Adventures on Alishan

A couple weekends ago, some of the CELA teachers had the opportunity to go part way up a nearby mountain to see some aboriginal dancing... this is what we were told... and it turned out to be exactly that... a mountain, dancing... and so much more!






We arrived to this special location on Alishan early enough to see the people practicing for the show... and early enough to be volunteered to be a PART of the show. Callie volunteered James and Michelle to take part in the "marriage ceremony." Thankfully, I was in the bathroom at this point and escaped also being volunteered... until later.

Some of the clothes of the various native people of Taiwan.

Michael found a spot in a "put on our aboriginal clothes" race. Even though everyone tried to help him, the announcer said to Michael at the end, "Too bad, man. Taiwan man win!" Still, Michael did a pretty good job representin'.

Who's that goofy girl hip hop dancing to an aboriginal song remix? Yup, it's me. Callie didn't really let me escape any embarassment at all. :) It was a great dance song... I definitely felt like dancing... just maybe not in front of 300 Taiwanese people. Ah well.

The leaders of the tribe... beginning the ceremony.

The "wives" waiting in the wings.

The "husbands" waiting in the wings.


Getting spanked was part of this marriage process... to demonstrate the discipline that will be needed to make it work, I think. Both people get spanked. Here's a picture of Michelle with a pretty big wind up from the lady administering the swat.


Some of the "happy couples." (And just to clarify, no, Michelle and James are not a couple... but they did get their picture in the paper, so now all this county thinks that they ARE... ha ha... they're good sports.)


Here's the governor of the region (if I understood correctly) enjoying the whole thing.

A student of mine who I found out was there when he came up to offer us some sticky rice candy... after the whole dancing thing. Funniest part is that his older brother is one of Michelle's students, so he saw his teacher's "wedding."



Our group's picture with someone important... or at least he was wearing a great outfit. I think he was one of the elders... either for real or just for the performance.


Post-performance, everyone was actually invited onto stage to join in a type of circle/arm-linked dance. I don't have picutres of this because we were all dancing. People were also going around pouring rice wine into our mouths, even if you tried to say, "No thank you, I already had a taste...." it didn't really work. The dance we did reminded me of the Jewish dance we would do in junior religion class and on choir tours (for those of you who know what I'm referring to).

After the dancing subsided, sticky rice making commenced!


Followed closely by a pig-chasing activity. This was hilarious!

Ha ha ha ha.... this picture makes me laugh a lot... especially when seen after the one just above... that's the same pig, runnin' for the hills.

Thomas and I started to man gate #3, encouraging the pigs to run our direction... "Here, piggy, piggy, piggy!" Well, I did that. Thomas actually just yelled directions at the other people, "Make the pigs run THIS WAY!"

The chase is on.

A tree that I thought looked wonderfully like one of J.R.R Tolkien's Ents.

A little place we sat and waited for a bus for... a while. There had been some miscommunication about the time, but it turned out to be a blessing! We had time to take out the Bible, do a devotion, sing some praise songs, and then enjoy some silly story time. :) (Inspired by a story-telling presentation we had seen two weeks ago at Chung Cheng University.)

Here's Michael telling a story... I love this piture.

The view.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." -Psalm 19:1-4a

photo fun

I saw this on the side of a scooter. :)


Dancing to Dragostea Din Tei... a few folks decided to put together a "Christmas rock band" and hoped to rewrite "Silent Night" to this tune. HA! I love it. :D

The stage on which, in a month, the CELA Christmas program will take place... very much in public! Here's hoping for beautiful weather!

Somewhere Out There on a Thursday Night

Every Thursday night I somehow end up dabating whether I want to/can/should go into Chung Cheng Univeristy for English club. It's kinda like debating if I want to run or not. I know that I'll like it. I know I'll feel energized afterwards, but working up the energy to actually go and do it is a whole nother story. I have this discussion with myself. "Self, there is a lot you have to get done here. You could really get caught up on grading, enjoy some reading, relax, get caught up on some email, and it would be a good thing." This is all true. But then I also think, "But self, you always have fun when you go and you can't imagine having stayed at boring 'home' and missing out on all the fun that is a sure thing at this English club." (I don't actually address myself as self, in case you were worried.) The latter thought seems to prevail, and I push grading and emailing aside once again to either bike or hopefully hop a ride on scooter out to this beautiful university on a hill for some sort of fun with some fascinating university students.

