January 6th, 2014: Education Shrines?! Weekend Excursions?! Foreign Fruits?!

On our weekend excursion to Tai Nan (臺南), we visited many different Dutch forts and religious temples. Specifically, I will focus on Fort Provincia: a destroyed Dutch fort with a Chinese Temple built over it. Out of the many different attractions and historical spots, a main point of interest is the Wenchang Pavillion which is dedicated towards education. In ancient China, people would come to worship at a shrine dedicated to Lord Kuixing, a deity in charge of academic achievement and job promotions in the heavens, before taking examinations and tests.

When asking Lord Kuixing about whether they will have success, people preformed a ritual of dropping two  double-sided wooden Tao's, in order to see how the deity will respond to requests. If the Tao's end up being opposite sided, the deity approves, otherwise he disapproves. Perhaps not many people seriously preformed this ritual, however many students would still come to pay their respects and leave their test examinee notices!

To this day, many students leave small gifts and representations of their entrance exams to college or schools in hopes that the deity will listen to their pleas and show favor towards good results. I find it interesting that people are still willing to follow through such rituals and even put their personal pictures up. Perhaps then, this is a sign of people desperately hoping for a good score, as a mark of a people that really care about their educational prowess. Or, perhaps it is the mark of a latch ditch effort towards any source that might bolster their odds for success. At any rate, it is unique to see this practice carried out in Taiwan because it is a completely foreign action to me. Growing up in a Protestant, suburban United States, I was never much exposed to any rituals or practice of polytheism. When I compare these rituals to the religions I have been exposed to in the United States, although it seems like an odd action to put up your own picture on a wall, it is much akin to praying to God in hopes of doing well. Overall, the continuations of these rituals may suggest that Taiwanese people aren't so different from those in the United States in the way that they are just as worried and conscious about their own academic success (even willing to reach to higher powers for help).

After our weekend excursion to South Taiwan, we finally returned to Taipei to resume our language studies and cultural practices. I currently have a test on Tuesday on long list of Chinese vocabulary and fruits I have never seen before, some of which do not have English names. I mentioned earlier that I was excited to learn Chinese in order to apply it to my daily life in Taiwan. To be honest, I am still quite excited but a little uneasy as there is a dearth of Chines vocabulary that I have not once seen in my life! I look forward to, as the Chinese say, "Chi Ku" (吃苦), which means to eat your bitterness and tough it out! Good luck to myself!