A Taipei Trip

Last weekend Mary and I hit up the "Museum of World Religions" in Taipei (btw, I can say "Museum of World Religions" in Chinese). It was founded by a Bhuddist order to highlight the commonalities between all religions, which I think is a pretty cool objective; a lot of religious ppl want to highlight why theirs is different. It has permanent exhibitions on Sikhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, et al. It was designed by the same people who designed the Holocaust Museum in D.C.

One of my favorite parts of the museum was an exhibit called "Awakenings." It has videos of various famous people, religious people, and regular people talking about moments of deep awareness and profound spiritual insight. A good one was Jane Goodall, who talked about watching apes dance around a waterfall. She spoke of how it reflected a natural imperative to explain one's environment, like how the waterfall was "always coming and always going, yet always there." There was another room that had videos of meditation in various religions (Jewish meditation, Hindu meditation, etc.). All in all a great museum, plus they have an all-you-can-eat vegetarian buffet that makes u wanna be reincarnated just so you can eat there again.

We also went to Taipei's premier hip hop club, Luxy. I hadn't heard hip hop in soooo long that it was almost euphoric. I was can't stop, won't stop. I had my spot on the dancefloor and didn't move from it all night. I was just gettin it. At one point this dude came over to me and was like, "these two Taiwanese girls wanna meet you," and I was basically like, "that's very flattering, but right now I'm busy lip-synching to 99 Problems. Maybe some other time."

Then I came home and did my taxes. I recommend creating a tax-preperation playlist, it makes it go much easier (sample songs: "Taxman," by The Beatles, "I Get Money," by 50 Cent).

It's good to get outta Yilan, sometimes

Ya Ming Shan picshaaas

natural beauty. oh yea and a waterfall behind me

something's missing

blue skies

"here's to the roc"

walking the straight and narrow

Me and Kendra, "what! what!"

Nell and Me

Mary and I watchin time fly by

gettin' that green

Cliff practicing yoga and me

contemplation

kite runners

a lotus? im just guessin

the whole crazy crew (minus Mary). peep Cliff's hat on far left, i think he got it from Korea

"why so serious?" hahahaha

a baby

March Madness

another day in my Taiwan life.

It's like a Taiwanese "Buena Vista Social Club." I saw them yesterday at Yao Min mountain, in Taipei County, where I went with my host mom Kendra, her son Cliff, Mary, my friend Nell, and Doris and Sean (Nell's host mom and her son). I thought that video was so awesome I had to put it first.

Yao Min mountain was nice. Everyone was there for the cherry blossoms, so the bus ride from one side of the mountain to the other was Asia crowded. Everyone was pushing and yelling, so then me and Mary just started shoutin random things in English like, "syncopated!" "Gross Domestic Product!" and so on.

The other highlight of the weekend was the Taiwanese version of March Madness. Me and my co-teachers entered into a basketball comp for all of Yilan County. The tournament, I was surprised to learn, featured former semi-pro players, and was not made up of middle school deans and biology teachers (like our team is). Suffice it to say, the first game was rough going.

When I walked into the gym, it was immediately 2pac status, all eyez on me. An American at a basketball tournament in Taiwan is like an African-American at a rap battle in Poland. And although everyone in the room assumed I was gonna 360-dunk it everytime, I quickly dissuaded that kind of crude, stereotypical thinking by shootin up an airball from 3. We lost the first game, I'm not exaggerating, 80-20.

Second game was a lot better. We had had a few too many Taiwan Beers in-between games (we had to regroup, you know?), but my co-teacher wasn't worried. "Just drink this Green Tea," he said, handin me a huge cup. It worked. We all came out playin hard, yours truly in particular, and we won our game by a comfortable margin. We advanced to a third game the next day, but I couldn't make it bcuz I already had the Yao Min plans with Kendra. I heard it went much like the first.

A Jew for Jesus

Last night I went with Kendra (my host mom) and my friends Evie and Mandi to a violin concert. Kendra told me the concert was being held at a church, and that there might be some preaching, so I was like cool, I love preaching. Surreal experience no. 1: When I got there I was surprised to find a Taiwanese woman at center stage, singing in Hebrew with a giant wooden cross behind her. She was singing, "Baruch Haba, Adonai..." with the Chinese transliteration on a giant screen behind her, everyone joining in. To hear Hebrew in a place where most people don't speak English and have never heard of Hanukkah created some cognitive dissonance right there.

It got stranger. The violinist came out, and it was this American guy wearing a kippah. I was like, "word?" Keep in mind there are like 12 Americans in this entire city. Then he got on stage and said, "I am happy to be here with you tonight. I am Jewish, and have come all the way from America...to spread the glory of Jesus." The rest of the night he talked about how Jesus saved him, how he was thirsty and Jesus gave him water, how he was hungry and Jesus gave him bread, raise your hands if you want to surrender yourself to Jesus, etc. At one point he claimed that Jesus is "the King of the Jews," which is when I turned to Kendra and said in Chinese, "bu shi" (not so).

So yea, I guess he is a "Jew for Jesus." Kinda unexpected in Yilan, Taiwan. The concert itself was aight, he played "Amazing Grace" and then "Yerushalim Shel Zahav" and some Yiddish folk songs followed by "Ode to Joy." I was feeling tired and so I almost didn't go, but I was totally glad I went. I can't see that kinda think happening in my Taiwanese hood and me not being there.

postscript: according to Wikipedia, Jews for Jesus focus specifically on converting Jews to Christianity ("it's like your religion, but with Jesus"). Makes me feel differently about the fact that I didn't get to talk to him after the show.