Friends 朋友們

(Of all shapes and sizes!)

This week has been a bit all over the place. The weather has changed drastically within the last week- we went from 50 degrees and rainy to 90 and sunny! Apparently the temperature will drop again, but the changes have made everyone a bit tired.

Nonetheless, it was a good week! We started it off well by doing some cart witnessing with the English, in both senses of the word.

Although Joel looks more Amish in this picture...

It was an interesting experience. On the one hand, it was a bit awkward to be able to chill in chairs while drinking smoothies and counting time... on the other hand, it was really relaxing and we placed four books! While we individually didn't talk with as many people, our sign certainly had more people reading it than we would ever had talked to in the same two hour period. Not only that, everyone we did talk to took the first step themselves- they stopped and took a book, then we approached and asked them about it.

Immediately after this picture the tie came off. It was a good day.

So one day last week, I was invited to join a group of foreign brothers and sisters (外國人， 合起來!) hiking up a mountain near Taipei, Elephant Mountain (Xiangshan 象山 (X is something like "sh" in Chinese- Shyiang-shan)). Only one problem- they were leaving to hike up at 4:30, and my school doesn't get out until 5. No problem, right? I mean, Xiangshan is a mountain, and they're going to the top of it... how hard could it be to meet up with them?

So I set off confidently, still carrying my very heavy schoolbooks, in pursuit of the group up the mountain. Nikolai had given me some basic directions to get me started, but unfortunately, there wasn't any clear path for me to take...

So... this way I guess?

It was a nice hike, but tiring! Xiangshan isn't very big or very tall, but it is quite steep; not only that, but I was trying to catch up to people who had a half-hour lead on me, and I was still carrying my schoolbooks! Before long I was really sweating, but the mountain really was very interesting.

Who uses that chair?

Soon, I come across what looked like a real way up, which was nice in some ways and unpleasant in others...

Sorry for the bad quality :-/

Looking back at the city from a clear spot.

A small shrine halfway up the mountain.

The stairs continued a long, long way. I'm not sure how many steps there are, but certainly a few thousand. As I climbed, the sun began to set, causing a nice cool breeze to come in.

Higher up now, looking back on the city

Almost to the top now... I came across this rock, put there in case you forgot where you were while climbing I guess?

XIANGSHAN

Of course, the hike wasn't over. I was seriously beginning to worry that I had taken the wrong path- there were choices on the way up, but I consistently chose the ones that looked like they went up higher, on the grounds that we'd probably meet at the summit. But what if that wasn't the plan? What if they'd already left? I picked up the pace.

The sun had set now, but there was still more mountain to climb. At least I see other people now!

At long last, sweaty and tired, I heard familiar voices coming from ahead: "Okay everyone, group picture! Wouldn't it be weird if Dylan arrived right now?" I couldn't ask for a better line to arrive on, so with one last burst of speed ran in front of their camera and ruined their picture!

But then we took a better one! Hi guys!

The view up at the top was amazing, and the breeze was nice as well. We hung out for another half hour or so, munching on snacks and beer, until we headed back down for pizza and board games at Terry's house.

Taipei at night

Over the weekend, we had a memorial service for a sister who recently passed away at the age of 97. She was the only one of her family to be a Witness, but her family wanted to respect her beliefs so had the service at our hall. Because so many non-Witnesses were going to be attending, the elders asked as many foreign friends as could attend to attend, to demonstrate our worldwide brotherhood. Once it was all over, the sister's oldest daughter went up on stage in tears thanking us for our love and support.

The next day at meeting, we still had flowers left over from the memorial, which led to this picture:

We actually had so many flowers we had trouble giving them all away!

That story actually reminds me of something that happened two weeks ago that I forgot to mention. Two Sundays ago, we had a group of eight students from a Catholic university, Fu Yuan Da Xue, come to audit us as part of a school assignment. They aren't training to be priests or anything, it's just a Catholic university, but their teachers wanted them to be introduced to many different religions. They picked Jehovah's Witnesses because of the religions that use the Bible, they couldn't think of a less Catholic religion than us! By all appearances they liked what they learned... although the group as a whole took one of each of our books to study, several of them took additional books to study on their own (Mankind's Search for God was especially popular). I had never seen anything like it before, but... sure, come on and study us, if you like what you're learning keep coming!

This last week, myself and a Spanish brother named David Llach (the same one I went to Yeliu with) started up an informal witnessing arrangement- informal informal, blue jeans informal. The idea is we can use our presence as foreigners who are learning Chinese to give a good witness and see what comes of it. The plan is, essentially, to be as stereotypical as possible and try to get people to notice- try to read Chinese signs and obviously not understand, do homework in public and look like you're having a bad time, etc. It's nice and relaxed, and we think it has a good chance of working!

