Moon Musings: Thoughts on the Moon Festival - 中秋節

by Charles DeBenedetto

(An artist’s interpretation of the character 閒. Photo Credit: Hanzi Alive)

Today is the Moon Festival, also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival. The day when we look at the full moon, barbeque outside, and take time to be with family and friends.

The holiday reminds me of a Chinese character: 閒. Some characters are incredibly complex, but this one is profoundly simple. It is the character for idleness, or rest. The standard transliteration is “xián,” with a rising tone, although it would be better to write it as “she-én.” The outside part, 門, represents a doorway, while the inside part, 月, represents the Moon. A moon inside the door? What does that mean?

It means the Moon is outside, and you can see it through the doorway because you are inside. It is night. The work is done. Finally, you can rest your feet, and, with nothing to do, just admire the beauty of the Moon. Looking at the Moon is the symbol of leisure, and which better Moon to look at than the full Moon?

The Moon Festival is a harvest festival. The crops have been gathered, the grain houses filled, animals raised, and the cruel winter is fast approaching. We should probably save and ration what we have for a more difficult day, but we don’t. We slaughter the animals, barbeque far too many plants and animals, and drink too much beer. We celebrate that we have worked hard and our labor has been rewarded. We’ll deal with the cold winter later.

The Moon Festival is a reunion festival. Uncles and aunts, relatives close and distant, all come together, bringing something to contribute to the feast. We realize that when we sacrifice together, we gain much more than we ever could alone. We are all so busy, always working, but today, we are 閒 together. Nothing to do but look at the Moon through the doorway, and isn’t it beautiful, when you actually stop to look at it for more than a glance?

The Moon Festival is an outdoor festival. Outside at night, feel the comfortable breeze that is winter’s warning. Soon you’ll board the windows shut, bundle up in layers of clothes and piles of blankets. But you don’t need hot pot or spicy soup tonight, you just need a cold beer in one hand, and an iron tongs in the other to flip meat, corn on the cob, and whatever else the big family brought together.

The Moon Festival is a short festival. It is not two weeks, like Chinese New Year’s, but it doesn’t need to be, because the weather is not so cold yet as to test our faith in the eventual second-coming of our savior: Spring. No, it is four days because all we need is to see the results of our labor, to see that our work has been fruitful, and to motivate us to keep going so that, hopefully one day soon, we can laugh, drink, and be 閒 together once more.

The East is “Turtle-Slow”: Thoughts from Turtle Island - 龜山島

by Charles DeBenedetto

(View of Turtle Island. Photo Credit: K.H.) 

The Pacific Ocean is to our left, and tall, green mountains are to our right. The skinny highway cuts through the small patch of space between them reserved for humans. I’m wearing sunglasses on top of my glasses, which looks stupid but prevents the scorching Sun from burning through my retinas.

A sign for a lighthouse and the easternmost point of Taiwan brings us to a sudden stop, and we turn off the highway and onto a narrow uphill road. Curved mirrors help us to see if anyone is coming down, but, the way the cars and scooters zoom past us, I don’t think they are looking at them. On the hillside are small structures with white pillars and family names on top. Some have Christian crosses, while many have Buddhist imagery on them. They are family crypts, given the best real-estate so that the departed can be pacified by the Pacific for all eternity. I read some of the names. The Li family. The Wu family. The Yang family. In death, as in life, Taiwanese families stick together.

 

(It looked a lot like this. Photo Credit: dreamstime.com)

Driving past the crypts to the top of the hill, we park our car and get our umbrellas ready to block the Sun. It’s windy, threatening to make our umbrellas “bloom” (The Chinese word for when the wind makes your umbrella fold inside out), but we keep control. The lighthouse is rather stout, but, already being perched on a hilltop, I don’t suppose it needs to be much higher. It’s closed to the public, so we cannot go in, but there is a fence on the edge that we can climb to look over the vegetation and out at the ocean. Climbing up, we gape at what we see.

The ocean is shades of blue: a shallower, lighter blue and a deeper, darker blue. A few birds get lost in the cotton ball clouds, and the ocean is the sky’s mirror. And in the foreground, only about nine kilometers or so away, an island like a giant turtle, lazily swimming in the water. It has a small, slightly pointed head, a rather large, angled shell, and little feet, too. It is both adorable and powerful, and we are captivated by it.

I don’t know for sure, but I imagine the indigenous people of Taiwan must have worshipped it. Perhaps they thanked it whenever they caught fish. Perhaps they feared it, believing that it would attack them if they got too close to it. But over time, they realized it would not hurt them, and so came to believe that it was protecting them from typhoons and other dangers from the sea. Maybe some people even watched it every day, to see if it would move. I certainly would have. And then, after years of watching, it would be concluded that the Great Turtle never moves because it is so diligent in its duty of protecting Taiwan.

As we drive along the coast, I keep looking over at it, to make sure that it is still there, and that it still looks like a turtle.  I think about the “World Turtle,” the origin story about how a giant turtle holds the entire world on its back. Maybe Turtle Island is the World Turtle’s baby? So it carries its baby along with everything else on its shell, too.

No matter how it got there or what it means, I think that Turtle Island is a symbol for the slower pace of life along Taiwan’s east coast. While people in Taipei and Taichung are flying through red lights and cutting people off, on the east coast we can spend all day looking at the ocean, and all night sitting around a low-table enjoying the saltwater breeze and gazing at stars that west-coasters have never seen before. Life here is turtle slow.

The main path from Taipei to the east is the Xue Shan Tunnel, which cuts 13 kilometers through one of the many mountains that surround Taipei. The moment you emerge from the tunnel, Turtle Island is there to welcome you, floating lazily, encouraging you to slow down. And when it is time to go back home, Turtle Island is the last thing you’ll see before the darkness of the tunnel reminds you that you are returning to the fast frenzy of life on the west coast. Hopefully, its fleeting image will remind you to take some of the calm of the east back with you to your frantic life on the west.

