July 17 ۶ৎ Fo Guang Shan Monastery + Tea Ceremony + Liuhe Night Market
There's really so much that went on today so I'll GET RIGHT INTO IT... finally caught up with my posts so get ready for insane length because my memory is SHARP from today despite almost inflicting myself with heat stroke. There were unfortunately multiple points in this day where I was convinced I was going to either pass out or my legs were going to completely give out but it was a point where I was too tired to express that concern so I just accepted it .
Started out bright and early actually I believe theeee earliest we've had to get up for this trip. . . . 8:20 AM..... I'm sorry but that is diabolical </3 woke up so tired I slept through maybe 5? 6 alarms? but still managed to haul butt to breakfast at a clean 8:10 and stuffed some food in my face. Okay I really only have 2 other hotels to compare this to BUUUT I'll call this a pretty hesitant last place NOT because it was bad but because it wasn't as great as the Yilan hotel, better than FX, BUT the miso soup was mid as hell. To ME that's the deciding factor . but we know this
I was really excited for today, because ever since visiting Longshan temple I wanted to learn more about Taiwanese Buddhism and how it differs from other denominations. Our first stop was actually the bathroom of the temple which was shaped like a bus (so cute <3) BUT I walked in and found out that they don't use toilet paper ? Like they do, but it's on the outside of the bathroom and you have to grab it one piece at a time with some insane future vision of how much you'll need. Interesting conception by the Buddhists.... Then it was time to drive up a massive hill to where the main shrine ACTUALLY was, and I'll be honest our tour guide monk did not look like I imagined him to. He was interesting for sure. He told us he was actually born in Austria, lived in South Africa for a while (??) and ended up in a Taiwanese monastery for the last 25 or so years. Which was a cool factoid because really and truly his Chinese was interesting to hear. I've never heard Chinese with a German accent before! Thought it was really funny when Yeh Laoshi actually corrected him on pronunciation and he said "well, I don't care" I think he's such an interesting guy.
The monk first took us for tea, which was really kind because some of the other monks there were honestly adorable and SO kind. They offered us so many refills and took pictures of us to put in some kind of digital monastery game where we turned into monks?? Pictures below but it was REALLY funny especially the one of Kadence. Kadence I <3 u but this was just next level.
Overall though, they just seemed really excited that we were there. But not like in an overbearing way, more of a hospitable one than what you would maybe experience in some Western practices. Not naming names!!! After that we took a tour of the grounds, and someone mentioned for people meant to leave behind their wordly desires they sure do love their statues. All fun and jokes though HAHA... the shrines themselves were absolutely beautiful though. They also kept giving us these candies, that were either like flower tea or melon tea flavored or something like that but they were DELICIOUS... tour guide monk told us he thought they were disgusting but well. to each their own I suppose .
When we went into the memorial shrine for the founder of the monastery and got slips of paper advice from a kind elderly woman that's supposed to be specially directed at you or something. And I will say, I've had a particular thing on my mind this entire trip and every time I step foot in a temple I get oddly specific advice pertaining to that one issue I'm having and I will be honest! It's tripping me out a bit! but maybe my inner conflicts are just so vague and basic any advice is universally applicable to them but more on that later (weirdly). Every elderly person in Taiwan that I've spoken to has also been maybe the kindest person I've ever met, because this lady was so excited to give us these tiny paper slips and pieces of candy and even complimented us on our writing when we signed our names in Chinese. I miss u . . .
All these things seem fun and cool and whimsical but let me give you all a bit of context for how my day was going so far. Laundry right. I had been planning to do it the night before we left Taipei because it was our free day. I then realized, though, that a few articles of clothing I wear pretty prominently in my wardrobe needed to be hang dried (I fully believe any laundromat dryer here would rip them apart) so I needed at least 2 days of time clear . right . Well that time has not come, I have a giant bag of laundry in my suitcase that haunts me every morning as I pick through my four clothing options left like a small victorian child trying to cover up with scraps in the winter. This would be fine as I still had quite a bit of these bottom of the barrel shirts left, BUUTT.... today we had to dress MODESTLY..... and all my shirts I had left are either low cut, or were tank tops. So my brain made the rational decision of deciding a hoodie was the way to go and I could just take it off later in the day. Hence the near heat stroke,
IT WAS SO FREAKING HOTTT I was sweating in places I didn't KNOW I could sweat. I asked Rebekkah and Lauren to roll my sleeves up for me and they COULDN'T because they were literally STICKING to my forearms. Have I mentioned this place is on a ginormous hill and everything is either uphill or downhill and comically spaced apart. Because now you know . So many sights here were so hard to enjoy because all of us were prowling for air conditioning like someone was about to drop dead. Glenda let me have a lick of her ice cream though!