It helps that we get to walk around places like this!

It might not work in some Western countries, but people in Taiwan are actually really friendly, especially if they think you can speak some Chinese. David and I decided to try this out when we were thinking about the differences a male pioneer and a female pioneer experience when talking to someone at the door. If you're a householder, and two adorable Japanese sisters come up and start talking to you in bad Chinese, chances are you'll keep talking to them if you don't have a good reason not to. But that same householder, confronted by two (very large by Chinese standards) Western men in ties, will most likely feel too intimidated to have the conversation go very far.

On the flip side, if you came across those same Western men, but instead of being at your door with unknown (to you) motives, they are instead sitting in a park trying to figure out how to write Chinese, you will feel much more relaxed, and if one of them asks you for help you are likely to go over and talk with them. After helping them, you might want to know why they're learning Chinese. And when they say they're trying to help people understand the Bible, you might have a question.

The park we ended up wandering over to- it had gotten late so we were just about to head in.

Since the weather has gotten warm, all of the trees are in bloom right now, which makes parks even more beautiful.

Cherry blossoms- that Taiwanese guy agrees with me, they're beautiful!

Also this last week, we got a group picture of the 25 or so people who met up for some evening witnessing:

I never could get everyone to pay attention... (click to enlarge)

Also also this last week, a bunch of us were invited over to Paul's house for a delicious and huge dinner. I contributed a bottle of wine and a tiramisu, because I'm fancy like that (and also I don't know how to cook! Or, to make meals at least- I can cook enough to not starve.)

Joseph spent about a half hour teaching the Korean sisters how to to "the Charleston"!

It doesn't seem like I'm that busy, but looking back on a week I've really had a lot of stuff going on!

But I also want to mention some bad news that some of you have no doubt already heard- there are, as I write this, riots happening in Taipei City. Some 20,000 students from all over the country gathered to protest a trade deal that they feel will hand over too much control to Mainland China. They broke into the Executive Yuan, a government office, and were repulsed by first water cannons and then rubber bullets. A few students died, which brought more outcry and more protesters. Yesterday night there was an attack on the lines, with several people being beaten to death by nightsticks. Taipei City called from assistance from the next two biggest cities, Taizhong and Gaoxiong, but either they don't care or they also have protests because they both said no.

I saw this sign outside the Nat'l Taiwan University today:

"I only have one request. Tonight when you leave school, you do not bleed to death."

Taiwan is a nice place, but these people need the hope that the Bible gives us as well. No place is perfect, and everywhere there is corruption and suffering. It's hard to say what the outcome will be- will the protesters back down, tired of being killed? Will the police refuse to kill any more, probably leading to impeachment? Will it be a revolution, and if so, will China seize the opportunity to invade? All possibilities.

Regardless, I'm safe. The riots are far from my house, and as a foreigner I have absolutely no bearing on either side's disagreements. (If China invades, that's another story, but even now that's unlikely to happen.)

I will keep you posted on any updates.

Congregation 會眾

(Changes, all the time!)

Hi everyone! Normally I try to update just about every week, but if you notice my timeline to the right, it's been a bit longer than that. I have a good reason, I swear! It's a good story too...

So the first thing that happened (you're just gonna have to wait, ha) was a going away party for two of our missionaries, Kent and Huey Huang. They've received a circuit overseer assignment, so for the first time in 17 years they'll be moving out of the missionary home and visiting other congregations. We're sad, of course, but it's a good sad; they're moving forwards and having new experiences.

It also gave us an excuse to have a party!

The party was fun! We rented out a floor of a building a little way away from the territory and invited all of the Huang's friends. 17-year missionaries have a lot of friends; there were at least 250 people in the room! Everyone brought food and drinks to share, such as these pizzas:

Classic flavors?

The one on the left is breaded pineapple and shrimp pizza, with tangy sauce; the one on the right is banana chicken pizza. Points for creativity! People also brought lots of noodles, dumplings, sweets, and one generous person with very poor judgement brought a box of stinky tofu. Not that choudoufu is bad to eat, it tastes pretty good actually, but it is incredibly stinky- not the best choice for a party. :-)

After hanging out and eating for a while, we had a couple of activities, and although I didn't know it at the time, I had to go onstage. I was talking with one of my Japanese friends, Yang Jie, when two other Japanese brothers walked over and began speaking to him in Japanese. Apparently they decided amongst themselves that I had to join in... so when they went up to sing a song, they dragged me along.

It wasn't bad though! Yang Jie is the one in the middle wearing glasses.