Tonight the topic was love. Actually, I had been informed during the day that the topic would be "pick up lines" so that's REALLY what convinced me to go this time. It was interesting. It was both hilarious... as Sam presented the "top three" pick up lines (I'm not sure who judged this) and as all the students applaued them as they were explained and madly scribbled them down, no doubt hoping to put them to use. (I later had a discussion with someone about how we really don't walk around saying these things in America.... or do we?) We sang both "Mr. Lonely" (yes, the song that sounds like a hamster is singing for half of it) and "Somewhere out There." But it was just... interesting too. After playing some "Honey, if you Love Me" (a circle game with one person in the middle at a time trying to get someone out in the circle to smile and thus be put in the middle) we broke into smaller groups. We had three questions to discuss. The first, "What is true love?" the second, "Do you think true love exists?" and the thrid, "What life experiences have affected why you think that?" I was struck with how the students in my group who didn't know Jesus tried to define love and how they viewed love between people. It's just so.... empty... worldy. When I shared, I didn't think I could speak without mentioning what I knew to be the one true love - Jesus. Hmm... what am I trying to say here? How do you begin to talk about relationships and true love and respect and sacrifice without knowing the ultimate love shown to all the world? I don't know. It's really thought-provoking as I try to put myself in another's shoes, someone who doesn't know Christ, listening to this weird-o talk about a God who has show the ultimate love by dying for us and washing away our sins and failures so that we may have the hope of and confidence in true, perfect love... and the hope of heaven. I try to think to myself, "How can I make it sound not weird?" But I guess the truth is that we simply are called to put forth the Gospel of Christ in it's plainness, simpleness, and perhaps odd-ness or foolishness... cause God says He works through His Word. So why apologize for the oddness of it?

It's just a stark contrast of points of view of love... rather hopelessly wishing for some fairy tale that you've never actually seen in real life here on this earth VERSES the assured hopefullness of a God who HAS demonstrated True Love for us here on earth and who, by His example and Holy Spirit, does enable us to love others... and to have relationships of committment, care, and respect. Blast. But we sure mess it up sometimes this side of heaven, don't we? And that's why we need Jesus.

Okay, well, at any rate, Thursday night English Club proved once again to be a wonderful time, and so I can't make a bad decision with the Thursday night options it seems. Staying and grading and communicating at the Practice is good. Going and playing and building those relationships is good too. You gotta love times like that. Either way's a winner.

In other news, here's my photo journaling of the week...

The CMS teachers all got together this weekend to do the latest "Life Education" (A special class offered about once a month for the CMS students at "zero period"... aka... very early period.) video. As I'm not a CMS teacher, I wasn't in on it a whole lot, but I had a blast being a helping hand when filming time rolled around. Here're some pictures from that. They were doing the parable of the unmericful servant. It was hilarious. And Mike should win an Oscar for his directing. Seriously, you should see this guy work.

Setting up the scooter scene. Please take note of Kevin's orange wig and almost-sparkly blue cape. Costuming was key in helping the actors and actresses get into character for the filming.


Setting up another shot. I just like Sam, the Jolly Green Giant taking over camera one while James has the handy cam ready to go as camera two... and the peasants are awaiting their "day two at work" scene.


This is a picture of CELA from the roof of the senior high building at CMS. (There was a significant amount of this video taped on the roof as that was where the Andy, the King of Aidrocnoc [Concordia spelled backwards] was seated, watching the going ons of his kingdom.)


From one part of the roof to another, the director getting a prize-winning shot of the king.


And at the highest point on campus... and perhaps for many miles all around, the unmerciful servant is shown mercy... so actually, this was before he proved himself to be unmerciful.


You can barely make out the skyline of ChiaYi through the smog.

I liked this shot of the tallest part of the roof as they were filming. That is the sun behind them.

Pride and... Disappointment

Well, I've been informed that the new movie version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice came out in the States this weekend. I looked online to see when it would be released here in Taiwan (as I've eagerly been awaiting the moment for months now... since I read the book this summer actually) and found that it was simply not being released. The closest I could find was Hong Kong in Feb. Ah well. My brother and I plotted my flying home to see it with him. :) But alas, the logistics of the matter could not be worked out :) and therefore, seeing the film will have to be something to look forward to at a much later date. But I must confess I'm disappointed. I've watched the trailer for it quite a few times now since someone showed it to me summer, and I still get goosebumps of joy every time I watch it. Ridiculous? Maybe, but that's okay. (Side note - actually, it may just be the music. Have you seen this trailer? The music for the second half is fantastic.) Why do I like this story so much? I have no idea. Actually... no, that's a lie. It's probably the same reason why any girl who has read the book likes it so much - we want to be Miss Elizabeth Bennet, witty, strong, independent, intelligent, well spoken, and slowly and unwittingly falling in love with the handsome-hearted, kind and good, albeit hard to get to know Mr. Darcy. (Who actually loved us first!) Yes. That's probably it. That explains my special admiration of other such movies - Sense and Sensibility, Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and so forth. So there you have it. I hear the movie is getting good reviews, so if you're looking for something to do one of these evenings, I'd recommend going to see it. If you aren't a romantic and therefore don't get happy goosebumps from such movies, at least I can tell you you'll probably get a good laugh or two.