Back to tour guide monk. He took us around to a few more sites which were cool, and at one point he took us out to a giant bell you were meant to ring three times and make wishes on. There was a sign right next to it signifying what each of the three rings represents, and he started asking if any of us could read it out loud to the class. Then he asked again. Then he started getting visibly annoyed. There was a small part of me in the back of my head that was saying maybe he's asking because he can't read it. Because he did also ask Yeh Laoshi how to read something a bit later . Interesting guy... We went out to a giant Buddha statue on the roof of one of the monastery buildings, and he didn't understand why all of us were using umbrellas to block out the MONSTER uv rays raining down on us. Which I personally do not understand how he, as a white guy, was not getting absolutely burnt to a crisp after living here for 25 years. I've been here 20 days and I think I've developed a lifelong skin condition. He even made a comment towards Peter saying he was like a girl trying to avoid looking like a farm boy and I was like girl no... he trying to avoid SKIN CANCER... Tbh using an umbrella to avoid UV like that is something I will definitely be bringing back with me to America, because I never really thought too hard about it before.
At 11:30 it was time for lunch, which we needed to line up for in a long line and leave our belongings at the door. I watched the etiquette video Yeh Laoshi sent us the day before, to know when to bow and what order to eat your food in, but that still didn't quite prepare me for experiencing lunch with the monks. Firstly, the room was ginormous. I'm not sure how many people I expected to be there, but it was surely not that many. Monks require you to eat in silence, which is not a difficult task but just a bit of an uncomfortable one. As soon as I entered the room I felt lost on what to do, so I copied what the elderly lady next to me was doing the entire time. I think that I mostly did everything right, it started with a bow, a silent pulling out of your chair, and a chant which the staff there kindly gave us a paper to read off of. What I didn't know was that you needed a mask to wear before and after your meal, so it was a bit embarrassing when they had to hand me one even though I know they didn't care much. We were told the entire meal was vegetarian which I wasn't particularly excited for, but it was actually SOOO FREAKING GOOD. Like I need to hit them up for those recipes. It may just be my divergent ahh but the sound of hundreds of metal chopsticks clinking against ceramic bowls in silence made me so joyful it was like experiencing an asmr video in person. I kept looking up at the monks on the other side of the room to make sure I wasn't doing anything I wasn't supposed to be, but even then it felt like just looking around was wrong, because they all seemed so stoic. There WAS an old man monk that finished his food in about five minutes and spent the rest of the time with his mask on and eyes closed and I'm wondering how he did it. I'm wondering how anyone finished at all actually, because I was eating at maybe top speed without literally inhaling the food and I STILL didn't finish. I didn't know you were allowed to stay/keep eating while the end of meal chant happened and after everyone else left, so I'm worried I looked disrespectful by not finishing my soup T_T ah well. I'm not showing my face again. I'd give a full rating of the food but this section is long enough tldr lunch was good.
We exited the lunch building, and almost as soon as our group got out a monk caught up to us to come and compliment our etiquette which I was surprisingly shocked at, considering we were all just saying how poorly we thought we did. Maybe they had some bad experiences with foreigners in the past who were completely in the dark, but this monk was so kind with her compliments and she genuinely wanted to talk to us. She then started to show us a big mural with all the United States branches of their monastery pointed out 😭 very sweet.... she looked so disappointed though when she asked us if we were staying at the monastery overnight and we said no I'm sorry to let you down everything here makes me feel guilty man
I have so much to say about today at this point it was about 1pm and it was time for a tea ceremony that Yeh Laoshi's mom organized for us (!!! Thank you!!!!!) and that was maybe the most interesting part of this entire day. The ceremony itself was no problem, although the director told us we had to be silent and we made direct eye contact on multiple occasions when I accidentally made a sound (I shouldn't have sat in the front). After we made the tea she asked us what the tea tasted like and in what part of the mouth we can gauge the temperature with, and the only thing that came to my mind was that it tastes like tea and I can feel it with my tongue. But even after like four of us answered she didn't seem to be too satisfied with our answers which I felt a bit bad about. Think we ended up naming about every part in the mouth the tea came into contact with though so I'm not sure what she was looking for then. She then asked if any of us had questions for her. I felt guilty once again for not having too much to ask, but then Landon asked her about why she became a monk. Freedom is what she said, which made sense to me, and she mentioned specifically in the aspect of marriage. I'm not well versed as to what monks can and cannot do, so I asked her if the no marriage thing was applicable to all monks or just her.
