張法

Allister Chang

[allisterchang]

A few of my articles have been published recently in Passport, Curve, and Bethesda.

The full Bethesda magazine article can be found online:  http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/November-December-2013/Gap-Year-Taiwan/

Editions of Passport & Curve can be found at your local Barnes & Noble.

More travel journalism articles to come!  Thanks for your support!

[allisterchang]

After volunteering for Delegate Heather Mizeur this past summer, I've been impressed by her care & capacity to make Maryland even better.  

This video came out shortly after she launched her campaign for Governor & was shot while we volunteered to paint the playground at Galway Elementary School in Silver Spring.

[allisterchang]

10,000+ Views

My blog of Taipei cafés has accumulated over 10000 views!

[allisterchang]

Gay Travel Herald

The Gay Travel Herald recently published 3 of my articles about travel in Taipei!

[allisterchang]

A few months ago, Andrew Ryan interviewed me on Radio Taiwan International to discuss my time working on an organic farm in Taiwan through the network WWOOF.

I say this on the air and I'll say it again, there are few things quite as satisfying as eating the food that you yourself grow.  

If you live in an urban area, chances are you don't often get the chance to eat vegetables that you've grown yourself. That's certainly true for Feast Meets West hosts Ellen Chu and Andrew Ryan. So what a treat it was to have organic farm volunteer Allister Chang join us on the April 20th edition of the Feast! Allister shared with us not only his experiences working on farms in Europe, the United States and Taiwan (all with World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or WWOOF), he also...

[allisterchang]

Clips from a practice session in 2007!

[allisterchang]

Man About World's Newest Global Correspondent

Excited about my new opportunities as Man About World's newest "Global Correspondent."

Check out my first post & get a free trial subscription of the magazine on your iPad for more!

[allisterchang]

An updated Google Map of all my recommended cafés in Taipei

Hope you find this helpful!  Please do let me know if you think I've missed any noteworthy spots.

[allisterchang]

It's 2013 and the Taiwanese government still deports HIV+ foreigners!

[allisterchang]

Fourth Place at the Annual Taipei Rotary Club Speech Contest, December 2012

[lgbtaiwan]

In 1984, Qi Jia Wei began his life-long campaign to educate the Taiwanese public of safe-sex practices and homosexuality. His home phone became a HIV/gay hotline, and his home became a safe haven for other sick gay men. Sometimes he dressed like Jesus and tied himself to a cross at the Taipei Main...

[allisterchang]

Excerpts from my interviews with Qi Jia Wei, the first gay rights activist in southeast Asia.

[taipeicafes]

Radio Taiwan International picked up on this blog & hosted a show to discuss cafés in Taipei!  Here I am on air with host Andrew Ryan.  Hope you enjoy the show!

[allisterchang]

My reflections on Taipei Pride in the San Diego Gay & Lesbian News.

[allisterchang]

[allisterchang]

My thoughts on the recent Buddhist lesbian wedding in Taiwan.

[allisterchang]

Fo Guang Shan - 佛光山

I just got back from the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist monastery & Fo Guang University in Taiwan as part of a program called the Woodenfish Project. I participated in the International Youth Seminar on Life and Ch'an, toured temples across the island, participated in a week-long silent meditation retreat, and saw a monk chew complacently as a bird swooped down and ate rice out of his bowl.

Practice What You Preach

"Be introspective, don't follow others, and be passionate," Professor Charles Kao prescribed. Filled with such abstract feel-good keywords, his "lecture" at this supposed "seminar" was empty of any insight. His discussion on the Taiwanese education system rested upon an assumption that a good college was ranked higher by NewsWeek. Think outside of the system, he preached. Get better within the system, he implied. At the end I asked him to explain what "passion" actually meant to him, a word that he repeated throughout the lecture, and he brushed me off by asking his sidekick Mimi Yu to answer my question for him.

Mimi's discussion felt even more superficial. When we took our seats in the auditorium, we all received a copy of her new book, which was more or less a guide into how to get into Harvard from Taiwan. I told her I felt that she spoke & wrote about Harvard as if it were an end goal in and of itself, to which she responded, "if you believe, you can accomplish" & "don't settle for plan B."

