Monkey on Fire and Happy Lunar Year

新年的祝福，平日的希冀，愿你心境祥和、充满爱意，愿你的世界全是美满，愿你一切称心如意，快乐无比。

Xīnnián de zhùfú, píngrì de xījì, yuàn nǐ xīnjìng xiánghé, chōngmǎn ài yì, yuàn nǐ de shìjiè quán shì měimǎn, yuàn nǐ yīqiè chènxīn rúyì, kuàilè wúbǐ.

At New Year and always, may peace and love fill your heart, beauty fill your world, and contentment and joy fill your days.

Happy Lunar New Year! It's that time of year to receive blessings and bless each other. Check out  15 fabulous blessings to share or bless yourself with. If you have time read 108 Chinese New Years blessings.

The astrological predictions are a good time for expats like me to see how Taoism is acdmittadly practiced. I myself am a Tiger (apparently a brave-hearted, humanitarian loner, with a ferocious bite) and if I believed any of this I could read what a Taoist seer predicts  how the monkey year will be for me (to read yours click here). They all seems like doomsayers to me.

Prior to coming to Taiwan I was (and still am) fascinated by the words of Lao-tse and the Yi-Ching and their influences on Chinese culture and cosmology. In the years living here I have aquired immeasurable recommendations about eating and preparing food according to the weather, season, my menstrual cycle. This is Taoism and the principals of the 5 elements in practice on a very practical day to day level. The 5 elements are found everywhere and in everything, each organ, hour of the day, not to mention every year is ruled by this relationship between light and dark and the 5 elements. It gets all beyond my understanding when  I read the writings of Lao-tse which speaks nothing of deities and yet in Taiwan Taoist temples host literally hundreds of gods and goddesses.

According to experts, the year of a fire monkey is seen to bring calamity and unpredictability. Taiwan surely experienced that with the Kaohsiung earthquake and building disaster in Tainan. It was a bereaved way to begin a New Year. Taoist fortune tellers and feng-shui masters offer advice on how to avoid further catastrophe, specifically on what to wear or not wear and placing special amulets in the homes. Women this year reputably will yield more power as indicated my the recent election of Tsai Ying-wen in Taiwan and perhaps Hillary Clinton in the near future. Time will tell but I'm voting for Bernie.

As for myself, I staunchly recommend acupuncture and cupping for minor illnesses which like all Traditional Chinese Medicine is rooted in Taoism, but I deliberately draw the line about which metaphysical tutelary I consent to rule over me.

Monkeying around

Sherry and her brother drove down to Tainan from Taipei. Michael had to look at a property in Kaohsiung for a client. It was great seeing them both but by the end of it I was exhausted! Mostly wiped out from Z's tantrums and she being just plain mean to dear old mom. I don't think she likes sharing my attention from anyone other than her.

Saturday we spent in Tainan. They arrived at lunch time and I took them to a local restaurant that is popular with the Anping locals. Sherry wanted to see the famous Tree House, but after going there didnt want to pay to see a real old and big banyan tree, so we went to the old East Gate and Michael fell asleep under the Banyan tree there. It was Z's naptime so we headed back to mine and for dinner Sherry wanted to find some local fish place that was reccomended in a Taiwanese travel magazine she brought. We didnt exactly find that one but we found a decent fish place and ate eel with noodles, loads of fish, clams, soups, cooked every which way and all washed down with Heinekin. Then we went to a bustling night market and it being 10 or so headed home for another beer and sleep.

The next day we headed down to Kaohsiung and arrived around lunchtime. We had eaten a late brunch on our drive down and I wasnt so hungry, but Michael's client insisted on taking us to lunch, promising it would be small and quick (I was heading for the local Caves Book store). She had made reservations so I relented. Little did I know it was going to be one of those 10 course lunches in a very nice Japanese restaurant. The food was great and I ate as much as I could and drank beer with it and was ready to take a well deserved nap when we somehow headed to Chaishan Nature Reserve for a stroll.

A stroll for Z and I turned into an all out hike and once we broke our first sweat (which doesn't take long) we were itching to climb this thing. Z did great; better than I thought, I didnt have to carry her and she kept up with my fast pace. I occasionally stopped when she needed a breather but she is a natural hiker. Our first encounter with the monkeys  (really they are macaques) scared the crap out of her. I told her before the old,  "leave them alone and they will leave you alone" speech, but she moved too fast too close and one of the monkeys bared its canines at her and some mentally disabled worker, blocked the animal and yelled "NO!" which scared both Z, me and the monkey. She cried, I comforted her, we moved on. About 30 minutes from the top (prob takes 1 1/2 hour to the top, not too big), we got a text to come back, the old lady couldnt walk further, so much to Z and I 's disappointment turned around and headed down.

My foot was bleeding, as I was wearing backless pumps. I wasnt planning on hiking. I can hike in anything but I definitely had the wrong shoes (reminds me of hiking a volcano outside Antigua, Guatemala and the young dude from BC hiking  in flip-flops with zero visibility and the volcanic sand cutting into his toes.) I will go back with Z and do that walk right, to the top and wait to watch the sunset over the sea.

Afterward we drove to the Hsitzuwan beach near the Sun Yat-Sen University and parked to see some of the sunset. Some monkeys were there doing the same thing and some local Taiwanese were feeding them french fries.

It was around 4 and I was ready to go back to Tainan but Michael wanted to eat "bing" (shaved ice sweetened with condensed milk and topped with flavors like red bean, mung bean, cooked barley, fruit) at some famous bing dien near the ferry to  Cijin Island. The place was packed upstairs and down with clients spilling onto the streets. The place is covered in grafiti and we waited for a table. It was nothing special, just huge bowls of shaved ice with fresh fruit served on sticky tables.

And then we made our way home taking the longest, traffic infested way and somehow ended back in Tainan around 830  and it was time to get Z ready for bed and us ready for the following Monday.