Dragon Boats on Land: A Surreal Twist on an Ancient Culture - 陸上龍舟競賽

by Charles DeBenedetto

            
     (Our dragon boats looked similar to these. Photo Credit: nsysu.edu.tw)

We are very close to what would have been the end of the semester, had it not been for, well, you know. Having delayed the spring semester by two weeks back in February, we are paying for it now, as we will continue to teach until mid-July.

(Side-note: Having to teach an extra two weeks is extremely inconsequential, in respect to how disruptive to normal life the virus has been in other parts of the world. I am fortunate and lucky.)

Mid-July is the time when Taiwan gets so hot as to be practically unlivable, and, as a result of that heat, many Taiwanese would normally travel to places like Japan, Europe, Canada, or, better yet, wintry places like Australia and New Zealand.

Obviously, though, we will not be travelling abroad this summer.

Without international travel as the finish line, it can feel especially daunting to finish the semester. Already I am counting how many classes left to teach before the summer holiday. When I clock-in, a robotic voice happily says “thank you,” and I appreciate it, thanking me for braving the heat and sweating at red lights on my little scooter to get here. And then the “thank you” at the end of the day is truly a trumpet fanfare, congratulating me on the successful completion of another work day. This late in the semester though, the “thank you” loses its potency.

There is a custom in Taiwan that I have found hard to acclimate to. When there is a long weekend coming up, you must have class on the Saturday prior, to “make-up” for time lost during the holiday. Back home, I imagine if schools tried to do this, then students would riot and the principal would be captured and duct-taped to the monkey bars, but here it is accepted as normal. But then, being so overworked before the holiday comes, you almost spitefully don’t want it, until of course you finally get there, and you triumphantly clock-out and ride your scooter into the sunset, singing “Vacation all I ever wanted” by the Go-Go’s.

That’s the backstory, anyway. So, after working nine out of the past ten days, I clock-in, get my “thank you,” and walk in with a slightly lighter step at the thought of the upcoming holiday. My temperature is taken, and one of my students giddily sprays disinfectant into my awaiting hands. As I walk in, I notice a strange sight.

Sprawled across the green field, four long, inflated yellow dragons, each with eight pairs of handles for people to grip while they straddle them. Complete with long black mustaches and googly eyes, they look cartoonish, and, laying on their sides, they look tired. Beside them, there are smaller, inflated orange caterpillars with six sets of handles.

The school bell rings, and the students slowly coalesce on the quad.

“Attention!” The booming voice of the student affairs administrator quiets all chatter among the students.

He explains that there will be four teams, comprised of students from grades one to five, and that all grades will use the caterpillar, except grade five, who will use the big dragon. The goal? Get your dragon (or caterpillar) across the quad, get off so the next grade can begin, back and forth until all the grades in your team have completed the relay.

The students get in position and the first graders straddle their caterpillars.

“Ready…go!”

Hopping desperately, they bounce up and down, but do not move forward. I encourage my team. “Don’t sit! Stand up and walk!” But their little legs cannot touch the ground! Quickly thinking, myself and the other teachers on our team help lift the caterpillar so they can move. One teacher pulls the caterpillar's head so hard that I am afraid it is going to pop off. Finally, they make it across, but the second graders are equally unable to move.

By the time it’s the third graders’ turn, we are so tired that we can barely cheer them on. Third and fourth grade goes by fine, until finally it’s time for the fifth graders to ride the enormous dragon. The dragon is designed for adults, so again the teachers move in to help. Summoning Herculean strength, one teacher pulls on the dragon mustache so hard that one half of it pops off! “Oh no, I think we rented these,” was my first thought. Finally, we bring them across the finish line.

 After the students are done, the teacher’s race is announced. Apprehensively, I straddle the caterpillar (yes, we decided the ride the caterpillar), sitting at the second position. In front of me, a Taiwanese homeroom teacher, a muscular man with a large straw hat to block the Sun. As the race begins, nobody keeps count for us, so we find our rhythm slowly, awkwardly. I scramble, and struggle to keep in-sync with the teachers in front and behind me. We go torpedo-fast, and I am terrified of falling out of step and tumbling off the damn thing. We make it across the quad, turn around and charge back toward the school as if we are invaders trying to break in with a battering ram. Passing the cone that symbolizes the finish line, we collapse on the ground. I didn’t even see who won, but I laughed at the absurdity of it all, and felt camaraderie with my team for sharing this ridiculous experience together.

Sprawled out on the grass, we have already expended all of the precious energy that we normally ration throughout the working day.

Winners are announced, prizes are distributed, and, the event being formally over, the first graders begin to pile on the big dragon, unable to contain their excitement. Sitting on the front half of the dragon now, and feeling mischievous, myself and some of the other teachers jump high into the sky. Upon landing, the force of our butts shoots the little first graders off of the tail end, followed by high-pitched shrieks and giggles. It’s a wonderful moment, but soon the bell rings again, the kids obediently shuffle into their classrooms, the dragons and caterpillars are deflated and rolled up, and a normal school day commences. 

* * *

Even though the day was normal after that, it did energize me to get through the last day of classes before the long holiday. More importantly, it made me feel connected to my coworkers and my students. All of this to celebrate the beginning of the Dragon Boat Festival, a Chinese tradition dating back thousands of years where traditionally people will race dragon boats, which are long and can seat many rowers, and are painted ornately to look like dragons.

The inflatable dragon boats that we used are not part of mainstream Taiwanese culture, but merely something fun that my school chose to do. Perhaps they will catch on in the future, but for now the actual dragon boats in the water are still the dominant culture. That being said, if the ancient Chinese are looking down, and if they can see the inflatable dragon/caterpillar shenanigans at my school, they might faint and fall off their clouds. But all cultures change in subtle ways over time, the most ancient perhaps being the most susceptible to change.

