Food, Lanterns, Books and Indians

Today was full, in every sense of the word. Big meals, and a full 10 hour stretch of fabulous activities in the lovely Kaohsiung.

First off was a gorgeous and sumptuous eight course meal with my wonderful host sister, Emily.

And this was just the salad!

Next up was a movie, which we picked based on the criteria that it a) was in English, b) was playing soon, and c) had seats available, by which complicated logistics we arrived at Contraband, which I give a very sincere rating of "meh, glad I saw it considering our other options, but it's not going to win any Oscars."

Then we went outside and saw that it looked like this.

LOVE.

Then we met up with Margaret and James and headed for the Love River to watch the final day fireworks of the Lantern Festival. They were PHENOMENAL, and went on for a solid six minutes before ending, gloriously, like this:

Yeah those are lanterns. That came out of the fireworks. I really don't even know how that's possible, but it's what happened. There are simply no words for how amazing it was.

Then we looked around at the lantern-designing competition, and, though Hanmin eluded us, we eventually located the one designed my the kids at Qingshan!

Also, it's the year of the dragon now.

Next up was a long walk through the balmy evening and then another delicious meal, this time at a Western-style cafe near Margaret's school. It was great, not just because of the food (yummy tomato risotto and fried fish!) but because of the atmosphere: absolutely perfect for the Lantern Festival.

Still surrounded by lanterns as we ate!

It was 10pm by the time I got home, foot-weary but oh so happy and oh so full.
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So far as one new things go, I'm going to go ahead and pass on all the obvious things, like first lantern festival etc, because I saw two of the most absurdly wonderful things today that I have ever seen. And captured photo evidence that they exist. And they are both, surprise surprise, new! So, here goes.

Thing 13:
This is one part new thing, one part thing I just don't understand about Taiwan: book covers. Walk into any bookstore in Taiwan, and you'll find, amongst the other offerings, table upon table of New York Times Best Seller list titles. "Great," you'll think to yourself, "They have English books here!"

So you walk over, pick up the nearest book and go to flip it open, only to discover that it opens on the wrong side. This should be your first clue. "O...k...." you say, "That's weird..." Then you look down. And discover that, English cover notwithstanding, it's written entirely in Chinese. And you don't speak Chinese.

"But Bekah," you say, "That makes sense! The books are in Taiwan, and they are originally famous in English, so it's logical to advertise them in English but actually sell them in Chinese. Right?"

And maybe you have a point. But I just can't say the same about the book I saw today, perched among at least three other similar covers to the same book:

One Hundred Years of Solitude. Wait, isn't that a Spanish book? Yep, good ol' Gabriel Garcia Marquez was 100% Colombian, amigo, meaning that this book was originally written and published--in Spanish--as Cien Años de Soledad. So why exactly is it titled here only in Chinese and English, with no glimpse whatsoever of the original title or language?


No one knows for sure. It's one of the unsolved mysteries of Taiwan.


Thing 14/Unsolved Mystery of Taiwan 2:
Tonight, as I mentioned previously, I went to the last night of the Lantern Festival at the Love River here in Kaohsiung. There, I saw a strange sight. A very strange sight.

This strange sight.

There I was, strolling along the Taiwanese riverside, which was all decked out for the last bit of celebration of the Lantern Festival, itself the end of the celebration of Chinese New Year, when I hear the oddly familiar sound of traditional Native American music. I look up, and see three people dressed in stereotypical Sioux Indian full dress--which is odd in itself, as I can't determine if they're actually Native American, just your run-of-your-mill Caucasians, or Taiwanese. In full Sioux get-up.

Another track came on over their little boom box, and I realized that wasn't the only thing that was off: their "traditional" music was in Spanish. Say what? Compensating for the Garcia Marquez title above, I guess. But really, I would have been slightly disappointed if the non-Native American Native Americans hawking their wares at a Chinese festival in Taiwan hadn't been singing in Spanish. You know, for continuity's sake.