A Trip to Central Taiwan - Mazu Festival

A Trip to Beigang, Puli and the Mazu Festival

Nick and Kristen write:
Nick's program was closed for a holiday from Wednesday - Friday of last week and so we decided to join their trip to central Taiwan for the Mazu parade. Mazu is the goddess of the sea that the Taiwanese worship, and this religious festival is one of their big holidays in Taiwan. Thousands of people make a pilgrimage to worship the deity.

The trip was comprised of students in Nick's program who wanted to make the three day trip. There were about 20 of us, and we started the bus ride to a town called Dajia, where we made a Taiwanese cake from scratch and were able to take it home with us. Next we headed to a historic town nearby called Lugang. Lugang is one of Taiwan's oldest town's that has preserved some of the original homes and streets when the Chinese first came to Taiwan. The windy streets and many temples make this a very interesting journey. After 3 or 4 hours wandering around, we made our way to the Mazu parade in Beigang, which is home to one of the biggest Mazu temples in Taiwan. Everyone should see a parade like this at one point in their lives! It was amazing. Tons of floats with kids on top throwing candy to the people crowding around on all sides of the street. Firecrackers exploding all around you by the box full! The Taiwanese are impervious to the noise it seems, but as foreigners it can seem exceedingly loud! The processions of people and firecrackers in front of the temple is a sight to be seen. As you go inside there are throngs of people praying to Mazu and making donations. We actually caught the sight of a man go into/come out of a trance as he was praying.

The next day we started the day by going to the DongDing Tea garden high up in the mountains of Nantou. The oolong tea is one of Taiwan's most famous teas. We sat through a presentation of how the tea is actually grown and goes through the process all the way to packaging. It is quite interesting how many steps are needed to help bring out the tannins and flavor of the tea. We sipped a little tea afterward and then toured the plantations, which were quite large and on the side of the mountain. It was a very misty day and quite a beautiful way to spend the morning. After lunch we made our way to a wood museum/old train station where we were able to relax a bit and see some intricate wood carvings and play on the old railroad tracks. Very relaxing! We next made an last minute stop to do a tour of the famous Sun Moon Lake, which was breath-taking. We had an hour long boat ride through the rain. The mountains are the most beautiful part of Taiwan, and are so wonderful to see no matter where you are.

The next day we started our day, which was bright and beautiful and in the high 70's, by going to a Buddhist Monastery in Puli called the Chung Tai Chan Monastery. The monastery is very large, and is newly built and very contemporary. It is probably 20 floors high. We had a Buddhist nun as our tour guide, and surprisingly she was German who had converted to Buddhism and moved to Taiwan to practice. She spoke fluent Chinese, German and English. Luckily our tour was in English, and she was able to explain all about Buddhism and the interesting life of Buddha. She was a very interesting woman, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. She had a very positive energy about her, and made you feel at peace when you were around her. We both enjoyed her tour very much! After lunch we made our way to the 921 Earthquake Museum in JiJi. The museum was built to commemorate the Sept. 21, 1999 JiJi Earthquake that happened in Taiwan. It was a 7.3 earthquake and killed over 2,000 people. The museum is built around an old junior high school that was crushed and badly damaged by the earthquake. The damage to the homes, farms, roads, bridges around the area is preserved in the museum and shown through many exhibits and pictures. It was shocking to see how badly this earthquake affected the local people in Taiwan, and was very interesting. After that we made our way home to Taipei. It was a very interesting three-days in Taiwan, and one in which we learned a lot about Taiwan and its culture.

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