Today (5/22), we explored some of the temples around Taipei. We first started at Banka Lunghan Temple.
I first noticed the waterfalls when we walked into the temple, this is something I also noticed when we were at a temple we found last night. All the temples we have seen so far have koi Fish, which are way bigger then any I have previously seen. Additionally, the trees at the front of the temple appeared to look to Bonzi trees, but I do not think they were. One thing that I found interesting is when people who were coming into the temple, they would leave offerings that would depending on what or who they were praying for. I noticed that this temple also contained a lot of red and gold, something that I have noticed is common in Taipei. I noticed that a lot of the people who were praying were older and were women, I wonder though if this is because we were there during working hours. I found the moonstones interesting and the way that people would use them to ask questions. I think that this is especially interesting to me because I never grew up with a religion, so it is interesting to see how much people use it to guide their lives and decisions. While on the visit, I was wondering what the lanterns that were placed around the temple symbolize and if they were ever used.
We continued onto Xingtain temple and I immediately noticed that this temple contained a lot more brick then the past one. I also found it interesting that while this temple seemed to act as a community space, it was founded by a very wealthy man. This was different then the previous temple where it was created and paid for by the community. It is interesting how these temples still take have things for people to buy in order to maintain them, I would have assumed people would help maintain them for free because it is there community space. Additionally, I noticed that this temple had a lot of benches and inside spaces, atleast more then what was at the previous temple. It seemed that most of the people praying were older, but that also could have been due to work hours.
We finished up the day by going to the Palace Museum, although interesting, it was very crowded. A lot of the exhibits we were discussing were hard to see because of the amount of people standing in front. I found almost all the exhibitions we went to very crowded. I think that I could have got a better experience out of this if we had gone earlier in the morning. Although it was crowded, I still thought the information we learned about was very fascinating. Firstly, I found the hairstyles we discussed at the beginning and the reason why they wore such a style to be interesting. The jade and porcelain I was able to see was gorgeous, and it was interesting to see how the “barbarians” had more colorful ones then the emperor’s.