Exploring the Fusion of Business, Culture, and Religion in Taiwan: The Heart of Asia

Archive for the Blog Post Category

Sunday, June 1st, 2025

Day Eleven – Kaohsiung

We hit many temples in Kaohsiung that were built within a variety of time periods. On the first visit, we saw a pair of pagodas built in the 1970’s called the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas. These pagodas are an iconic attraction in Taiwan built by Lotus Lake, right next to some more ancient temples that we also saw/visited. The bridge to the pagodas forms a zig-zag pattern to prevent the spirtual presences from coming in, as ghosts are said to only move in a straight line. To properly explore the pagodas, you enter the dragon’s mouth and leave through the […]

Continue reading »

Posted by on June 1, 2025

Sunday, June 1st, 2025

Day Ten – Kaohsiung

Day Ten was a relaxed day traveling to Kaohsiung and visiting the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. The train ride was pretty short again, I recall it being little over 40 minutes. I was working on my journal and by the time I wanted to take a break and watch some tv we were already there! We had lunch at a local department store; I think it was a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi, which is kind of like a Westfield in my opinion. I spotted some strawberry mochi that I snagged on the way out. It was a lot more complex […]

Continue reading »

Posted by on June 1, 2025

Sunday, June 1st, 2025

Taiwan: Day 13 – Back in Taipei

Today we took the bullet train from Kaohsiung to Taipei, and spent the day exploring some temples and a museum. To be completely honest this day wasn’t one of my favorites – the heat and humidity made being outside really uncomfortable, and I found it hard to really pay attention to the places we visited as the weather just felt so unpleasant. The museum did contain some really interesting history about Japanese presence in Taiwan and the disappearing of certain people/officials, however I got exhausted pretty quickly and lost the energy to read through all the factoids. Taiwan’s hot environment […]

Continue reading »

Posted by on June 1, 2025

Sunday, June 1st, 2025

Taiwan: Day 12 – Fo Guang Shan

On our last day in Kaohsiung we visited the Fo Guang Shuan museum/temple, which was located around half an hour outside of the city. The place was grand and we probably could have spent days exploring everything there. There was a long, slightly elevated pathway, leading up to a giant, golden statue of Buddha, with a temple underneath it. The pathway was also lined with pagodas, which held different purposes and offered varying activities. One of our tour guides, who was a monastic nun, led us through a meditation ritual in a prayer room. The room’s center piece was a […]

Continue reading »

Posted by on June 1, 2025

Sunday, June 1st, 2025

5/30

Today we started the day with class where we took a deeper look into the intersection between business and religion in Taiwan. I found one article particularly interesting about the ethics behind Buddhists investing in the stock market. Business and religion have conflicting values, and often don’t intersect, so the discussion of the ethics behind temples applying for IPOs and Buddhists investing in the stock market raise many questions of morality. Buddhist and temples investing in stocks means they are affiliated entirely with that business, which includes even controversial practices, like harmful environmental practices, scandals, etc., which conflict with Buddhist […]

Continue reading »

Posted by on June 1, 2025

Sunday, June 1st, 2025

Taiwan Day thirteen (6/1)

Today (6/1), we headed back to Taipei. I was excited to return to our origin point, although I liked exploring the southern cities, I think there is some comfort in returning to a place I know. The first stop in Taipei was to a Confucianist temple. I visiting this temple was extremely interesting to me because I noticed a lot of differences when comparing to a Buddhist temple. One thing that immediately popped out to me was instead of using figures for the Gods, there was their written name. I found this interesting and in contrast to Buddhism because Buddhists […]

Continue reading »

Posted by on June 1, 2025

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Want to learn more about Bucknell?

Request information