Midterms 期中考

(Students everywhere- I feel your pain.)

Hi again everyone, 好久不見. Sorry about the long pause between the last update and this one- as you may have guessed from the title, I had my midterms since the last post! It was very interesting but also time-consuming, but I'll talk more about it in a little bit.

So recently I was contacted by Casey McCoy, one of my friends back in California. He told me that his brother Roger was going to be in Taiwan soon, and why don't I go meet them? So Roger and I exchanged emails, and we made arrangements to meet in Taizhong City this last Saturday. (If you're curious: taaI-JONG) This was cool for a number of reasons! First, I get to meet my friend's brother, and get some more insight as to how it's possible Casey is Casey; second, I'd never been outside Taipei before (I went to Danshui that one time, but I took Taipei's subway to get there, so it doesn't count); and third, I get to meet new friends in Taizhong! Roger and his wife Lauren are serving in the Boston Cambodian congregation, and were on their way home from a few weeks in Cambodia. There's a sister named Emily living in Taizhong- apparently Lauren and Emily grew up together, so they stopped over to see her on the way back.

Walking through Taizhong. Those are Roger's and Lauren's backs.

Taizhong is a very different city than Taipei. Taipei is quite old, parts of it dating from the Spanish settlement (and then Dutch capture and then Portuguese capture and then Dutch capture again) of Formosa, and you can definitely tell by the city layout that some streets were not built with cars in mind! Taizhong, on the other hand, is just about fifty years old, the modern city really only starting after the Nationalist Chinese fled to the island. So the streets are huge, and the city is sprawling. There's very few pedestrians compared to Taipei; The stores are bigger and spread out farther; there's no subway and the buses are few, so everyone has a car; downtown is, of course, built up, but most houses are shorter than four stories tall. Actually, I've heard that most people in Taizhong have a modular house, as compared to Taipei's apartments!

In may ways, it reminded me of an American city, which was nostalgic. But in many other ways, it made me realize that several things I thought I liked about Taiwan are really things I like about Taipei. Taizhong is much cheaper, though!

Anyway, Emily, Roger and Lauren picked me up at the high-speed rail station, and off we drove, singing English songs on the way to a coffee shop.

And now you get to see their faces! From the left: Roger, Lauren, Emily.

We sat inside and talked for about two hours. It was cool getting to know them- I didn't know anyone who had gone to Cambodia before, or really anything about Cambodian culture, so it was quite educational. Since Roger is an MTS graduate, he was able to give me a very nice overview of the Cambodian situation.

Also, their coffee was delicious. And timely!

Afterwards, we were hungry, so we went into the city to find someplace to eat. One of the brothers in Taipei, Giancarlo, used to live in Taizhong and recommended a pizza place for dinner. He said they made pizza exactly like back home in Italy, so naturally we went to try it out.

What he forgot to mention is that it was very expensive! The pizzas themselves weren't bad, about the equivalent of US$8 for a ten-inch, but the restaurant had a minimum-charge policy of NT$650 per person- that's $25! That's still not bad, I'll grant you, for an authentic Italian pizza, some wine, salad, a nice dinner, but we still weren't looking to spend that much money. So we left and drove to a Korean place, and ate delicious cheap kimchi noodles.

Taizhong's skyline from a park downtown

Gratuitous selfie!

We stayed up far too late that night, and I ended up getting back to Taipei at 9am the next morning. Totally worth it! They boarded their plane back to Boston at about 7 that morning, and Instagram tells me they landed safely. Also, if you're reading this- hi guys!

So, right, the midterm. The project was we had to pair up with another student and prepare a dialogue. Our dialogue would be scored on length, grammar, use of vocabulary, speed, tones, inflection, how pretty our handwriting is (we had to write it in characters and actually say it- without looking at notes!) and whether or not it was interesting.

This describes the results pretty well.

