The 2nd Week

This week we went on many MRT trips to various places in Taiwan. On Tuesday we visited龍山寺 (Longshan Temple) in Taipei, which was a Buddhist temple built in the 1700’s. The temple was decorated with very intricate carvings and statues. On the roof, there were many statues of dragons and I learned that all of the scales on the dragons were individual pieces that people used to glue on by hand. I also learned that the architecture of the building was done in the southern style because the roof was concave and the trimming on the top of the roof curved up. The tour guide called this the “swallow tail” design because the trimming looked like a swallow’s tail.

The inside of the temple was just was intricate as the outside and was divided into three sections. In the front, there was a fairly basic altar that people where people could pray. The middle of the temple housed the Goddess of Mercy, which had an incredibly intricate altar that was overflowing with carvings and painted with gold. The Goddess of Mercy in this temple also had a very interesting story attached to her. During WWII, this area of the city was bombed and the temple burned down. However, although everything in the temple was destroyed, the statue of the Goddess of Mercy was still intact and standing. Because of this, the people especially revere this statue. More scientifically, we learned that the reason the statue didn’t burn down was because it was made of porcelain and porcelain doesn’t melt of burn even in extreme heats.

In the back of the temple, there were many altars for various Gods such as the God of Literature, the God of Maritime Voyages, and the God of Justice. Although the temple was originally Buddhist, this section also housed Taoist Gods. I was surprised that the temple would be willing to house Gods from another religion. In my experience, religions typically are very separate and do not intermingle in any way with each other. In fact, most of the time, it seems like religions tend to argue with each other about which one is actually true. There have been many violent historical events that were started by religions that did not want to accept other faiths, such as the Crusades and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. The fact that this temple was willing to incorporate Taoism and encourages people of all faiths to come is a very new concept for me when it comes to religion. I personally think this is a very progressive idea and this idea of acceptance should be present in more religions.

On Wednesday we visited 淡水 (Tamsui), in order to visit 淡江大學 (Tamkang University). The University was situated on a mountain and overlooked the 淡水河 (Tamsui River). It was a very beautiful campus and had great views of the city below. When we got there, we received a very warm welcome from the Dean of International Affairs, who gave us a very nice pen from the University. We ate lunch with the Dean and then had a tour around their campus. We visited their library which was incredibly large and had many resources for the students. Each floor focused on a specific genre of literature and on the 5^th floor they had a large media selection. I liked how they had places in the library where students could watch media assigned by their classes and group rooms that students could reserve in order to watch movies and other media with other students. Their library seemed much more organized than McKeldin at UMD and seemed much easier to use. I was also surprised by how quiet the library was. Even though libraries are supposed to be quiet, McKeldin is never very quiet. There are always groups meeting in the library and people studying with friends so it is also quite loud and you can always hear people talking. However, at淡江大學 the students completely respected the no talking policy and it was completely silent. Even our director was whispering when he was explaining the history of the library.

Visiting淡江大學 and淡水 was very enjoyable and I am very excited to visit Ilan & Hailian this weekend.