Wa eihia kong gohi, bueihia kong daighi

Jules - 郭宏志
30 avr. 2017
8 min de lecture

I'm gonna write this article in English because this blog was basically supposed to be in understood by everyone but because of my laziness I've never written an article in English since September. Some words about the title : It is a Taiwanese sentence which means "I can speak Chinese, but cannot speak Taiwanese" . I learnt a bit of this second language which is talked everywhere as often as Chinese. This month I wasn't a lot to school because of a big pilgrimage that i attended. I'll talk about it later, it was so huge and i really loved it. We had as well two rotary conferences, the school anniversary.

Je suis désolé pour les français, ils fallait bien que j'écrive un ou deux articles en anglais.

The Matzu Pilgrimage

On the first days of March i went to walk along a pilgrimage dedicated to Matzu, goddess of the sea and of the sailors, in Taiwan Taoism. Originally the walk is 300 kilometers long but I only did the half of it because I had a rotary conference at the beginning of the pilgrimage. The pilgrims basically start walking from Dajia at 11PM on the first day and follow the roads down to the township of XinGang, stopping in more that 150 cult places and resting at the symbolic temples of Changhua and Xiluo ( 150 kilometers ). Then , when arrived in singing they would stay there and rest for 1 day, and then go back to Dajia in 4 days. I started to walk from Xingang ( it mean that i did the trip back to Dajia ). My first host father drove me there with his taoist club.

I walked along the pilgrimage with a rotary member called POLO. He already did the entire journey 3 times in the past and I met him this time in Xingang.

The first day we started walking at 9 in the evening and slept for the first night on the side of the road. We stopped under the shop-front and slept on the ground for 2 hours. So we continued walking at 3.30 in the morning and met Vivian at 9. We got in Xiluo together and rested until 11 in the evening.

Vivian took her back to taichung and we walked to Beidou ( it was the shortest step of the trip, we only walked for 4 hours this night. Because it's a lot easier, less crowded and faster, we always walked 2 hours in the front of the goddess and the noisy crowd. This time we wanted to see matzu so we stopped and slept two hours and a half at a temple, witch wasn't really far from beidou and were awoken by the drums and cymbals, announcing that the goddess is arriving, and it happens at every temple on the route. We arrived at beidou at 7 in the morning and my legs were really hurting me at the time because i didn't stretched the day before. I learnt from my unconsciousness haha. Polo didn't have a really go day as well, since he notched his toe two days before, it got infected and made his walk a lot more painful. Never mind, we slept until two pm , we went to the shower-truck were we met the manager of the truck who was really friendly and funny, explaining how it worked and suggesting to come meeting her on the next day. When showered, we met my host dad and mum who joined us to eat dinner. I was really happy about it because my family is usually ultra-busy and they don't really devote time to me but they were there this night and we had a really good time together. When they left we set off for the next step.

We first walked to the city of Yunlin talking all the way and it was not boring at all. Because we already got two day to know each other we found a lot of subjects to talk about. The time ran really fast and it didn't seem like four hours of walking at all. The we rested under the shop-front of a Bank for 3 hours and walked again during five hours to get in Changhua. It was really hard to find a place where to sleep, because we were there pretty late and Changhua was already really crowded. We finally found a space in the changhua council building and went to the shower truck again where we met the the funny lady, again. We rested until 7. Then we checked the weather, and unexpectedly discovered that the weather for this night was a lot worse than the precedent ones : it was planned to rain the whole night, and it as the longest step of the pilgrimage for me. But we stayed pretty optimist and we started walking. Happily, the weather first didn't match with our expectations, and the crossing of the bridge between changchun and Taichun was magic. The wind was really strong but everything was only lights around, on both of the two riversides. However, when arrived on taichung side, we walked for 1 hour but it brutally started to rain. We painfully walked during one hour under the rain but we stopped in a 7-11 to rest a little bit and wait for the rain to stop. But it didn't stop haha. So we walked during half an hour more under the rain and stopped at some kind of a shelter but it was an open-space where the wind would never stop blowing inside. Polo just fell asleep but I didn't : I was too cold and not tired at all, i juste wanted to continue walking. Finally, after one hour I just calmed myself and slept one hour only.

We continued walking through Longjing, Shalu, were we met Astrid, Vivian and Adolfo, and finally got together in Qingshui. we arrived there at 11 in the morning. Polo took me to a gym where i slept 2 hours because I almost didn't rest during the whole night, and was consequently destroyed. At three o'clock we started the last section of the road.

We walked over Dajia river bridge all together and finally arrived at the JennLann temple where we met both of my two host families and a part of my club. We finally went praying in the temple to end the journey.

