never pays as well as divide and conquer.

When I was young and idealistic, I was going to be a famous ballerina. That never happened, for a few reasons. Almost no ballerinas are famous. Debbie Allen told her students that fame was unlikely. Fittingly, she is the only one of them who is still famous. Dancing, like pretty much any art, is what you do because you have to do it. There is something inside that compels you to bust your butt and work as hard as you can for little reward. If you want to be rich, go into politics. Art is created for art's sake.

Unlike music or acting, dancing is for the young. Sure, Baryshnikov was on stage well into his 50s, but most of us are not Baryshnikov. Though I knew I would never have a career anything like his, I was doing all right into my late 20s. Thanks to some medical issues, I unofficially retired at 29. Like Baryshnikov, and a great many others before and since, I got into choreography. I miss being on stage in front of an audience, but working behind the scenes pays more and is much easier on the toes.

Most of the dancers I work with are younger than I am. That is perfectly normal for most choreographers, but I am used to working with people my own age or older. In my 20s, I was with the cool kids. At 30, I sit at the adult table. I accidentally went from a rebel to part of the establishment. I think that just happens spontaneously when you turn 30. That's why no one is supposed to trust us.

I also moved from one country to another. China was probably not the best choice for my career, but it provided opportunities to work in a variety of other countries. Taiwan is a better and steadier gig, but I have yet to work outside of the country. Of course, a large obstacle is that much of the world is highly contagious right now. When I lived in China, the air was cleaner wherever I went abroad. In Taiwan, I am infinitely safer. There were quite a few changes in my life when I turned 30. Technically, this all happened when I was 29, but 30 sounds better.

There are a great many people who will tell you that 30 is still young. And they are correct. I plan on living a long time, so middle age for me should be around 50. Some people say middle age is well into your 60s, but that sounds optimistic. If you get the senior citizen discount, you are closer to the end. Of course, any of us could die tomorrow, so those are all just useless labels.

According to the label people, I was born in the middle of the Millennial Generation. No one called us that when we were young. It was Generation Y, which I always thought was stupid. The generation before us is Generation X because no one could think of a name. After the Baby Boomers, every generation suddenly had to have a name. Hemingway and his gang were the Lost Generation, but no one called the Greatest Generation the greatest generation until they had one foot in the grave. Imagine what would happen if you called teenagers the Greatest Generation. They would not end up so great. With Generation X somehow sticking, all the geniuses in charge of naming came up with Generation Y, followed by, hold onto your hats, Generation Z. The irony is, the X was never about the 24th letter of the alphabet. It was X, as in unknown, alienated, blank. Now it is just another letter. If you have to name every generation, at least come up with a name. Call boomers Generation W and see how upset they get.

Then they started calling us millennials. Not because we were born at the end of an old millennium or the beginning of a new one. Those are Generation Z, who some people like to call “zoomers”, even though that is stupid. Someone chose “millennials” because we started becoming adults at the new millennium, even though that naming convention does not match other generations. Did boomers become adults when the baby boom started? That would be the Silent Generation. I guess we know why they were so silent.

According to the internet, boomers and millennials are natural enemies. Then again, on the internet, boomers think anyone born after they were is a millennial, even though whenever boomers complain about young people, it is usually something Generation Z does. Possibly because Generation Z was born around the new millennium and it would make far more sense to call them millennials. Not that millennials have to worry about it. We are on the winning side. Time has a way of making the older generations obsolete. Long after the last boomer is dead and buried, we will still be here, complaining about those young Generation AAs or Generation Alphas or whatever stupid name someone comes up with.

Mooncake Day 2020

Thursday was Mooncake Day. Technically, it is called 中秋節 or the Mid-Autumn Festival, but I call it Mooncake Day, for obvious reasons. Traditionally, it was a day when people got together to harvest crops and have a party under the full moon. Today, in the simplest terms, it is the Chinese version of Thanksgiving. Or rather, Thanksgiving is the American version of Mooncake Day since the Chinese were doing this two thousand years before the United States existed.

