Last Friday was a marathon sightseeing day in southern Taiwan with Uncle Vito’s wife and kids, mostly in the former capital of Tainan. It was raining but we plodded on undeterred. We saw a beautiful old temple, with nifty detailed dragons on the rooftop, a pot of incense burning, and a nice garden outside. Then we hit what most consider to be the Big Three historical sites in Taiwan: Chikan Tower, An-Ping Fort, and the Eternal Castle. The Tower was really nifty, built 400 years ago as a Dutch fort and embellished later with gardens, stone carvings, and tablets. An-Ping Fort was almost as impressive, and also a Dutch fort, more structurally than aesthetically though. The Eternal Castle wasn’t so eternal; it was basically a bunch of ruins. Maybe it was because it started raining really hard at this point, but it just didn’t seem that exciting. Outside there were Falun Dafa activists handing out propaganda and a big sign that read, in English and Chinese, “FALUN DAFA IS GOOD”, which was interesting.

Food is cheap in Taiwan. So Tim’s relatives stopped every hour to eat. And they refused to let us pay for any of the food. It was like traveling with a bunch of grandmothers… That night we went to a KTV, the Taiwanese version of karaoke. We got our own private room (Uncle Vito’s an investor apparently) and once we convinced them to go load the English CDs we were able to get in a few 80’s songs we knew. Tim’s cousins did plenty of Mando-pop though, which they seemed to enjoy immensely. At one point the police burst into our room and checked Vito’s ID. If there were ever a time we thought he really was a mob boos that was it. Apparently KTVs have a sketchy reputation for prostitution, drug sales, and the like. Ah well… outside there were half a dozen cop cars lined up for what must have been a big tip or something.

Last Saturday was a national holiday, on which the Taiwanese go to clean the tombs of their ancestors. We made traditional spring rolls with Tim’s family, a once-a-year event. Oh, they were soo good. Then we got ready to go to his grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ gravesites.

Camille and I thought this might have been a private family matter but Tim assured us no one would mind, and we could even take pictures. So we loaded up the car with a ton of food, to be offered for use in the afterlife, and headed off. Taiwanese gravesites are no simple tombstones; they’re elaborate stone terraces with pictures and stories of the deceased, and they’re apparently maintained by the living each year. Tim’s aunt asked us gaijin if we’d like to go take a walk. Not wanting to offend her by appearing bored, we told her we’d like to stay and watch.

We started off by burning incense and ghost money—paper decorated to look like money but for use in the afterlife. Then she came back to us and asked us to go for a walk with her—this was when I realized we might have been intruding. We walked for maybe a hundred meters, then she turned to us and said, “I go back now. You two can keep walking.” Subtle she is. Later his uncle brought the kids out to see us, so we figured they might be done. But no, he took them back to the site, telling us, “You stay here.” It was an awkward day, to say the least. But it ended with sweet creamy Taiwanese ice cream—like Coldstone, almost. Mmm… ice cream…