Day 17

Today, my aunt and I headed up to a temple to pay respects to my grandmother. The place was, like most temples, rich with the scent of incense, weird gods, and people with shaved heads and funny outfits.

We first put some fruits on a main altar, and my aunt did the whole “bai-bai” routine (burning incense, bowing, etc.) As for me, I just stood by, gawked at the idols, and laughed, in my heart, at ancestor worship. Respectfully, of course.

Having sated the gods, we headed up hill to the next building--where the funeral/dead people plaques are put on display. Again, we offered fruit and my aunt did the whole bai-bai thing again, as an audio-recording of creepy men chanting a mantra played on loop. I find Buddhism and all that stuff fascinating, but you can only take so much temple-seeing before you get cynical and wonder how dead people are supposed to help you make decisions and protect you. I’d rather invest in a Magic 8 ball and a gun.

After doing the whole offering shebang, and seeing my aunt’s plaque, we headed uphill once more to see the magnificent tower where my aunt’s ashes were stored. It was a pretty nice tower. It had a great view too, though most of it was starting to be obscured by high-rise buildings. According to my aunt, when they first started storing my grandma’s ashes there, the view was magnificent and there were none of these goshdarned buildings in the way.

One thing that I found interesting (and I’ve seen this at other temples too) was that after people are done offering their ancestors food, they take it back home. Sometimes other people jack it. But the food always ends up in someone’s stomach.

But yeah, we finished up our business and headed off to see some more relatives. They were some of my grandma’s sisters (there are 7 total, I think), so I’m not sure exactly what I’d call them (great-aunt? I dunno.) But it was interesting to see the disparity in situations.

The first aunt we went to see was in Taoyuan; because the streets are so crowded, we ended up parking in a red-zone (no parking allowed!) and then seeing her. This aunt was in pretty good shape-- she was really active, mentally cute, and while she had some old-age complaints (e.g. arthritis) she was in good health for a 80something year old. She looked like she was in her late 60s. We decided to all go together and see another one of the aunts (this one was older, 93.) but before we found that the car had been towed. And so ensued a really long hunt for the impound lot, before we finally found it, got it out, and then went to see the next aunt.

While the first aunt was in really good condition, this one was in heartbreakingly bad condition. Apparently she had been fine for a really good stretch but suddenly she started showing dementia and had a really steep decline in health. It was saddening and scary to see her like that, and made me not want to get old.