Though a completely different holiday from 元宵節, the Lantern Festival, people in some parts of China light and release paper lanterns into the sky. One of the best things about Mooncake Day in Hong Kong was watching all the lanterns float away. They don't do that in Taiwan. But they have mooncakes.

Mooncake baking is a billion dollar industry. Most of the companies that make mooncakes bake other things the rest of the year, but there are some businesses that do nothing but make mooncakes. They sell enough mooncakes during a single festival to keep the lights on all year. What makes it more remarkable is that everyone's grandmother makes mooncakes at home. Eating a mooncake during 中秋節 is like illiteracy in Mississippi. It is inevitable. Mooncakes are wildly popular, and sell like mooncakes, but for some reason, no one bothers to sell them the rest of the year. There is no law that says you cannot eat mooncakes at other times, but just like cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, people only eat them on Mooncake Day. Maybe that is why they are so popular.

I was in Hong Kong just before Mooncake Day, but I had to come back to work, so I got to experience my second holiday in Taiwan. The first was Dragon Boat Day, which is more of a party and food holiday, while Mooncake Day is a family and food holiday. My only family in Taiwan are my roommates, who care about Mooncake Day as little as I do, and one of them is currently in Hong Kong. As such, the two of us who were here did nothing, except eat mooncakes. Which, overall, is what really matters.

A Few Differences Between Hong Kong and Kaohsiung

I lived in Hong Kong for almost ten years. To some expats, that makes me an expert. I disagree. I think it takes a lifetime to fully understand a place like Hong Kong. Maybe after 30 or 40 years, I could claim to know something about the city.

I have lived in Kaohsiung for four months. That means I know almost nothing about the place. I know how to find my apartment and how to get to the places I need to go. I know where to get food and how to pay bills. I know where the best parking lots are and on which streets it is impossible to park. I can look like I live here, mostly because I do, but I cannot tell you about the heart and soul of Kaohsiung.

But I can recognize some of the differences between Hong Kong and Kaohsiung. I realize that this kind of thing would be better after I have been here for a few years and know more about Kaohsiung, but I also realize that after a few years in Kaohsiung, I will find it less exotic and I will probably talk more about other places. When I first moved to Hong Kong, every blog post was about Hong Kong. Everything was new and different. In the end, I rarely mentioned Hong Kong. When you live anywhere long enough, it is simply where you live.

The weather in Hong Kong and Kaohsiung is pretty much the same. They are practically at the same latitude and both in humid tropical zones. It rains more in Hong Kong and is hotter in Kaohsiung. The biggest difference is that Kaohsiung is more prone to typhoons. Both cities face the South China Sea, which receives every Pacific typhoon that does not swing north and crash into Japan. But Hong Kong is largely protected by the Philippines and Taiwan. A typhoon has to fit through a narrow corridor to hit Hong Kong directly. Most storms hit the Philippines, Taiwan and/or Fujian, bringing only rain and wind to Hong Kong. Taiwan is only protected to the south by the Philippines, and is wide open to the east. Kaohsiung is on the southwest coast, which is directly in the path of every storm that hits Fujian or turns north from the Philippines, but the overwhelming majority of typhoons hit Taiwan's central east coast, which is one of the reasons that area is sparsely populated. Since I moved during typhoon season, I have seen more rain in Kaohsiung than sun, but I am told that most of the year, Kaohsiung is far sunnier than Hong Kong.

The language is the same, more or less. Legally, the official languages of Hong Kong are Chinese and English. Realistically, most of the people who claim to speak English do not know it as well as they think. And Chinese is a jumble of a hundred different dialects, most of which are well represented in Hong Kong. When Hong Kong was occupied by the British, most of the Chinese population was from Guangdong. Since then, people have flooded in from all parts of China, bringing their dialects with them. You can easily find university classes taught in Cantonese, Wu, Min, Hakka, and more often than not, Putonghua. Cantonese might be the most popular dialect on the street, but Putonghua is the language of academia.

