New Year's Temple Visit/お正月のお参り

旧正月、おめでとうございます！

今年は２月１０日が旧正月だった。でも「旧」と言うより、「正」と言った方がいい気がする。台湾ではやっぱり旧暦のお正月の方が西暦のより大事だ。今週は授業が休みに成っている。（大学生や高校生などは三週間くらい有ると思う。）

昨日、（２／１０）私は友達の家族と一緒にお参りしに行って来た。そのお寺はチベット系の密教のお寺だった。その風景は写真で見たチベットやネパールなどを思い出させた。

新年快樂！昨天，2月10號，我跟朋友的家人去一個密宗的寺。它是西藏的佛教，所以寺的風景好像我在照片看過的西藏。

Happy New Year!  The real one this time.  That's right, 2/10 was lunar new year.  In Taiwan, this is one of the biggest holidays of the year.  It's a major family holiday, so everyone goes home to visit family.  It's also a time when lots of people visit temples to ask for luck in the new year.  I went with a friend's family to a Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist temple on 2/10.

先ずは、こう言うタルチョーはあっちこっちかかって有った。
寺的下面有很多經幡。
Because the temple is from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it looks a lot like pictures I've seen of Tibet and Nepal.  The prayer flags in particular stand out because you don't see them often in Taiwan, at least in my experience.

シーサー！

朝から皆ここで集まって、式を待っていた。
我們早上到了的時候，大家在等說教。
Everyone gathered here to wait for the sermon (?) later in the day.

お寺の名前。雲林に有る。
這是寺的名字。在雲林。
The name of the temple is "Lei Zang"

この絵もめっちゃチベットっぽい。

在寺裡有這樣的西藏的神佛。

I thought that these paintings of deities looked very Tibetan in style.

午後から説教が始まった。私は無教だし、中国語中途半端しか分からないから、友達のおかあさんは私が退屈かと思って、お寺の後ろに案内して呉れた。そこに階段が有る。登ってみたら、景色が凄かった。
我聽了一聽說教，可是我聽得不太懂，所以我朋友的母親跟我一起去寺後面。在後面有樓梯，可以爬上山上去。
Part way through the service, my friend's mom, perhaps sensing that I didn't really know what was going on or what anyone was talking about, decided to take me around to the back of the temple where there is a staircase going up the hillside.

お寺は本当にでかい。
This is the temple compound.  It's big, but I think a lot of monks and nuns live there, so it's probably part apartment complex, part religious building.  (I'm just guessing though.)

チベットの文字だ。
西藏的字。
Tibetan writing

山の上にこんな石積みも有った。
在山上有很多石頭在堆積。
There were stones piled like this all over on top of the hillside.

雲林の風景と小さなお寺。
Here's the view of Yunlin County.

I loved the flowers up here.  I don't know what any of them are called though.

こんな綺麗な花も沢山有った。

我不知道這些華的名字。真的很漂亮！

友達のお母さんは、円で歩いた方が縁がいいと言ったから、帰りは別の道を使った。そこに蜂の巣とかも有った。
因為走路走得圓圓比較緣變好了，所以我們下山得時候走另一條路。
We walked back down the hill by a different path than that which we came up on.  Making a circle is better than returning the way you came.  I think it's a symbolic thing.

Hornet nest

向こうに何か見えて来た。

キンマの木が沢山植えられている。キンマは弱い覚醒剤が入っている実の事だ。台湾では「檳榔」（ビングラング）と言う。（因みに英語は「betel nut」だ。）台湾ではかなり人気が有る。特にタクシーの運転手さんとかはよく使う。だから台湾でこの木をよく見掛ける。
寺的旁邊有很多檳榔樹。我聽說檳榔樹對土地不太好，所以要是把它們長在山上，常常害土地土石流。

The sign is one you see all over in Taiwan, especially on roadsides.  It's this thing.  If you say this mindfully a lot, you can connect with the Buddha or something.  A lot of people use it like a protective device I think though, so that's why you see it on roadsides a lot.

これもキンマの木だ。
These are Betel Nut trees.  The betel nut is a nut with a mild stimulant in it.  It's really popular in south east Asia, including Taiwan, though mostly among blue-collar workers.  You see the trees all over.  Unfortunately, from what I've heard the trees have very shallow roots, so when they are planted en masse on a hillside like this, it drastically increases the odds of mudslides in heavy rain, which is a kind of rain Taiwan gets a lot of.

遠くから見た所にやっと近付いて来た。チベットの文字が沢山書いて有る。

西藏的字很漂亮，可是連一個字都看不懂。
Most of the writing on this monument is Tibetan script.

