Week 12 5th April -11th April

Personal and Cultural Development

After much searching on the Internet we found an English service so we could worship on Easter Sunday but unfortunately when we arrived the service had already begun and we had been misinformed the service was in fact only in Taiwanese. This was a little disappointing as Easter is a special time for us but we made our way to the train station to meet with the others and head to a baseball game.

We also visited Cing Jing farm which was an amazing experience because of the outstanding beauty of this area. There were sheep castles, places to visit baby rabbits and trails that afforded the most amazing views.

Professional Development

In 2004 I spent a year in Thailand with an organisation called OMF. I was able to e-mail people back home and find out some OMF folks were just an hour away from TaiPei in a place called TaiChung. During our time in Taiwan they were going to be hosting a team from Hamilton Road Presbyterian Church and it worked out for us to join them.

On my first day in Tai Chung I meet the Eastwoods and Lucy took us to see her mother-in-law. It was great to be in a real Taiwanese home, sipping pumpkin juice and eating rice cakes. We entered a spacious and clean white room that was designed to keep us cool. There were the usual Buddhist shrines about the place including the female god that grants wishes to all females.

The next day we met with the team and were given a talk on the culture of Taiwan and then taken to visit one of their temples. This temple can be seen for miles around because of the big God that sits on the roof. This temple is especially important to business people because of the gods that it houses. There are six floors to the temple and people preform different rituals with different pleas being said depending on the floor and the gods that are enshrined on that floor. We were able to observe people throwing two wooden shaped oval sticks onto the ground. We were informed that if the wooden ovals land a certain way the answer is 'yes', if they land on opposite sides then they must ask again and if they both land turned away this is meant to be the gods laughing at their silly question and they know not to repeat it!

In the temple their are many cow statues on the first floor. It is interesting to see the influences of Hinduism on Buddhism and this is one example. There are also lots of goldfish symbolising gold and good luck in ponds surrounding the temple walls. There are also hundreds of turtles which represent long life.

Visiting the temples in Taiwan was an interesting experience for me because of the ornate way the building is decorated. There is artwork everywhere and vivid colours are used to paint the statues, making it an intriguing place to spend a few hours.

The best part of being in Tai Chung was getting to visit the local university. We had the opportunity to teach English in a very informal setting. The students were told to take us out for lunch and to ask us the questions they had prepared in a previous class. They wanted to know all about Ireland and so we answered questions that ranged from the weather to how woman thought about body shape. The students grades relied on their ability to ask and answer some questions. The students paid for us which was very sweet so if I was grading they'd get an A*.

Later in the afternoon, we had a cultural exchange where we taught the students how to Irish dance. The programme 3was broken up by including a piece by the Irish team followed by a piece from the Taiwanese students. We sang Molly Malone, The belle of Belfast City and In Christ Alone. They put on a skit from Enchanted and we got to enjoy a show from their hip hop team.

In the evening, we held a coffee bar. Some of the team shared their stories and why they had come to Taiwan. We played games and got the Taiwanese students to write down some of our favourite food dishes so we could order out alone.