Meandering Along “Eighteen Turns” Trail - 十八彎森林步道

by Charles DeBenedetto

(Trail Marker for "Eighteen Turns". Photo Credit: K.H.)

It had been a while since we had been on an adventure. Partly because the heavens had been persistently raining for a month, and partly because of the state of the world right now. Although, as I have said before, Taiwan has been the safest place in the world thanks to our comprehensive and quick response to the initial outbreak, still, Taiwanese people have been (rightly) cautious about returning to “normal.” Department stores have been sparsely populated, restaurants have not been seating customers to full capacity, and masks are still even more commonplace than they were before.

But, as we have had few new cases for a while, the scare is (seemingly) over, for us at least. The end of the abnormal was when the Taiwanese Minister of Health, Chen shi-chung, was filmed traveling to the tropical resort town of Kenting, happily encouraging the Taiwanese people that it is time to leave your homes and have fun again (and spend money to revitalize the Taiwanese economy). And so, we too have begun to get back to finding new places to explore. This time, we drove to Chunghua County, past Yuanlin Village, to a walking trail called “Eighteen Turns.”

Yuanlin is affectionately referred to as “the largest village in Taiwan,” which I suppose means that it is the largest of all the small places in the country. Large streets are busy with people buying snacks from street-side vendors, and umbrellas are up in defense of the powerful sun. We stop in a Hong Kong-style restaurant for lunch, and wonder if there will ever be another time when we can actually go back to Hong Kong. Just like the post covid-19 world, there will be a time when Hong Kong returns to “normal,” but it will be a new “normal.” The old normal is never coming back. We eat slowly, and thoughtfully.

Leaving the “biggest village,” we meander down side roads on the way to “Eighteen Turns.” We pass a sign that says “She Tou Village: the home of socks.” I chuckle at that, because Taiwanese villages often will have a specialty crop based on their unique geography and climate, but couldn’t socks be made anywhere? It is true, though, that Taiwan in general is famous for its socks, and a large majority of them are made in this village. One time, my Nana mailed me a pair of long socks for Christmas, with snowflakes and penguins on them. I wore them happily for a couple months before realizing that they were actually made in Taiwan. Thinking about my socks’ journey across the Pacific and back made me chuckle again.

Finally, we park under some bamboo stalks, walk past a koi fish pond, and reach the visitor center, which also serves as the entrance to the trails. Inside, we find a small museum of dead but well-preserved specimens of insects and other small creatures you might find along the trail.

Lately, like many others who are home-bound, we have been playing Animal Crossing, a video game where, among other things, you catch lots of bugs and fish, and so we have become amateur zoologists. Walking around the museum, we were surprised at how many insects we could recognize, thanks to Animal Crossing. “Oh, hey, that’s a man-faced stinkbug!” “And that’s a violin beetle!” After identifying many of the insects, we left the visitor center with a little more faith in the educational quality of video games.

For some, those creepy-crawlies might have served as a deterrent, but not for us, and so we began our hike.

As you’d expect, “Eighteen turns,” is a very meandering trail (I don’t think that there are exactly eighteen turns, though). It is an old trail, one that traders used a long time ago to connect villages in Changhua and neighboring Nantou counties. It is humid, but I wear long sleeves to protect myself from the mosquitoes and the sun. The flora is green and lush, growing uncontrolled as if it belongs in the Jurassic Era. After walking for a kilometer or two, we stop abruptly.

On a lone, skinny tree, dozens of Japanese rhinoceros beetles are cutting lines into the bark and sucking away at the sap. Everyone has their own spot, except for two who are fighting for a piece of prime real estate. In classic Darwin natural selection style, they fight until one proves to be the fittest, and the fittest truly does survive. Like a spatula flipping a pancake, the stronger of the two puts his horn under the weaker one’s belly, and flicks him hard off of the tree and into the grass below. Now the Alpha beetle, I assume that he continues to drink all of the sap, grow stronger, fight the rest of the males and mate with all of the females. The spectacle over, we carry on.

(Beetle fight. Long scars on the tree can be seen where they were digging for sap. Photo Credit: K.H.)

As advertised, the trail twists and turns, and we try to go slow, taking in the natural scenery that is so rare, as much of our lives is destined to be away from it. At the end, the trail shoots upward, a good seventy degrees, and suddenly we are sweating profusely. Shortly after the difficulty begins, it is over, and we reach the top.

It is not a mountain, more of a hill, really, and so civilization still exists at the top. There is a lone, narrow paved road, a small shack of a Tudi Gong shrine, and a tea field. We walk over to the shrine, and make our presence known to the Earth God. It is customary to do this, but I do find it meaningful, as I always wind up thinking, “How is it possible that we could ever have found our way to you?” Also, I always think, “And perhaps we will never cross paths again.”

The entire trail is a circle, so we walk along the flat top of the hill, to try to find where the connecting trail is. Before we get there, the tea field gives way to a pineapple field, and we squat down to get a closer look. They are very compactly grown, and they pop out of a low plant, almost like a bush. I admit to myself that I have been eating pineapples my whole life, but I never knew how they grew before coming to Taiwan.

I have a friend here who says that he thinks pineapples must have come from outer space, because they look so otherworldly. Looking at them in this field here, I have to agree. They have a fabric cover on them, and we are unsure why. Later, we learn that it is to prevent them from getting too much sunlight, but at the time I pondered whether or not it was some Martian technology, perhaps magnetized, so that when the UFO came back for them, it could just suck them up without having to land and make a crop circle.

(The otherworldly pineapples. Photo Credit: K.H.)

