Trip to Taiwan, conclusion
Dec. 29th, 2006 06:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilaiThis week was much less exciting. My gums behind my lower left second molar were inflamed and somewhat tender to the touch, so on Monday I went back to my cousin for a brief checkup, who applied some topical medication and told me it should be better within the week. Afterwards I paid a visit to my Aunt #5, who talked to W and I for an hour, mostly about how I can apply to med school (with the underlying assumption being, of course, that I am continuing my studies....).
The next day we drove up to my grandmother's grave, cleaned up her tombstone a bit, and sealed it to the wall with some silicon caulk.... wait a minute, I guess I have some explaining to do. So in Taiwan, graves are shaped like the top of an armchair. The tombstone is affixed what would be the back of the seat, the coffin itself on top of the seat cushion with one end touching the back, a little shrine to the Earth God just inside one arm, and a miniature furnace inside the opposite arm. The entire gravesite is tiled over (including the coffin). So if the seal between the tombstone and the back is damaged by water, gravity takes over and you can imagine the mess it would make.
Late Tuesday afternoon I was watching TV, and W came into the living room asking me if I had noticed the earthquake. I said, "uh, what earthquake?" and then noticed that a power cable dangling nearby was swinging in the air. Apparently I was just unobservant because my parents also noticed the ground shaking downstairs. Only later did we find out that there was in fact a quake of magnitude 6.7 down south in Hengchun, which killed 2 people when a three-story furniture store collapsed and wounded some 42 people in various other collapses and fires. Luckily up in Taipei it only felt like a quake of magnitude 2....
The last full day we were in Taiwan, my parents wanted to take us out to lunch, so we dropped by a restaurant serving cuisine from Xinjiang for a special treat. It wasn't exactly an experience to write home about, but I rather enjoyed my leg of lamb and noodles. And all of us tasted the three different soups they had to offer, which were all meaty broths with generous helpings of julienned ginger. While I was eating I looked around and noticed the hangings on the wall--a traditional Uyghur tapestry, a large poster explaining Uyghur cuisine, and a map of the Silk Road. I didn't get a chance to get a good look up close, but I did manage to take a few snapshots on my camera phone.
The next day we drove up to my grandmother's grave, cleaned up her tombstone a bit, and sealed it to the wall with some silicon caulk.... wait a minute, I guess I have some explaining to do. So in Taiwan, graves are shaped like the top of an armchair. The tombstone is affixed what would be the back of the seat, the coffin itself on top of the seat cushion with one end touching the back, a little shrine to the Earth God just inside one arm, and a miniature furnace inside the opposite arm. The entire gravesite is tiled over (including the coffin). So if the seal between the tombstone and the back is damaged by water, gravity takes over and you can imagine the mess it would make.
Late Tuesday afternoon I was watching TV, and W came into the living room asking me if I had noticed the earthquake. I said, "uh, what earthquake?" and then noticed that a power cable dangling nearby was swinging in the air. Apparently I was just unobservant because my parents also noticed the ground shaking downstairs. Only later did we find out that there was in fact a quake of magnitude 6.7 down south in Hengchun, which killed 2 people when a three-story furniture store collapsed and wounded some 42 people in various other collapses and fires. Luckily up in Taipei it only felt like a quake of magnitude 2....
The last full day we were in Taiwan, my parents wanted to take us out to lunch, so we dropped by a restaurant serving cuisine from Xinjiang for a special treat. It wasn't exactly an experience to write home about, but I rather enjoyed my leg of lamb and noodles. And all of us tasted the three different soups they had to offer, which were all meaty broths with generous helpings of julienned ginger. While I was eating I looked around and noticed the hangings on the wall--a traditional Uyghur tapestry, a large poster explaining Uyghur cuisine, and a map of the Silk Road. I didn't get a chance to get a good look up close, but I did manage to take a few snapshots on my camera phone.
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Date: 2006-12-30 10:42 pm (UTC)In taiwan the 'home for the dead' industry is quite prosperous, up on top of Jinbaoshan is one such facility, which has everything from traditional horseshoe/armchair shaped ones, to the towers that houses hundreds at a time, to entire vaults that you can purchase for your entire family (so you stay united in life and in death). And accomodations for the living include a vending area/restaurant, a church next to a mosque next to a buddhist/taoist hybrid temple... The Taiwanese had, IMHO, made visiting ancestors a high art.
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Date: 2007-01-01 08:38 pm (UTC)