Category Taiwan
Before I tell about my experience, here is little bit of background. In the 19th century the town of Yanshui was suffering from a cholera outbreak. Locals called on Guan Gong, the god of war, to ward off the decease. The god agreed to help but said he had to be greeted by fireworks, so people organized large amounts of bottle rockets to be fired off. Apparently it worked (some say the sulfur in the fireworks killed the bacteria) so the town has made it a tradition to set off masses of fireworks on the 14th and 15th days of … Read the rest
Last year I went to Tainan to participate in the Yanshui fireworks festival. Unfortunately I had misunderstood the schedule and managed to miss the whole thing. This year I was determined to join so I planned it better, double checking the schedule several times.
The festival was going to start on Monday with the main celebration Tuesday night until Wednesday morning. I originally planned that I and Renegade Wife could ride my motorcycle together over the weekend ending up in Tainan, so we could see the fireworks. Sadly my wife’s aunt passed away during the Chinese New Year so we … Read the rest
Shimen Reservoir is a big man-made lake in the mountains outside Taoyuan City. It is a popular tourist destination known for its beautiful views of the lake and the surrounding mountains, and nowadays there are more than ten distinct tourist attractions in the area. As everyone knows, with tourists come business opportunities, and a number of hotels, restaurants and cafés have sprung up along the lake shore. In the past it was common for visitors to stay overnight but as transportation improved, especially with the construction on the No. 3 highway, the market for hotels has gone down. As a … Read the rest
We all have prejudices and we all tend to use stereotypes when we think about “other people”, at least to some degree. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that, but I do think it’s good to be mindful, both of the prejudices you have about others, and the prejudices others might have about you. With that in mind I am writing this post to inform my readers how Taiwanese people tend to view “foreigners”. First a quick disclaimer, I cannot claim to be presenting scientific facts here, this is merely based on my own experience of living here … Read the rest
A couple of weeks ago I was in a camping gear store looking for something when a man came up to me and asked something. I couldn’t really give him a proper answer but we started chatting and soon enough he had invited me to go river tracing. I’ve been interested in going for a while, but I’ve just never taken the time to arrange a tour, so when the opportunity came up like that, I happily agreed to join.
At first my wife was planning to join as well but she had some work to do so in the … Read the rest
Over the last few months I have written a couple of advice posts for living in Taiwan that you can find them here, here and here. Apparently, three posts was not enough to cover all the subjects I wanted write about, so here comes post number four which I believe will be the last one.
The Importance of Food
Food is undeniably an important part of any culture. Not only is food a cultural expression – the ingredients and flavors say something about the history and way of life of the people that cooked it – but the … Read the rest
About two years ago Renegade Wife and I visited an old amusement park that had been turned into a Buddhist temple. There were some parts of the park that we didn’t have time to visit and I’ve always wanted to go back. Last weekend we finally took the time to go there again. Because it’s been a while since I took the motorbike out I decided it would be a good day to go for a ride. However, it was a bit cloudy so we packed some rain gear and a couple of umbrellas just in case.
It was … Read the rest
About two months ago I made a post listing some useful knowledge for living in Taiwan, which you can find here. After thinking about the topic for a while, I came up with a few other things that might be useful to know so I decided to make a second post. After finishing this I have written a couple other posts on the subject that you can find here and here.
1.: The Cold
Taiwan lies in between the subtropical and the tropical climate zones with the Tropic of Cancer cutting straight across the island roughly ⅔ of the … Read the rest
8 Taiwanese films worth seeing…
…Especially if you are interested in Taiwan or Taiwanese culture.
Like I suspect most westerners do, I mostly watch Hollywood movies. Since moving here however, my wife has introduced me to several Taiwanese films that area really worth seeing, some simply because they are good movies and some because they give you some insight into Taiwanese culture that would be difficult for the average visitor to gain otherwise. For simplicity’s sake I will do this as a series of mini reviews where I tell you why I think a film is worth seeing. Now remember, I’m not a film critic, … Read the rest