Beside the field, the farmer’s family is selling chopped pineapples for fifty Taiwanese dollars a bag (about $1.50 USD). The lady looks at me, and asks in Mandarin, “American?” I nod, and in response, she puts more pineapple chunks into the bag, free of charge. We thank her, and take a seat next to the hillside, where we can look out on Changhua County, speckled with rice paddies, villages, and beyond them, the bullet train zooming by far in the background. We use toothpicks to pick up the pineapple chunks, but they are too large and must be tackled in two or three bites, resulting in sweet juice dribbling down our hands and chins. It’s sticky and messy, but quenching after a sweaty hike.

There is too much pineapple to finish in one sitting, so we tie up the plastic bag it came in, wave goodbye to the farmer’s family, and descend the seventy degree slope to slowly make our way back.

(The view from the top. Photo Credit: K.H.)

Through the Torii: A Story from Japan - 日本故事

by Charles DeBenedetto

 

(The main torii gate of the Meiji Shrine. Photo Credit: planetyze.com)

The train is crowded, but comfortable. Wearing our backpacks on the front, I stare intently at the map, and keep glancing up at the LED screen to make sure I know where we are and where to get off. As the doors open, the hot summer air challenges the air-conditioning inside, and I’m already using my handkerchief to wipe sweat away before we have even left the subway station.

We walk for a few blocks, and notice that the streets are rather quiet, despite the large number of pedestrians. We pass lots of tall buildings selling familiar brands like Nike and Sony, but we are not interested in shopping. We turn away from the buildings and toward the natural scenery of a forest path.

Quickly, the already quiet street turns to silence as we leave the city behind. The road is wide, and made of small stones. On the left-hand side is untended, lush green undergrowth, and it looks as though it would be easy to get lost in it. We hug the forest side and walk silently, thoughtfully, appreciating being among nature after having spent the past few days engulfed by the sensory-overload of the Tokyo metropolis. After walking for about fifteen minutes, we reach a small wooden structure with flowing water inside. Designed for purification, it is used for washing your hands and mouth so that you will be more presentable to the gods.

We are approaching the Meiji Shrine, one of the most famous Shinto shrines in Japan, and dedicated to the late Meiji Emperor. Despite the Allies forcing Emperor Hirohito to declare on national radio that the Japanese emperors are not gods, the Meiji Shrine still exists to house the divine spirit of the emperor. Turning a corner, we see in the foreground an extremely-large torii gate.

The torii gate is the divider between the mundane and the spiritual, and to step through it is to enter the sacred space of the gods. Notably different than Western religious traditions where “we are down here and God is up there,” in Japanese religious tradition the gods are all around us, and shrines are simply special places to house them. Ancient trees are gods, as are old rocks, oceans, and anything that gives you a sense of awe. A Western person might see in the Japanese gods signs of His work.

Getting closer, I crane my neck to see the top of the wooden torii gate. It is twelve meters tall (more than six times the height of an average adult), and each pillar is much too large to wrap your arms around. Many people gape at it, or take pictures of and with it, but few stop for long. I notice the gold chrysanthemum crest of the royal family perched at the top, and I wonder what kind of mighty tree could possibly have been used to make this.

A small sign, partially covered by the overgrowing tree leaves, and largely ignored by passerbys, reveals the answer. It reads:

Ō torii (the Grand Shrine Gate)

This is the biggest wooden torii of the myōjin style in Japan…the material wood used is “hinoki” (Japanese cypress), 1,500 years-old from Mt. Tandai-san, Taiwan.

Simultaneously, I think about many things.

First, as the Japanese Shinto faith is about worshiping nature and living harmoniously with nature, why then would they cut down a 1,500 year-old tree to make a torii gate? Shouldn’t that be considered blasphemous, as certainly a very ancient spirit would have resided within that tree?

Second, what is the purpose of using the Japanese colonial name, “Mt. Tandai-san”? I had never heard of “Mt. Tandai-san,” but after consulting Google, I realize that the current name for that mountain is Mt. A-Li, the most famous mountain in Taiwan. Using the Japanese name only serves to confuse the English reader. I sense some nostalgia in the old name, remembering when “Mt. Tandai-san” used to belong to the Japanese.

Finally, why is this little sign so tucked away? Perhaps Taiwanese activist groups pressured Japan to acknowledge that this torii gate, so important to the Japanese, was actually made from an ancient Taiwanese tree. Although the sign does acknowledge this fact, it acknowledges it in the most unnoticeable way possible. Much like how Japanese schools teach the history of the Japanese Empire, atrocities are downplayed and much is left out.

But I have been to Mt. A-Li. I have seen the massive tree stumps, and the Japanese trains that moved resources, not people, from the mountains to the coast, so that wealth could leave Taiwan and benefit Japan. This was not just at Mt. A-Li, but across the Japanese Empire, from Korea to Singapore. But this massive torii gate, with a 1,500 year-old dead tree god inside, is a symbol of all that.

We pass through the torii, to the realm of the gods. Again, it is quiet, despite the many people. Again, we walk silently, thoughtfully.

I think about awe. That’s an interesting definition of what a god is: anything that inspires awe. Looking at the ancient tree, I do feel awe-struck, and I think about how much of human history that tree was witness to. But I am awed not just by nature, but also by the arrogance that humans have to decide in one day to fell a tree that remembers the fall of the Roman Empire.

I think about Taiwan, how it is just like that tree that became the torii gate. It is beautiful, but for most of recorded history it has belonged to everyone except the Taiwanese. Like the tree, colonial Taiwan's beauty was thought of in terms of its value to the colonizer. My thoughts interrupt the tranquility, and I try to re-focus on the sounds of the pebbles underfoot, and the green forest around us.

We walk silently, thoughtfully.

Certain Uncertainty: A Story from China - 中國故事

by Charles DeBenedetto

(Muslim Street Market, Xi’an, China. Photo Credit: topchinatravel.com)

It is unbearably hot. Sweat pours into my eyes, burning, before I have time to wipe it away. Desperately, I want to order an iced beverage from the many tea shops that line the streets, but I cannot. I am a little savvy by now, and I know that they use unfiltered tap water for the ice cubes, and that it will make me sick. As I walk the crowded market streets, my hands never leave my pockets, one hand grasping my phone, the other my wallet. I wear my backpack on the front.