Okay, time to end this silly entry! Something of more substance next time. I promise. :)

Somebody's Getting Married!!

Dear Ang and Pete, Happy Wedding Day to you!!!!

Wish I could be there to celebrate this special day! But thoughts and prayers are with you!

God's continued blessings! You two are a beautiful team :) and it's very exciting that today you become one! May your love for each other continue to grow as you grow together in Christ... as God's redeemed and dearly loved children! :)

"I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." - Ephesians 3:16-19

O happy day!

A Campin' We Will Go

We have taken three trips with the CELA staff the past four weekends. Those of you who receive my newsletter, the text of this blog while sound familiar. But Here are some pictures to go with. :) Some of the pictures on this entry have been borrowed from other peoples' cameras. :)

The first trip was the weekend of “Double Ten Day” or “10-10.” This is a holiday of the Republic of China and we had school off as it landed on a Monday. (Interestingly, 10-10 is the only planned day off of school until the Chinese New Year break, which will begin on January 20.) The trip was a Saturday night camping trip to a beautiful spot called Sun Moon Lake. One lady in the office had been planning this for some time and it ended up being very well organized. (Very detailed and full schedules for any ‘vacation’ are part of the culture here.) She is not a Christian, but she requested an hour-long Bible study for Sunday morning. Wow! She also wanted to make sure one of us brought a guitar and some songs. Definitely could not argue with that. Going into the weekend, my prayer was that there would be opportunity for seeds of faith to be planted and that God would allow us to water those seeds and that His Word would work faith. This prayer was answered in a way I did not expect... more on that after these pictures.


On the way to the camp ground, we visited a bamboo park.



We got to paint some bamboo pencil holders. I'll tell you what. If you can name it... or dream it up, bamboo, in one way or another can make it, bamboo can be it. Bamboo is amazing.


Gnomes reminiscent of Snow White's seven dwarfs are quite common... especially in such gardenous areas as bamboo parks... obviously. :)


An oven to make bamboo charcoal (which can, interestingly enough, somehow be used to purify water).


Bamboo hats are definitely in this year. ;)




Bamboo stick dancing. I wish I could somehow let you hear the song the tour guide was singing while we danced. Very catchy.






We also visited an old train station and took a group picture. Here's the whole group that went that weekend!


Though there were some good conversations with those in our group, the Lord provided opportunity outside of the group once we got to the campground. After dinner on Saturday night, it was time to sing. We set out some little circular benches, unzipped the guitar from the carrying case, handed out song sheets, and started in on some camp song favorites. Now, before I go on, I must explain that this “camping” was both like and UNlike what we call camping in the States. There were tents, yes, but that might be where the similarities end. We were actually on a cement patio of sorts and all the other people camping in the area were within feet of us and of each other. Some tents were touching each other. Needless to say, everyone figured out there was something going on when we started singing. And people were curious. And people came over. One even brought a video camera to catch the action. At one point I thought to myself, “Gosh, Lord… I should have made more song sheets.” The children there were especially curious and wanting to join in. We decided to sing some fun kid songs with actions like “The Butterfly Song”, “The Hippo Song” and “Allelu, Allelu, Allelu.” It was a hit. I was amazed at how everyone in our group was playing a part too. Some of the other teachers took charge of teaching words to the newcomers, some were enthusiastically teaching the actions, and I was strumming away with the occasional help of a curious child wanting to try a hand at the pick and strings. It was awesome teamwork, and I thank the Lord for that! Granted, I don’t know how much English many of these people understood, but Jesus’ name was sung and God’s word was there in many of the songs. The singing went on until a fireworks display began across the lake and attention shifted. After that, however, there was an especially attentive mother and three children who kept singing with us. They accepted an offer to keep a copy of the song sheets.


A trail I took for a ways, leading from the campground.



In this picture, can you spy 7 of the 16 dogs that lived at this camp site? (Each of them had a name and a separate bowl as each dog was cared for by the priest who ran the campground.)


Our tents.


This is how each meal was eaten at the camp site, provided by the Catholic priest and the cook who ran the camp site.


Dragon Fruit.



James diving right into the fun that is Sun Moon Lake.


There was canoeing.


Thomas, Anne, and I helping take down one of the tents.

After camping, on our way back, we went by a paper factory. Here is a man making large sheets of paper that will probably be used for calligraphy.


And there's a look at the camping trip. :)