Getting to Know the City

When we aren't completely exhausted from our days of training, ETAs get together to explore the Kaohsiung for a bit. Yesterday, Dani from Pennsylvania took Vicky from Ohio, Dan from California, and me to see the cute little cafe that her Taiwanese friend had taken her to the night before. We ordered yummy oreo latte frapps that seemed to be a favorite among the locals too, enjoying the cool breeze brought in by rain clouds. After chatting for some time, we decided to explore the streets nearby to see what we could find. We weren't disappointed.

We first stumbled upon a pet store with the cutest little puppies. The great thing about places selling animals here is that you're free to pet and play with them as you like. I walked in and immediately fell in love with one of the larger dogs, a light chocolate brown female puppy with short, curly hair and floppy ears. Although bigger, she was most certainly still a puppy and almost climbed out of her cage trying to lick and chew me. There was also a little dog right beside her, a male puppy who looked like a chihuahua with a more square snout that made him look almost puggish. He wasn't as vocal as many of the other puppies, but his look said it all, and when I went to put my fingers in his cage he just walked by, making sure I pet all of him. He seemed like he was in heaven, and sat with his back against my hand and his head turned back, slowly blinking his eyes; he was absolutely adorable. If I did happen to stray from petting him he'd give me one substantial bark to let me know it was his turn. I almost bought a puppy that day, thinking that surely my allergy-ridden roommate wouldn't mind all that much. I figure I'll just go back to visit and maybe even ask if they need help caring for the dogs.

Shortly after our puppy play time we found a cong1you2bing3 stand. Congyoubing, which many of you have probably heard of as scallion pancakes, is a delicious snack that many of us ate during our time studying abroad in Beijing and we were most happy to find one more thing that reminded us of all the amazing things we ate there. If you're thinking scallion and pancake don't seem to go together, just know that the pancake part isn't a western style pancake. It's basically like eating a fried flatbread with green onions in the dough. A salt and pepper mix is sprinkled on top to make it even more delicious. Eating our pancakes, we ventured down a smaller road, find a ping pong center and a little girl sitting outside eating dragon eye fruit. She seemed shy, but much less so than many other of the kids I meet here, so when the others stopped to watch the boys play ping pong for a bit, I talked with her. She was 7, still too young for learning English at school, so we used Chinese. She told me that the ping pong instructor was her father and the boys playing were her cousin and brother. She showed me her mom's house just down the street and asked if I'd like some of her fruit when I asked what she was eating. I was very touched by her offer, so I took one and offered her some of my pancake. I chuckled a little bit when she said she had tasted it before, implying that she didn't need to try it again. I didn't tell here that I had eaten dragon eye fruit before. I thanked her for talking with me and caught up to the others who were watching a food and money offering ceremony.

Every year between July and August is ghost month. The gates of hell open and people everywhere lay out an extensive spread of food on tables with incents and pray to the spirits. Alongside the tables they have tins filled with hot coals where they burn special paper money used solely for these kinds of offerings. We had seen many of these ceremonies throughout the week, participating in one ourselves at our base school, but this was the largest one we had seen yet. There must have been about 20 people participating and 10 eight-foot tables piled high with crackers, cookies, fruit, rice, water, and other items. They had cardboard boxes full of paper money, and the tin they used for burning was about 3 feet in diameter and 4 feet tall. It was placed in the center of the intersection, and cars and scooters simply drove around it, navigating through the smoke. Not only did they pray during this ceremony, but they also chanted for about 15 minutes, something we hadn't seen done before. It was very calming and absolutely beautiful to listen to. When they burned the money after they had prayed, they were careful to retrieve every piece of money that slipped through the bottom of the tin or floated out of the top. When Vicky went to pick up two runaway pieces of money, one of the men signaled her over and gave her a red piece of money. He would wait a bit and then signaled the rest of us one by one, each time saying that what he gave us represented good luck and fortune. Soon after we were invited into what we learned was a temple by another man to eat and drink. We chatted with a soft-spoken woman carrying a baby on her hip while they served us a cold, sweet soup filled with tapioca and other jelly-like things. They gave us each a bottle of what they said was the best water, and tried to send us home with a newly-opened tin of shortbread cookies, the kind you get in the blue tin that come in different shapes with the granulated sugar sprinkled on top. We thanked them immensely for welcoming us and assured them we would visit again when they told us to come back sometime.

On our way back home we talked about how we couldn't help but think of the story a Fulbrighter from last year told us just last week. He had been walking home from his school after teaching when he stumbled upon a temple. There were a lot of people outside talking and mingling so he was hesitant to walk up and join them. Finally someone caught his eye and signaled him over. They told them about the temple and talked with him for a long while. He told us how close he had been to missing all of this if he had just continued on his way home instead of sticking around for just a few minutes.

The four of us were certainly glad that we stuck around.