A day out in Lukang.

February 8, 2012. Written in Taipei, Taiwan.

A day out in Lukang.

Together with my Taiwanese friend S (whom I was at school with in Japan) I visited an old historic town called Lukang. We left her home in Taichung by bike, but in 10 minutes we arrived. I was surprised because I had suspected it to be at least 40 minutes to get there. When I mentioned this S laughed at me and told me that we had only arrived at the bus stop. From here, we would go by bus to Lukang.

On the bus, everyone was looking at us because a Taiwanese girl and a white guy were speaking Japanese together. An old couple that was sitting in front of us asked how something like that was possible. She politely explained.

Lukang made me think of Kamakura. It had the same kind of structure in its streets, and of course the major reason to compare the two is that Kamakura is also an historic city. Because of the Chinese new year the streets were completely full, so full that it was almost impossible to walk. Many famous dishes were sold on the street, and I had some good fried shrimps.

We first headed to the most famous temple in this area, called the Tien-Hou temple.

There were so many people burning their incense here, that it was so smokey you would think a fire had broken out. The temple itself showed many similarities with the others I have seen in Taiwan, very bright and colorful, especially a lot of gold. S was very kind to explain me all sorts of things about the temple, just like she had done the day before in a temple near her home town. Such a sweet guide!

Next, we headed to another famous temple called the Longshan temple, which literally means Dragon Mountain. It looked really authentic compared to other temples in Taiwan/China. Especially in China, people tend to restorize temples many times and don't hesitate to give them fresh paint-overs every year. Therefore, the temples look pretty much like complete replica's of historic things, rather then the actual thing itself.

On the town-map, I found a temple of the same name as my beloved Man-Mo temple in Hong Kong, although the name is of course pronounced differently in Mandarin. I told S that I wanted to visit this place, and together we searched and found. The temple itself however, showed no similarities at all to the Man-Mo temple of Hong Kong. Man-Mo literally meaning Martial arts and literature, is a quite common concept in Chinese culture. Also in Japan, there is a saying called 「文武両道」, which states a person that knows both literature and martial arts as the perfect example. In modern days, this saying is used for someone who is both good at studying and sports.

In Lukang, there is also an alley called the "Mo-ru alley" which means the breast touching alley.

This alley is so narrow, that if a beautiful girl would pass you from the other side, you would touch her breasts while passing by. S is a beautiful girl, but sadly she didn't come from the other side and was just walking in front of me.

On the way back in the bus, it all started again. People were looking at the Japanese speaking white guy as if they were seeing a flying cow. That's what life is like for a Japanese white guy in Taiwan.