Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival

Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

Every year, for ten days around the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Taiwan holds a lantern festival. The origins of this are unclear; there are a number of theories about how it started, many full of gods and legends, so I'm not even going to try to pick one. Let's just accept the festival exists, and not worry about why.

Part of the festival is the huge lanterns that we showed in our last post 'Taipei - more sightseeing'. They are certainly amazing, and well worth seeing, but what we were really interested in was the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival.

Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

Sky lanterns are the beautiful, if contentious (due to potential fire risks and environmental concerns), paper lanterns that you light a wick at the bottom and they float up into the sky. They are believed to have been started by Chu-ko Liang, who was a highly skilled military strategist to Liu Bei (founder of China's Shu Han Dynasty, 221-264 AD), during the turbulent era of Three Kingdoms. He was also known as Kong Ming, meaning 'Hidden Dragon' to represent that he was able to achieve great things that people did not expect of him.



Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

Chu-ko Liang is said to have used smaller sky lanterns as a means of communicating military intelligence, so some call them Kong Ming lanterns. Others use the same name, but because they are the same shape as the hats that he is depicted as wearing.

Anyway, these days, on the fifteenth day itself, thousands of these lanterns are released, which truly is a sight to see.

And we nearly missed it!
Firstly, we went to the wrong place! It is called the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival, so we went to Pingxi. We had to take a train from Taipei to Ruifang, and then change trains to go on to Pingxi. However they kicked us off at a place called Shifen, and we had to find another train going to Pingxi. We got there, eventually, and decided to have a little wander around the village before finding the festival area.



Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

Thankfully, there wasn't much village to see, so it wasn't long before we started to look for where we were supposed to go, but we couldn't find it. We asked someone, who didn't speak any English, but seemed to be telling us it wasn't here. Hmmm, let's not panic yet, we probably just misunderstood.

We then managed to find someone who did speak English, and sure enough we were in the wrong place. She told us to get on a bus, which was laid on specially for the festival, and it would take us to the right place. We found the bus, still a bit unsure whether we were doing the right thing, and it took us right back to Shifen, where we had been kicked off the train in the first place.

Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

As it turns out, the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival is actually in Shifen!
So, now we were in the right place, and we were happily wandering along the train tracks - yes, that's right, this all happens along the tracks and we just get out of the way when a train comes - watching people buy a lantern, write their wishes on it, and send it up.




We decided to do one too. The lanterns come in a variety of colours, which symbolise different things like yellow or orange for wealth, pinks for love, marriage and family, and blue and green for careers. We chose red, which stands for health and peace. We wrote on our messages, and then they helped us light and launch it, taking a few photos first.



Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

So, our own lantern done, and it now getting quite dark, we started wondering why we couldn't see the expected swathes of mass releases; all we were seeing was individuals releasing their own. There were a lot, but it wasn't what we had expected.
We decided to take a walk further along the tracks, and suddenly, just as we were thinking that we were going nowhere and should turn back, we saw a load of lanterns in the sky nearby, and went haring off to find the source. We had to be quick, because our only way back was by train, and we didn't have that long before the last one goes.



Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

As we hurried along, we came across a family, who were also rushing along. They started indicating to us to hurry, and gave us a piece of paper that looked a bit like a ticket. At this stage, we figured it did no harm to follow, but we thought the ticket was to get in to the live entertainment that was going on at the stage by the release site, and we knew we didn't have time for that.


Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

When we got to the release area, the family showed their tickets and ushered us through too. They then disappeared, but we realised that we were now standing in a group waiting to have an opportunity to go on stage to release one of the big lanterns ourselves - the family obviously had a couple of spares, and gave them to us - how nice of them!



Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

It would have been great to have been a part of one of the releases, but sadly it was evident that our turn was not going to come for a while, and we didn't have time to do it and then get our train back. Had we known an alternative way back to Taipei, we would probably have waited and done it, but we didn't, so we had to go.

Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

We did have a chance to watch two of the releases at close quarters though, and it really was a lovely sight.

