Little Old Lady At The Temple

At one point in our temple explorations, Chunnan was away using the facilities, leaving me alone to explore the first temple with my camera. I moved into the main shrine area and tok some photos of the hanging lanterns.

I was standing in a cafeteria section off to one side and there were few women on the far side. You can see them on the right side of the photo below.

In a moment or two the oldest of the women started moving toward me in a stooped over shuffling gait. She had a fist full of red necklaces with gold pendants and when she got to where I was standing she held out two of them for me to examine. She said something softly and frailly in Taiwanese that I could not understand but I leaned over and looked at the pendants. She tok that opportunity to reach up and try to put them over my head. My head is big and sweaty and they were a tight fit but she kept at it and soon they were hanging around my neck. Then she held out her hand with two finger extended and said "two". Ah, she just sold me the pendants. Ok, I'm stuck and committed now. I had two thousand dollar bills in my wallet so I pulled out one and thought she's gonna have a hard time making change. But as soon as the money came out she reached into her hand bag and pulled out a wad of cash that surprised me and made change. I found out then that "two" was "two hundred dollars" as she handed me back 800 in change. Now, before you freak out that I paid $200 for a couple of tourist trinkets, remember that the exchange rate for Taiwanese dollars is about 33 to 1. So, its was only $6 US and the experience was worth more than that all by itself.

After the money changed hands I used signs and gestures to ask if I could take her picture and she agreed. That's her above. Chunnan came back about that time (you can see him just behind the woman) and after we were by ourselves again he started razzing me in a fun way about getting cheated, but I didn't feel that way at all. As I said, it was cheap in US$ and the personal experience was priceless. There were not any tourists at the temples that day so I may have been the only sale she made and I actually feel good about helping her out in that way. So, here's a pic of me and my Daoist pendants.

This is actually a pretty good picture. Thanks Chunnan!