Remember earlier when I said that spiritual stuff directed at me was getting a little too uncomfortable Yeah that's coming back. I asked this question about marriage and her response to that question is "When Yeh Laoshi's mom came to me and told me you guys were coming, the first word that came to my mind was 'suicide'."
She then goes on an entire tangent about a story of a girl who killed herself because her husband left her and took her money and how she started appearing in her sisters dreams, and her sister came to her because Buddhists are the ones who know about ghosts and that kind of thing. And she ended her long story by saying "suicide is the STUPIDEST thing a human being can do. I don't know why I'm saying this but something out there told me I needed to tell this to you." while making direct eye contact with me and I was like okay. well. I wasn't planning on it! But thank you for the advice! Maybe she saw something disturbing in my soul man because I don't know where that came from. She didn't actually answer my question though. Guess we will never know
The rest of our time at the monastery was spent at the museum, and we saw Buddha's tooth which was cool. It was so far away that you couldn't actually see it though which makes sense practically but in practice was very underwhelming. In my heart I was hoping they had replicas in their gift shop because owning something with the Buddha's tooth on it would be sick. I guess Buddhists don't move like that though, because their gift shop was mostly filled with religious texts and items. I bought two bracelets that were like prayer beads because I really like their look and what they represent, and I also got one for a friend. There was a small keychain that said auspicious on it for like 12 yuan so I also had to get that. Not sure why I love the word auspicious so much but its like the perfect mix of whimsy and positivity in a word. Hell yeah lets get auspicious!!!! Yeh Laoshi's mom also bought us these pancakes filled with red bean paste and custard (Thank you!!!!!!!!) which I am eternally grateful for they were SO good. Also tried these egg tarts which were phenomenal yummmm
By this point we were pooped. and not even like normal levels of it I mean I had lost about 95% of the water stored in my body and I was ready to give up on it all. Is this what the monk was warning me about.... but it was night market time baby. The first one we pulled up to was closed, and I half expected us to just turn straight back to the hotel, but instead we went to a different one. Was not excited to be there but actually had a great time!! Haven't had night market food in a bit but I ended up buying mango and a Taiwanese sausage. Both were AWESOME but the sausage was very jiggly and that scared me. Yeh Laoshi then took us to the mrt station which was beautiful!!!
Tonight was relatively chill, I went to OK mart with Kadence and Emily, then hung out with Kyra and Rebekkah, decided NOT to do laundry, caught up on some blogs (this is the tail end of that) and then Emily came over to watch Batman. Thank you city suites for your hdmi cord xoxo
If it weren't for the literal excruciating heat this day would for sure be up there as one of the greats. Instead I've never been happier to take a shower. Very eventful nonetheless... Lots to consider.... Buddhist wise(?)
Today was.... a lot! But I will say, was insanely educational. I learned a lot about what Buddhism actually is, the long and rich history behind the religion and Taiwanese people, and how monks live their everyday lives. I found our lunch today to be probably the most fascinating part, as it was very ritualistic and orderly. The entire time I was at the temple I kept thinking to myself, I don't think Americans would be able to act this polite and orderly! The lifestyle of a monk is probably a bit too intense for me, but I've never been a very religious person, so I can acknowledge that. There was a lot of etiquette to follow on top of the worship and praying, and it looks like for this temple in particular a large portion of them also try to educate visitors and the general public about Buddhism. I was happy to report that I didn't feel any sort of pressure from the monks to pursue Buddhism further, just genuine enthusiasm and excitement to talk to us about something so important to them.
The tea ceremony was probably the activity I learned the most from, and everything seemed to tie back to this idea of doing things quietly/as peacefully as possible. I respect that, even though I don't think I'm very good at it! The key seemed to be to do things extremely slowly and with lots of care. On top of learning the traditional way to make tea, the monk who taught us was very open to questions and shared a lot about what the ideology means to her personally, and shared lots of anecdotes where Buddhism allowed her to free herself from the confines of a normal life. I thought it was interesting to hear her take on marriage and how it limits your worldview. I wonder if other Taiwanese people feel the same way about monks who spend all their time at the temple! Overall, it was super interesting getting to hear a perspective so different from my own, and how her life experiences have affected her beliefs. I really want to learn more about Buddhism now!
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