Pingxi Lantern Festival, Taipei

Taipei - more sightseeing

Taipei 101

We spent a few days happily wandering around Taipei. Unfortunately we didn't have the best weather, so our attempt to get up the Taipei 101 tower was foiled by heavy mist, which made paying to go up rather pointless, but we did pick up some very tasty pineapple cake in the foodhall downstairs.

Dihua Street, Taipei

We quite enjoyed a walk down Dihua Street, which has sections dating back to the mid 1660s, making it the oldest street in Taiwan, and still an important commercial area.

Peacock Bistro, Dihua Street, Taipei

But there are some nice little shops there too now, and some nice cafes. We enjoyed a stop at the Peacock Bistro, where we enjoyed lunch and trying some of their fruit liqueurs.

Something we hadn't expected to see, was a man sitting outside a cafe with what looked like a pet frog on a tiny lead next to him. Disappointingly, we later saw a shop that sold all sorts of frog souvenirs, so we suspect that his was just a fake frog from there.

Dihua Street, Taipei

We also checked out the Taiwan Brewery, one evening, not to do a tour, but just to visit their on site bar Beer 346, where you can buy their beers by the bottle or barrel, and sit outside to drink them. They sometimes have live music, but it was quiet when we were there, and we didn't stay that long, as they weren't serving food.

Instead, we found nearby Huashan 1914 Creative Park, which is an old wine producers factory from 1914, which was abandoned. It was 'discovered' in 1997 by members of a theatre company, and they started transforming it into a creative space. Eventually it was done officially,and it is now a thriving place for the arts. Of course it was mostly closed by the time we arrived, and we just went to the popular Alleycats Pizza place.

Dihua Street, Taipei

 

Dihua Street, Taipei

Talking of food, we did go to a little cafe that is famed for a real Taiwanese specialty, beef noodle soup. We had been recommended to go to Yong Kang, near Dongmeng station, which has been serving up its broth since 1963.

Lantern Festival, Taipei

It is something of an institution, ranking amongst the top in the competitive beef noodle soup world. They were certainly busy, with lots of people queuing up to get in when we arrived. We joined the queue, and before too long we were ushered upstairs to a shared table and presented with a menu, and a list to tick what we wanted.

Lantern Festival, Taipei

Of course the words on the menu didn't match the words on the order sheet, but with a bit of help, we ordered our soup. There is actually a lot of choice here, people only come for one thing, the only real question is what bits of beef and how much comes with it.

Lantern Festival, Taipei

Honestly, I can't say we were that impressed. Other people were definitely enjoying slurping their soup and sucking and chewing their beef, but, having spent years cutting all of the fat and gristle off of my meats, I couldn't enjoy beef that was more cartilage than actual meat. In all honesty, unlike many people, I don't think I will every truly enjoy most Asian food.

Lantern Festival, Taipei

Leaving the beef noodles behind us, our final stop was at the expo centre, where they had a huge display of lanterns, some of which were part of a competition. They were quite impressive.

Toilets, Taipei

Oh, there are two other things that I have to mention - both of which involve toilets. The first, we noticed in the stations, but it may be some other places too. The toilets have a little electronic board outside which shows a plan of the toilets, so that you can see how many there are of disabled, squat and western styles, and it also has a little coloured light next to each. The colour of the light indicates whether the toilet is occupied, vacant, out of use, or somewhat ominously, under investigation (presumably waiting for someone to deal with a blockage or something).

The second was a restaurant, that sadly we never managed to get to, but saw photos of. It is a toilet themed restaurant, where you sit on toilets, eat from miniature toilets, and some foods are shaped like poos. Now that is something I've never seen before or since, even in Japan.

Lantern Festival, Taipei

Taipei - tea and night markets

Raohe Street night market, Taipei

Taiwan is well known for its tea and its food, it seemed only right to go and check them out. There is a convenient and important tea growing area close to Taipei, so we took a bus out to just by the zoo, and from there, took the gondola up the hill to Maokong.

Maokong, Taipei

It was a bit of a dreary and wet day, so we didn't get the best view, or spend much time walking around, but we did check out a couple of the tea rooms. We had already done a bit of research about which were the best of the many tea rooms up there, so we took our maps and tried to find them.