My partner was a Japanese classmate named Kyoko. At first I thought that meant it would be easy- the hardest part for me is writing the characters. I have to focus to write Chinese characters so they'll be understandable- unlike English, the smallest difference in how a character is formed or stroke order can change the meaning- and I figured having a Japanese person on my team would mean we'd have no problem with that. To my surprise, I had the better handwriting! She had been writing characters for so long she'd kind of fallen into a shorthand way of writing that our teacher found very difficult to read, whereas I, even though I write slowly, am actually pretty clear!

Which led to this. Note, we don't actually have silverware, so I'm eating my eggs with chopsticks.

I think we did pretty well! The teacher seemed happy anyway, and in that whole page of dialogue I only made one grammatical mistake. We definitely didn't sound fluent, but we're making progress!

Remember when I helped Giancarlo move that one time, and he used an electric winch to help us out? I had told him that it's an old American tradition- if your friends help you move, you buy them pizza and beer. (And the inverse- if your friends help you move and you don't buy them at least pizza, they probably won't help you ever again.) Well, he finally got around to inviting me for pizza. We went to a place in the south of the city near Xindian District where they sell Italian-style pizza, and I wasn't surprised to find it was really good. I was surprised to find that he'd invited the whole congregation, though!

So... is he buying for all of you?

I love our organization. Most of these friends can't speak English, or at least not well, and if I'm honest my Chinese is just barely functional. But we're still able to converse and enjoy the friendship that our worldwide brotherhood brings.

The ministry is still going well. We still place ten magazines every two hours or so in the door-to-door work, and like 25 per hour in the parks. I'm beginning to realize that my ingrained American habits are actually holding me back a bit in my ministry- I kind of figure most people aren't interested, or are busy, and if they take anything it's only to be polite. Actually, I'm a little scared if anyone shows interest, because it's happened so rarely I don't really know what to do! But here it's so commonplace to have conversations and find interest that I really need to figure out how to shift gears.

Taking a break in front of some art.

One last thing- while walking through the market one night, we stumbled across some old friends of Mason! They're currently serving elsewhere, but they're in Taiwan for a couple weeks to take a vacation. It was very encouraging to speak with them, and although I wish I could say more, somehow I've forgotten everything they said...

But look how happy she is, eating that burger!

But believe me when I say that they had only good news.

So how's the weather back home? I hear most of America is frozen solid right now, what about California? I actually heard that in one part of Minnesota, it was colder than on Mars!

See you next time!

Fireworks 煙火

(Greetings from The Future! Although, it's probably already 2014 for you by the time you read this...)

Welcome, friends, to 2014! I gotta say, it's been a cool year so far, and the last few days have been very fun! Although Taiwan doesn't celebrate Christmas, everyone does get a day off for New Years', so this was a great time to take a break from my schedule.

This post actually begins a few days before 2014, though. On the 28th of December, Saturday, we had our annual pioneers' meeting- not with the Circuit Overseer, this is just something Taipei South does at the end of each year to check up on everyone. I was really happy about this meeting, because I actually understood what was going on! I could follow the brothers' talks, and even be encouraged by what they said! What they said was pretty interesting, too- Br. Liang spoke to us about supporting foreign languages. This is not new information, but it did make me reflect a bit- Taiwan is not America. Back in the States, pretty much every language had its own congregation or group, even for very small needs (like Portuguese in Sacramento- hey guys!), which meant that although you wanted to learn whether they were interested in the Bible and perhaps invite them to a meeting, you didn't want to do too much with them and step on someone's toes. Here in Taipei, though, we have much fewer language groups. Chinese (obviously), English, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Tagalog... and that's it. If you find someone who speaks any other language, it's your job to figure out how best to talk to them. That should be interesting!

After the meeting, all 80 of us pioneers (yes, 80) were invited upstairs to the missionary home for tea, coffee, really weird pizza and conversation. (The pizza had corn on it! And shrimp, and spinach! I mean, it was pizza, so I ate it... but man!) During the course of conversation it came up that Mason could play guitar. Okay, so I totally volunteered him. Either way, it ended up with him playing Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam to all of us:

I tried to record it but the sound is terrible. He's pretty good though!

