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Latest Travel Geek Release from Documentary Taiwan: Part Nine

Likely making a visible scene from space, the Lantern Festival in the Changhua township takes up the 9th portion of the Travel Geek: Documentary Taiwan series.

The entire town hosts lanterns from the small and lackluster, to the three-story, motorized, dragon-shaped behemoth adorned with synchronized lighting and a sound kit that would rival a Metallica concert.  There are snake-like lanterns spanning an entire city-block and fashioned with a million pin-wheels.  There are Spongebob Squarepants likenesses.  There are seated Buddhas.  And even hanging lanterns creating pulsing, writhing ceilings hanging over the roadways.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Sk9G_KDxo&w=560&h=315]

All of these lanterns have been imported from across the country.  And each one represents a family business, a school or a bank or corporate alliance.  And for one year, each team works painstakingly to outdo the next in this everyone-wins competition of showmanship and pride.

And this isn’t a small collection of a few interested parties who’ve come together in a yearly rivalry.  This takes up the entire expanse of the town that is chosen each year.  Forget Disneyland.  Epcot couldn’t, on its best day, compete with even one street corner here.  When I say they go all out, these people put Nasa to shame in their show of lights.

To say it’s epic, simply doesn’t do this event justice.  It’s an experience like no other.  And throughout the night, all one needs to do is walk, snack on the countless roadside vendor’s offerings and be amazed at the sheer size of this festival.

Originally starting in the mountains, this festival first resembled a few, scattered lanterns shooting skyward as the warning of an invasion was eminent.  Today, while China claims tenure over this event, Taiwan definitely takes the event to the next level and has a death-grip over this celebration like an angry dog defending a bone.

As far as I am concerned, a lantern festival that encompasses an entire city, draws in an entire country and represents a year of the nation’s focus simply has no rival.  It can get no bigger.  And it need not.  Because after something like this stretches beyond the city limits and contends internationally for the brightest light on the year’s darkest night, I’d imagine that the quaintness and personal touch would move from the impressive and awe-inspiring to be replaced by spite and shark-like antagonism.

Besides, by the look of things, they’d have to start hiring outside assistance to make this any grander.  And that would mean it’s no longer a native event.  The electric bill alone might require taking out a loan from China anyway!

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Latest Travel Geek Release from Documentary Taiwan: Part Six

Part Six of Travel Geek: Documentary Taiwan, explores Tainan during the Fireworks Festival.  In this hand-to-hand fireworks combat, people actually soot each other with a barrage of pretty dangerous explosives — many of which are rocket propelled and uncontrollable.  But that doesn’t stop this crowd.

The entire town goes up in smoke, literally, all in the name of fun at the behest of the loudest, most dangerous means possible.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxbpxILGznA&w=560&h=315]

Explosions light up the sky from dusk until about 2am.  And all the while, people swing ropes of detonating M-80s,  live moon rockets and flaming Roman Candles.  Throwing caution (and may other dangerous things) to the wind, this festival is more akin to the dashing of the gods, the smothering of the weak-willed and the ultimate game of Smear the Queer with a high school dodgeball team mentality.

I witnessed several people on motorbikes making their way through entire, elbow-to-elbow crowds with two handfuls of shimmering rockets darting to-and-fro, sending people all a-scatter in a raucous rage in every direction.  It was a sight I never knew possible, to see crazed hoards bursting through a haze of sparks and smoke as jet-like, spiraling tracers with ember tails exploded in dangerous proximity to the onlookers.  Wails of chaotic fear pulsed through this mad scene like banshees letting loose their shrill cries.  And all the while, any shadows in the commotion were quickly created and destroyed by the strobing, shooting explosions flickering throughout the multitude.

And at any moment, you realize that the scene unfolding on the hapless saps just meters away could just as haplessly become your momentary reality.  In which case, you’d be the one ducking and covering, wincing in preemptive pain.  It’s a troubling thought.  There’s nothing quite like it, I’d say.

The week prior, trucks haul in tons of fireworks for the event.  Throughout the weekend (normally preceding Chinese New Year) they are set ablaze amid a curtain of rope lights, blinking Christmas lights and lit-up lanterns.

The day after the event, it’s like it never happened.  By noon, the townspeople will have taken to the streets with their brooms, buckets and bags.  And they sweep away all the ash, paper and still-smoldering leftovers.  I’m sure it’s like watching ants attack a pound cake from a bird’s eye view.  And when it’s all done, the sidewalks, alleys and streets are just as spiffy clean as if the city-wide conflagration had never taken place.

It’s quite a spectacle, indeed.  And I even after having been in Taiwan for six months, I’d never even heard about it until a couple of days prior.  But once I found out that there was a festival where people shoot fireworks at each other, a team of Clydesdales couldn’t have kept me away.  I knew that I had to go document this amazing scene and experience it firsthand.

When I arrived, however, I realized that I was a bit under dressed.  It seems that the players in this explosive game sort of cheat a little bit.  When I found out about the battle, no one ever told me that they dressed themselves in modern day armor for the event.

When I showed up (in shorts and a t-shirt), I looked around amazed to see people all over the place looking like spacemen who’d recently been left behind, abandoned by their evacuating ship.  They were covered head-to-toe in helmets, towels, several layers of clothing and what looked like work boots.  Every inch of skin had been covered.  They even duck-taped towels to their helmets to ensure that no ricochet or stray mini-bomb would find its way into their only patch of overlooked skin and detonate – taking with it that same overlooked patch of skin.

I was not so prepared, though I wish I’d used some foresight in the matter.

At one time in the ordeal, someone had taken it upon themselves to stack a giant column of rocket-propelled M-80s right in the middle of the street.  And without warning, my friends and I were stuck in the middle of what must have been the familiar feeling of close combat soldiers in Afghanistan.

There were explosions all around my head and face.  There was smoke everywhere.  All I could do was take refuge behind an adjacent column and hope that none of the screaming explosives made their way to any part of me that I couldn’t do without.  It was pretty frightening.  But, all told, I think I weathered it pretty well.  Because the friends that I met there were amazed that not only had I not worn any protective clothing, but also that I’d made it through unscathed – as far as I can tell.

A week later, I’d be hit by a car (that didn’t stop or even slow down at all during the entire process) and leave me with an inch-long scar on my left foot.  So I guess Taiwan still made a dent in the Travel Geek after all.