シーサーも載っている。

椰子の木にチベット系仏教の建物と言う風景にはちょっと違和感が有る。

I liked the contrast here with the Tibetan-style temple and the tropical palm trees in the foreground.

神様達に色々なお供え物を火で燃やしている。

There was a fire into which offerings to the gods were put.  They ranged from things like perfume to food to wine.

この可愛い熊の縫い包みの意味がよく分からないけど、友達に聞いてみたら、「もしかして神様はこういう可愛いのが好きかも。」と案外納得出来る答えを言って呉れた。そこまで燃やした物は確かに人間が普通に好きな物だった。（お酒とか、お菓子とか）神様はそういうの好きだったら、多分こういう可愛い縫い包みも好きだろう。
我問朋友為甚麼有熊的公仔。他說他不知道，可是可能神佛喜歡可愛的公仔。
I asked my friend why there were stuffed bears on display, and he said "I don't know.  Maybe the gods like cute, stuffed bears".  I was satisfied with this answer.

Erhu/二胡

火曜日に屏東に有る客家博物館に行って来た。そこに二胡を弾いている人が居た。二胡は見た事が有ったけど、今まではあまり詳しく見ていなかった。おじさんに声をかけて、ちょっと二胡の事を教えて貰った。

二胡は弦が名前通り二本しか無い。だから弾く時はかなり弦を押さえる手があっちこっち飛ばないといけない。バイオリンなら、弦が四本も有るから、手を一カ所に置いても沢山のピッチが出来る。おじさんは「それだから二胡の方がバイオリンより難しいぞ」と主張した。（そうかな？）

On Tuesday I went to the Hakka Cultural Museum in Pingtung.  There was a guy there playing the Erhu.  I've seen the erhu before--on the NYC subways, for instance--but I never really took a close look before.  I talked to the guy playing for a bit and he showed me the instrument.

He pointed out that since the instrument only has two strings, the non-bowing hand has to jump around a lot more than on the violin.  (My violin playing friends may beg to differ, but he claimed that because of the limitations imposed by only having two strings, the erhu is a harder instrument to play than the violin.)

他に面白いと思ったのは、弓の糸は弦の間に入っていると言うところだ。バイオリンなどなら、弦の上に置くけど。でも弓自体はバイオリンのとあまり変わらない。糸はバイオリンのと同じく馬の尻尾の毛だ。

しかし、弓には一つだけかなり異なっているところが有る。バイオリンの弓と比べたら、二胡の弓の糸がかなり緩い。これは、弓を掴んでいる手の指を使って、糸を前後に押せば、その二本の弦に圧力かける事が出来るから。それによって、音質とか音量が変わる。（説明が分かりにくいかもしれないけど、下の写真を見ると分かると思う。弓を持っている手の指は糸を押しているから、右側の弦に強く当たっている。）

The bow on an erhu is pretty much the same as a violin bow.  It even has horse tail hair.  However, the hairs are really loose.  I asked him why this was, and he showed me that since the hairs are loose, you can use your bow hand to push and pull the hairs back and forth.  The bow hairs actually go right between (!) the two strings, so by pushing and pulling the bow hairs, the player can apply more or less pressure to each string.  In the picture below he is pushing the hairs down and thereby applying pressure to the string on his right side.

Pretty cool!

National Museum of Taiwan History/国立台湾歴史博物館

この間「国立台湾歴史博物館」に行って来た。この間と言っても、二週間前ぐらいだった。最近忙しくてブログ書く時間本当に無い。

気に入った展示物が沢山有った。でも帰って写真を見てみたら、やっぱり殆どは日本と関係有る物だ。流石マニアックだ。以上、下記のポストの内容にはかなり偏見が有るけど、それを意識しながらご覧下さい。

I went to the National Museum of Taiwan History a couple of weeks back.  The museum is pretty new, and the building itself is really cool.  It's laid out in such a way that it walks you through Taiwan's history from when it was settled by Austronesian-speaking peoples in the prehistoric period, through colonization by the Dutch, the pro-Ming rebels, the Qing Empire, Japan, and finally the Republic of China.

I realized though when I was looking through my photos that most of my photos were of exhibits related to the Japanese colonization.  So enjoy this very truncated and biased presentation of the contents of the museum.

 この博物館はかなり新しくて、外見も格好いい。
The painting below is a famous one depicting aboriginal people in Taiwan hunting.