He was totally uncomfortable and it was awesome. I'm a good friend. Seriously though, he was pretty good and everyone enjoyed the song. Afterwards, all the new people were invited to stand in front of everyone and explain who we are, and answer any questions. My turn was a bit awkward because pretty much everyone already knew me, but whatever, I introduced myself again!

The next day, Sunday, we were invited to come to a Korean family's house after meeting for food and games. Sr. Yuan made amazing Korean food for us, including freshly made kimchi! It was also very nice getting to know them. They had actually been invited to serve in Kathmandu, Nepal, but Br. Yuan's mother is in very poor health. He wants to be able to rush back to Seoul if need be, and it's much easier to fly from Taipei to Seoul than Kathmandu to Seoul. Still, he did go there for a few weeks, and it was very interesting hearing about such a unique place!

What was also interesting is this game they brought with them from Korea. I honestly can't tell you what it's called... and I can't really tell you how to play, either. The important thing is my team won. Basically, you throw these sticks with Korean writing on one side onto a mat and which sticks are face up or down  determine how far you can move your piece around a board. If one stick falls off the mat, you skip a turn.

The true trick to winning is: Make sure you have a Korean on your team.

But although all these things were great fun (and, in some cases, remarkably delicious), the real fun started yesterday, in the closing hours of 2013. Br. Liang invited Harry, Mason and myself up to his house so we could see the fireworks marking the new year. Br. Liang lives on the top floor of a high-rise apartment building, and has roof access, so he had an excellent view of the show! There were about 20 people invited. We all arrived at about 10 pm; people brought food, drinks, it was a good time even before the fireworks.

There are about five more people in the kitchen behind me!

Then, at about 11:50, we ascended to his roof and took in the view.

Taipei City, with Taipei 101 in the distance.

Zoomed in on 101.

As the minutes passed, the city began getting excited. Taipei 101 turned on all its lights. Spotlights activated. Amazingly, the weather was beautifully clear- after a month of rain, the weather picked a good day to clear up! Then numbers appeared on the building- 10, 9, 8... The city roared as everyone stood on their rooftops shouting the numbers. Then, at midnight-

Fireworks!!!

More fireworks!!!!

It was a great show! Taipei 101 is the world's largest fireworks stand- they pack every flat plane on the building's exterior with fireworks- and they really use that. The show lasted for about ten minutes, and although Mason wasn't impressed, it was beautiful.

Afterwards, it looked like 101 was on fire!

Afterwards, 101 remained fully lit, scrolling "2014" on its upper section.

After the show, we walked back to our apartment and passed out at around 1:30 in the morning. But our rest was not to last, for we had been invited to Sanchong for bowling at 8:30 the next morning!

I say "bowling", but actually it has an arcade and pool as well. The two brothers against us are Nikolai and Ryota.

That day, we learned that Japanese people in general and Ryota in particular are amazing at everything that requires dexterity. He got four strikes in a row bowling and was able to bounce the cue ball off walls accurately to sink pool balls. Times like this, I wonder- how did they lose the war??

We left the bowling alley at 2, and I still had an entire afternoon with no school before me. So I asked around and invited everyone to come to Danshui with me! Danshui is at the northern edge of the city, as far north as you can take the metro to, and is actually older than Taipei, having been the main port of Dutch Formosa. It's kind of touristy now, but I don't mind. :-)

Danshui Market Street.

Nikolai agreed to come with me first, then we got three Japanese sisters on board, Tomomi, Aike, and Chihiro. After they agreed to come Mason decided to come with us too.

We're like giants!

Danshui is a really beautiful place. The sun was shining, there was a breeze coming off the South China Sea, you're surrounded by forested mountains, and the area is designed to give you really good views. This is why I don't mind touristy places- sometimes they just want your money, but sometimes the locals realize something is beautiful and want to showcase it. And they also want your money.

