Before new year
Leading up to the new year there were a lot of new yearsy decorations on display and for sale in stores, mostly red decorations and food. We got a little of both in an effort to actually celebrate. There were also a few regular items being sold with new year or tiger themes, like the bra pictured below. However, there wasn't hugely more excitement than the lead up to Christmas. (And a few stores left Christmas decorations up too, which made the whole period from Christmas to Chinese New Year something of a long holiday period.) Apparently this year may have been a bit quieter than average due to the economic climate.
On the other hand, people were definitely moving around a lot for the first days of the new year. We had looked into going to southern Taiwan for our break, but hostels were full or quite expensive. From what I heard trains were also really busy. It turns out that many people go south, so Taipei is actually less busy.
New year's eve
We walked around for a while on new year's eve, but there wasn't much to see. There were a fair number of explosions, but we only saw a few people letting off fireworks on streets and in parks. Possibly people were firing them off balconies, because some seemed to be getting pretty high. Everything was really quiet other than the explosions, and most stores were closed. The distribution of stores still open didn't make any obvious sense, as things like bag stores were still open. Possibly it was just dependant on which owners weren't visiting family anywhere else.
New year's day
On new year's morning we went to a department store for a raffle. We paid 1000 TWD for a ticket, which got us a bag of randomized items supposedly worth several thousand. These raffles are apparently popular on new year's morning, and there were some bigger ones in Taipei. Each department store only gives out a limited number of tickets, so the lineups are big. We went to Shin Kong Mitsukoshi in Taoyuan city and got a place near the end of the line, and then waited for a couple of hours to get our ticket and bag of items. Our items included a tie, scarf, bag, pillow, thermos, blanket, electric kettle, and a few certificates for money off other items.
After that we walked around a bit more, but there wasn't much to see. There were a lot of people at temples, and otherwise things were fairly quiet. Most stores were still closed, with the same unexpected distribution as before. The atmosphere was fairly similar to Christmas in Vancouver overall. The explosions continued, as they would at decreasing levels for the rest of the new year period.
Taipei area
A couple days into new year, we went into Taipei. The major item for the first day was visiting Beatrice's family friends. This was fun and really interesting because we got to stay for dinner and the evening and see what they do during new year. Besides dinner, we ended up playing a board game and playing Wii sports with the kids. There were a lot of people because they also had a number of friends from their church over.
The second day we went went up the river. We were intending to go to Bali, across from Danshui, but got sidetracked at Guandu temple and spent half the afternoon looking around there. It is quite large, with several shrines, two tunnels (one to an exit and one to a Guanyin shrine), a garden behind it, and a market outside. Interestingly, there is a path from the garden to a church not far behind. After that we went on and walked through Danshui (where we went at Gregorian new year) to Fisherman's Wharf. Fisherman's Wharf is supposed to be another touristy thing like Danshui. When we got there in late afternoon or early evening it was pretty much deserted, though.
After that we went back to Taoyuan. One of Beatrice's co-teachers had offered to show us around, and enlisted a friend of hers. He very generously drove us around for two days and also invited us to dinner with his parents.
The first day we went to Yingge, between Taoyuan and Taipei. The old street there is known for pottery making places, so we made bowl type things. We also got sushi, which we hadn't really tried before in Taiwan, at a store there. In the evening we went into Taipei to see Shilin night market, which I hadn't seen before; it is one of the major Taipei night markets and is hugely crowded. We mostly played carnival games, especially failing to hit things with arrows.
Taoyuan Lantern Festival
Towards the end of the new years period the lantern festivals started. The Taoyuan lantern festival was set up in a field near the Gloria school with the main Taoyuan dorm. It was centred around a large tiger lantern (with an attached smaller air plane and maybe other things), and included extensive displays of lanterns, a stage, a temporary temple, and a temporary night market. The lanterns were mostly but not entirely tiger themed. They varied from smaller lanterns from schools to big ones several feet tall. There were also vendors selling various light up devices, including things that could be thrown in the air; as far as I could tell these would pop out rotor wings as they started falling, so that they would come down slowly.
Taipei Lantern Festival
The Taipei Lantern Festival also ran for a bit over a week, but started a few days later than the Taoyuan one. I went for the first time on my own and then went back with Beatrice a few days later. This festival was located at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall and Taipei City Hall (the grounds of which are adjacent to each other), with lights going down Ren-ai Road to the Ren-ai Circle.
The centrepiece here was a large lantern of the festival's tiger mascot, called Hoki, located in front of Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. It was surrounded by the flower fairies and a butterfly and other things related to the upcoming Taipei International Flora Expo. This lantern could turn on its base, while the butterfly flapped its wings and a flower at the back (which also had a screen inside) rotated. This lantern had been up for some time before the festival, and according to a TV news piece we happened to see it was originally built with the middle finger up instead of the thumbs-up that was intended. As far as I can tell this had been corrected before the festival, as it looked like a thumb from most angles.
