Tuesday April 27

In the morning we took the subway to NE Taipei to see the Boan Temple, the diety in charge of medicine, and to visit a very famous Confucian temple. We knew that a festival was going on to celebrate Boan’s birthday but I expected the festival events to consist of some lectures and demonstrations.

We had only walked a few blocks from the subway station toward the temples when we saw a parade of men marching with a number of life-size figures representing deities, large woven signs, and small temple like constructions. We followed this group up an alley until they stopped at the next street because another parade from a Boan temple was already coming down that street. We followed the new group until they were stopped by more temple groups parked in the street. We walked down the street past the stalled marchers until we saw the Boan Temple, a very large, beautiful structure on one side of the street and a smaller, still ornate building on the other side of the street.

There was a reviewing stand on the side opposite the larger building and crowds on both sides of the street. When we arrived at the main parade area a very long dragon manipulated by five or six people was dancing in front of the reviewing stand while lines of marchers waiting for their turn stretched down all the streets leading up to temple.

We walked into the temple, which was set up the same as Longshan Temple with offering and incense inside the doors and the main worship areas in the center and the back. The temple was very crowded, full of people either worshipping, resting before or after marching in the parade, or assembling objects that were to be carried in the parade. It was also full of photographers which answered our question about the appropriateness of taking pictures.

We walked around a bit and then Sally got the standard bag of supplies for worship, and made a donation to the temple. I went to the area by the front door and got my own supplies and began the process of figuring out what to do with them. Inside the bag were incense (I knew what to do with that), a bag of corn chips, two candles, two packages of paper (paper money) and something small I decided was candy or food for an offering.

I was standing there looking at my incense and not sure where to light it when an older woman touched my arm and explained (in Chinese) what I needed to do. I suppose I continued to look dumbfounded so she kindly pointed directly at the burner set out for this purpose. I thanked her and headed over there.

In the main hall there was a group of worshippers on their knees at the front of the temple chanting a powerful, oddly familiar tune. Outside the hall there was a stream of people saying their prayers and moving on The hall was filled, like the other temples I has seen with five or six beautiful, large statues of the central deities, often with guardians nearest the front and additional smaller statues placed closer to the door.The chanting women were kneeling near the front in three rows. I placed my incense and moved on to the lesser, but still important deities in the smaller rooms behind the main hall.

I completed the circuit of the deities and met Sally. We wandered around the complex for a while (they had a new building in back) and then walked to the front of the temple and watched the parade from inside the door. There were people preventing onlookers from blocking the doorways, presumably so the prayers of the paraders would reach Boan.

At one point I found a place to stand in the courtyard in the middle of all the activity. As the incense wafted over me I listened to the sounds of chanting, animated talking, praying, and the noisy parade in the background and watched the careful assembly of ornate sedan chairs that sumptuously dressed statues would ride in. These were moments of perfect peace.

We lit our candles, dedicating them to our parents and children and I pulled my paper money out of the bag and pondered what to do with it. I did know that the point was to burn the money so it would cross over into the world of the dead and be available for my dead relatives. I was holding the money and looking around for the fire when a guy my age squeezed my elbow and explained to me, in Chinese, what I needed to do. When he saw how dumb I was he said “over there’ in English and pointed at, I thought, the front of the building I was in. Sally and I started walking in that direction but we were stopped by the crowd from going any further.
This guy was watching us,apparently, and when we were stopped by the crowd he came over and said “this way” in English and gave the Taiwanese version of “come on” which is a hand palm down with flexing fingers. I followed him to the open door on the opposite side of the temple and he said “building across street.” Oh, I said, that’s where we burn it. He looked pleased that I finally caught on. In English he asked where I was from and I told him the US. He smiled and left.

We were the only Westerners in the place the whole time we were there. Mostly people ignored us (except for my two helpful strangers) although I’m pretty sure I had at least three or four pictures taken of me when I was holding incense. Westerners are so odd!

At this point we crossed the street during a lull in the parade and found the burner for offerings, an industrial sized fireplace in a silo attached to the smaller temple building. I burned all my loot just in case my father could use the cash to buy a good position in the afterlife. Note: I do these worship activities out of respect for the people that do believe in them and because they do no harm to anyone.
We turned and watched the parade from the sidewalk for a while. It was a lot of fun but really, really loud. Every contingent from a city or temple had a musical group of several people playing a traditional nasal sounding flute which was amplified until it was VERY loud. Also, people set off strings of very high powered firecrackers at random times in the street right in front of us. I don’t think I have any permanent hearing loss because I lost so much hearing when I was a Postal Worker.
We decided at that point to go find the Confucius Temple since we had a train to catch in the afternoon and we were running out of time. We walked south for a while but didn’t find the temple. We did find hundreds more marchers headed for the Boan Temple, marching or driving down all the major streets in this part of town.

I’m writing this on the train to Hualien. The train goes up through the mountainous Northeast and then down the East coast of Taiwan. I finally got to see the mountains that cover most of Taiwan. It’s overcast but the green peaks loom in the gloom. So far we’ve passed through a number of small town and two small cities. I’ve seen my first rice paddies and now I’m looking at some very pretty cliffs on the ocean. Nice ride.