As we were walking along the pier, we saw a shop that took different colored wires and made art out of them. You could get earrings, bracelets, little robots- but the really cool thing was this:

我是擎天柱！

That's right, an Optimus Prime helmet. If it had fit me I would have bought it right there, but sadly even the sisters had to cram their heads into it for a picture (totally worth it guys, trust me).

And as we were walking around, we ran into three more sisters, Yunya, Yunmei, and Brandy! They had been out preaching all morning instead of spending their vacation bowling and had the same idea we did of going to Danshui. So, naturally, we celebrated our meeting with ice cream!

Green tea and mango swirl ice cream is amazing, by the way.

We just walked along the riverside for a while (Danshui is actually on the mouth of the Tamsui River, opening into the South China Sea), all nine of us, until we found a nice spot to wait and watch the sunset.

Mason is posing so he can have a picture of himself holding the sun, but I thought this angle was better.

All of the girls with us

The sunset. (Side note- that fisherman threw a fish at me!)

So yeah, it was a nice vacation. It's only one day long, so I've gotta get right back to it, but it's good to take a little time out.

Until next time!

Rain 下雨

(Not the Korean guy, the actual thing!)

Hi everyone! 

It has been raining almost nonstop for over a week now. Mostly it doesn't rain very hard, just enough to be uncomfortable and make your clothes damp, but yesterday it poured down. One of the missionary brothers, Terry, said that once it rained for a solid month in Taipei. It rained so much that it flooded the subway system and almost shut the city down! And up in Jilong, to the north, it rained for three straight months. Happily, Kenting (the "Hawaii of Asia") is only two hours away by bullet train...

Speaking of bullet trains, look who it is!

Jim and Fei Li Voglino!

Jim and Fei Li, as most of you already know, are in Sacramento Chinese. Fei Li is Taiwanese by birth, and grew up here. They met when Jim went to Taiwan to engineer their bullet train system. They're not out here for any happy reason- Fei Li's mother is very sick- but while they were in Taiwan, they decided to come up to Taipei and visit us. We had a really good time, and it was great seeing them! Fei Li was very happy, both as a Witness and as a Taiwanese person, to hear that I like Taiwan.

They took us out to Din Tai Fung, a world-renowned xiaolongbao restaurant that had its first store here in Taipei.

The chefs hard at work. If you look carefully, you can see pictures of Tom Cruise making dumplings!

They were, quite literally, the best xiaolongbao I've ever had. They're little dumplings filled with pork and soup, with soy and vinegar sauce, and they were accompanied by bitter greens, sour cabbage, something that reminded me of okra, spicy kimchi dumplings... oh man, I'm getting hungry again thinking about it.

Our waitress- she's from Poland, and came here on an internship so she can open a dumpling house in Warsaw. Also, Harry is amazed.

In that picture, our waitress is showing us how to make the sauce for the dumplings- there's a science to it- and then how to properly eat them, to best enjoy them. For Taiwan, this was an expensive meal, but it was still a good deal by American standards, and the Voglinos generously picked up the tab for us. (Actually, they might be reading this- thank you again, guys!)

They couldn't stay for long, only a few hours, so after lunch we waddled our way over to a coffee shop and talked for a while. It was really nice catching up with them, and hopefully next time they come they can have a happier reason.

Because it's been raining so much, service has been a little different. On Saturday, we have our biggest service group, but it was raining too heavily for us to go door-to-door. So we went to the flower market!

Flowers! And Brandy! (The person, not the drink... sadly)

Their flower market is awesome! They have almost every kind of flower that grows in Taiwan (which is most of them), including some really weird ones. My favorite was the one that looked like a spiky brain! You weren't allowed to take pictures of the individual stalls, sadly...

But the service was very interesting in here. We really did just walk around, looking at flowers, drinking flower tea, and chatting with the owners about nature and creation. If they seemed interested, we'd give them a magazine and ask if we could come back at the next market time (twice a month). It was a really pleasant, really enjoyable way to spend the day in service.

