This trip is incredibly packed. We have spent the past few nights at a holy house attached to a printing factory business with the same owner. We focused on learning details of the Dao lineage and the meaning behind some of the steps of the rituals that are practiced. We had a fine lesson in learning to cook delicious vegetarian food which we all enjoyed. We have mused at the convenience stores, particularly Family Mart which has a unique jingle that plays each time you enter the store, and it turns out the jingle is unique to Taiwan. Early the next day we went to vegetarian food factory that produces soy meat products and is owned by a family that used to make meat products for 40 years, before switching to meat replacement products for the last 20 years. The family are Dao friends, and they have a larger holy house on the top floor of the factory (you can see a trend here haha). The meal they served us was incredible and we found that they already have some of their products selling in Canada in Vancouver, and we discussed early possibility of importing their products to Vancouver island. We were incredibly honoured to be invited by the family and shown their factory, and additionally they gifted us each with a Yuenbao: a traditional symbol of money, wealth, and prosperity.
We set out for an overnight trip to Alishan, which is a very famous mountain region town in south interior Taiwan. It is known for its high mountain tea, small leaf oolong in particular. The rolling semi-terraced tea plantations were paralleled in beauty by the majestic red cypress old growth trees and Japanese cedars planted during the Japanese occupation in the early 20th century. Touring another Dao Friend’s tea factory, we were exposed to several steps of the tea making process including harvesting, withering, panning, stirring, and rolling. We then shuffled into our hotel, noticing there was no 4th floor and that I jumps from 3 to 5 due to the traditional superstition where the sound of the word for 4 sounds similar to “death” so they avoid almost naming the floor the “death” floor.
We toured shops and had lunch, taking in the classic narrow alleyway markets and sampling the ethnic treats (Taiwanese mochi was most people’s favourite). Seeing a waddling pet duck with little booties was very joyful for all. We casually dropped into a tea shop of a 45-year local woman who zealously served us many rounds of tea. Afterward we spent a couple hours walking through the magical mountaintop groves that were reminiscent of the pacific northwestern temperate rainforest. The walk was a trek through panoramic mountain viewpoints past ancient 1000+ year old trees to a Japanese style temple with practicing monks and nuns. We marveled at the integration of excellent infrastructure balancing the relationship with nature to provide the public with a wonderful and natural educational and restorative experience. I particularly noted how the decisions of a few people to dedicate space and efforts to their design of the features of the walk had shaped the amazing experience of many people: Very meritorious.
Dinner that night was an unexpected yet very memorable experience: fabulous instant meals (no sarcasm) at the world’s highest 7-11! We went to bed early that night in preparation for our 3AM wake up to stargaze and watch the sunrise from the mountain (very popular activity).
Joe, our ever-faithful friend and host, led us in some mountaintop Tai chi afterward, which was really nice to have as an anchor each morning. Earlier in the trip he had shown us some of his Tai chi kata performances with a sword, still dressed in his usual business attire. After leaving Alishan’s beauty and cultural landscape, we stopped at a visitors’ centre on the way back to our homebase holy house, where I learned more about the Taiwanese indigenous Tzou people, making up about 2.5% of Taiwanese today. The Museum at the centre also had a diorama display for the different stages of tea production: Harvesting, withering, stirring, panning, rolling, drying, and finally roasting. The display gave more context to the various machinery we had seen in the tea factory at the plantation the prior day, which flowed nicely into the beautiful little family tea store/home that the factory owner Mr. Liu and family owned and operated. He graciously had us in as personal guests for tea tasting ceremony, and then we had a beautiful buffet dinner in the back room prepared by wife and family, and we were given more information on tea production throughout the evening.
After evening we settled for the night, and in the morning, we meticulously cleaned the holy house and said goodbye to Karen and set out on the three-hour drive back to Taipei. Joe Dropped us off at our Air BnB and we said goodbye to Joe. Li Mei walked us around the neighbourhood we were at to ensure we knew the area and where the MRT stations were, and gave us extra food for our remaining stay, truly embodying the spirit of giving. We said a goodbye to her as well at the park outside of the Taiwan national museum. Thus concluded our planned portion of the trip, but before we left we as a group had given our gifts Canadian cultural gifts to the wonderful organizers and friends we had made, which included an Inukshuk rock statue, carved stone bears, Canadian cowboy belt-buckles, and souvenir maple syrup-related gifts.
The next portion involves Matt Learning and Neil going to Singapore for two days, and myself, Stefanie and Peter having a few days to ourselves to settle, explore, and build deeper connections and understandings between us, which continues to unfold. 😊 More to come!