Meet Koxinga, a medieval ruler of Taiwan Island who is revered by the Taiwanese. This is the third shrine built to worship his heroism and contribution to Taiwanese society. Flanking Koxinga is his right hand man - whose function is given away by the sword in this hand. No clue why he isn’t holding the hilt. Anyway, he’s called the “Sword General”, and he’s credited with uniting various factions. I have a sneaky suspicion it was either “join us” or “die”.
There are massive decorations in this temple, and people kept arriving to pay their respects to Koxinga. Here is a longer view of what surrounds Koxinga.
I have no clue who the two dudes are in front of Koxinga, but one looks suspiciously like the Sword General. All the flowers and incense were people arriving to leave them. The grounds of this temple were particularly beautiful. Here are some pix of the outside including a beautiful cherry tree in bloom as well as lotus blossoms. And, yes, it’s raining for the first time during an excursion.
As we moved from attraction to attraction, I took pictures of places on the street that interested me.
These are street scenes from Kaohsiung, Taiwan which is on the southern end of the island. Unfortunately, we had another tour operator who insisted on talking to us continually. My impression was the Taiwanese are fooling themselves about the possibly of the Chinese coming to reclaim their island. We saw numerous Taiwanese war ships and more military presence than I’ve seen elsewhere. The prevailing Taiwanese idea is because they make computer chips, the United States, ie “Trump” will not allow China to reclaim the island. Boy, are they deluded. I’m afraid the current unilateral war the US is engaged in is going to embolden other countries to also unilaterally take whatever they want. We’ll see, but I think Taiwan is ripe to finally be plucked back into the Chinese fold. It was apparent in Hong Kong that China was exerting major controls over information and what is ‘allowed’. Our next Kaohsiung attraction was another temple named the Chihkan Tower. I suppose because it was two stories it could be construed as a tower. As in the previous temple to venerate Koxinga, the Chihkan Tower was highly decorated in the Chinese style.
The grounds also had a koi pond with koi large enough to feed a family of four. Koi are a type of carp, so they probably aren’t good eating for several reasons: a pierced gallbladder can poison the meat; they are bottom feeders and taste ‘muddy’ unless specially washed, and they have tons of tiny bones. Typically, these orange/patterned fish are considered ‘ornamental pets’ and are very expensive to buy - too expensive to eat.
(Personally, I find these fish creepy.)
This tower was beautifully decorated and included the equivalent of gargoyles which tend to be stylized dogs or lions on top of the roofs. The red tile on temple roofs are a way of keeping good luck inside a house and repelling evil spirits. It also helps there’s a lot of red clay in this region to use for handy building material.
Originally, the Chihkan Tower was used as a fort. It’s pretty easy to see that function from the way the interior is designed. Here are a slew of pictures:
The final stop on this excursion day was a temple commemorating Confucius. It was also red - a lucky color in Taiwan, and all of China. Right across the street was the ubiquitous 7-11 which is more than just a convenience store in Asia - it’s a drug store, a fast food store, and so much more. Plus, they are everywhere, and they always have an ATM which ares they ideal for getting the local currency. So here are pictures of the Confucian temple as well as some street scenes.
I’ve tried to incorporate more pictures because I can’t seem to get a link to all my pictures. When I get home, I will update the blogs and include links to my thousands of pictures.
1 comment:
Great commentary. I’m having trouble planning a trip to the Tetons much less trying to book your world class Southeast Asia tour. I do enjoy the history.
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