More of our group- from the right, Cameron, Mason and Sr. Dai

I also had time to think- why, in the West, is it not "manly" to like flowers? Flowers are beautiful, they give us food and drink, and they replenish oxygen so we don't all suffocate. They're aesthetic and functional, surely two things that everyone can enjoy. And in fact, in Japanese culture, it was considered one of the requirements of the Samurai caste- you had to be a good warrior, you had to be able to write poetry, and you had to be able to make a garden. I like flowers. Deal with it, world. :-)

One fine morning, it actually wasn't raining hard, so we were able to do some regular intercom witnessing. We went north of the hall, an area where we don't go very often, and the city began to look a bit different.

A bit.

It's very interesting how different districts of this same city can have such variety. My area has lots of high-rises and apartment blocks, which get denser the farther west you go (Yonghe District is, officially, the most densely populated area on earth, surpassing Hong Kong!). Up north, you get these shacks and really old looking buildings... to the east, in the richer part of town, there are glass skyscrapers and faux-Victorian mansions.

Two sisters from the Da'an Group who worked with us that morning

And of course, school has been going on nonstop. I do mean nonstop- Christmas is not a holiday here. Oh, they had a Christmas tree in SOGO, the department store, but no one really celebrates it and no one has the day off. One of my classmates asked the teacher why we don't get the day off, and my teacher replied angrily (in English!) that "this is not a Christian country!" I thought about the irony of that statement, but let it go.

Group photo!

Yesterday was also one of my classmates' last day in Taiwan- Qingmei, the shortest Japanese woman in the picture above. Her husband has been off working on a mine in Africa, and now he's returned, so they're both going back to Japan. We're sad to see her go, everyone is the class likes her and she's progressing quite well in Chinese.

This last week, we also had another test. I really wasn't confident in my ability on this test, since I'd been having a hard time with the homework, but to my surprise the test came back 92/100! So I guess I am learning things after all.

Speaking of, I need to start getting ready for school, so I'll end the blog entry here. See you next year everyone!

The Joy of KTV

(Or, Why I'm Not A Rock Star)

Has it already been almost a week? Time passes very quickly! (日子過了太快了！)

This week has been mostly unremarkable, or as unremarkable as it can get here in Taipei. I go out in service, go to school, learn things. The large majority of my time here, actually, is dedicated to learning Chinese in some way or other, whether it's explicitly at school or implicitly in the ministry. One very useful thing I've been doing, outside of school, to learn Chinese is attempting to learn scriptures that I can read at the door. Most of the words I'm learning in this way are uncommon words; you don't need to use them every day... but then, I already know most of those, because I do indeed use them every day, and if I didn't know them we'd have problems. Nothing overcomes objections like a foreign guy reading Chinese characters; suddenly they have all the time in the world to talk to you.

Yep, mostly unremarkable... except on Wednesday me and Mason were invited to Karaoke. One of the young brothers, Xie, asked us while we were out in service if we wanted to come, and of course we said yes. (Although, I later learned Mason didn't know what he was agreeing to!) So that night, we go to the karaoke place, expecting a karaoke party. You know, twenty or so people, food, drinks, maybe some dancing.

Nope. Xie and his friend Li are already there... and that's it. Just us four, in a tiny dark room with a TV and a microphone. And I have to tell you, it was amazing.

We're totally forming a band now. Xie is next to me, Li on the right.

Most of their songs were in Chinese, obviously, and although they did have some English songs they were very.... eclectic. Frank Sinatra rubbed shoulders with Lady Gaga, with Smash Mouth and Prince bringing up the rear. They also had a synth-pop version of Born To Be Wild! Can hard rock be mellow? Either way, it was hilarious. 

Also, they didn't have the real music video; they made their own, and judging from the fact that their video was a Taiwanese girl blowing bubbles on a field, they didn't understand the song.

