See the True Taiwan: an insiders guide

Every year on the fifteenth and final day of the lunar new year a small temple in Neihu fills the winter night with massive columns of smoke and fire while packs of people crowd into the narrow lanes west of the BiHu park. It's loud, smoky, and a little bit dangerous in all the ways you'd expect a good Chinese New Year festival to be. Plumes of smoke and fire make for good times Many years ago when I'd first arrived in Taiwan I got brought to this this festival on a whim by a friend who thought it'd impress me. And impress it most certainly did.  For many people being in Taiwan during Chinese New Year is a little bit of a letdown compared to western expectations about the holiday. Neihu's take on the lantern festival is certainly a welcome nod to the noisy parade you were expecting to see. Selfies at the tiny temple on Neihu Road which hosts the event. For those only spending one new year in Taipei there is a choice to be made between this firec...

For most of the year BeiGang (北港) is a sleepy little town tucked away at the southern end of YunLin County (雲林縣). Residents live a simpler life than their big city countrymen and the pace of daily life is slower and far more relaxed. Built around a small urban center the town proper opens out to large expanses of farmland and eventually into the ocean. Yet this place is anything but a has-been or never-was city in the Taiwanese cultural landscape. Once a year BeiGang welcomes a massive party for Mazu (媽祖 also spelled Matsu), the goddess of the sea, at the city's ChaoTian Temple (朝天宮). Pilgrims arrive from all over Taiwan with their local temple's Mazu in tow, and the city swarms with gangs of temple devotees detonating fireworks, preparing epic feasts, and just taking in the incredible show. The city's traditional downtown is roughly bounded by HuaNan Road (also called ZhongYang Highway), DaTong Road, and the river. The temple itself creates what is essentially an enormous ...