At the end of the seminar, the President of Fo Guang University gave a similarly empty closing speech. I asked him what he thought about the critique of Taiwanese education as fostering employees rather than innovators, to which he responded "we create innovators by following the model learning techniques." Excuse me?

~

Dialogue with Venerable Hui-Feng

A:  I have been restless during meditation sessions today after you told us to wish ourselves "happiness" when we inhale. Why wish ourselves "happiness" if sensations in this life "do not exist"? Why wish ourselves free of suffering if we know that suffering is ephemeral & a result of "bad" actions in past lives? Why cannot suffering be enjoyable or happiness bland?

What is the happiness that we are wishing upon ourselves? What are the "pleasures" in future lives" that we will reap for the next 7 lives if we become a monastic in this life? Are these "pleasures" not experienced sensations?

If "happiness" is indeed an experienced sensation, then how can it exist without suffering? How could we know what hot is, if we have never experienced cold?

Every 7 years all of our cells may be replaced, our ideas and ideals may similarly be ephemeral and conditioned. Buddhists seem to believe that there is a stable identity that transcends time. So far, this basic assumption that SOMETHING must be permanent has not been clearly explained. Why can't EVERYTHING, including who we are, be ephemeral? Similarly, why shouldn't we cherish what is ephemeral? If we don't cherish the ephemeral, why do anything beyond what is necessary in this world at all? Why innovate, research, or improve here and now?

If everything is conditioned, so too aren't our understandings of good and bad? Or, do Buddhists claim an objective good? Is it better to kill 1 person to save 10, or stand back to let life run its course and let those 10 people die?

Why chain ourselves to a strictly defined goal of liberation? Why care if we won't remember?

VHF:  You're not the first to raise these questions. This philosophy has withstood thousands of years of critiques.

The answers may not be understood using your system of logic.

Words are inherently dualist and contradictory.

A:  Maybe you're right and I'm wrong. Maybe there is no right or wrong, just a mutual attempt to do the most good we can in this world.

Faith in history and authority alone does not convince me. For what I believe in, I am willing to make any amount of effort to support or achieve. Perseverence is what it takes, you say, but right now, I don't feel the impetus to pursue monastic life because I am not convinced.

VHF:  Trust others' subjectivities.

A:  During the silent meditation retreat, I walked into the pouring rain and smiled, drenched. Reveling in each raindrop pounding on my skin, I felt alive. I cherished it because it was ephemeral.

Master Hsing Yun told us the Ch'an (Zen) master would remain unshaken even if a mountain collapsed before him. If a mountain collapsed in front of me, why would I want to repress my feeling of awe?

VHF:  Feel, but don't crave.

~

Gender

One afternoon, I asked Venerable Miao-Lung about what Buddhist texts say about gender. She responded, "this is a very sensitive subject. Don't go around asking people about this." Venerable Miao-Lung did not give me a direct answer. Her response included discussions of Taiwanese education, Buddhism's Indian ancestry, and how there are more women than men at Fo Guang Shan.

Clearly uncomfortable, she told me to wait there and she went to go get her teacher Venerable Man-Kuang. Venerable Man-Kuang told me that Buddhism was founded upon a philosophy of equality. Any person can become a Buddha. Yet, many believe that a woman who does good in this life will be reincarnated one step up as a man; accordingly, men who do bad will be reincarnated as women. Venerable Mankuang told me stories of female monastics from Rock Mountain (岩石山) who she spoke with that ran away to be nuns after being forced to get married. Female monastics have historically held negative stereotypes for being uneducated runaways from broken families.

"Has there ever been a female abbot at Fo Guang Shan?", I asked. There are almost 800 nuns, and only about 2-300 monks, Venerable Mankuang responded. Taiwanese people continue to pay more respect to male abbots, she continued. "We're waiting for society to have more opening for a female abbot."

Yet, doesn't "Humanistic Buddhism" claim to be spearheading social improvements today? Why is the largest institution of Humanistic Buddhism in the world waiting on the sidelines, if they believe it is right? Or, do those in power at Fo Guang Shan continue to believe that men are higher ranked spiritually?

[allisterchang]

Haven't been able to find much else on the web in English on good spots to read, check your e-mail, or hang out with friends on a lazy afternoon, so here's my first attempt at travel blogging.