 Here's a test! I haven't tried to upload a video yet, but if this works, we will truly be able to say Xie's singing echoes throughout the world!

Okay, so it doesn't work. I've tried for a while, still nothing. Here's a link to my dropbox, you can download the movie and watch it directly: Xie Singing

This week, I also had probably the best meal I've had since arriving. We went to a Japanese restaurant right across the street from us, since we saw they had sushi. And man, did they have sushi. Not only did it taste amazing, after you ate it your mouth felt good... it had that slick feel of really fresh fish. And real Japanese wasabi, not the green-dyed horseradish we have in America.

This meal cost $9. I know, really breaking the bank.

Later on, we were invited to play ping pong at the missionary home. I had been before, but it was Mason's first time going. We had a blast! I really like all of our friends here. You know, many people remarked after our Annual Meeting how happy and jovial our Governing Body is. I've noticed that it's a trait shared between all of Jehovah's long-term servants, all of the missionaries I've met, all of the long-term Bethelites, the Circuit and District overseers... Jehovah is a happy God, and  his message is clear: We should be happy too. And honestly, we have no reason not to be! Although we might be facing problems, even trials, maybe beyond our capability, at the end of the day we know the truth. This world and its problems are temporary, not really real. The love we have between ourselves and between ourselves and Jehovah is very real. If we have love, and act on it, what else do we need? Everything else will take care of itself.

Anyway, right. Ping pong. It turns out that Asians are amazing at ping pong. Mason and I did our best to represent American ping pongers (ping pongites?), but first a pair of Japanese friends beat us... then a pair of Koreans destroyed us... then the Taiwanese missionaries themselves, Kent and Huey, pretty much wiped the floor with us. It was a lot of fun, though- by the end it had kind of degenerated, and we were bouncing the ball off the walls back onto the table while a sister drilled us on our Chinese.

The Japanese and Korean couple- Kent and Huey hadn't come up yet

Also, while walking one day, I saw this: 

I'm still really far away from it- it's huge!

That's the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. I gather he's actually buried in there! It was closed at the time of night I went by, but I hope to go inside soon and look around. It's in the middle of a beautiful park, too.

Here's another shot of daily life here in Taipei.

Trash collection!

How trash works in Taipei is this: every night, these trucks will drive around blasting Fur Elise by Beethoven, and every now and then they stop. That's your que to run outside with all your trash as quickly as you can, because they don't stop for long. You need to have things presorted- plastics go into one truck, metals, glass and paper go into another, food goes into a third and everything else goes in the fourth. It's actually pretty fun- your entire neighborhood is all clustered around these trucks, so it's a good time to kind of see who lives near you.

Yep, pretty uneventful! Except for all the events. :-) Tomorrow Jim and Fei Li Voglino, a couple from Sacramento Chinese, are coming up to Taipei to visit us- I'll keep you all posted! Gaitian Jian!

Tourist Dude

(Also, China landed a rover on the moon!)

Hey guys! I meant to update the blog yesterday, but for whatever reason I was having problems uploading pictures. It's fixed now, though!

My parents have asked me to take more pictures of day-to-day things, which results in me looking like a tourist. A really easily impressed tourist, at that. But, you know, whatever- I'm obviously not native anyway. Smile!

This is my favorite coffee shop:

They're studiously ignoring me- it took like three tries to get this picture right

It's called Cama Coffee, and it's pretty legit. They make coffee using vacuum siphons, they have their own roasting machine in-house, and you can ask for a certain kind of bean to be put in your coffee! (But you need to ask in Chinese. So I pretty much got whatever they felt like giving me. Still good though.) It's a bit of a walk away from my apartment, on the other side of Da'an Park, but sometimes it's worth it.