I am not in Taiwan. I am in Mainland China.

A man with physical deformities, globular, amorphous legs and arms of abnormal size, is kowtowing, begging for money. I have been told that the money collected by people like him will go to organized crime groups. Still, I look again sadly before continuing on.

A stout man in a sweat-stained T-shirt stops too closely to me. He is holding a colored paper and a tiny pair of scissors. Before I have time to move around him, he begins to cut deftly, rapidly, stealing glances up at me before going back to his work. I feel uncomfortable. After about thirty seconds, he has cut a perfect silhouette of my head, complete with my large nose and the straw hat I was wearing.

I’m wary. I don’t want to bite. “Cool,” I say flatly.

“Thirty yuan” he says matter-of-factly (the “yuan” is the Chinese currency, and at this time six yuan was about one US dollar).

I really want to say, “I didn’t ask you to make that for me,” but instead I say, “Oh, I don’t have any extra spending money.” It is a lie, and he knows it.

He looks attacked. “But I already cut the paper!” he says angrily.

Again, I really want to speak my unspoken thoughts, but I refrain. I simply say, “I’m sorry,” and continue walking.

He follows me for quite a while before relenting.

Zigzagging through shops, some have specialties, like calligraphy or porcelains, while others sell kitschy T-shirts and Communist merchandise. (If “Communist merchandise” sounds like an oxy-moron, that’s because it is. “Chinese Communism” should be understood to be an authoritarian government with a capitalist market.)

In one of those kitschy shops, there is a T-shirt with former President Obama wearing a Chinese Communist red-stared green hat, with the word “Oba-mao” on it. Walking past it, I come across a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book, and I decide to buy it so that I can better understand the appeal of his personality cult. I inquire about the price. The shopkeeper, a gruff older man with gray hair and stubble, says “one-hundred yuan.”

The price sounds pretty good if I were in America, but I know I am getting ripped off. As anyone who has been in China for more than a week would do, I feign anger and say accusingly, “That’s too expensive!”

Without even blinking, he says, “Okay, fifty yuan.”

“I’ll think about it,” I say coolly as I leave to aimlessly wander around other stores and kill time.

Twenty minutes later, I return. I ask about the price again, and now he says “twenty yuan.” I talked him down by eighty percent! I agree to the price, and I leave with a slight smile, feeling very proud of my achievement.

Back in the dorm, I excitedly tell my Chinese roommate about my experience. I pass the book over to him so that he can see it. Flipping the pages absentmindedly, he says sadly, “This book is only worth about five yuan. You were still ripped off.”

* * *

My time in the mainland was interesting and exciting, but also very uncertain. I grew to dislike going on adventures and exploring, because it felt as though everyone was trying to trick me. Western people, especially those with little Mandarin ability, are perceived as the perfect combination of wealthy and easy-to-scam, even though, with my substantial student loans, I did not feel affluent or superior. Even ATMs could not be trusted, as some are rigged to eat your card and make as many purchases with it as possible before you can call your card company and de-activate it.

Whenever I was taken advantage of, I tried to be forgiving. “They are trying to scam me because they live in poverty, and I should just hope that they can use the money they get from me to eat a warm meal,” I would think. Despite China’s strong appearance, the Communist Party has reported that there are about 600 million Chinese people earning a living of only 140 USD a month, which is tremendously inadequate for even a spartan lifestyle. We can assume that the actual number of impoverished people may be higher.

But a society where nothing is certain – all prices are negotiable, and quality is always unclear – is not one that I want to be a part of. Of course, I made friends in China and met some wonderful and good people, but I voted with my feet when I chose not to settle down there.

I chose Taiwan because, contrary to China, there is virtually universal trust in both the market and the government, and Taiwanese people trust each other and many have high virtues. Almost every foreigner in Taiwan remembers fondly the first time they left their keys in the ignition of their scooter all day, only to return after work and, shaking their head, wonder how many people walked past it and decided not to steal it. Whenever I buy something, the price is fixed and fair, and I am not told a higher price in an attempt to scam a foreigner.

And on a hot day, I do buy an iced beverage, and I know that I will not get sick.

A Staunch Defense of the Squat Toilet - 蹲廁鐵粉

by Charles DeBenedetto

(It is not scary. It is revolutionary. Photo Credit: flickr.com)

When I first came to Taiwan, I was quite nervous about using “squat toilets.” That term is a little vulgar, so let’s use the term that Taiwanese people use, “Japanese-style toilets”. I was afraid I would fall in, or miss, or that my underdeveloped leg muscles would give out and I would have to cry for someone to help me up. It was difficult for a while, but once I learned the technique, I never looked back. Most public places in Taiwan have both Western-style and Japanese-style toilets (to accommodate foreigners, or because of Westernization?), but I will always choose the squatty potty. I know you are horrified, so please, allow me to explain myself.

Prologue: The Technique

The first time I used a Japanese-style toilet, I must have looked at it for at least twenty minutes and still had no idea of how to use it. My entire life up to this point, I had been pooing with my legs at a ninety-degree angle, so I assumed that my position should be just like a sit-down toilet, minus the seat. The result was that I was pretty much doing a wall-sit in midair, the kind that we would do in high school while training for Spring Track and Field. Sweating bullets and legs shaking, the last thing on my mind was focusing on the deed at hand, so I gave up.

Another problem. With your pants at your ankles, won’t you poo all over them when you are squatting?? As the amateur I was, I would take off my pants and underwear and hang them up before attempting to squat, which worked okay but was extremely time-consuming, which definitely annoyed the Taiwanese people who were next in line.