The official language of Taiwan is Chinese. Most people do not even pretend to understand English, though it is one of the most popular foreign languages taught in schools. As an island that was never really important to China, Taiwan developed its own aboriginal languages. Japan had a major impact during their occupation, but only the oldest generation remembers being forced to learn Japanese. According to the government, everyone speaks Chinese and/or Taiwanese. In Taiwan, Chinese is Putonghua, which is terribly convenient for me. But Taiwanese includes several different languages and/or dialects. Pretty much like Chinese. On paper, the overwhelming majority of people in Taiwan speak one or two languages, but you could easily fill a room with people all speaking different dialects.

In my limited experience in this country, Chinese works pretty well. I have yet to run into anyone who could not understand me, though I speak in a heavy accent to them and they speak in an unfamiliar accent to me. Several people have told me that I have a Shanghai accent, which I find odd since I have spent almost no time in Shanghai. If someone speaks Hokkien, Hakka or any other Taiwanese to me, I have no idea what they are saying. Fortunately, they are all the same in writing. There are some differences in grammar and syntax, but if you can read one dialect of Chinese, or Taiwanese, you can read them all. It is pretty much the same with English. Two people from Alabama and Australia might not understand each other in conversation, but they can read the same printed words.

China and Taiwan use a different system of measurements, other than volume, which is something to get used to since the words are the same. One 尺 is one foot in both China and Taiwan, but 1 Taiwan 尺 is 30.3cm, while 1 China 尺 is 33.3cm. One US foot is 30.48cm. Taiwan's 斤 is 600 grams, while China's 斤 is 500 grams, and 605 grams in Hong Kong. Moving from China to Taiwan means adjusting to different lengths and weights, but if you move from Japan to Taiwan, everything is the same since the Japanese converted Taiwan to their measurements during the occupation. You simply have to say the words in Chinese rather than Japanese.

The cultures of Hong Kong and Kaohsiung are the same if you go back far enough. Everyone came from China originally. But as an island that was never really important to China, Taiwan has a long history of foreign invasion and occupation, with each occupier trying to force the population to do everything their way. There is also a lot of island culture that you do not find in most of China. Hong Kong was always Chinese, until the British wanted to turn the Chinese into opium addicts. Today, any major city in Taiwan looks almost the same as any major city in China, except that China has more money and Taiwan is more relaxed.

The food in Hong Kong and Kaohsiung are night and day. Guangdong is one of the four compass points of traditional Chinese cuisine. As a British territory for almost the entire 20th century, and a more open city than most of China, Hong Kong became the modern center of Guangdong, or Yue, cuisine. When people in North America and Europe think of Chinese food, they are mostly thinking of Yue style Chinese, which is usually called Cantonese in English since Canton is the English name for Guangdong. Most American Chinese food is nothing like Chinese food in China, but the cooking style, spices and sauces that Americans know about are all Guangdong.

Taiwanese cuisine comes from Hokkien, Hakka, Japanese and a mix of southern Chinese. The ingredients are more or less the same as Hong Kong, but come from different places. Hong Kong imports a great deal of whatever it does not pull out of the ocean, while Taiwan grows almost all of its own food. The basic staples of rice and noodles are the same, but I see a wider variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices in Taiwan.

Since Hong Kong is a single city, you can get the same food anywhere you go within its borders. Taiwan has different specialties in different counties. Street food is similar in that they are both cheap and fast. Hong Kong is the better place to get dim sum. Taiwan is better for dumplings. Hong Kong desserts often have a western influence, especially from France, for some reason. Taiwan desserts are far less sweet.

Hong Kong's MTR goes almost everywhere, from Aberdeen to Shenzhen, the airport to Starfish Bay. If the MTR does not reach some place, a bus or boat probably does. My transportation was 90% MTR, 8% bus, 1% boat and the rare taxi. A car in Hong Kong is both unnecessary and difficult to park.

Kaohsiung's MRT red line covers 25km north to south in a city that is 120km long. The orange line covers a 12km stretch from east to west downtown. Both lines make sense in where they go. The problem is in all the places they do not go. Hong Kong has 23 lines and over 160 stations. Kaohsiung has 2 lines and 38 stations. They are planning additional lines, but no one knows if or when they will exist.

Hong Kong has 7.5 million people crammed into 2755 square kilometers. Kaohsiung has less than 3 million in almost 3000 km2. You could say that Kong Kong is more crowded.