The main active display of the festival, which happened every half hour for most of the day, consisted of this lantern turning while music played. At the same time, the fountain in front of it did various things, while lights behind shone through the fountain and onto the front of Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. There was also a more detailed light system that could project images and text into the fountain. At the end of the display flames would shoot out behind the fountain and then a strip of water would burn briefly. At times there were also fireworks from City Hall, but I don't think that happened every night. On the first day I was there some sort of foam or bubble shapes (hearts and stars and things) were continually being released to drift up into the sky, and these would catch the lights during the display.
Also on the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall grounds were several rows of lanterns. Three of these were general mostly tigery lanterns similar to those at the Taoyuan festival (I think the Taoyuan festival actually had more lanterns overall). The walkways around the Hall itself were hung with simpler and presumably more traditional lanterns.
Another big area was devoted to things for the Flora Expo, including some lit depictions of the festival's flower fairies and lanterns for many countries. The latter each consisted of a building and a plant associated with the country. For some reason Macau got a much larger lantern, although perhaps that was unrelated to the Flora Expo.
At the entrance to the grounds were two large lanterns of the Orchid Fairy and the Lily Boy, riding the Orchid Elephant and the Lily Lion respectively. According to the plaque on the pedestal, "The Orchid Elephant looks the world with its tender eyes." The Orchid Fairy holds a blue vase symbolizing the coming of peace and blessing, while the Lily Boy holds a lily symbolizing good luck.
There was also a small stage with performances and riddle contests.
Over at City Hall, there was the main stage with ongoing performances, seemingly mostly music and dancing children. On the first day I went I saw a band which I believe was Smells Good, and on the second day me and Beatrice watched Yang Pei An singing for a while (some of the songs he sang are available on youtube). Behind the stage and right in front of City Hall there was a large tiger statue with a screen showing a (apparently happy) human face inside the mouth. This seems to be a common tiger motif, but I'm not sure what it is supposed to represent, if anything. At times similar images with real faces were projected onto the front on City Hall; I assume there was somewhere people could go to get their picture taken for it.
City Hall also had light shows, projected onto the front of the building and consisting of moving images, mostly floral, set to music.
Another event on the main stage was a Tiger Reunion (once a day, I think), wherein people born in a tiger year could show up in groups to get a prize and seemingly also tiger hats.
In the plaza leading up to the stage there were two long lantern strips. One was Wizard of Oz themed, while the other apparently represented the Chinese traditional story Utopia by Tao-Qian. There were people dressed as something that might have been Wizard of Ozish going around to take photos with, and another group that was presumably for Utopia but didn't have any obvious connection to anything I saw on that side.
Next to all of that were two areas to either side for more lanterns; one side had what were apparently traditional lanterns representing traditional and popular stories, while on the other were assorted lanterns of various themes.
On the side with the traditional lanterns was also a temporary temple and a "praying lantern zone" with various places to pray for things. Most obvious was an area to hang wishes on trees and a heart shaped tunnel presumably for couples. The latter also had a large percentage display which would light up with a number if the people going though touched something.
Finally, running along Ren-ai Road to the Ren-ai Circle was a display of lights strung in trees. These were mostly like the country flora lanterns, with sections showing a flag, landmark, and some flowers or other plants.
There didn't seem to be any night market, so food was limited to a couple of cafes and the nearby stores and a few stalls which set up outside the grounds. There were a lot of vendors selling light up things, including the flying things, toy weapons, horns, and ears.
There are (even) more pictures of both lantern festivals on my site under the tag lantern festival.
Procession in Taoyuan
A couple days after I thought the main new year period ended, there was a large procession in Taoyuan city near our apartment. Presumably it was new year related, but I'm not quite sure. It was long enough to be simultaneously visible on both perpendicular streets at the ends of our block for the twenty minutes or so I watched, and probably a while longer. The parts I saw included quite a few small carts and drummers, some larger decorated trucks, a military-looking (and mixed-gender) marching band, a couple of lion dance looking figures, a dragon, and most visibly quite a few large figures presumably representing deities. The latter came in several groups, and were maybe two person heights (supported by one person underneath). Seemingly the deity figures had to stop in front of the large temple at Zhong Zheng and Zhong Shan, and dance or otherwise move around for a minute before moving around the temple and continuing. Unfortunately I didn't discover the procession until shortly before class, so I didn't have much time to watch. It was a little surreal because except at the temple pretty much everyone on the street was ignoring the whole thing, which made standing around taking pictures feel strange. Additionally, it was interesting to see the deity figures waiting with scooters to cross the street.
