Easter is a non-event in Taiwan. Catholic churches we attend had the same activities for Holy Week, but it was very low key no procession through the streets or around the neighborhood. I visited a colleague who is the Chair of the Social Work Department at Fu-jen Catholic University, who said that Catholics are a small religious minority in Taiwan -- about 1.5-2% of the 20.7 million people in Taiwan. In this country of boisterous religious celebration it was very quiet. We attended Holy Thursday Liturgy at St. Christopher's Church -- a predominantly Filipino community and 12 men, each representing one apostle, had there feet washed by the celebrant with lots of help by the female altar servers.
On Easter day we went to an evening liturgy -- a first in many years. We did not find an English Easter Vigil.
On Easter Sunday, we had dinner with a colleague and his family. It was a very good way to spend the day. They have a one year old (just barely visible over the top of the table) and a three year old. It was a lot of fun to have little ones around. Su, the wife, did her college training in Florence, Italy so she is fluent in Italian and English as well as Mandarin. They also were open to a simple Italian dinner. The older son made our hearts feel good, he really enjoyed the pasta. The one year was partial to the bread sticks. Claude made friends with both of them, he is such a good surrogate "uncle/grandpa." It was a delightful day for us.Mother's Day
Mother's Day on the other hand is a very big day in Taiwan. Our grandson, Sean, made himself small and flat and sent himself in the mail. So he was here to celebrate Mother's Day on May 2nd and then we mailed him back to Raleigh.
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| Sean's Visit |
He visited the pre-school of a friend of ours. The pre-school was honoring mothers. They had the children do many activities: sing, massage the mothers' shoulders and feet (mothers were very emotionally touched by these activities as were the guests), help the mothers make a flower arrangement and eat celebration cake. It was fun for us and him. Our Taiwanese friends got into the spirit of "flat" Sean, too.
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| Sean and Grandma |
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| Sean and Grandpa |
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Sean and other children at pre-school  Susan and Janet Our friend (and Chinese teacher), who invited us to attend the celebration, was my surrogate child that day and helped us arrange flowers and made sure we were generally having a good time. The weekend of May 8th, we traveled with another Taiwanese friend and fellow social worker to Kinmen Island, a small island close to the Chinese mainland. If you are my generation you may remember hearing about "Quimoi" during the Nixon-Kennedy Presidential Debates. It is now called Kinmen Island. A beautiful island. More to come on later posting to the blog. Hope you had a fine Mother's Day. Susan and Claude |
Susan,
ReplyDeleteglad to hear you had an Italian-Taiwanese dinner for Easter! and a visit from "tiny Sean." We miss your presence at Tuesday night writers' group!