In Hong Kong, I mostly shopped at CitySuper and ParknShop. Wellcome is kind of a dump. Kaohsiung has Carrefour and Jasons. I never liked Jasons as much as CitySuper, but Kaohsiung Jasons is different from Hong Kong Jasons. That makes sense since Taipei CitySuper is almost nothing like Hong Kong CitySuper. My main store now is Carrefour, which does not exist in Hong Kong. I went into a Kaohsiung Wellcome to compare. It was kind of a dump.

Summer At Clear Water Bay

Kevin, my roommate, brother from another set of parents and, most importantly, my sister's significant other, works for a company that used to be based in Hong Kong. They moved to Taiwan for a variety of reasons, as did Kevin. Coincidentally, so did Lily and I. The boss of the company owns a rather nice house overlooking Clear Water Bay. He moved to Taiwan with everyone else, but he still owns the house. Most of the people at that company probably see Taiwan as a temporary assignment. Hong Kong is their home.

More than a few years ago, the boss asked Kevin to house sit while he was away on vacation. In Chinese culture, that is pretty much a power move to show everyone who is boss. The message to the entire office was that, even though Kevin is taller, stronger and visibly more Canadian than everyone else, the boss is in charge. Kevin's point of view was a little different.

When this all started, we lived in tiny Chinese box apartments, each with one tiny bedroom, tiny bathroom, a sink against the wall as a kitchen, and absolutely no counter space or view of anything besides other tiny Chinese box apartments. The Clear Water Bay house is a little bigger. It has 4 bedrooms, one of which was larger than my entire apartment at the time. It has 4 bathrooms with both showers and bathtubs, not a common sight in China. The kitchen is large enough for a professional chef, with a real oven, more counter space than I know what to do with, a jumbo size refrigerator, and all the latest appliances. On the ocean side of the house is an outdoor terrace with an outdoor cooking area, swimming pool and hot tub, and large windows with ocean views.

When Kevin first had access to this house, Lily and I stayed without reservation. Getting to work took longer and required more MTR transfers, but the swimming pool alone was incentive enough for me. The kitchen was the first place in Hong Kong I was able to do any real cooking. My apartment had a toaster oven and two-burner stove. It is amazing what a difference a real oven and counter space to knead dough can make.

When we all moved to Yau Ma Tei, we had far more of the modern conveniences that are frighteningly easy to miss. But we continued staying at the Clear Water Bay house every year because it was available and had that swimming pool. I did not go last year, for medical reasons, and could not go in 2018 because Kevin's boss went on vacation while I was working in Spain. I found the timing annoying, but Spain is beautiful. The year before that, I was recovering from surgery. My primary activities were sleeping and vomiting, and the doctors told me not to go into any swimming pools, so the big house was useless to me. This is my first chance to go since 2016 and, even though I live in a different country now, I have every intention of overusing that pool.

Kevin will stay there all month. This is his summer vacation. Lily has a few classes, but she will go whenever she can. Since she is working on a graduate degree, she has more leeway as far as class attendance is concerned. I have a steady job, so I can't go for the full month, but I can probably drop in from time to time. Since we all have to fly there, it will take a little more planning than simply hopping on the MTR.

Kevin plans to sit around and do a lot of nothing. With a pretty big chunk of the world out of commission for vacations, he will go away to somewhere familiar. Lily's top priority is getting me to bake as much in that jumbo kitchen as possible. I am trying to gain weight, so I don't have any problem with that. I can and do bake at home, but that jumbo oven seems to get hotter much faster, and that jumbo refrigerator can hold more ingredients than I can ever use. My top priority is that swimming pool. I have no medical restrictions this year, and I plan on swimming every single day I am in that house, rain or shine. This is the rainy season in Hong Kong just as much as Taiwan, but I can swim in the rain. And if a typhoon hits while we are in Hong Kong, no problem. Taiwan will protect us.

Tour Of TaiwanSouth To Kaohsiung

With a choice of two freeways, driving straight from Chiayi to Kaohsiung should never take more than an hour. Unless you are stupid enough to hit Tainan at five o'clock. The best thing about having Tainan and Kaohsiung so close together is that it is easy for everyone to go from one to the other. The worst thing about having Tainan and Kaohsiung so close together is that everyone goes from one to the other. Usually right after work. We always planned on leaving Tainan long before rush hour, but we still had a few things to see.

