Our tale begins on a bright, sunny, and warm Sunday afternoon. The first, might I add, in over a month. The setting is the Taipei Main Station where about eight young adventurers are about to embark to see the Sky Lantern Festival in the small town of Pingxi.
A small historical note on the Sky Lanterns. In olden times, when robbers or bandits would attack the town of Pingxi, the women and children would escape to the mountains. The brave men would remain and fight away these intruders. When it was safe again for the women to return, the sky lanterns were set off as a signal the danger had passed. Today, thousands of visitors return to the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival to set off sky lanterns of their own. On the sky lanterns are wishes written by the visitor and sent up to the heavens to be granted by the gods.
Well, it was 3:45 in the afternoon. Our tickets were purchased and we were on the train heading for a transfer station before we would arrive at our destination. During the train ride, dark clouds started to gather, throwing light droplets of rain at us. If only we knew that those dark clouds were acting as ominous oracles of the events to come.
About thirty minutes into the ride, the conductor came by and asked for our tickets. We handed him our little yellow stubs and an agitated look came over his face. He informed us we got on the wrong train and that this particular train did not stop at the transfer station we had to get to. He made a few calls over his walkie talkie and fortunately, he was able to make a stop at the station we had to be at. We would have been better off staying on that train!
We arrived at the station, darted off the train, flashed our tickets to the conductor, rushed under- neath the tracks, stair- mastered our way to the right platform and barely just made it onto the train with a few moments to spare. The new train was also full and, with a lack of available seating, we were forced to stand. About 20 minutes into the journey, my friend Kate and I were approached by another crazy woman (who was not dealing potatoes this time) when we were separated from the main herd of our friends. Kate and I politely informed her that we did not speak any Chinese and we thought that would be that. But no. For some reason she thought if she said a sentence more than once, we would understand. She kept talking about random things, and we kept trying to guess her hand motions. The greatest game of Charades if you ask me. At on point she shaped her hand in the form of a hand gun, and then without hesitation, she reached for her handbag."This is it!" I told Kate, "She's pulling a gun on us now!" But instead, she took out her wallet and showed us a picture of her husband in the military and her son, and how much she loved them. Seeing this as an opportunity for true interaction, I took out my wallet and showed her a few pictures of my loved ones. It was a touching moment, but she continued to talk as if we understood every word she said.
Luckily, at this point, a friend of ours saw this and called Kate to see if we needed any assistance. We quickly insisted we did and some Chinese speaking friends came over immediately. The woman informed them that she thought my friend's hair was very beautiful and wanted to dye it the same color. That explained why she was touching Kate's hair. And she also thought that I was very handsome and had beautiful eyes. That explains why she gave me a card with her address so that I could go to her house and teach her English lessons. When she said that she was young at heart and wanted to hang out with us all the time, we decided that it would be a good idea to move to another car on the train.
As soon as we did, we arrived at another station. At this station were hundreds of people waiting. And since there are no capacity limits in Taiwan, all those people got on the train with us! Yay! And for some stroke of luck, our train conductor decided to wait at that station for thirty minutes, while we were all packed like sardines, for more people to get on. Eventually the train rolled on, and after about an hour's wait, we were finally at Pingxi- or so we thought.
We got off the train, took a bathroom break, and moved out of the train. We were delighted to see the lanterns already taking off into the sky, although it was still daylight. We were less than delighted to see the lanterns disappearing into a very dark cloud cover. Nevertheless, we took off in search of a tea house to relieve our dehydrated bodies.According to the map, there was a tea house not far from the station. We began to walk in that direction and became rather confused when we couldn't find it immediately. My friend stopped and asked a local where the tea house was and the man's reply was- "you got off at the wrong stop. The place you want is one more station down." So, not discouraged, we called a cab company to come pick us up. They said they would be there in about five to fifteen minutes. Well, after five to fifteen minutes of no show, we called back and they said, "Sorry, but that location is too remote. We can't go there." Great, how could this get any worse?
Rain.
As soon as no taxi showed up, it began to rain like none other- heavy downpours soaking our pants and shoes. We ran over to the bus stop hoping to catch the next bus, and stood patiently in the rain for twenty minutes. Eventually, there comes a time in one's life where you have to admit defeat. In this case, that time was now. We started to walk back towards the train station when I casually remarked, "Of course, now that we're leaving, this is the time when the bus always comes." It's amazing how sage my comments can be sometimes, for not long after that did our bus come zipping by! We turned around and ran as fast as we could back to the bus station only to watch it roll away from us in defeat.
With heads low, I suggested that we could buy a lantern here, set it off, and then return home. We went into the shop, purchased a blue balloon-like lantern, and wrote down all our wishes on it. My wish consisted of more sunny days. We then brought it out into the street, lit the fire, and despite the rain and the cold, the lantern flew up into the sky.
We cheered and gazed as the wishes took off, and then, looking beyond that, we saw other sky lanterns floating like ghosts in the distant sky. Lanterns of all sizes and colors were dotting the night like fairies floating away aimlessly toward the heavens. And suddenly the cold and rain didn't matter so much anymore as I watched these shiftless lanterns fly in the night. Instead, I was warmed in the heart by the most beautiful sight I have seen thus far in my months here in Taiwan.
I watched another group of people try to set their lantern off too. They took their's over to a porch by the river, lit the fire, and then set it off. In a few moments, the sky lantern was up and away, and then back down again. It kept descending and descending until it disappointingly hit into the river.
But the wish was too powerful because the lantern floated on the top of the river for a few moments, gathering strength, and then soared back up into the night sky.
Another lantern took off from another location that had fireworks attached to it. As it reached above the treetops and rooftops, the fireworks went off in a dazzling display of crackles and light.
We then finished our tea and trudged back to the train station. We boarded another over crowded sweaty sauna of a train, standing room only, and traveled for two hours back home. Back in the city, we met a few other friends and then went up to a place called Shilin. We went to a Thai restaurant where we ordered enormous amounts of warm delicious foods prepared to sensationalize the taste buds. And the best part was my friend knew the owner so we got a 20% discount. You could really taste the bargains.
So what began as quite a rough day turned into, as the saying goes, a pretty good story. From your soaked to the bone, lantern wishing Thai fishing, sub-par train traveling adventurer, Michael.
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