Taiwan Cherry Blossoms (台灣山櫻花)

March 12, 2016 in Photo Post, Landscape, Taoyuan

It's Sakura season here in Taiwan and the Cherry Blossoms are blooming all over the country! Taiwan has a few different types of cherry blossoms that bloom around the same time of the year and people all over the country are making their way to hot spots like Yangming Mountain (陽明山), Wuling Farm (武陵農場) and Danshui's Tian-Yuan Temple (天元宮) to see them.

The most popular blossoms are the pink blossoms that you see in Japan referred to as "sakura" (吉野櫻) but the cherry blossoms I'm posting today are Taiwanese cherry blossoms and are from a tree that is endemic to this beautiful island.

Taiwan's Cherry Blossoms known as "Mountain Cherry Blossoms" (山櫻花) are deeper in colour than the typical Japanese sakura (さくら) and when the trees turn a dark shade of pink you have no choice to respect their beauty.

I'm not going to waste too much time with information on this one - I took these photos in a park here in Taoyuan (莒光公園) where there are about a hundred trees that bloom in early March. I hope to get to Wuling farm in the next week or two to get shots of a different kind of cherry blossom.

That's it for me. Enjoy the photos!

If you're in Taiwan, don't miss the chance to enjoy a place with these blossoms and if you have any questions about where to see them, don't be shy: Comment below with your location and I'll give you some suggestions based on where you are!

Gallery / Flickr (High Res Shots)

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Taiwan Lantern Festival (2016年臺灣燈會)

March 01, 2016 in Photo Post, Travel, Taoyuan

The Spring Festival (春節) is a month-long festival which begins with the Lunar New Year festivities and ends with the Lantern Festival. In Taiwan, the Lantern Festival (元宵節) is celebrated in a few different ways - The most well-known of all the festivities is the Pingxi Sky Lantern festival (平溪天燈節) just outside of Taipei and the most intense being the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival (鹽水蜂炮) in Tainan county.

The Sky Lantern festival is a world-renowned festival and rated by several travel sites and news organizations as a must-visit bucket-list type of festival. I've gone to the Sky Lantern festival a few times and while it is quite beautiful, I do have my reservations about it and the planning that goes into it.

The Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival on the other hand is a festival that I'd love to take part in but tend to be quite apprehensive about it because I'm not a big fan of firecrackers being lit anywhere close to me. Having them exploding in every direction around me would be extremely stressful and I guess I'll add it to my own bucket-list as a 'conquering your fears' kind of thing.

Apart from these two festivals, cities and counties in Taiwan put on a their own Lantern Festivals with a national festival that alternates locations year-by-year. The Taipei Lantern Festival (台北燈會) is usually held at the Flora-Expo park (花博公園) near the Yuanshan MRT station (圓山捷運站) and is always a good time. The buzz this year though is that the Lanterns aren't very good and the giant monkey lantern seems to be the laughing stock of the Internet community. I'll probably visit in the next few days just to see and I'll likely make a post about it as well.

This year the Taiwan Lantern Festival (臺灣燈會) is being held in Taoyuan from February 22nd to March 6th and is near my home which means the national festival is much more accessible to me than it has been in years past. The national festival is always much grander in scale than all of the smaller festivals and when you visit the festival you can expect to see lanterns of all shapes and sizes as well as spectacular fireworks shows and performances by local celebrities.

The national festival also attracts quite a few more people than the smaller festivals and the county government here estimates that over twelve million people will visit this year making it important for tourism in Taoyuan county.

The festival is being held in Zhongli (中壢) near the Taoyuan High Speed Rail Station (桃園高鐵站) which makes it extremely convenient for visitors coming from outside of the county to attend with high speed trains from various cities and free shuttle bus services from all the local train and bus stations. You don't need to drive a car to get to the festival and it's a much better idea to rely on Taiwan's excellent public transport rather than sitting in a traffic jam and paying for parking.

Getting to the Lantern Festival: English | 中文 | 日本語

The Lantern Festival this year is huge - It is split into several different themed sections and is spread out over a wide area - I arrived just after 6:00pm and by 10:00pm, the time it was about to close, I still hadn't seen everything that was on display. You might feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of lanterns on display and the different sections available, so I'll share some of my impressions of the different sections to give you a better idea of what not to miss!