The westernmost point in the country is in Tainan, but it is different from the other points. The north, south and east lighthouses are proper white brick and mortar cylinders on rocky capes. Guosheng Lighthouse is just a steel tower near the beach with a big light on top. Instead of a cape, the western tip is a large sand dune. That might be why they built a steel tower rather than a brick house. The beach is pretty big, but like most beaches in Taiwan, it was deserted and did not look like the kind of place anyone ever visits. Even with a sand dune, which is rare in Taiwan, there were no people around. I don't think the government has figured out a way to make it a travel destination. It was pretty disappointing, but at least I can say I have been as far north, south, east and west as you can go on the island. For whatever that's worth.

For obvious reasons, Tainan is not famous for its lighthouse. Instead, people go for the temples. If you live in Taiwan, you are bound to see a temple or two. Some are enormous. Some are tiny. Some are old. Some are slightly less old. My apartment is about a kilometer from the second largest Buddhist temple in the city and five kilometers from the largest Confucius temple in the country. There are over a thousand temples in Kaohsiung, but pound for pound, Tainan is the temple capital of Taiwan, with everything from Buddhist to Taoist to Confucian. Tainan claims to be the oldest city in the country, and unlike larger cities like Taipei and Taichung, they did not tear down most of their temples as they expanded over the centuries. That might be one reason it is the smallest 直轄市.

As the oldest city in the country, there are a few museums. Easily the most surprising is the Chimei Museum, named after a plastic manufacturing company. Built in a European neoclassical style, it looks nothing like any museum in Taiwan. Rather than a museum of art or museum of natural history or museum of antiquities, it is dedicated to 13th to 20th century paintings, prehistoric to modern weapons, ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, and European musical instruments. It is best known for having an El Greco and the largest collection of violins in the world. The main entrance has a life-size replica of Versailles' Le Bassin d'Apollon.

The fountain is your first clue that everything about this museum is an imitation of a different place. Since it is nowhere near Europe, and more humid than anywhere in Europe could get, all the artifice only serves as a reminder that this museum is pretending to be something it is not. There is no rule that says all Chinese museums have to look like they were built in the 8th century. The Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum in Chiayi looks like it was built in 2015, but it is most definitely a Chinese art museum. Who would go to the Louvre if it tried to be Indian? It is unapologetically French, as it should be.

Outside of temples and museums, Tainan is interesting ecologically. Not only is there a sand dune, but northwest of downtown is all wetlands and mangrove forests. Much of it is a national park right next to the city. Technically, we went into the park when we went to the lighthouse, but we did not spend much time exploring the wetlands. Tainan turned out to be another place where we could have easily spent a few days, but we had to get home eventually.

I knew that Tainan was the most popular city for expats before I moved to Taiwan, but I never understood why. Several cities have more jobs and better public transportation, but Tainan seems to appreciate its long history and has a wide variety of things to do in a more compact space than the larger municipalities. Taipei has an extensive metro network, but in Kaohsiung or Taichung, you are much better off with a car or scooter. Tainan has more of what you want in a big city, with a small town feel. It is yet another place I have to put on my list of places I need to get back to when I have more time.

With the short drive from Tainan to Kaohsiung, we had circumnavigated Taiwan, counterclockwise. We drove through every county on the mainland. We spent the night on the west coast, up north, east coast, and about as far south as you can get. We drove up mountains, past volcanoes, over rivers, through forests, across plains, and up to beaches. Our streets were national highways that span almost the entire length of the country to tiny village roads, and everything in between. We stopped for gas in large cities, small townships, and at least one gas station on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We drove 2,164 kilometers, which is five times the length of the country, if it were possible to drive in a straight line from one end to the other. We ate 15 meals and more snacks than either of us care to admit. We stopped at 7-Eleven and/or FamilyMart at least a dozen times, and noticed that while 7-Eleven easily dominates the west coast, there seem to be more FamilyMarts on the east coast, especially in Yilan.

