Eat, Drink, Pray

Is it a province? Is it an S.A.R. (Special Administrative Region)? Is it a country? It is not clear and therefore Taiwan is one of those ambiguities of our time. It all started in 1949 when the then ruling party in China, the Kuomintang, realized that its defeat in the Chinese Civil War was imminent and decided to relocate the seat of government of the Republic of China to Taiwan, leaving the communists in the mainland. Along with it went China's gold reserves and some two million refugees that included soldiers, businessmen, landowners, monks, artists, gangsters, peasants and intellectuals. There were now two Chinas: the Republic of China in Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China in the mainland, both claiming to be the legitimate government of China! In 1971, the UN recognized the People’s Republic of China as the only lawful representative to the United Nations and since then, Taiwan (to this day officially called the Republic of China) has operated as a de facto independent state. It is not recognized as a country but maintains diplomatic relations (formal or informal) with nearly all nations.

Whatever the official status may be, Chinese influence in Taiwan is clear, especially when it comes to food. If you are an adventurous eater, Taiwan will be heaven. Not only is food cheap but also ubiquitous, with at least one eatery or restaurant on virtually every block, some serving very out of the ordinary delicacies: pig ears, pig’s brain soup, caramelized duck tongue, caramelized pig blood cake, duck head. And someone please tell me how one would go about eating a head.

I confess that for a vegetarian like me, Taiwanese cuisine was at times horrifying but one local product I couldn't get enough of: tea. Taiwan has the perfect environment for growing tea (high mountains in a subtropical climate with a fair amount of rainfall) and the country is an important producer of teas, with some varieties of its oolong called "The Champagne of tea" . Tea has long been a part of Taiwanese culture so it is no surprise that tea houses and bars abound. There are countless flavors and you'd need months to try them all: melon, plum, rose, jasmine, ginger, pudding milk, grass jelly milk, red bean milk and others you'd never think could end up in a tea but that turn out to be delicious. And perhaps the most exotic of all is the pearl milk tea, also known as bubble tea, a Taiwanese invention from the late 1980's - an iced tea mixed with milk or fruit, with some tapioca balls (the pearls) thrown in. It is very popular in Taiwan and though not my favorite, it is definitely worth a try.

If food and tea feed the body, temples feed the soul. As of 2009, there were almost 15,000 registered temples in Taiwan, nearly one for every 1,500 residents. They are not, however, merely houses of worship; they also play the role of art museum, community and recreation center, marketplace, pilgrimage site and sometimes even fronts for money laundering. Taiwanese temples are very colorful, generally with multitiered roofs decorated with the four spiritual beasts: dragons, phoenixes, tortoises and qilins (mythical hooved creature associated with the arrival of a sage). Though Taiwanese temples can be very similar architecturally, the atmosphere inside them varies widely. Some are very lively such as the Longshan Temple in Taipei where daily hour-long chanting draws throngs of worshippers while others such as the Confucius Temple are low key and conducive to silent contemplation. But one thing they all seem to have: the door gods, very fierce-looking creatures that look ready and willing to kick your ass. But worry not...their job is to ward off evil spirits. I just wish they were real and could wipe out some of the evil in the world today.