Penghu? Peng-you!*

(*Sorry, lame wordplay)

Although it has been only a little over one week since I have arrived in Taiwan, it seems like twice that. Not in the way that it has gone slowly but because we have packed so much into one day that it seems like it had to have been so much more.

The trip started out with a drive to the Detroit airport at about 5:30 in the morning—less than 12 hours after I got home from Miami/Oxford. From there began a string of three straight flights: 1 hour from Detroit to Chicago, where I met my partner, Levi; about 12 hours from Chicago to Tokyo (the land, or at least the airport, of very sophisticated toilets); and then another 3.5 hours from Tokyo to Taiwan. This concluded with a couple hours’ drive to Changhua, where our leader, Eric, lives and where we stayed for the night (and where I got to ride my first scooter!). In the morning we left with the Changhua Navigators for the island of Penghu: another flight, only about 45 minutes.
Already I was beginning to get a feel for the religious experience in the country. Although we drove to Changhua in the dark, I saw both a display of large Buddhist statues (a tall one that I think is one of their “goddesses**” as well as large golden Buddhas, I believe) as well as two red lighted crosses (although Christians make up only 2% of the country). On Penghu, it was clearly evident why Taiwan leads the world in temples per capita. I don’t think we were ever more than a 10 minute walk from one, although I could be wrong. We could see one from the church we stayed in, right next to a couple restaurants we frequented, right at two food places later on (near Magong city); they seemed to be everywhere. There were also many grave sites for ancestor worship as well as smaller worship sites for other gods, like a sea god perhaps from a more local religion (maybe—I’m not sure what they were exactly). There are many people who actively practice worship for many of these religions, especially the older generation. The younger generation also has many worshippers, but it is often to please their parents. I also learned that to become Christian is difficult for some family relations, especially for guys, because many parents feel they need someone to worship them after they pass away.

On Penghu we were first going to team up with students from other campuses, especially Jhongli (where I am writing from), to help with an English camp for some of the students there. The other students and leaders explained to me that the town we were in, Siyu, is considered the “countryside.” (However, if this is the countryside, I don’t know what one would call Napoleon or Oxford….) A lot of the children’s parents, therefore, leave that town or Penghu altogether for work in a bigger city or the main island. They are then often left with their grandparents and the island is left with a large generation gap that for a time was filled with us college students and probably explains why they really took to us and it’s my guess that they then saw us as role models simply because of age.

A lot of our preparation included practicing dances: one about the camp theme, “Shiny, Summer, Smile!”, and getting ready for it; another about “Surfin’ the Word of God;” and another with hand motions to the English Christian song that might be called “You and I” (everything seems to have some kind of dance or drama with it here). I was also in a group with three other students to teach elementary-age kids an English character lesson about Being Bold using a Bible story. The camp went for 2.5 days, the full days being from 8:00 AM until 4:30 or 5:30 PM during which we played games with the kids, taught them dances, did the lessons, and, for the Americans, answered some questions. After that we would clean up, eat dinner (we ate with “teams,” which allowed us to get to know some people better and often ate a lot of rice and noodles with other stuff, but more on that later…), go sightseeing (my group saw the lighthouse, which wasn’t much, but the views were spectacular), and plan or, on the last day, have an end-of-camp party thing (more dramas, more dances). The kids were adorable and, thanks to a great idea from my friend Julie and translation from her and my other friend Jenny, I was able to write the ones in my group a little note on some super cute Bible verse cards they had : )


Once the camp was done and we woke up at 3:30 AM to see the sunrise (behind the clouds, unfortunately), we headed up to Magong city. Here, we went to the beach where I got to go snorkeling and swimming in the Pacific Ocean (never done either before). Then we used mini-grills to barbeque on the beach until it started thundering and finally raining (which it rarely does on Penghu) and we—all about 60 of us!—shifted to the small shelter and continued grilling, eating, and waiting out the rain. When we got back, we did what translates literally to “rush into the night” and means basically that we rented scooters and riding in pairs (I was with my friend, Maria) we just drove and rode and “rushed” until we wanted to stop (by this time I was much less afraid of the scooters and embracing their awesomeness). After a few stops we made it back to Siyu and the lighthouse, hung around for about 15 minutes, and then began the 50 minute drive back. Maybe everyone should all get scooters so we can do this back in the US (= The next day in Magong we did a little sightseeing and had to say some goodbyes because some of the students weren’t continuing on with the trip (the Changhua Navs will go the longest and are doing another camp that I’m not part of and be on Penghu for another week or so). We also went to where the Penghu Rock Festival was going on and to walk around the city a bit. The day after that we left with the Jhongli students after church and had the rest of the day and today to rest, relax, and just hang out.

The language barrier actually hasn’t been too difficult, though sometimes it is a challenge. I honestly think part of it is because of working in the China Dragon so long and therefore being used to hearing a form of Chinese in the background all of the time. Sometimes it is hard because I have little clue what is going on, but I think that’s the case for a lot of people even if they do speak the language J Also, anyone who has been able to has been helping a lot with translation, especially my friends Maria and Jenny. Big thanks to them and anyone who’s translated for me! A lot the people I have talked to, though, can speak English much better than I think I expected and I think they give themselves credit for. I’ve also been getting by with playing a little game in my head where I listen and every about 10th word I recognize and so I get a little excited, haha.
That’s it for now, hope it wasn’t too long!

**I’m not really sure what to call this but when my friend explained it she said that it was not necessarily a goddess but something worshipped. It seems hard to give a name to, though.
Dear Emanuel Lutheran Church: Don't you think this is a better view than the Family Video? Yeah, me too. (Also, note the temple right about in the center of the picture--it's orange).