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Josh Ellis, who grew up next to the ocean on Canada’s east coast, has been photographing Taiwan since 2005. He describes his website as a “showcase for what I do, but also a way of promoting Taiwan and helping educate people around the world about how amazing this country is.” This is Part I of an interview conducted by email in October and November 2015.
Is it true you ended up studying Chinese by accident?
Yeah, when I got to university, I found I had to take a second-language credit in order to graduate. I decided to try my hand at Japanese. The class was full of young guys much more invested in learning the language than I was, so on the first day of class, when the dean asked some of us if we would be willing to consider taking another language to free up space, I decided to take Mandarin instead. That decision pretty much shaped what’s happened since. I graduated with dual degrees in International Development and Asian Studies; before graduation I did an internship which brought me to China to further develop my language skills in an immersion program at Peking University, and to work on a Canadian government sponsored development project.
Why did you move to Taiwan?
After graduation, I spent a few months checking out the job market in Canada, but felt the itch to come back to Asia to improve my language skills and continue travelling. I saw an ad about teaching English in Taiwan, so decided to give it a try. I arrived in Taiwan in the summer of 2005, and I noticed almost right away that Taiwan was a lot different to China. I noticed how clean it was and how the people seemed to be quite similar to Canadians in terms of how they treated others. Some of these similarities are among the reasons I’ve stayed for over a decade. I love that I can be in a modern city with a population bigger than most Canadian cities, but still be so close to nature. Taiwan has spoiled me over these years and I have a hard time thinking what life would be like back home without all the conveniences of this beautiful country.
Were you already a keen photographer when you arrived?
I was always into photography when I was young but wasn’t really able to do anything serious about it. After arriving, like a lot of travellers I took pictures documenting everything I was doing, and all the things that were new to me, to show friends and family back home. After about a month of living here I decided to upgrade and buy my first DSLR. Since then, everything I’ve done has been somewhat photography-related. Photography has been a very important facet of my experiences here.
I hope that when people see photos I’ve shot and how I frame them, they’re able to learn something not only from the photo, but from the information I provide with them. It’s great to hear from Taiwanese friends that I’ve shot something they didn’t even know existed, or that they’d never really imagined it would look as cool as it does in one of my photos. I think when you’re a foreign photographer in any country you tend to look at things differently to the locals, and see what they might miss or think isn’t special.
Many photographers adore Taiwan’s temple culture. Are you one of them?
Absolutely. I’ve spent a lot of time exploring temples all over the nation and trying to learn as much about them as I can. I love taking shots which not only show off the beautiful architecture, but also the amazing details you find inside.
Taiwan also offers a lot of opportunity for taking beautiful landscape shots. I’m often lugging heavy camera gear up some of Taiwan’s highest mountains and taking shots of the coastline, rivers and waterfalls. Taiwan may be a small country, but there are countless locations available to photographers to show off the beauty of the country.
Apart from temples and natural landscape, what else appeals to you?
I’m also a big fan of street photography, which involves walking around and getting candid shots of people going about their everyday lives. I think not living Taipei means I have better opportunities to explore and take photos that tell the story of Taiwan’s people and their lives.
I do a lot of research about the places I visit, and I’m still trying to gauge what my audience is most interested in. My posts about the Qingshui Cliffs [pictured above] and Mukumugi Gorge in Hualien generated quite a lot of buzz, but then so did my post about the controversial Pigs of God ritual; this might the only post where I criticize Taiwan. I posted a quick article about a local restaurant that I thought would be nostalgic for some of my ex-coworkers who’ve since left Taiwan; it ended up going viral with hundreds of thousands of hits since I posted it, something I never would have imagined. Earlier this year I did a project where I visited several of Taiwan’s biggest night markets to shoot street-photography-style portraits of the people working there and explain a bit about what they do. This project has been quite popular. I’ve finished the shooting and hope to have the last four posts, about Miaokou Night Market in Keelung, posted before the end of the year.
I think I’m a very organized person, so I’ve a long list of places I need to get to over a certain period of time. I recently hiked up to a peak that isn’t very well known, Yuanzui Mountain in Daxueshan National Forest Recreation Area. From the peak there’s an amazing 360-degree view of Taiwan’s mountains. The location is perfect for the kind of work I do, but unfortunately as I was nearing the peak the weather took a turn for the worse. Everything disappeared in a cloud of mist, which means I need to make another trip in the near future. Apart from mountains, I’ll be shooting some upcoming temple festivals, Taiwanese opera performances, and I’m hoping to get to Kinmen and Matsu in the near future.