Taiwan is a relatively small island. We went to every corner and deep into the middle. But we still barely scratched the surface.

911

Tour Of TaiwanSouth Central Chiayi

The drive from Taipei to Sun Moon Lake is almost entirely on the west coast, which is city upon city, rather than any kind of country scenery. Taipei suddenly becomes Taoyuan, which dissolves into Hsinchu. The cities get smaller after Hsinchu, but they never separate. Until you are back in a large city, the second largest in the country, Taichung. There might be some interesting things in Taichung, and I should probably go there someday, but we wanted to go to Sun Moon Lake, which is more natural than the second largest city in the country. You almost have to go through Taichung to get to the lake. There is little to no scenery on the drive between Taipei and Taichung, but at least there is the choice of two freeways, running parallel. After a few days of winding mountain roads, letting loose on a freeway made my new car happy.

From Taichung, Nantou is due east into the mountains. Once you hit Nantou, Sun Moon Lake is a curved, mountain road south. The scenery was better than the west coast freeway, but that winding mountain road really slowed things down. It took an hour and 15 minutes to drive the 160km from Taipei to Taichung. It took almost the same amount of time to drive 75km to the lake.

Everyone in Taiwan says you have to go to Sun Moon Lake. It is the largest and most famous lake in the country, and home to one of the smallest indigenous tribes in Taiwan. Someone told us it is the most popular tourist sight, though claims like that have to be taken with a large block of salt. Everyone in Taiwan seems to think their best thing is the most superlative thing in the country. But as a large lake with its own tiny island in the middle, almost in the dead center of the country, surrounded by scenery and hiking trails, Sun Moon Lake is likely one of the more popular sights. Summer is supposed to be the most crowded time, but the typhoon probably made a difference.

There are plenty of boats to take people across the lake and/or to tiny Lalu Island, but I think the best way to get around is on the bicycle paths, some of which were built directly over the water. Like most scenic or recreation areas, renting a bicycle is easy and inexpensive. Also common are the temples all over the place. Since Lalu Island is sacred to the Thao people, it only makes sense that the Japanese and then the Chinese would build temples in the area. Unfortunately, Lalu Island was mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 1999, so it no longer has the sun and moon shape. Unlike a lot of places in Chinese-speaking countries, the English name “Sun Moon Lake” is a literal translation of the Chinese name, 日月潭. Now that Lalu Island is basically a large rock in the water, the name makes less sense.

There are plenty of hotels near Sun Moon Lake, but we had other plans. It is a nice enough lake, and we could have easily spent the night, but we come from Manitoba and Minnesota. Lakes are not extraordinary to us.

From Sun Moon Lake, we drove southwest instead of west back to Taichung. We were headed to Chiayi, and taking the mountain roads to the freeway was faster than taking the small Nantou freeway. We passed through Yunlin, the poorest county in the country, and the one place where no one has ever advised us to go. Since it is on the west coast, which is all about cities, there is less scenery, and Yunlin suffers from no cities that anyone seems to want to visit.

Just south of Yunlin County is Chiayi County. Chiayi City is smack dab in the middle of the county, and where the freeway goes, but we were headed to Taibao, just west of Chiayi. Rather than spend the night in another themed B&B, we stayed at a friend's house. That was really the only reason we went to Chiayi.

There were no national parks or hiking trails in Chiayi, but just like the government buildings in Taipei, the government buildings and museum in Taibao turned out to be a good place to ride a bicycle. Just north of the museum is a cultural park, with plenty of bicycles, and a long path that went pretty much nowhere. The flat plains of Chiayi were not nearly as challenging as a mountain trail, but the bicycle paths were separated from the streets, making them infinitely safer to ride.

The plains were also the easiest place to teach Lily how to drive my new car. She knows how to drive, of course, but that right hand drive steering wheel intimidated her. Most of the trip before Chiayi was mountain roads and Taipei, not the best places to drive an unfamiliar car. It also helped that Chiayi is tiny. I have never seen a single street in Kaohsiung without other cars, but Taibao is a little smaller. It is technically a 市, but it feels like a 鎮. Kaohsiung has about 7500% more people. The street from the front door of the museum to the back door of the high speed train station was empty, by Taiwan standards. The area around the train station also turned out to be a good place to practice driving. The street at the front of the station was essentially a parking lot, with taxis and relatives competing for the best spots to drop off their passengers while blocking the most traffic. But the other side of the station was a small neighborhood of absolutely nothing but short streets and empty fields.

