no....they really have lost their minds

As everyone knows I am back in Taiwan. My coming back has definitely caused quite a stir around here. Rumors had been going around about why I wasn't going to come back. Some people thought my parents were mean and wouldn't let me come back even though I wanted to. Other people thought that I had to go to America to get married (this paired with me accidentally wearing my promise ring on my left hand has made for some interesting explanations.) =( But that's not the only thing everyone is talking about. They believe that both Naomi and I have come back more "beautiful" than when we left. They seriously argue and develop theories about it. One theory is that we had surgery done. A few people think that we found love in America and love makes us beautiful. A third theory (and my personal favorite) is that the food and weather in America is better for us. Other people just assume that our "glow" will go away with time and plenty of rice.

So this is Taiwan. This is what they talk about. Sometimes I just don't know whether I should laugh or cry.


okay so it is stinkin' amusing ;)

Sometimes timing is just BAD!!!!!!!

So what if I came back to Taiwan and I found that everyone is out of their minds?!!!!!!?!?!?!

I know blogs are only fun because of pictures, but I don't have any pictures that match my blog...so I will work on that. I'll try to get pictures up soon.

Yesterday was ghost day. Actually this entire month is ghost month, what made yesterday special was that it is the only day when everyone feeds the ghosts. They call the ghosts, their kind brothers. Maybe in their culture the ghosts could indeed be their brothers. But they don't want ghosts hanging around their homes. So they feed the ghosts on this one night of the year. They put a table outside and fill it with food. It could be packaged crackers, cookies, chip or soda or tea or specialty dishes of scrumptious home made food. It could be juice boxes, wine or even baby bottles full of milk. They set all of this on the table and place bowls of burning incense on the tables to attract the ghosts. The ghosts eat their fill and hopefully won't come back until the same day next year. I don't think everyone who sets food out believes these things, however this sort of thing is such a big part of their culture that they practice "feeding ghosts" more as tradition than actual conviction.

It was strange being there during ghost day. There were tables full of food lining the streets, a heavy smell of incense burning and to top it all off firecrackers!These things would only go off the moment you least expected them to go off. This place definitely keeps you on your toes.

We ate dinner at our family's house that night and were in sort of an awkward situation, because some of the food in front of us was the food they had offered to the ghosts. It's one of those things where you have to decide which is more morally wrong eating food offered to idols or offending our host family by not eating the yummy food they prepared. We ate it but did not ask any questions. We felt that if we asked about it and they knew we knew that we knew we were eating food offered to ghosts they would think we were okay with the custom.

They always return to the scene of the crime

Taiwan and it's people are definitely different, but I've found that Taiwan has a way of making both it's native people and it's foreigners strange. I'm going to focus on an especially strange group of foreigners in this amazing place, the Schweitzer teachers. These people are a special group of Christ serving, squid eating, purpose planning, kid loving, Mandarin attempting, adventure craving, attention demanding English teachers. I got into Taiwan on the 26th and I found myself thrown into the midst of these amazing people all amassed together for orientation and purpose infusion. I can't say how much fun I had meeting all these people and talking with them. I know now I have a group of people I can call and depend on even while I'm in a foreign country.
So orientation wasn't without it's set of adventures. I'm telling you they follow me wherever I go. It's possible that they are really following Naomi who I tend to follow everywhere as well...anyways... Naomi and I went for out team meeting to a little coffee shop and outside our coffee shop we noticed some really inappropriate posters written in English outside a club. So we decided we would tear them off the post (but only after we finished our coffee, of course). So we went outside and there were lots of people around so we were waiting for our chance to rip the posters off without anyone noticing. This wasn't working, there were too many people. Finally, we both drew courage from imagining ourselves as someone else. Nomes imagined herself as a sidewalk clearer so she started picking up trash around the area while I pretended like I worked at the club and we needed to replace the posters. It worked! I walked up and ripped the posters off feeling like I was doing my job and Nomes continued to clear the garbage around me...so we both walked off with a handful of garbage in our arms. We took a different way back to the office to make sure we didn't lead any police or any angry REAL club members to the Chen's house. But I must say it was exciting...all the way back we were imagining different scenarios of people seeing us and reporting us and arresting us as soon as we left the Chen's. Despite all of our conjured up fear we still ended up walking by the crime scene to see if anyone had replaced the posters...they had.