Part 2 of the interview can be read here.
Possibly the oldest sport in Taiwan,
dragon-boat racing is an integral part of Duanwu Festival, an annual celebration for people of Chinese origin for over 2,000 years. The festival’s key date is the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, which this year falls on June 20. Each boat is guided by a drummer whose beats help the 20 paddlers synchronize their strokes; the vessels get their name from dragon-head decorations at the bow and the dragon tail at the stern.
Duanwu Festival is also when Taiwanese people make and eat sticky rice dumplings, known in Mandarin as zhongzi (粽子). These contain pork, mushrooms, peanuts and sometimes other ingredients. They commemorate Qu Yuan, a poet and government official who lived more than 2,300 years ago. Qu is remembered for his patriotism and loyalty. While in exile, he learned the emperor he had served had been overthrown. Distraught, he tied rocks to his feet and ended his life by jumping into a river in what is now mainland China’s Hunan province. Because Qu was so respected by those who knew him, when they heard about his demise they hurled rice balls into the water, so his body wouldn't be eaten by fish. That is how the rice-dumpling custom got started; the dragon-boat races are inspired by the local people who rushed out in their boats in a bid to save Qu.
While Taiwanese aren't nearly so keen on team sports as Americans or Australians, they've embraced cheerleading with a passion. Any event, including dragon-boat races, is an excuse. (Both photos taken from Changhua County Government's website.)
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Tourists from Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam and other places write their wishes on the sides of bamboo-framed paper lanterns which they then release into the afternoon sky over Shifen (十分), a tiny former coal-mining town near Taipei reached by the Pingxi Branch Railway. Mass releases of lanterns into the night sky are popular around the time of Lantern Festival.
A few weeks back we attended the final day of the 2012 Kaohsiung Zuoying Wannian Folklore Festival (高雄左營萬年季). When the article I wrote about this cultural event appears next year, I'll add a link. Until then, here's a summary: Several local temples cooperate to build a "fire lion" which is venerated, paraded through the streets of Zuoying, blasted with firecrackers (shown top) and then set afire to carry people's wishes and hopes up to heaven. Dozens of other events - culinary and artistic - have been tacked on to create the modern festival.
One of the wonderful things about
religious events in Taiwan is that you never know what you might see. Over the past 20 years, I've been to or stumbled across hundreds of miao hui (廟會, 'temple gatherings') and da bai bai (大拜拜, 'big worship ceremonies') but I don't recall ever seen members of Falun Gong - a group regarded by some as a cult - taking part in one. There were almost 200 of them, outnumbering the lion dancers and other zhentou. The banner bearers (above) were quite striking, but it was the marching band (below) that I'll remember. Watching them, I couldn't but help thinking of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz.
Over the weekend, photographer Rich Matheson and I attended the climax of Donggang's famous triennial boat-burning ritual, 2012 edition. We got there about 7.30pm, when the boat was still in Donglong Temple's forecourt. Watching the slow, ritual loading of supplies and other rites, around 10pm I asked myself, "Why the hell did I come here, knowing I'll have to stand up all night?" But things soon got livelier. Seeing the boat dragged through the temple's massive gateway was thrilling. After that we didn't hang around - the writer of this excellent article about the festival had given us good advice: dash to the beach, 1.6km away, so you can get a good spot from which to witness the burning.
On the black sand we sat and watched for a further three hours as the masts were erected and the sails hoist. Sacks of joss paper were piled around the hull, and strings of firecrackers laid across them. Around 5.30am, the firecrackers were lit; the joss paper immediately caught fire and within 45 minutes the boat was a charred wreck. It was entrancing. Spectacular. Truly memorable. Now I understand why some people travel all the way from Taipei to see this event, even if they've seen it before.
The title of this post was, of course, inspired by Midnight Oil's classic song.
Tra News is a trilingual (Chinese, English and Japanese) website on which you'll find some useful information if you're planning a trip around Taiwan and want to see what's happening. The short articles reflect Taiwanese rather than Western interests; there's a great deal about local delicacies and festivals which travelers who can't speak Chinese will find dull or bewildering. That said, the photos and details of numerous homestays (B&Bs) are useful when looking for somewhere to stay. Also, several establishments offer discount coupons through the website.
The letters "TRA" usually stand for Taiwan Railway Administration, which manages the island's conventional railroads. However, there seems to be no connection between this website and the railway agency - and there's no explanation on the site of what "Tra" stands for.
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