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Day 3

Today, we shifted from analyzing the types of business in Taiwan to learning more about Taiwanese religion. We started our day by visiting a temple that blends Daoist and Buddhist customs in a temple constructed during the Japanese colonial period. I took a Buddhist religion course with one of the leaders on this trip, Professor Young. So I found seeing the things I learned in his real-life class particularly interesting. I loved the beautiful architecture and the purposeful placement of the different dragon and phoenix sculptures on the roof of the building. We followed this temple visit with one more modern one, and it was interesting to see the difference in the kind of people visiting these temples. I noticed that the first temple was more of a tourist spot with fewer religious acts happening and more pictures being taken, and younger people populated the first temple more than the second. Older people prayed more than younger people, making up a significantly larger chunk of the population in the second temple. We ended our day with a visit to a museum housing some ancient Chinese relics taken from the Forbidden City. I liked this day because of all the questions I got to ask myself and the knowledge I gained from being in these temples in real life instead of reading articles about what these temples are supposed to be vs what they are. 

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