TAIWAN: THE DAY I BECAME A TAOIST

 

In the Mountains in Taiwan

Mom and Chris, along with Todd, arrived in Taipei, Taiwan in August 1992. My parents were in Taiwan to study Chinese for a year in a language school on Yang Ming Shan before their assignment with the US Embassy in Beijing. This was standard practice for US State Department diplomats before being sent to China. Each day, Mom and Chris had five hours of intensive Chinese, then would study three or four hours at night, while still, getting paid their salaries. 

The United States did not have official relations with Taiwan but they had what was called the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). When Mom and Chris arrived, they had to resign from the State Department and sign a contract with AIT, as had everybody else assigned there. AIT functioned like an embassy. After that year, they would officially get hired back to the State Department. 

But they lived like students in a three-bedroom, ground floor apartment that had smelly toilet drains, on a busy side street in Tien Mu.  It was far from luxurious but perfect for learning the language since they were in the center of the action. Taipei was enormous and crowded.

Chris, Mom, Todd, and friend in a restaurant in Taipei, 1992

In December of 1992, I spent my Christmas in Taipei. We gorged on our favorite foods on Christmas Eve, and then watched the movie "The Killing Fields." These were two consistent Christmas traditions for our family. This was something my mom's mother came up with: everyone got to choose two favorite foods, no matter how strange and we would have a kind of a potluck dinner, and then watch a movie. I carried on this tradition with my own kids, and so did Tauna and Todd. 

We also took a couple of trips outside the city and went to a place called Pear Mountain, known for their tea growing, and then on to a town called Tien Xiang where we stayed in a Catholic monastery. But my most memorable moment in Taiwan was the day our cook, Lin, took Tauna and me to her apartment in the city to meet her Taoist teacher Pei Huey Chang. We had just spent the entire day at the University in several English classes speaking to the students about life as an American college student and politics. So this was our chance to get a different cultural experience.  

At Lin's apartment, we sat awkwardly on the sofa while sipping tea and eating Chinese snacks that we didn't particularly like but ate anyway just to be polite. As we struggled to make small talk with Lin and her Taoist teacher Pei Huey Chang. More Chinese women entered the apartment, but we noticed that, as soon as they arrived, they put on long tan robes. Lin brought over two robes for Tauna and me, and we put the robes on, again, to be polite. They then took us to the top floor of the apartment building and into a room that was in a Taoist sanctuary that had a strong scent of incense. There were statues of different Buddhas on a mantle with the happy Buddha in the middle. In front of these Buddhas were lit candles and food such as fruit and cookies. In front of the mantle, the women from the apartment kneeled. Lin said to us: "You two stay in the back." Relieved, I vigorously nodded, thinking she had brought us to this sanctuary to watch the ceremony. 

Tauna and I stood there in the background and watched the women bow down to Buddha while they prayed and chanted. I thought how nice it was watching the Taoist ceremony while gazing out of the window at the crowded Asian city below. The women were speaking in Chinese, and since I didn't know any Chinese, I didn't know what they were saying, and it was all very exotic and wonderful. 

But suddenly, I caught a word I definitely knew. It was a word they kept repeating over and over again. "Xi Zhen Yi," the women said in unison. This was my name in Chinese. They also kept saying: "Si Ma Yu." This was Tauna's name in Chinese. 

Lin turned to us and smiled and then I knew we had been lured into a trap. She told us to kneel down in front of the happy Buddha. We did, and then she told us to repeat a Chinese phrase after her, and we did that too. We did everything she told us to do as if we were being pulled along by some unknown force, or just a strong desire to want to be open-minded, and, again, polite. 

Pei Huey Chang approached me first, perhaps since I was the oldest, and chanted something while she did these hand gestures over my head. She then pressed her middle finger hard between my eyes and said this was the gateway to my soul. Then it was Tauna's turn. 

After, she had us bow down to Buddha three times and told us that Buddha was giving us three treasures. Pei Huey Chang first showed us how to put our hands together and then put our hands to our hearts. I guessed that was the first treasure. The second treasure was to open up the gateway to our soul, and the third treasure was five simple words. She told us to say these words two times and not to forget them (I didn't). "These words are very important," Pei Huey Chang said. "If you are in danger or upset, you just say these words in your head and Buddha will protect you." 

When the ceremony was over, the women in the robes congratulated us, even though I still wasn't sure what for, and gave us literature about Taoism. Cameras clicked and flashed as Lin and Pei Huey Chang posed next to us with wide proud smiles like it was our graduation day. I would do anything to have a copy of those pictures now and wonder if they are hanging up in some Taoist sanctuary in the mountains of Taiwan. Tauna and I as the young, naive Western converts. 

When we got back to our apartment in Tien Mu, Mom asked us what we did and Tauna said, "I think we became Buddhists today."