Maokong, Taipei

The first was Liujixiang Teahouse. Oolong tea is the specialty here, so we tried two of their many varieties. You buy the packet, and they give you the tea making set and a kettle, and you do it yourselves. At this point, we were very grateful for that visit we made to a teahouse in Kunming, as it meant we had at least some idea of what we were supposed to be doing.

Liujixiang Teahouse, Maokong, Taipei

We later found that there were some instructions, it was just an oversight that we didn't get a set. Never mind, we got it right, so it was all good.

Having had about as much as we could drink here, knowing that we would be having more elsewhere, we decided to move on.

Yuanxuyuan Teahouse, Maokong, Taipei

Our second stop was Yuanxuyuan Teahouse, which was a much fancier place. Finding it was slightly more testing, as the maps aren't great, and it didn't have the map number of outside, so we had to recognise it by the characters instead.

The tea room has a stream running through it, with stepping stones and little bridges. You sit on the cushions on the floor in little cubicles, some of which have a glass base and water, complete with goldfish, underneath. It also has an excellent view over the valley and out to the city - or at least it would have had, if it wasn't so cloudy.

Raohe Street night market, Taipei

So that was the tea, now for the food. We obviously ate in various places, but we'll focus on the night markets. We went along to a couple, one at Raohe Street, and one at Ningxia Road.

Now I am often a bit stuck with streetfood, because it has a tendency to have a lot of seafood or spicy stuff. The good thing about here though, was that there was a lot of variety, so whilst my choices may not have been the most interesting, I could at least find enough to eat.

Raohe Street night market, Taipei

And I did try a few of the sweet things, like the little crepe things filled with a kind of creme patissiere and other fillings. I also took quite a liking to bubble tea, a kind of milky flavoured tea that can be hot or cold, but contains lots of big chewy tapioca balls -  the bubbles.

Ningxia Road night market, Taipei

Nic can be a bit more adventurous, and he tried the fried squid, and some kind of blood thing, a bit like black pudding. But the thing he really knew he had to try, even though he expected it to be disgusting, was the infamous stinky tofu. It took us a while to find it, and to confirm that it was the right thing, but eventually he had a box full of the tofu, which has been fermented for months in a brine of made from milk, meats and vegetables. As it does stink.

Ningxia Road night market, Taipei

We took ourselves, and our foul smelling food, off to a secluded corner, so that if Nic did throw up on eating it, he could be discreet about it. The first mouthful was accompanied by a large amount of trepidation. You really had to try to ignore the smell, and just hope it didn't taste as bad - after all, lots of people love the stuff.

Nic eating stinky tofu, Taipei

And actually it wasn't nearly as bad as it smelled. I even braved it myself and tasted a tiny bit. It wasn't good though, so we had no qualms about finding a bin for the rest of it.

Taipei - Some sights and a bit of their history

Treasure Hill, Taipei

I think we need a bit of history to explain the next few sites that we saw, Treasure Hill, the Bo pi liao historic street, and the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial.

When China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, was overthrown in 1911, the Republic of China (ROC) was formed. In 1912, one of the revolutionary leaders, Sun Yat-Sen became its first president. His 'Three Principles of the People' (nationalism, democracy and people's livelihood) made him a popular leader, and his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) maintained an alliance with the communists.

Treasure Hill, Taipei

However the alliance was fragile, and could not survive his death in 1925. His protege, Chiang Kai Shek, married Sun's widow's sister, and laid claim to be his heir. But so did Wang Jinwei, one of Sun's old revolutionary comrades, and Sun's widow sided with him. This split the KMT in 1927, and started a civil war between the Nationalists and Communists. The war paused during the Japanese invasion in WWII, but resumed after they left.

Treasure Hill, Taipei

By then, Chiang Kai Shek had moved away from the Three Principles, to a more authoritarian leadership, and it was the Communists that gained the support of the people. In 1949, Chiang Kai Shek and his Nationalist Party retreated to Taiwan. Taiwan had been recently handed over to the Chinese in 1945, after the WWII defeat of the Japanese, who had been ruling it since 1895. The takeover is somewhat controversial, as the Japanese never officially ceded Taiwan until 1952.