We sang three verses, the first one in Korean, then Japanese, then English, with the chorus for every verse in Chinese. I won't say we were good, necessarily, but it was fun anyway.

After that, some people had gotten together and prepared a short play for Kent and Huey.

Look at them go!

It was about Abraham and Sara, and drew comparisons between Jehovah's new assignment for them (leaving Ur) and Kent and Huey's new assignment. It was also very funny, because Liang Teng and his wife, Yao, kept 'forgetting' whether they were supposed to be Abraham and Sara or Kent and Huey... "I wonder if the wilderness has 3G phone coverage???" Also, Liang Teng's beard was totally made of electrical tape.

Xie Zhixiang- the standing guy on the right- got to be the voice of God!

It was also a great change for Joseph and Joel to meet a lot of new friends, particularly since Joe tried his hand at bartending!

Not quite ergonomic...

This is a bad picture. :-)

Later in the week, we three went up to Ximending. Ximending is a very trendy spot in Taipei; I had heard a lot about it, even before I came to Taiwan, but I had yet to actually go. It was... interesting!

Trendy!

It genuinely was pretty cool! It's billed as the "42nd st" of Taipei, lots of shops, lots of theaters, lots of people. When we first got off the subway, we were greeted by a live street performer singing Chinese pop music:

It pays to be tall!

I tried to record some of her music, but it didn't turn out all that good- sorry! I've started not bringing my bag everywhere I go- not that it's not useful, but I'm carrying that thing loaded down with school books and magazines so much that my back is starting to hurt! I didn't bring it to Ximending, which means I didn't bring my actual camera. It also means I didn't have much money on me, which turned out to be unfortunate...

In the middle of Ximending, they have the Red House:

Nice red house!

It was built by the Japanese in the early part of the 20th century. It housed the first colonial governor, and after he moved out to his more permanent residence it became a Japan away from Japan for the people of Taipei (called Taihoku then), with all the comforts and entertainments of home. Today it still has some cool shops in it, obviously it's also had Ximending grow up around it, and it also has Lego miniatures of a bunch of historic buildings!

Why Lego? I don't know, but that would've been a great job to have!

So while walking around the alleys, checking out the shops, we found this vintage clothing shop that sold rock clothing- leather jackets, Ramones shirts, lots of spikes. We went inside and started looking around, while the two young women working at the store went over into a corner and started giggling. Before five minutes went by, one of them asked me "So... we were wondering... could we take pictures of you guys wearing some of the clothes in the store, and we could use them in advertising?" They said they couldn't give us anything for free, because they weren't the boss, but they did offer us a 90% discount on anything we wanted to buy. (Whyyyy didn't I bring money?!)

So that's why this post is late. We took a bunch of photos and they said they'd email them to me when they had them ready, and I was waiting for that. I sadly don't have them yet, but I figured too much time had gone by and I needed to write a post anyway. Hopefully they email them to me, but actually I need to go back (probably this weekend) with money so I can buy some clothes. They actually have some really cool stuff!

Random temple we saw!

This is a... cow?

That cow had a plaque near its feet that explained that it represents the creative spirit, randomly mutating into never before seen creations... I just like that the cow has wheels.

Also, have you ever seen a Chinese typewriter?

Very, very happy we can use computers now...

You had to move the stylus around on the grid until you found the character you needed, then push down and it would stamp the paper. It only has the most common characters, of course; if you needed to write something that the typewrite did not have a key for, you wrote it in by hand.

So out in service the other day...

I had a really cool experience in service recently. We were out doing door-to-door work, as we like to do, and after a couple hours we sat down to take a break in a nearby park. As we sat there, a guy walked over into our group and began counting aloud, eventually asking "Why are twelve people all dressed up sitting in this park?" He was standing near me, so I answered him, explaining who we are and what we were doing. He said, "Oh yes, Jehovah's Witnesses... that's an American religion like the Mormons, right? You're American, right?" I said that yes I am American, but we're not an American religion- just look around at all the nationalities we have just in this small group- and we're really not like Mormons. 

So he sat down next to me, started talking, and to make a long story short I gave him the Good News from God brochure (he said "Ah, so many Christians talk about their 'good news', but I have no idea what 'good news' they're talking about!"), a bible, and got his contact info. He actually lives in Hong Kong and was just in Taipei on business, but we're going to try to talk using Skype.

He's the balding guy sitting next to me.

And finally, we got a group picture of our whole congregation.

Or, at least, everyone who heard to stick around after the meeting for a picture.

Hopefully I'll have my modelling portfolio next time.... X-D

New Arrivals 新從外國來的人

(So many new people!)

I've known for quite some time that people tend to travel in waves.

