It is said that most Taiwanese practice a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and folk beliefs. But what are these folk beliefs and how are they
practiced?
Taiwanese folk religion is centered on the concepts of attracting good fortune and repelling ill fortune. Pursuing Good Fortune -- Taiwanese Folk Cultural Artefacts, the new special exhibition at the Museum of World Religions in Yonghe (
The entryway to the exhibition is narrow and crooked and co-vered with floor-to-ceiling pictures of brick walls and curving Chinese roofs. It gives you the sense of walking through the narrow alleyways of a small town somewhere in Taiwan.
The first section of the exhibition is dedicated to "spaces" and contains a temple display and a residential display. The representation of a traditional Taiwanese temple is much simplified yet unmistakable: Imposing, angry-looking painted generals stand guard on either side of the door; stylized mythical beasts sit atop beams and pillars; and the altar inside is illuminated with red light.
Special attention is given to the beasts in this section of the exhibition. The sculptures of phoenixes, dragons and lions all have their specific duties of protecting the temple. For example, a dragon-fish beast called the aoyu (
Some of the more humorous items in the residential display are the clay "wind lions" (
The section on personal items contained mostly pendants worn to ward off evil spirits, including the donut-shaped coin pendants that are still popular today.
Some of the exhibition's most beautiful items were the ceremonial baby clothes in the stages-of-life section. The little caps adorned with embroidered mythical beasts were especially
adorable.
As informative as the exhibition is, non-Chinese-reading visitors should bring a Taiwanese friend along with them to
translate, as the artefacts' descriptions are in Chinese only.
The NT$150 ticket for admission gets you into the rest of the museum, which contains some lovely displays, such as intricate models of major world temples. To get to the museum, take the Nanshijiao MRT line to Dingxi Station and wait for the free Sogo shuttle outside Exit 1. The museum is in the same building as Sogo.
Exhibition notes
What: Pursuing Good Fortune ? Taiwanese Folk Cultural Artefacts(
Where: Museum of World Religions, 7F, 236 Zhongshan Rd, Yonghe, Taipei (
Telephone: (02) 8231 5966
When: To Feb. 10, 2006
In Taiwan there are two economies: the shiny high tech export economy epitomized by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and its outsized effect on global supply chains, and the domestic economy, driven by construction and powered by flows of gravel, sand and government contracts. The latter supports the former: we can have an economy without TSMC, but we can’t have one without construction. The labor shortage has heavily impacted public construction in Taiwan. For example, the first phase of the MRT Wanda Line in Taipei, originally slated for next year, has been pushed back to 2027. The government
July 22 to July 28 The Love River’s (愛河) four-decade run as the host of Kaohsiung’s annual dragon boat races came to an abrupt end in 1971 — the once pristine waterway had become too polluted. The 1970 event was infamous for the putrid stench permeating the air, exacerbated by contestants splashing water and sludge onto the shore and even the onlookers. The relocation of the festivities officially marked the “death” of the river, whose condition had rapidly deteriorated during the previous decade. The myriad factories upstream were only partly to blame; as Kaohsiung’s population boomed in the 1960s, all household
Allegations of corruption against three heavyweight politicians from the three major parties are big in the news now. On Wednesday, prosecutors indicted Hsinchu County Commissioner Yang Wen-ke (楊文科) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), a judgment is expected this week in the case involving Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former deputy premier and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is being held incommunicado in prison. Unlike the other two cases, Cheng’s case has generated considerable speculation, rumors, suspicions and conspiracy theories from both the pan-blue and pan-green camps.
Stepping inside Waley Art (水谷藝術) in Taipei’s historic Wanhua District (萬華區) one leaves the motorcycle growl and air-conditioner purr of the street and enters a very different sonic realm. Speakers hiss, machines whir and objects chime from all five floors of the shophouse-turned- contemporary art gallery (including the basement). “It’s a bit of a metaphor, the stacking of gallery floors is like the layering of sounds,” observes Australian conceptual artist Samuel Beilby, whose audio installation HZ & Machinic Paragenesis occupies the ground floor of the gallery space. He’s not wrong. Put ‘em in a Box (我們把它都裝在一個盒子裡), which runs until Aug. 18, invites