As a resume comcerning this pilgrimage, I would say it was just a fabulous insertion into Taoist religion, that is an enormous part of the Taiwanese culture. I'm really thankful to Polo because he didn't only assure my safety but made me meet and feel the heart of this culture. I really found in him a good friend. We talked together all along, helped each other, and there wasn't any understanding problem between us, though we were both exhausted. Free food was provided all along the road by locals and I ate so much traditional specialities that i wouldn't have tasted otherwise. I talked Chinese 24/24 during 5 days, since I didn't see my foreign friends or just a little bit on some sections, and even learnt some basic Taiwanese idioms and sentences ( like the numbers, basic needs, introduce myself...). It was something i won't forget. It was one of the goals I really wanted to reach when I arrived in Taiwan in August and heard about it. I walked 150 kilometers in 4 days, during more than 30 hours, with more than two hundred thousand pilgrims. It was nothing but the best cultural part of my exchange I experienced until now. I'm really glad to have come across one of the worldwide most important religions event.

<======= The MAP OF THE PILGRIMAGE

The rotary conferences

Okay, I cannot lie to myself, the conferences were pretty boring all along, but it's a duty for us, exchange students, to attend them. However it meant the end of the dragon dance practices, since we performed on both of the two conferences. The entire RYEMT districts got to be together at the last one so I could meet my friends from the other districts of Taiwan. Every district prepared a performance and showed it to the audience at this time. Since the RYEMT conference was in Yunlin county, I've been assigned to a host family for the night who was really nice. At the conference I met two Taiwanese girls going to my french district, and a guy who's going to ... "La réunion" island.

The school anniversary

Every classes and clubs had their own booth and sold, for most of them, food to the whole school. Mt classmates ( Y2JIA) were selling squid waffles and green bean drinks. I helped them to attract people to the booth at the beginning but i spent most of my time with my club ( ECEC). On week before I had prepared brigadiers, empanadas and 220 french pancakes (crêpes) and sold them to the school to raise founds for the club. This time, we used some of our money in order to make others. Instead of selling them, we made people play a pronunciation game and the would get a pancakes if the foreign language sentence was well-said. It was fun and I ate so many pancakes and other sweet stuff on this day haha.

The cross-district Kenting trip

Rotary took me to a short trip in Kenting with people from the other districts of the RYEMT. Kenting is a village in Pingdong county who's at the mouth southern point of Taiwan. It is known to be the best place where to swim and to chill on white sandy beaches. It was 6 hours of bus for me to get there. Oliver and Astrid didn't join and I was sad on this point but I met a lot of people from the other districts and about 12 ES from 3460 on the way to Kenting and arrived there early in the afternoon. Unexpectedly the weather wasn't really good at the time. We first went to see the Taiwan most southern point which is a natural reserve itself. Then rotary took us to the beach to swim. I really liked the landscapes in Kenting, and except the mountainous areas, it's a lot cleaner than any other place i've been. We were really cold so we went didn't stay really long and drove to the hotel. We spent the night on the Kenting street and we brought our dinner on the beach and stayed there until 10. It was a fabulous evening and i cannot really describe it haha.

On the second day, the weather was a lot better and we swam again in the morning at the beach we were the night before. The water was really clean and we stayed there for 2 hours almost. I went back to the hotel to take a shower. Knowing that it might be the last I could see some of my friends for the other districts, some of them At 11 we left Kenting and drove until 5 o'clock in taichung.

MESSAGE IMPORTANT EN FRANCAIS : J'AI ACHETÉ UN BRIE , QUI A COUTÉ LES YEUX DE LA TÊTE, MAIS QUAND MÊME C'EST DU BRIE, ET JE L'AI GRILLÉ SUR UNE VRAIE BAGUETTE AVEC DU JAMBON ET DU FROMAGE. C'ETAIT UNE SUPERBE SOIRÉE. MES PARENTS M'ENVOIENT DU SAINT-NECTAIRE BIENTÔT !!!!! J'ECRIS EN MAJUSCULES CAR C'EST VRAIMENT IMPORTANT, MERCI.

I'm still doing really good with my family, though I don't really often see them since they work all the day along and my host siblings live at their respective university during weekdays. But every moment I can spend with them is enjoyed.

I'm going to Kenting for two days tomorrow , and in two weeks will be our Penghu trip and Taiwan tour, so its gonna be funnier and funnier.

I'm realizing so much about exchange right now. I feel really lucky to be able to stay in Taiwan longer than the others ES ( I'm going home on the 30th of July because my parents are gonna visit me ), but meanwhile my exchange year will end when those people will leave, they made it as it is. I miss more and more my french family and friends, but i don't want to go and leave all of this. Some people put countdown on their phone to check every day how long they have left. I'd rather enjoy to the end and be surprised when its going to be finished. I don't want to think about that all the time. I don't want to go back to my high school, I don't want to meet again my french routines, I don't want to be limited and stressed by school and exams commitments.

I don't want to leave my fabulous friends here

I don't want to go back

I'm just posting pictures now because I dont have anything to add.

Jules