Finally, I learned that squatting is not ninety-degrees, but a very deep squat. At first, your leg muscles are weak, and cannot maintain this position for long, but over time, it becomes so easy that you could do it all day. And in fact, when there are no chairs around, Taiwanese people can often be found squatting in groups because it is more comfortable than standing.

Once you have mastered the deep squat, the problem of what to do with your pants is solved by using one hand to pull them forward a little, and that’s it. After you have learned the technique, the benefits of squatting slowly become painstakingly obvious.

Defense Number One: It is more sanitary.

Everyone knows the haunting thoughts of just how many dirty bums have touched that Western-style toilet before you, and we all have wasted so much toilet paper by covering the seat before we sit. With a Japanese-style toilet, your butt hovers in the air, so you touch nothing that other butts have touched. Even better, when you are done, you simply step on the foot pedal to make it flush; no hands required!

In Mainland China, they go one step further and do not even have doors on their stalls. I believe the mentality there is that it would be dirty to poop, wipe, and then touch a door, and although I can understand that, I would rather live in Taiwan where people cannot see you defecate.

Defense Number Two: It is more natural.

Are there any other animals other than humans who poop while sitting down at a ninety-degree angle? No. Why? Because that curves the end of your tunnel, and makes gravity work against you. I’m sure you have felt the frustration of needing to relieve yourself, but having to strain heavily to get the train out of the station. I have, too, but never with a Japanese-style toilet. When you squat, your flight-path is vertical, a straight-shot, Geronimo. A light, gentle push is all you need, and you’re done.

Because of the naturalness of Japanese-style toilets, “squatters” have a lower chance of such inconveniences as constipation, hemorrhoids, and incomplete bowel movements. I have never experienced any discomfort while taking care of business in Taiwan before, and I have Japanese-style toilets to thank for that.

Defense Number Three: It is humbler.

Why, then, do so many of us want to sit in an unnatural way when we poo? I believe it is because we want to pretend that we are not animals. We have consciousness, we have invented airplanes and computers, and gosh darn it I am going to poo in a way that reflects my superiority over other life forms! This is hubristic, proud, and nonsensical.

It makes sense that the Japanese would create such a natural toilet, as their spiritual worldview, embodied by the Shinto faith, asserts that people and nature ought to live harmoniously. To squat is to humbly admit that you are an animal. A special one, surely, and clever, but an animal nonetheless. Coming to this realization, you will be rewarded with good karma in the form of stronger leg muscles and faster, smoother bowel movements.

I realize that many of us do not think about all that when we decide to sit. Rather, sitting on the toilet is a part of our culture that we hardly think about, and when we experience constipation and straining, we just accept this as our fate as humans. But this is not the way things have to be.

In the West, you have very few options other than a sit-down toilet, but if you want to try to emulate the naturalness of a squat toilet, you can put a foot stool in front of you. While sitting on the toilet, putting your feet on the stool will closer mimic the angle of squatting, and, while it will not be perfect, it should make things easier for you. You can call it a “stool stool,” if you will. I have yet to patent that, so I’m a little nervous to share this secret with you, but here it is anyway.

* * *

I mentioned that public places in Taiwan usually have both Western-style toilets and Japanese-style toilets. You probably imagined a bathroom that is split half and half, but often all but one or two are Japanese-style toilets. You must walk all the way to the end if you wish to use the dirty, strenuous “sit toilet.”

Unfortunately, “globalization” and “Westernization” are often synonymous, so I fear that the “squat toilet” will soon be endangered, and perhaps one day even become extinct. But maybe, during one of my future visits back to the USA, maybe I will walk past all of the “sit toilets” and find, way at the end, a lone “squat toilet,” for the occasional person who does not enjoy popping a blood vessel while pooing, and who has achieved a higher level of poo consciousness.

Maybe.

The Journey Home - 回家路

by Charles DeBenedetto

(The first bullet train of the day. Photo Credit: Author).

Looking out the window, you see a gentle, flat ocean, then endless green rice paddies, broken only by the occasional slivers of roads, with busy streams of cars rolling over them. From this view, it looks idyllic, and you wonder if first-time arrivals expect to land in the past. The flight attendant asks you if you need an arrival card, but you decline the offer, because you’ve been working here a while and you have an “Alien Resident Certificate” (ARC). In your mind you make a joke about how it sounds like you arrived here from Mars to work.

The plane lands on the clear, wet runway. It’s raining again, you observe. You look at your now-active-again cell phone. May 28^th. Ha. It’ll be raining until June 28^th, certainly.

The tourists line up in a zigzag fashion for customs, but you follow the Taiwanese to the electronic customs. A scan of your residency card, a look into your soul from the dead-eye of the electronic camera, a finger scan, and a robotic-yet-friendly “Welcome back!” in perfect robot English. The doors to the country slowly open for you, and then slam shut again the moment you pass through them.

After collecting your luggage, you could stop for food at the many restaurants in the airport, but you choose to head straight for the airport MRT (subway). Immediately, you chug along past tall buildings, busy roads, and beyond them, those deep green mountains, rounded on top and surrounded by mist.  You think about those old Chinese paintings where nature is huge, and humans are small (the correct proportions, you conclude). About twenty minutes later, you arrive at the bullet train station.

You’ve been here many times before, but you still gape a little, looking at how modern it all is. Swiping your metro card to leave the subway, you notice the trip costs less than one US dollar. You use a machine to buy your bullet train ticket, and you think for a moment about how you could be virtually anywhere on the west coast of the island in less than two hours. You buy your ticket, scan it to enter the terminal, and buy a rice ball and a coffee from 7-11. Moments later, the signature bullet nose of the orange-and-white train speeds into the station, followed by the twelve immaculate enamel-white carriages.