The deserted roads only went to two different streets that headed to the station, but they were wide. Two of them were three lanes in both directions. The palm trees were trimmed and the empty fields were manicured. Someone clearly thought there would someday be something more in the neighborhood than a train station. I can't predict what will become of the area in the future, but for our purposes, it was ideal. The streets were too short for Lily to see what a Porsche can do, but she would have never been comfortable with speed anyway. Our goal was to get her used to the right hand drive. The lane markers in the road made it easy for her to position the car, even when she wanted to veer left. She quickly adjusted, as I knew she would. It is not that complicated. But she was never comfortable enough to drive on streets with traffic. That had more to do with the horrid driving habits of Taiwan than the car's steering wheel.

She has no driver's license, so we should probably stick to empty roads whenever she is behind the wheel.

Tour Of TaiwanNorth To Taipei

It was a 30 minute drive from Yilan to Taipei. This was our only freeway on the east coast, but I mostly kept to the speed limit since most of the drive was in narrow tunnels through the mountains that separate the counties. Even a small accident can block commuter traffic all day. Once you hit those tunnels, you either make it through or you wait. There are no alternate roads at that point.

Since Yilan to Taipei was our least amount of driving, and since this was a road trip, we decided to drive up to Tamsui, which is generally spelled Tamsui, but pronounced 淡水. Most of the place names in Taiwan are spelled relatively close to their pronunciation. Hsinchu and Chiayi might confuse a few foreigners, and it takes English-speaking people a while to get Kaohsiung, not to mention the inappropriate confusion between 高 and 肏, but Tamsui is just off no matter how you look at it. I would have spelled it Danshui, but no one ever asked me when they were printing up English signs and maps.

“Tamsui” is at the mouth of the Tamsui River, about 25km from downtown Taipei. The red line MRT goes that far north, but with almost 20 stops, it takes a while. The drive is pretty easy, once you get away from downtown Taipei traffic.

Like a lot of villages in Taiwan, Tamsui was home to one indigenous group or another who were forced out by invaders. The Spanish invaders built a mission to convert the heathens into the proper religion. The Dutch invaders kicked out the Spanish and built a fort just in case. They were then kicked out by invading Chinese.

Most people go to Tamsui for food, shopping and to stare at the horizon. It is a popular place to watch the sunset because you can face west without anything in front of you but water and sky. One of their signature foods is 阿給, which are liberally soaked cubes of tofu, gutted and filled with fried noodles, wrapped up and steamed. Variations are widely available, but Tamsui seems to be the place to get them.

Just next to Tamui is Yangmingshan National Park, home to Qixing Mountain. Qixing is Taiwan's largest volcano, but the park is a noticeably lower elevation than other mountain parks in the country. Most of the mountain ranges are over 3,000 meters above sea level. Taiwan's tallest mountain, Yushan, is 3952 meters. Qixing is 1120. We drove on roads at Taroko Gorge that were higher.

Like every national park, there are numerous hiking trails. But since this park is based around a volcano, there are flowers and plants that rarely grow in other parts of the country. Millions of people go to Yangmingshan every spring to see the cherry blossoms and early summer for the migrating butterflies. And with volcanoes come hot springs. Finding a hot spring north of Taipei is easier than getting dysentery from gutter oil. Closer to the city, you can sit in a wooden structure built around a spring. At Yangmingshan, you can soak in the mountains.

There are several differences between the hot springs at Yangmingshan and the cold springs at Su'ao. Not only are the temperatures on opposite ends of the scale, so are the dress codes. In the cold springs, we could wear whatever we were willing to get wet. We could have gone in fully clothed if we wanted to. No one would have cared. In the hot springs, not even the bathing suits we brought were allowed. Since they are segregated by gender, no one has a problem with all the nudity.

