People of the Night (中壢夜市人像)

View fullsize

- Introduction - 

One of my personal goals in photography this year is to improve my skills with street photography. I'm really interested in the compelling work street photographers are able to produce that tell stories of the lives of every day people and that was an area I wanted to really work on. 

I wanted to come up with an interesting way to take these kinds of shots and integrate them in a Taiwan-related theme as a photo project that would be done over a period of time. What I decided to start with is taking candid street-style portraits of the vendors at night markets and to tell a bit of their story. 

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be posting blogs each with five street shots from the night market and I'll introduce a bit about what that person sells - similar to what the "Humans of New York" photoblogger does.

 The first few entries are going to focus on my favourite Night Market: The Zhongli Night Market (中壢觀光夜市) and then when I've exhausted all the types of stalls there, I'll move on to other popular night markets around the country.

If you're not sure what a night market is, its basically a street or an area set up during the night which sells various kinds of food and various other things. Night Markets are excellent places for cheap food and you can have a four course meal at a night market for only a few dollars. Night Markets are important in Taiwanese culture and are often the best night life you can experience in certain areas outside of Taipei as you'll find people of all walks of life enjoying the carnival like atmosphere. 

The Zhongli Night Market is over 700 meters long and has several rows of vendors. Browsing a night market is always a pretty cool experience for foreigners who come to Taiwan as its a great way to experience a bit of the liveliness of Taiwanese culture. 

---

1. Mahjong Boss (麻將老闆)

Gambling is a pretty popular activity in Taiwan - this game of Mahjong is all in good fun though as you only have to pay 100NT ($3.00US) to play six rounds of Mahjong with the possibility of winning a huge stuffed animal. Ironically living in Taiwan for as long as I have - I still haven't figured out how to play the game - so this stall isn't one that I frequent very often, but its normal to see young Taiwanese couples walking through the night market with the boyfriend carrying a huge stuffed animal for his extremely happy girlfriend. 

View fullsize

2. Fresh Cakes from the back of a Scooter (雞蛋糕老闆) 

This guy makes some mean cakes. I don't actually know how to translate these beauties into English, but they're basically just animal shaped pancakes that are cooked on an iron griddle. This guy has been in business for over 30 years and his product is always a nice way to end your night at the night market!  You can get a freshly cooked serving for around 20NT (less than a dollar) and they're always cooked fresh and crispy. 

View fullsize

3. The Lonely Fortune Teller (算命者)  

This guy has been at the night market for as long as I've been living here. He's there every night and he always dresses well - even on extremely hot summer nights. I don't pretend to understand the methods to a Taiwanese fortune tellers mayhem, but they are popular here and some people only make important life decisions based on the advice of one of these guys. I posted this shot a week or two ago on Facebook and one of my photographer friends cleverly commented that as a fortune teller, you would think he would be able to predict a slow business night. 

View fullsize

4. Shoe Salesman (鞋子老闆) 

Taiwan is a very country with its finger on the beating heart of fashion - People young and old dress in the latest styles from Japan, Korea and the West. When something is popular fashion-wise, you can be sure that you'll find the latest knock-offs available at the night market. I'm not sure how much business is done by the night market shoes salesmen, but if his falling asleep on the job is any indication - he's probably not that busy.

View fullsize

5. Shaomai King (燒賣王)

Shaomai (燒賣) is a type of steamed Cantonese dumplings usually eaten with Dim Sum. The dumplings are very colourful and come filled with pork, vegetables, shrimp and other types of seafood. Shaomai isn't typical Taiwanese night market fare, but these little dumplings are tasty and cheap. My favourite flavour is the wasabi pork dumplings, a typical Taiwanese fusion of Chinese and Japanese cuisine! 

---

People of the Night Part 2

Yuan Guang Temple (圓光禪寺)

View fullsize

I spent a lot of time growing up studying the various forms of Buddhism and how the philosophy varied from country to country - That interest ultimately led me to become involved with Shambhala, a Buddhist group started by a Tibetan Lama who had escaped to the west just after the 1959 uprising in Tibet. I don't consider myself a Buddhist, nor do I follow any other religion, but I have a lot of respect for the core values of the philosophy.

I didn't actually spend that much time learning about the spread of Buddhism in Taiwan so when I arrived in Taiwan, one of the things that quickly became a hobby was visiting all the various temples and taking the time to enjoy the treasure troves of traditional Taiwanese art inside them. I often tell people that there is not much you could learn in a museum about Taiwanese history that you wouldn't learn from a Taiwanese temple. 

One thing that interests me about the temples here is that you often find several different religions all housed within the same building coexisting peacefully.

People have argued with me that all these religions (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and various folk religions) all are more or less derived from each other or at least related therefore there is no need to have conflict with each other- but to that I would counter: Are Judaism, Christianity and Islam not related?

I personally believe that this is not a reflection of the religions you find here, but a testament to the kind of people you find in this country and that these trivial arguments and wars we have in the west over religion are pointless.

View fullsize

When it comes to Buddhist monasteries in Taiwan however I start to get a bit confused as to what is actually going on inside them. Buddhism is rooted in a philosophy of living a simplistic non-material life, and if you become a monastic, that simplicity and lack of materialism is supposed to go to the extreme. 

I find that the major Buddhist organizations in Taiwan (Dharma drum mountain (法鼓山), Fo Guang Shan (佛光山), Tzu Chi (慈濟) and Chung Tai Shan (中台山) all seem to subscribe to some strange notion of modernity and take the Vatican’s “bling bling” approach to religion which to me seems a bit ironic considering the way Buddhists should adhere to a lack of attachment to worldly objects.