You bought a window seat. You always do. Looking at the LED screen, you notice the train is traveling at its top speed of 300 km/hr. You use your phone to convert that to 186 miles/hr. You let that number sink in, and wonder, why not build a bullet train to connect Boston to New York, and New York to DC? That Taiwan built this will always impress you. You notice how the aisle, the seats, the trays, they all look exactly like an airplane’s, but when you pull up the window screen, it’s not clouds, but those jade-green mountains again, and those light green rice paddies. A lone temple, with the classic winding dragons perched on the roof, protects the rice paddies, and a lone white bird with a long neck and far-reaching wings circles around, looking for something. Towns and cities blink by in seconds, giving you a reference point with which to understand just how fast you are going. You finish your rice ball and coffee, play with your phone a little, watch the Taiwanese countryside fly by, and already it is time to disembark.

Again, the bullet train station is large, looming, modern, and you notice familiar brands like Starbucks and 7-11, as well as brands that have come to be familiar, like Mos Burger and FamilyMart. There are reunited family members embracing, taxi drivers outside leaning on their cars and smoking, and a huge LED timetable listing the arrivals and departures. You determinedly push past it all to the adjacent local train station, scan your metro card again, and wait a short while for the train to arrive.

The local train has fewer passengers, but it is still clean, and the automated voice still remembers to declare all of the destinations not only in Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Hakka (a local dialect), but in English as well. On this train, including English is just for you, you think with a smile. It takes longer to get to your neighborhood because this train goes a lot slower and stops a lot more frequently than the bullet train, but that’s alright. You’re tired anyway, and you are enjoying watching the different city districts drift by, with the maddening traffic and the bombardment of Chinese advertisements covering every inch of building space. When you disembark, you are the only one, and the station is practically empty, except for a quaint piece of modern art sitting in the middle. A teenager is leaning against it and staring at their phone. You roll your luggage outside and get on the next bus, which promptly takes you to your apartment on the outskirts of the city.

Watching the bus roll away, you then turn to face your apartment. You wave to the security guard, and look past him to the clock on the wall. Not much time has passed, really, considering the distance you have traveled since arriving at the airport.

You reflect on Taiwan’s modernity, so much more advanced than you thought it would be when you first decided to come here. You silently joke to yourself that you’ll never need to buy a car.

* * *

Back home, I am often asked questions about Taiwan like, “Does Taiwan have cities?” or “Can you find ice cream in Taiwan?” I do not blame anyone for asking these questions, because most Americans have just never had the opportunity to learn anything about Taiwan before.

Of course, the answers to those questions are “Yes” and “Yes!” Taiwan is modern, sometimes bafflingly so. Transportation is one way to experience such modernity. Whereas in America, good luck to you if you don’t have a car and don’t live in the center of a city, in Taiwan there really is an extremely intricate network of subways, buses, trains, and bullet trains connecting the busiest of city streets to the remotest of mountaintops and countrysides.

An American without a vehicle is imprisoned to their home and anywhere they can get on their two feet. But a Taiwanese person with a little money on their metro card is truly free.

Taiwanese Hospitality: A Humbling Experience – 好客

by Charles DeBenedetto

(An alley in Taipei. Photo Credit: 123rf.com)

“This is for you,” she says with a smile. She is a co-worker of mine, but I have not really spoken to her much before. I smiled with I saw that she was also taking her break in the coffee shop.

When she presented the small slice of cake, my first thought was that she must be indebted to me for some reason. “Why?” I ask stupidly.

She continues to smile. “No why. For you.”

I hesitate a moment before accepting it. “Thank you.”

* * *

I am lost in Taipei. I am a country boy in the big city for the first time in my young adult life. My clothes don’t fit quite right because I am afraid to spend money on new things. However, I do buy an MRT (subway) ticket, so I can see a new part of the city without having to drown in the still-too-powerful September Sun. My Mandarin skills are in their infancy, and I stare at the map for a long time. Taiwanese tourists glance briefly at it, and locals rush past it, using their internal navigation system like migratory birds.

Popping out, there is a sea of parasols bouncing above the sidewalk, and the Sun reflects off skyscrapers with blinding ferocity. I duck into alleyways full of knick-knack vendors and food carts, looking with big eyes. I painstakingly jot new Chinese characters into my notebook, glancing up at them and down at my notebook dozens of times to make sure they are correct. I decide to ask my professor about what they mean later. I am alone, because I prefer to follow my whim and discover at a slow, natural pace.

Eventually, after a full day of wandering, I wish to go home, but I do not see any MRT stations nearby. How many kilometers have I walked? I have no cell phone, no local friends, and limited ability to communicate. But these are the moments where you need to be brave and try, and you develop your skills as a result.

So I slowly meander, looking for the perfect stranger to ask for directions.

The muscular, tattooed man cleaving meat with a butcher knife? No, he is very engrossed in his work, I think to myself.

The old grandma in a wheelchair selling lottery tickets? No, she might only speak Taiwanese.

The tall, suit-wearing, briefcase-wielding man half-sprinting down the street, glancing at his watch every ten seconds? He probably speaks English, but he is too busy.

Finally, I walk into a corner store where an older woman in an apron is selling various charms and kitschy souvenirs. She is probably used to inquisitive foreigners, so I ask in the best Mandarin I can muster, “Excuse me…where is…the MRT station?”

She nods that she understood my broken words, and she immediately begins to address the other customers. “Everyone, please leave!” she orders, shooing them out of the shop, as, flabbergasted, I follow them out the door. She pulls an iron barrier down from the ceiling to lock up the shop, looks at me, and, smiling, says, “Okay, let’s go.”

I am stunned.

Robotically, my legs follow her while my brain is still processing what is happening. I am embarrassed, and I feel bad for inconveniencing her and her customers.

I don’t remember much of what she said, and I probably didn’t understand a lot either, but she was trying to tell me the names of streets, which station we were heading to, and how to navigate. About ten minutes later, we arrive at the station. The whole time we were walking I was trying to apologize to her, but she wouldn’t listen. After we arrive, she watches me go down the escalator and to the correct metro line before she heads back to re-open her shop.