 上の絵に狩りをしている先住民が描かれている。
Japanese soldiers in the battle to take over Taiwan.  Taiwan was formally ceded to Japan by the Qing Empire in 1895, but some pro-Qing forces formed a "Republic of Formosa" government and held out for a couple of months against the Japanese.

 行けぇ！バンザイ！みたいな感じの、台湾に侵入した時の日本軍だ。１８９５年に清朝は清日戦争に負けて、台湾を日本に譲れた。親清の団体は「フォルモサ共和国」の政府を建てて何ヶ月日本軍に抵抗した。

 フナムシの模造。

 博物館の外に、でかい台湾の地図が有る。俺の足が台南の隣りに置いてある。因みに、この地図には、中華民国が支配している他の島（澎湖や馬祖など）が書いているけど、尖閣諸島や南シナ海に有る島々が書いていない。
There's a huge map of Taiwan outside the museum.  This is my foot next to Tainan.  I like to look for these kinds of things, so I took note of the fact that the map avoided controversy and, while it showed other islands controlled by the Republic of China (including ones like Kinmen on the coast of China) it did not include the islands under RoC control in the South China Sea, nor did it include the Senkaku Islands which are under Japanese control, but formally claimed by the RoC (and the PRC for that matter).

 日本統治時代の台湾では警察の役割が大きかったから、ここに仏様に例えられている。
This poster depicts a Japanese policeman as a multi-armed Buddha.  The police were in charge of many daily affairs of state in Taiwan under Japanese occupation.  In rural, particularly mountainous regions, the police were often pretty much the only government presence in the area.

 色っぽい。
Japanese beer posters

 二宮尊徳の銅像だ。日本時代には台湾の学校にも有った。

「高砂」は台湾の別名だ。

This beer poster is for "Takasago Beer".  Takasago is an old Japanese name for Formosa.

台湾の先住民の住んでいる地域の地図だ。日本統治時代の政府は初めて台湾全島を支配した政府だ。その統治を有効に実行する為に、詳しく調査をして、台湾の風土や各民俗についての情報を沢山集めた。
The map above depicts where different aboriginal groups lived in Taiwan during the Japanese period.  The Japanese government was the first one to actually control the entire island, including the mountainous central areas.  They accomplished this in part thanks to meticulous fieldwork, where they collected geologic and population data for the entire island.

これは中華民国政府が台湾を支配してからの教室に置いて有った札だ。政府は中国語（マンダリン）を勧めて、厳しく他の言語を圧制した。台湾は昔から言語の豊富な土地だ。先ずは、先住民の言葉が沢山有った。そして、台湾に住み着いた中華系の人は閩南語喋る人と客家語喋る人に別れていた。１８９５−１９４５は日本語が政府に唯一認められた共通語だった。そして、１９４５−現在は中国語だ。最近に成ってやっと他の言語の存在が認められる様に成って来たけど、それでも共通語じゃないし、テレビなどの影響で若い世代はだんだんマンダリン以外の言葉を使わない様に成っている。
The above plaque is one that was hung in schools after Chiang Kai-shek's RoC government took over. It says "I will speak the National Language (Mandarin).  I will not speak dialect."  Taiwan has always had lots of languages.  The aboriginal groups in Taiwan spoke a large variety of Austronesian languages, and Chinese settlers who came to Taiwan spoke a variety of languages, with Hoklo and Hakka being the two major ones.  All of these other languages were relegated to unofficial status by the Japanese government from 1895-1945, with Japanese being the only official language for use in government and school.  The RoC government then from 1945 onwards has used Mandarin as the only official language of government.  Until recently, other languages were all banned from public use.  Other languages are now allowed by the government to exist, though their existence is still imperiled by the overwhelming presence of Mandarin in school and on TV.

中華民国のプロパガンダ。「私は中国人だ。私達は皆中国人だ。」みたいな事が書いてある。５０年間日本の統治下に有った台湾に対して、蒋介石はこう言う教育を強く押し付けた。

The above song has lyrics like "I am Chinese.  All of us are Chinese."  The RoC looked at the Taiwanese--who had after all been under 50 years of Japanese rule--as potentially traitorous, and certainly not Chinese enough.  Along with disallowing languages aside from Mandarin, the government also instituted nationalist education that attempted to foster a sense of Chinese identity.

博物館の前の池。

出た時の雲凄かった。

There were some really cool clouds when we headed outside.

めっちゃ忙しか／Busy, busy, busy

I went to Xitou this weekend.  It was another fun trip into Taiwan's mountains.  I'll write something up about it soon.  In the meantime, enjoy this photo of the Cheng Da campus.