Treasure Hill, Taipei

With the arrival in Taiwan of some two million Nationalist Party members, military and their families, there was an urgent need for places for them to live, and one place that around 200 of the military went to was Treasure Hill. A haphazard illegal development of small shanty housing sprung up, alongside an anti aircraft gun position, and the Treasure Hill community was created.

However many of the buildings became structurally unsafe, and between 2007-10 this historic area was restored, with most residents being refocused elsewhere and only 22 returning. The area is now an artist's village, although when we visited we were quite disappointed by the lack of studios that were actually open.

Treasure Hill Temple, Taipei

Bo-Pi Liao Street, Taipei

Another area that we visited was the Bo-Pi Liao historic street from the Qing Dynasty and the Japanese colonial era. The street, which has been renovated, has some distinctly different architecture, but I think they could do a bit more to demonstrate how it would have looked at the time.

In contrast to many places that were colonised by the Japanese in South East Asia, Taiwan was relatively happy with the arrangement. The Japanese provided infrastructure, and unlike in some other places, took a fairly relaxed approach to governing the locals. So it was a bit of a shock to the Taiwanese when the Chinese Nationalist Party took over in 1945, with its authoritarian style.

Issues between the Taiwanese and the Nationalist Party came to a head on 27 February 1947, when the government's Tobacco Monopoly armed enforcement team confiscated contraband cigarettes from Lin Jiang-Mai, a 40-year-old widow at the Tianma Tea House. When she tried to insist they be returned, she was hit around the head with a pistol. People nearby came to her aid and the agents left, but one of them shot someone as he went. This caused outrage, especially as no action was taken, and the next day violence erupted.

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, Taipei

The Nationalist Party sought to quell the riots by imposing martial law and curfews, and they shot a number of key protesters. This became known as the February 28 Massacre or 228 Incident. Initially, Taiwanese civilians appeared to have the upper hand in Taipei, and presented a list of demands regarding the governance of their country; in fact, the KMT Governor, Chen Yi was just stalling for time while he amassed a large military force, and during March 1947, he launched a major crackdown, which saw the execution of what is believed to be 3-4,000 people, but some figures suggest that during the aftermath the number of people killed could be anywhere up to 30,000.

This began what is known as the White Terror, which was the period of martial law that lasted from 1947 to 1987, and saw around 140,000 enemies of the state arrested, and others executed, or simply 'disappeared'. Governor Chen Yi himself was dismissed and, in 1950 he seems to have attempted to defect to the Communist Party, for which Chiang Kai Shek had him arrested and executed for espionage.

Liberty Square, Taipei

Chen Yi has subsequently been blamed for the 228 Incident and its consequences, but many consider that Chiang Kai Shek himself should shoulder much of the blame. Of course he didn't, and this can be seen in the enormous Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, which was completed and opened on 5 April 1980, the fifth anniversary of his death.

The memorial is octagonal, because the number 8 is believed by the Chinese to represent good fortune, and stands 76 metres tall. There are two flights of stairs, both with 89 steps, as that was Chiang's age when he died. Its blue roof tiles and red detailing represent the ROC flag. The memorial was the site of many protests, which eventually led to major reforms by President Lee Teng Hui, including Taiwan's first open elections in 1996, where he was re-elected.

Liberty Square, Taipei

In 2007, officials decided to rename the square Liberty Square, and the memorial itself the Democracy Memorial Hall. However, while the square was renamed, the opposition party successfully fought the change of name for the memorial, albeit on the basis of convenience rather than respect for Chiang. Indeed, even amongst his own Nationalist Party, there is now acknowledgement of the faults of his leadership.

The other buildings in the square are the National Theatre and National Concert Hall.

Taipei - temples

Longshan Temple, Taipei

From Singapore we flew to Taipei in Taiwan. What a difference. From a place that we found to be pretty but false, to a country that we found to be less obviously appealing, but entirely genuine.