The theme of the festival this year is "Golden Monkey Offering Peaches" (金猴獻桃) which sounds quite clever in Mandarin, but probably not so much in English. The meaning behind it is simple: This is the year of the "Golden Monkey" (金猴) and the festival is being held in Taoyuan (桃園) which translates as "peach garden" so the Golden Monkey is offering Taoyuan peaches to the rest of the country which can be interpreted as a way for Taoyuan to showcase itself and the vibrant culture here.

As mentioned above, the festival is split into six different sections which are: Technology World (科技世界燈區), Religious Blessings (宗教燈區), Fairytale Dream Factory (童話夢工廠燈區), Taoyuan Legend (桃園故事燈區), New Utopia (新桃花源燈區), an International Lantern section (多元交流燈區) and the main display area (台灣燈會主燈) being the biggest and most important.

The section that you absolutely have to visit is the main display area (台灣燈會主燈) - This is the area where you will see the most lanterns as well as what organizers boast as history's largest lantern, the 26 meter tall Monkey King - an important character from the 16th century book "Journey to the West" (西遊記) - that puts on an interesting light show every half hour.

The monkeys you will see in your nightmares.

The technology section is pretty cool, but there aren't many lanterns and it is more of a celebration of Taiwan's technological and design prowess. The coolest part of the technology section is the Universe Tower which is a starry sky made of glass with lights that are constantly changing colours.

The other interesting part of the technology section is a covered pavilion of sorts that looks like it has a lot of white balloons on the roof. There are touch-screen computers connected to a pole and will take your picture and put it on one of the balloons for a short period of time. It is pretty cool and if you want to use it, you may have to wait in line for a little while if you're visiting on a busy day.

I didn't spend much time in the children's section because it seemed to me like it was just a bunch of advertisements posing as lanterns and was probably just a section that was put up to make the corporate sponsors of the event happy.

The international section was a long walk away from the other sections and had some lanterns from Hong Kong and Macau. There was also a section set up nearby showcasing Taiwanese Indigenous culture with lanterns dedicated to each of Taiwan's recognized Indigenous groups as well as life sized lanterns of a person from each tribe wearing their traditional attire.

The religion section irritated me a bit, not because the lanterns sucked (some of them were really cool), but because some of the religious people that were very eager to "have a talk" with the people browsing the sections. Each time I passed by a temple or area set up by a specific religious group they attempt to call me over to try make small talk and then want me to do something.

The worst of all of them however had to be the Christians who figured that because I was a white guy (just like Jesus) I must be a Christian. They followed me around a bit and no matter how much I ignored them they kept trying. I felt like I had to quickly escape the religion section, which sucked because there were some pretty cool lanterns inside.

I didn't have enough time to visit the New Utopia or the Fairytale Dream factory, but I kind of regret not visiting the New Utopia as it seems the section had some lanterns on the water and they would have made for some nice photos.

The festival can be a bit intimidating with it sheer size and if you are visiting on a busy day, then I highly doubt you'll be able to see as much as I was able to.

Unfortunately when the festival started, the weather didn't really cooperate and the crowds weren't as large as what was originally expected. This changed over the weekend with nicer weather and crowds of people numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The weather for the next few days seems like it is going to be quite nice, so I hope a lot of people take the time to come over to Taoyuan to enjoy the Lantern Festival and of course all of the good food and fun that Taoyuan has to offer.

I'm going to visit the Taipei Lantern Festival in a few days to check out what Taiwan's 'greatest' city has prepared. I also want to see just how ugly the giant monkey is as it has become quite infamous online over the past few weeks!

I've uploaded quite a few photos for this post and you're welcome to browse through the gallery below - If you want to see them in a more convenient way, click the link for my Flickr below to see them all on a single page with larger sizes.

I'll end by wishing everyone a Happy Lantern Festival (祝大家元宵節快樂) and especially for all my friends and followers here in Taiwan - let's hope that the year of the Golden Monkey is a much safer and prosperous one for this beautiful little country than last year!

2016 Taiwan Lantern Festival - English | 中文

Gallery / Flickr (High Res Shots)

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Ming Hwa Yuan (明華園戲劇團)

October 30, 2015 in Photo Post, Taoyuan

In my last post about the Taiwanese Opera I explained the cultural importance of the opera and how its origin in Taiwan was directly related to the history and development of the people living in this tiny country over the past few centuries. The opera has had to work hard to evolve and adapt to modern audiences and has also been quite lucky to have survived through the various precarious political situations the land has had to endure.