School is good. We had another test, and I got a 90 on it. I'm actually surprised I did so well, I was really nervous about the grammar we'd been learning in that unit. Actually, although I am learning a huge amount compared to back home, and although I am doing pretty well in class, I recently had a bit of a reality check. This last Friday, we all did a project where we wrote a short article comparing one thing to another- not a complex concept, but a good grammar exercise. After we wrote it, we traded with a classmate and attempted to fix their errors. She did pretty well, only one major error (although granted, she is Japanese). I... didn't do quite so well. Actually, my paper was full of errors, none so bad that you couldn't understand my meaning, but still not right. And it goes without saying that my Chinese characters are chicken scratch compared to hers (again, Japanese). So although I may be doing fairly well, I need to stay on top of it, because I've got a long way to go.

Despite my busy schedule with school, I managed to go out in midweek service several times. Here's a shot of us all meeting up:

We don't usually have a formal meeting for field service on weekdays, but we still take a couple minutes to arrange things.

That was Wednesday, and actually that day was amazing. In four hours of field service, I managed to place 36 magazines and 30 tracts, along with many invitations! Mason placed a similar amount. It's amazing how many people are interested in learning about the Bible here compared with back home. Even if half of them are only taking the literature to be polite- even if 3/4ths, or even 9 out of 10- that's still five or six truly interested people in four hours, and that isn't bad.

After a few hours, I had to leave to go to school, and walking through Da'an Park I saw these guys:

Chinese ducks! Delicious!

Unfortunately I couldn't get closer, the "Ecological Pond" is marked off so you can't get too close to it.

After school, I joined up with the evening service group!

We all met at Dongmen Station. If it's translated, it means "East Gate", which is nowhere near as funny.

Service in this area at night was... interesting. As soon as we got away from the main street, we ended up in a warren of narrow alleys, roofed over with sheet metal, filled with cheap restaurants and small shops. Most of them were closed this time of night. I tried to take a picture, but one of the brothers told me it probably wasn't a good idea to bring my camera out there! The air smelled heavy, filled with the smell of many kinds of food and refuse, and the voices of people echoed loudly in the narrow spaces. The ground was not paved for vehicles, but cobbled and looking quite old. 

The alleys extended for a really long way, and I'm glad that I was with local friends or I might have gotten totally lost, but there were people in them and most of them were happy to talk to us briefly. Our current magazine is about lies people tell about God, and as most people here have only a passing familiarity with Christianity they're quite interested in the subject. They know that most churches disagree, but they don't know why, so they're glad to read up on what the Bible actually says.

Eventually, we escaped the aboveground tunnels and resumed regular door-to-door work.

This is us just about finished for the night. The brother on the right (Kent Huang, one of the missionaries) is double-checking our lists against what we've done, just in case.

On the way home, I remembered my parents wanted me to grab a picture of a bus I take or something, which is really difficult. In Taiwan, buses do not wait for you. You have five seconds to board, if that- I've actually seen people board and leave a bus before it's stopped, which means it gets to keep on driving, never actually stopping. The MRT is similar, sort of- it has a predetermined small amount of time to wait, usually ten seconds or so, but most times people will shove you out of the way if you don't board immediately. Next time I'm there and it;s not busy, I'll try to get a picture. But all of this is to say- this is not my bus:

Hello, random bus!

-but just a random bus I saw pulling up in time for me to get a shot. They're all identical anyway.

One last stop before I make it home: my local market, Matsusei. It's apparently a Japanese chain of stores that have expanded into Taiwan, which makes all our Japanese friends happy. The inside looks like this:

Hi everyone! I swear I'm not a spy taking random pictures!

Pretty much a regular grocery store, except everything is in Chinese. You can get some pretty good stuff in there, actually- their alcohol selection isn't bad, they sell six-liter jugs of water for NT$40 each, and they even have an ethnic section with stuff like ketchup and black olives!

So yesterday, Mason and I went out in service early, meeting up with the group in the Park at 8am. We'd made the plans a couple days in advance, so we definitely were going to make it!

Sadly, it was raining Saturday. It still is, actually. That didn't stop us from going out, but it did make Mason very sad he didn't have an umbrella.

It was the sound of ultimate suffering.