* * *

In college, I had a professor who had recently returned from his first trip to Japan. He said, “Being the recipient of such kindness and hospitality was not what I deserved, because in my life I have not acted kind and hospitable toward others. Now that I have seen how the Japanese are so concerned with the well-being of others, I find that I am constantly checking myself.”

The same quote can be applied to the Taiwanese.

I should take a moment to acknowledge that my professor and I are most likely especially prone to be the recipient of Japanese/Taiwanese kindness because we are White. Unfortunately, White people are often adored simply for being White, and are showered with gifts and praise without having done anything to deserve that treatment. If I were Southeast Asian or Black, I would probably still be received well, but not to the same degree.

Just like my professor, seeing how the Japanese/Taiwanese people interact with each other and foreigners really does make me check myself. Many people have offered to pay for my meals over the years, but how often do I offer to pay for others? People have offered me small gifts for various occasions, big and small, but how many gifts have I given? Taiwanese people do thoughtful things for each other and for the foreigners who either visit or live here, but how many thoughtful things have I done for Taiwanese people?

The Taiwanese people set a high standard for how to interact with others, and, being a member of this society now, I can only hope that their positive example has changed me for the better.

Six Years Later: Remembering a Peaceful Protest - 抗議

by Charles DeBenedetto

(Taiwanese gather to support Hong Kong. October 1, 2014. Photo Credit: Foreign Policy)

I grip the dangling handle on the MRT a little too tightly, turning my knuckles a bright white. I’m nervous, and I almost decide to go home. ‘What if I get in trouble?’ I think. ‘Maybe I will lose my scholarship money, and I will have to leave Taiwan. I’ll have to go back home and wash dishes like I used to.’

My thoughts continue to spiral for a while, but then my resolve boldens.

‘No. I am an international relations major. This is important for my education. I need to go.’

So I go.

The doors open at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station, and a flood of people disembark. There is no need to ask for directions tonight, because the flood acts as one mind. Slowly, orderly, it makes its way to the exit, and ascends the escalator.

As we ascend, I can already hear instruments playing, plugged into amplifiers, and a murmur of conversation is underneath the passionate singing of many voices. From the MRT entrance, I look out at the scene.

There is a massive, Chinese style blue and white gate, flanked on either side by large buildings with red lacquered pillars and curved roofs. Between them, a wide, tiled square. From the center of the gate, the scene is perfect symmetry, with the memorial hall directly ahead. A walk of about half a kilometer will take you to a series of thick, gray steps. Follow them up, and you’ll be greeted by the smiling face of the late-dictator, sitting in an enormous bronze chair like Zeus or Abraham Lincoln. The Republic of China Sun is above him, soldiers guard him, and a behemoth of a pavilion enshrines him. He truly looks like a god.

But he is far away in the background. What overwhelms me is the gigantic crowd of Taiwanese people who have completely taken over the first half of the square, surrounding the entrance gate. They are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, and singing. They have lights to wave, mostly from their cell phones, and look like they might just be at an open air concert. A lean, sweaty man plays an erhu, a two-stringed Chinese instrument, shredding like it were an electric guitar. The singer instructs the crowd to clap, and the drummer makes me wonder whether I have a heartbeat or a drumbeat inside my chest. After the song, a man grabs the mic and says,

“The people of Hong Kong are our brothers! We stand with you, brothers and sisters! Hong Kong, keep fighting! Taiwan, keep fighting!”

The crowd replies passionately, “Hong Kong, keep fighting! Taiwan, keep fighting!”

I do not fully understand what I see, but as I walk around, I see pain, sadness, and the want for a reality other than what is. I tell myself I should keep a low profile, but I am a white boy at a Taiwanese protest. I walk for a while, and then a tall woman with a microphone approaches me and asks me what I think.

“Here we have a foreigner who supports Taiwan,” she says. She passes the microphone to me. I feel uncomfortable about this, and I cannot say much in Mandarin, but I try to say something.

“I think…this protest…is good. I hope…China can…see it.”

I regret my words shortly after, partly because I know I did not speak with perfect grammar, and partly because I worry about the trouble I will be in when people find out.

I scramble away from the various news channel reporters, and find an auntie who is selling T-shirts. They are black, with a yellow Taiwan in the middle, with the Chinese characters 台灣不服貿. I don’t know what that means, but I understand the English underneath it, “Save democracy. Don’t sell our country.” Sounds like something I agree with, so I buy one.

(This is the same pattern as my T-shirt, but different colors. Photo Credit: tw.carousell.com)

This is not my event, but for a long time I stand at the sides, looking and listening. I always thought of protests as violent and dangerous, but the people here just sing, hold each other, cry, and sway. It is a funeral, or a memorial service for someone recently passed.

It is a long time before I force my eyes away and get on an empty train home.

        

* * *

It has been six years since that day. I see now why the plight of those in Hong Kong resonates so deeply with the Taiwanese. Just like Taiwan, Hong Kong is a democratic country that is being influenced by Mainland China, and China’s long term plan for “re-unification” is simple. First, Hong Kong. Second, Taiwan. If Hong Kong’s democracy crumbles, and the mainland has total control of it, then they will be better poised to seriously consider invading Taiwan. Obviously, the past six years have not seen an improvement in Hong Kong’s situation.

And so, Taiwanese people came out in great numbers that day, to sing, to cry, and to hold each other. The same Taiwanese who overthrew their own dictatorship without picking up a single weapon. Today, they continue to stand up to China in their non-violent, professional, beautiful way.

China is a giant, but it stoops low to pick on the weak, to scare them and to watch them cower. But Hong Kong and Taiwan, though small, stand up tall. Taller, in fact, than the stooping giant.

Six years later, I echo the protestors.

Hong Kong, keep fighting. Taiwan, keep fighting.