Longshan Temple, Taipei

Having had a break from temples in Singapore, we did visit a number here. Religion here is a mix of Buddhism, Taoism and Matsu, so the Gods being worshipped are numerous. The first one we went to was the oldest temple in Taipei, the Longshan temple, built in 1738.

Longshan Temple, Taipei

It has shrines of more that 165 gods, including the gods of money, education, peace and mercy; it was very busy, with a constant stream of people lighting incense and making other offerings to go with their prayers. The temple has been partially or completely destroyed a number of times, but on each occasion, the image of Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, has survived unscathed.



Longshan Temple, Taipei

When people arrive at the temple, they will buy (or bring with them) a pack if incense sticks, and will light them and leave them at various shrines around the temple. The sticks are both a greeting, and a method to enhance their communication with the gods, as it is believed that the smoke helps construct the link.

Longshan Temple, Taipei

Other more usual offerings include food and drinks, which are given either in thanks for the guidance and help given, or because they believe that the spirits of the departed can get hungry, and flowers, which can have various meanings, including hoping for a child.

Qingshan Temple, Taipei

One of the offerings we were less clear about were the stacks of paper; this is joss or Ghost/spirit money, which is made from another bamboo or rice paper, and is burned to venerate the dead.

Qingshan Temple, Taipei

Prayers are offered for health, wealth, and succession, the latter including success in education and exams - it is said that the prayers and, offerings are viewed just as essential to exam success as the actual revision of the subject.

Qingshan Temple, Taipei

As we wandered around the streets, the temples and shrines were certainly plentiful, with lots of little ones poked in amongst the shops and houses. We stopped off at a few, but our next notable one was the Qingshan temple, built in 1854. It is said that the image of the God King Qingshan was being carried through the streets, but when it got here it stopped and refused to be carried any further, so they built the temple here.

Qingshan Temple, Taipei

At the time, there was a deadly plague in the area, but of course the people prayed to the God and credited him with it lifting, so apparently people came here to pray for protection during the SARS outbreak.

What I primarily remember this temple for though, was its God images, as they had strikingly long and bright eyebrows and beards.

I'm not sure where the Homer Simpson image fits in to the religion though!
 

Confucious Temple, Taipei

Our next stop was the Confucius temple, from the 1870s Qing dynasty, established as a place of education and to teach the tenets of Confucianism. I knew little about him, so it was interesting to read a bit about his teachings.

Confucious Temple, Taipei

But if we're being honest, aside from seeing a different style of temple, our main reason for visiting here was that it is the home of the Three Wise Monkeys. Aside from King Kong, The Jungle Book's King Louie, and Tarzan's Cheetah, and Clint Eastwood's Clyde - which, for the sake of Nic's blood pressure, I should point out are of course all actually apes not monkeys - this 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' trio, named Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaruby the way, must surely be the most famous monkeys. (Nic thinks that honour goes to Marcel from Friends, but I'm not convinced by that!) 

Confucious Temple, Taipei

Anyhow, we looked all around the, admittedly very nice, gardens, but we couldn't find the monkeys! There were some outside though, so I took a photo of those instead. As it happens, the original three wise monkeys are thought to be from a carving at the Tosho-Gu shrine in Nikko, which we visited later in the year, so you can see them when we get there.



Bao'an Temple, Taipei

Our last temple, the Bao'an temple, was by far the prettiest. Probably helped by the fact that we visited when it was dark, so all of the lanterns were lit up, it looked really stunning. 

Bao'an Temple, Taipei

The Taiwanese temples are generally quite impressive actually, with intricate carvings, lots of artwork and lanterns, and, of course, huge numbers of images of their gods.

Bao'an Temple, Taipei

We rather liked them, partly because they looked so good, but more importantly because they were so much in use, with people regularly coming in to try to improve their lot.

Bao'an Temple, Taipei

We may not be religious ourselves, and I have to say we are always slightly dubious about people hoping and expecting that a God all sort out their lives for them, but it is nice to see a place of worship being used properly.

Bao'an Temple, Taipei