Part of what makes the Taiwanese opera so special is that it transcended the boundaries defined by the various styles of opera in China evolving into a new form of folk art that rejected a rigid system of rules for a more simplistic approach to performance art and storytelling. All of this adaptation and evolution has formed into a unique art form that clings to the roots of Taiwanese culture and identity and is the reason I argued in my previous post that the opera (while having origins in China) is actually quite different and is inherently “Taiwanese.”

Taking into consideration the history of the opera and its struggles with modernity, the opera could have ultimately become a distant memory without the efforts over the last century of the Ming Hwa Yuan Opera troupe (明華園戲劇團) which has worked tirelessly to promote the opera not only in Taiwan, but around the world.

As a Canadian, it is easy for me to compare what Ming Hwa Yuan has accomplished to our very own Cirque Du Soleil. When you think of performing arts in Canada, especially in Quebec with our vibrant French culture, Cirque is probably one of the first things that comes to mind. Likewise Ming Hwa Yuan’s accomplishments and worldwide performances have done pretty much the same thing for preservation and putting Taiwanese opera and culture on the world map on a smaller scale.

The opera troupe was established during the Japanese colonial period in 1929 by Mr. Chen Ming-Chi (陳明吉) in what is now known as Pingtung county (屏東縣.) The Japanese initially allowed the local cultures inhabiting the island to continue some of their practices. When war broke out however, the Governor instituted a policy named “Kominka” (皇民化運動) or the “Japanization” of the locals which meant that it was mandatory to adopt Japanese language, culture and customs in all aspects of life as well as facing entry into the Imperial army. Despite these policies, Ming Hwa Yuan was one of the few troupes permitted to continue public performances and since being established hasn't ever stopped.

The Japanese were forced to relinquish control of the island when they were defeated at the end of WW2 allowing for another (foreign-led) regime to claim sovereignty over the island. In 1945, a few years before their ultimate defeat, the KMT-led Republic of China set up shop on the island bringing with them around two million refugees who needed some form of entertainment. This allowed for a short-lived opera renaissance with over five hundred registered troupes throughout Taiwan.

I say short-lived because as I mentioned in the previous post, modern technology and imported movies from the US and Japan soon became much more popular than the traditional opera. The KMT government in exile also started to institute its own version of “Kominka” which required all the people living in Taiwan to learn and speak Mandarin. Most of the opera troupes eventually disbanded due to their inability to attract large audiences, earn a living and put up with the police state that Taiwanese people had to endure during the martial law era.

This is where Ming Hwa Yuan differentiated itself from the rest and is the reason why this opera troupe has been so successful in carrying the banner of Taiwanese opera around the world. Ming Hwa Yuan has endured due to its ability to evolve – especially when it comes to adapting new elements of theatre, modern technology and keeping track of the social trends in the nation. The troupe is one of the few in Taiwan that makes use of elaborate stages, costumes and props as well as professional lighting and large screens that offer subtitles.

Ming Hwa Yuan performances are quite a bit different than what you would normally see on the roadside or at temple performances. The actors who perform with the troupe are the best in the country and are well recognized figures in society. If you have a chance to see them live, you will be treated to a show that runs several acts and is usually almost two hours long.

I've had the luck to attend two Ming Hwa Yuan performances during my time in Taiwan. The first performance was just after I arrived and I had almost no idea what was going on, but the visual spectacle was enough to say that I enjoyed it a lot more than the Peking opera performance I saw in China.

The second time to see them was completely different. I spent some time getting the shots I needed for a contract I was working on, but then I got a seat and sat down to enjoy the show and get a few shots for myself as well. This time I had the aid of improved listening skills in the Taiwanese language and subtitles to reinforce the parts I didn't get. The story was allegorical and an interesting take on family structure and the filial nature of Taiwanese society. The conclusion was quite moving and cheers erupted from the crowd when they got their happy ending.

Curtains on another successful performance!

Keep your eye out for Ming Hwa Yuan performances – They play in outside theatres and large concert halls alike. There are also several different groups within the company, so it is really easy to find them. There are a lot of things to see and do in Taiwan but I think experiencing one of these performances should be at the top of anyone's bucket list and is an experience that will teach you more about the land, the culture and its history than a trip to the top of Taipei 101 will do!