Any visit to these monasteries in Taiwan tends to be a bit overwhelming at the displays of opulence put on by these organizations. These displays of monetary wealth likely go hand in hand with Chinese culture and I guess it shouldn't be that surprising to see that they take the “go big or go home” attitude towards life that is a reflection of the Chinese notion of having “face.”

I think the the majority of the money spent on these massive palace-like monasteries would be better spent on charity and improving the lives of the poor. 

View fullsize

One group that doesn't seem to go overboard with their decadence is the “Yuan Kuang” (圓光) Ch'an Buddhist group here in Taoyuan. 

Ch'an Buddhism (禪宗) is better known in the west as “Zen” and had its origins in 6th Century China before it spread to Korea, Japan and Vietnam centuries later. 

The Yuan Kuang temple was established in 1918 during the Japanese Colonial period by a monk named Miao-Guo who was so influential at the time that he was invited to Japan to teach the Japanese royal family.

When he came back to Taiwan he built the Yuan Kuang Temple here in Zhongli (中壢) and through it he attracted young people to experience monastic life while at the same time offering high school and college education courses to them. Since 1987 the temple has been renovated and they have started to expand the school to an area near the monastery where they are now offering graduate courses. 

View fullsize

The design of the main temple stresses simplicity. When you walk in you are greeted by a statue of the Laughing Buddha known here in Taiwan as Mi Le Fo (彌勒佛) with a paved walkway to the steps of the temple with a garden on both sides. The front of the temple has a modestly sized statue of the Buddha of Compassion Guanyin (I say modestly sized because most of the temples mentioned above have statues taller than 75 meters.)

When you walk up the stairs you are greeted by the entrance to the shrine/meditation room with some small statues of the Buddha at the door as well as an incense burner in the middle. 

The shrine room is beautiful, but once again it stresses simplicity and doesn't go overboard like the other monasteries I've visited. It's very quiet inside and there is always a nice breeze coming in through the windows. For an organization that has obvious weath, its refreshing to see the Yuan Kuang group maintaining a simple monastery and not expanding to the extent that many of the other monastic orders in Taiwan have succumbed to. 

If you plan on visiting the temple, you are more than welcome, but I stress that this monastery has quite a few monastics, so turn off your cellphone ringer and be quiet to respect the people who are trying not to fall asleep while meditating. 

If you're travelling through Zhongli, the Yuan Kuang temple is a nice stop over for an hour or so. The people there are kind and they don't push religion on you, tell grandiose stories or ask for donations like so many other places like this do.

The map below shows how to get to the monastery, it is a short drive from Zhongli or the Taoyuan High Speed Rail station. I don't think there are buses that run through the area, so it would be best to arrange your own transportation. 

 

Website: 圓光禪寺 (Chinese-Only) 

---

Gallery / Flickr (High Res Shots) 

HUF x Thrasher Stoops Asia Tour

View fullsize

HUF team member Brad Cromer sampling some of the facilities at the Hsin-Shih skatepark. 

HUF x Thrasher Stoops Asia Tour - Taiwan

A friend and former co-worker of mine who has already been back in Canada for years posted on Facebook that the HUF x Thrasher Stoops Asia Tour (#STOOPSASIATOUR) world team was going to be putting on a demo here in Zhongli. I had a bit of free time that day, so I packed up my camera and went to check it out. 

When I arrived at the park I was a bit surprised to see so many skateboard-enthusiasts out to enjoy the show. The skate community in Taiwan is a young one, but it is growing very quickly - the crowd was full of foreigners, but there were also a lot of young kids, teenagers and even some adults taking part in the days festivities, all with skateboards in hands which to me shows that the community is pretty diverse. 

View fullsize

Brad Cromer performing a kickflip

The show started around 4:00pm and featured a bunch of local skaters attempting to pull of some cool tricks to make some cash. This part seemed a bit unorganized and somewhat indicative of Taiwanese culture as kids were flying back in forth in all directions and running into each other non-stop. Lessons can always be learned though because when the pro’s finally arrived they skated in to a lot of fanfare and took their turns pulling off some pretty awesome tricks and not getting in each others way. 

View fullsize

The demo lasted about an hour and each of the pro-boarders performed various tricks using all of the facilities this new skatepark had to offer - Some of the tricks I’m sure most of the Taiwanese skaters didn’t even know could be achieved at their park and I'm sure will be emulated in the future. 

View fullsize

Kevin Terpening

Of all the pro’s I paid most attention to Kevin Terpening as he seemed to me to be the most skilled and getting the most air. He had made several attempts to pull of a pretty difficult vertical wall slide and even though he was mildly successful each time he tried, he wasn’t really happy with his result. 

The rest of the pro’s who took part in the event finished their demos around 6:00 after performing various tricks such as rail slides, kick flips and skating through the bowl and on the half pipes yet they all more or less stopped and waited for a frustrated Kevin to finish his wall slide. 

I was lucky enough to be in a good position with my camera to get a good angle to catch the slide when he finally pulled it off, but in retrospect I should have been on the opposite side to catch his face rather than his back. As this was my first time shooting pro-skateboarders I could probably be excused though. 

View fullsize

Kevin Terpening performing a wall slide

After the demo was over, all the kids lined up for autographs and for a meet and greet with the pros. I had another engagement, so it was time for me to make my way back home for a quick shower and then out the door again. 

I have to say that I really appreciate what the city government has done over the past few years. This kind of event never would have been possible in years past and I always would have travelled to Taipei to see something like this. Now, the people in Taipei have get off their butts and come here - which is never a bad thing. 

---

Gallery