I first noticed this phenomenon when I was at Bethel; tour groups would usually come in groups of three or four (groups of groups, that is, not groups of people). But then, I figured it had o do with lunch, or travel time, or a bus, or something. When I went home in 2012, my first job was at a retail store called Kohl's, and I noticed it there, too- people who had no prior relationship would all come at once, five or six, and then nothing for a half hour. Then another ten, then nothing again.

At my next job, FedEx, this remained true; my manager and I had conversations about it during the long spells of nothing happening. But still, maybe it's just a leisure thing?

Nope; after three months of no one new arriving, we've just had eight people arrive in Taiwan in the last week- one Korean sister, two Japanese brothers, two British brothers, two British sisters, and one sister from New Zealand. I still have no explanation, but at least Taiwan is better than Kohl's!

So much better!

I will introduce (some of) them in a moment. First, we had a special talk by Br. Geoffrey Jackson of the Governing Body. He had some business to take care of in Taiwan- rumor has it Taiwan Branch may be expanding soon, taking some of the load off Hong Kong- and while he was here decided to address the friends. It was a really nice talk; his main structure was Five Reasons to Stay Busy in the Work of the Lord. His way of teaching was quite different to what the Taiwanese brothers are used to, as it was almost completely built around illustrations. For example, he compared happiness to hair; if you buy your happiness, then just like a wig it will slide off when you start sweating (having problems), whereas if your happiness grows from within you won't have that problem. 

I have a feeling if I tried using baldness illustrations it wouldn't work so well...

His talk was translated by Br. Chen, to the left. He did a really good job, even down to the chicken noises! (One illustration had a chicken in it. Hey, he's Governing Body, he can cluck if he wants.) This whole experience was very excellently timed for...

These guys! Sorry for the blurry picture :-/

So these are the guys from Britain that have just arrived. It seems that my previous knowledge about them was wrong; most critically, I somehow got it in my head that there was only one coming, so I merged both of their information into one person, which made very little sense. So, introduction time: The guy on the right is named Joel. He's 19 years old, and has been in Chinese since he was only 7 years old- naturally, he speaks fluent Chinese. The one on the left is named Joseph; he's 23 years old, and can't speak much Chinese at all. (I would say "can't speak a word", which was true when he arrived, but actually he's learning it pretty quickly!) 

Been here less than a week and already preaching in Chinese!

They're both from a town in northern England called Hull, near the city of Leeds. They showed me some pictures- Joel's house seriously looks like it's been there for 400 years, surrounded by gently rolling plains and old growth forest... he's even got a horse! Taipei City is definitely a change for him, but he's handling it pretty well. As I understand it, Joel came here as a scout for his parents, who plan to move to Taipei in a few months, and Joseph came as moral support for his friend and also because it sounded awesome. The first couple nights, they were both staying with me and Harry, but we shifted around a bit and now Joel is staying with Tan Jiemei (oddly enough, in the same room I was in) while Joseph is living with us. We only live about ten minutes' walk away, though, so they still do most things together.

Here we see Joseph talking with Joseph, and a spoiler!

What I mean by "spoiler" is the sister on the right in that picture. That's one of the sisters from Britain that have just arrived- they're from West London, and they are literally sisters... identical twins in fact. And they like wearing identical clothing. And one is named Bridget, the other... Bridgette. I'm not making this up. As a result, I honestly couldn't tell you which of the two is in this picture.

It's safe to say they're both in this one, though! (Those flowers are real, by the way)

The above picture was taken this last Saturday. It's raining once again here, so we went into the Flower Market for some preaching and to enjoy the flowers. Actually, I wasn't supposed to be there with the group- I split off from everyone around lunchtime to meet up with Yunkai, one of the young brothers here, to go on a study with him, but after I'd arrived at the spot we planned to meet at, he called and canceled. Ah well, I'll just head in, I figured; but I didn't realized I'd lost my key. So, I called Harry, and after a long trip through the rain ended up spending a nice time looking at flowers and trying to figure out which sister I was talking to. (They seriously need name tags or something...)

A different day in service, taking a quick break

School has been intense lately. This third book focuses quite intensely on new vocabulary; I'm not exaggerating when I say we're expected to learn upwards of 100 new words a week! Although it's hard work, I'm still really glad to be doing it- it's paying off quite well already, and I still have two more months to go! I also will be starting to tutor a kid wanting to learn English this next week, just for 90 minutes a week, every Monday at 7:30. I don't really need the extra cash at this point (although I won't say I can't use it), but starting now will get me some hands-on practice teaching English so that when my scholarship runs out, I can get a real job teaching and not be totally in over my head.

Sorry for the shorter post this week! I'll be doing some sightseeing with the Brits soon, hopefully that will provide more interesting pictures! :-)