He also discovered that his bag isn't waterproof, so all his stuff inside got completely soaked. We had a decent time, but after not too long we were soaked, me from the knees down, him from the... everything down. My shoes are actually still drying out! So we got some coffee and went home for a while.

After not too long, though, I got bored. So I had an idea! Let's go to the National Palace Museum!

For those that don't know, the National Palace Museum is awesome. Back in the 1940s, when Mao Zedong and the Communist Party came into power in China, the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai-Shek was fighting a losing battle and knew it. So when they evacuated the Forbidden City in Beijing, they basically looted it and took all their art, all their jades, all their gold, all their valuables, and shipped them to Taiwan. All that wealth not only allowed them to turn Taiwan from a backwater island to an arguably first-world country in just about fifty years, it also gave them to basis for an awesome Chinese museum, with more ancient Chinese artifacts than even Mainland China has. (They used to be really angry about that, but they're getting over it.)

After taking the subway a long way north to Shilin, then a bus even farther out, Mason and I approach the gates: 

Although it had been raining all day, it was still about 75 degrees out. Ah, tropical islands...

They're done in old style, but only about forty years old. China has all the big old stuff, Taiwan has all the small old stuff. And the gold.

The main walkway, with one of the guardian lions outside.

Closeup of the lion. They say that they're not trying to reflect the actual outside of the lion, but what the lion thinks it looks like. These lions always come in twos, one male standing on a globe, one female protecting a cub.

Chiang Kai-Shek himself, sitting in audience. He's a national hero here.

Sadly, there were no pictures allowed in the museum itself, so I have nothing else to show you.

Okay, so I took some pictures anyway. But they're not as good as I would have liked, since I had to take them quickly with my cameraphone when the (very vigilant!) security wasn't looking.

A stunningly beautiful carved jade screen, showing a forest scene. The details on the carving were incredible.

An inscribed lapis lazuli stone, once marking the western border of Qing Dynasty China along a road.

A calendar jade, dating to about 1000 BC. The stand is new, obviously, but it't the same style. Its rim has very worn markings along the rim- the thought is that some monk or other would turn it one mark every day, and thus keep a unified calendar throughout Zhou China.

I believe this is an imperial decree from the Qing Dynasty, carved in jade plates and bearing the imperial dragon on the front. I asked a sister to translate this for me, since the characters are fairly modern, but she was too terrified of the dragon!

That's just a very few samples of all the beautiful artifacts they have. I've heard that they can only display 2 or 3% of all their things at once, so if I come back next month it will be totally different!

And then they had this:

Taiwanese mech! Run away!

They had an area where they took one of the more famous Qing emperors, Emperor Qianlong, took all his portraits and writings, and created a computer representation of what they believe he would actually look like. Then they put him in an interactive comic that takes your picture and puts your face in it. Then they made a model of him and put him in a large mech with furry hands and feet, with more hands for shoulders... naturally enough.

On the way home, we went through Shilin Night Market, one of the more famous ones, and one that (by size at least) blows our little Shida Market out of the water. But not only were they big, they had a ukulele store!

If it was ultimate suffering before, that's the smile of ultimate contentment.

Mason didn't have enough cash on him, so he couldn't get anything, but we may very well go back. The workers seemed happy just to listen to Mason play- he's pretty good!

And we capped the night off with some of the best xiaolongbao I've had here.

The line was so long they had us wait behind the counter, so I got this picture of them making it.

So that's been my week! I've been very busy, but it's a good busy. I will say that school is taking more of my time than I was expecting it to, when you account for travel time and especially homework, but it's valuable stuff I'm learning that will pay off in the long run. I'm grateful I'm still in good health- Harry was sick for the first two or three weeks here, Mason says he might be slowing down a bit, some other newly arrived people are getting sick- I guess I shouldn't jinx it, but I'm happy it seems to have missed me.

If anyone has anything they'd like me to take a picture of in particular, please let me know! Until next time!