I fully support separate pools. Segregation almost never works on a date, but when you are there to relax, keeping men away is the way to go. Soaking in water is always better without clothes, even more so the hotter the water gets, and too many people today are not mature enough to be naked without acting like 12-year-old boys. There was a time when it was possible, but just like modern American politics, different parties can no longer work together. Not too long ago, we were all in it together. Now, everyone is the enemy.

I also fully recommend soaking in a natural hot spring on a mountain. Taiwan is a place where it is easy to buy a massage chair. Go to any of the thousands of stores that sell them and you will see several people sitting in chairs and testing them out, getting a free massage. Relaxing is one of Taiwan's national pastimes. A hot spring is a million times more relaxing, in every possible way. And taking off your clothes in the mall and sitting in those chairs is discouraged.

While driving around the park, fully clothed, we hit the northernmost point of Taiwan, Fuguijiao. Just like the southernmost point, Eluanbi, there is a lighthouse up north, though it has a less interesting history and is closed to the public most of the time. Naturally, this had us wondering where the western and eastern tips were. As it turned out, the easternmost point, Sandiaojiao, was an hour's drive away. It would have been more efficient to go to Sandiaojiao from Yilan, but we did not know it existed until we were at Yangmingshan. Unlike Fuguijiao, the lighthouse at Sandiaojiao is a tourist attraction.

The drive to Taipei was mostly downhill, but about as safe as driving down mountain roads can be. Since most people go from Taipei to Sandiaojiao by bus, someone decided that the route should probably not kill everyone. Of course, that also means cars share the road with more than a few buses, so it is not the quickest drive, until you hit the freeway from Keelung to Taipei.

We had no hotel reservations in Taipei, just like the rest of the trip, but Taipei has more than enough hotels. As long as it is not the New Year. Something we had to consider this time was parking. If there are a million hotels in Taipei, there are maybe a hundred with reliable parking. Unlike a B&B in a small village, where you park as if you live in the house, a large city hotel either has a parking lot underground or there is a public lot somewhere in the vicinity. This is where driving a new car has a drawback. In a 20-year-old cream colored Kia, I would be completely comfortable parking anywhere. In a 20-hour-old purple Porsche, I get a little picky about parking spaces.

All the top hotels have parking. They are also $6,000 per night, or more. To make this an authentic road trip, we were looking at places in the $1,000 or less range. Fortunately, Taipei, like most large cities in east Asia, has love hotels.

A love hotel in Taiwan is pretty much like a roadside motel in the United States. They have cheap rooms for low prices. The difference being that love hotels are infinitely cleaner and are designed for couples to go somewhere private. Cheating on your wife is a time-honored tradition in Taiwan. Getting caught is not. Most rooms have bathtubs big enough for two. Some have special sex chairs and mirrors on the ceilings. All have porn on the TV, which is interesting because porn outside of love hotels is as heavily censored in Taiwan as it is in China. Our room was some kind of underwater theme. The ceiling was painted blue with fish and seashells. I'm not sure why anyone would want to have sex under water, but if every room at every love hotel has a theme, they must run out of ideas sooner or later.

Most importantly for us, it had private parking. Each room had its own individual parking garage. They are designed that way so men cheating on their wives can drive their mistress to the motel and go into their room without being seen by anyone. Lily and I were never worried about being seen, but the private garage was about the safest place I could possibly park my new car. I found that convenient.

We stayed in Xinyi, which was my first neighborhood on my first trip to Taipei. This trip was about exploring new places, but it was nice to see something familiar. That made Taipei less hectic and busy, which was nice.

Xinyi is the government center of Taipei, with the city hall, Taipei 101, world trade center, and the convention center. If you want to get to know Taipei or its people, this is not the best neighborhood, but because it is full of government buildings and overpriced western hotels, there are wide sidewalks where you can ride a bicycle without getting hit by cars. Other than along the rivers, Xinyi might be the safest place to ride a bicycle in Taipei.

I have spent more time in Taipei than anywhere else in Taiwan, besides Kaohsiung, but I have no idea what Taipei's most famous food is. In villages and smaller townships, everyone will tell you their signature dish. Taipei might be too large to have one.