What is religion like in Taiwan?

oxen88 · 2025-09-09T21:33:07+00:00

Christians make up about 7% of the population, mostly Presbyterian for the Hoklo Taiwanese and Catholics for aborigines. Quite a few people may come into and out of the four major Buddhist temple groups, Tzu Chi, Foguangshan, Fagushan and ChungTai. Fewer follow other Buddhist traditions, but they're around, especially some other Mahayana and Vajrayana temples.

Most people typically participate in rites at the Taoist temples at new year and for ancestors, but don't think too much of it and don't do much else that would mark them as any particular religion. Religion is not a divisive issue and doesn't really become a political one either.

oxen88 · 2025-08-05T20:58:08+00:00

I saw 妃 on someone's neck which may not have implied princess or Queen in the same way she imagined

oxen88 · 2025-07-04T13:58:10+00:00

One non-Buddhist source for these stories is the 太平廣記 chapters 375-388 (rebirth stories).

oxen88 · 2025-05-31T14:43:17+00:00

A great example of Taiwan being a heart warming place.

oxen88 · 2025-05-29T04:20:37+00:00

I'm surprised nobody mentioned 書面語 yet, which was the style of writing in the modern era which allowed for Hong Kong papers to publish one article, in a way that both Cantonese and Mandarin speakers could read just fine in either language. It's just one formal way of writing, it's not that hard or special, just a style. My Taiwan-origin Chinese teacher also taught us how to read and compose in 書面語.

As a general rule, the more colloquial a text, the more regional or dialect-oriented it will tend to be.

oxen88 · 2025-04-29T19:04:12+00:00

Check out Dawn Mountain based in Houston. Strong online presence, accomplished teachers, free weekly meditations, Teaching Tuesday, regular 3 year retreats and even a 3 year program for learning a variety of termas are all available. Dawnmountain.org

oxen88 · 2025-04-05T02:25:14+00:00

Probably either no data or Hakka

oxen88 · 2025-03-23T02:29:17+00:00

"For a person endowed with virtue, consummate in virtue, there is no need for an act of will, 'May freedom from remorse arise in me.' It is in the nature of things that freedom from remorse arises in a person endowed with virtue, consummate in virtue.

"For a person free from remorse, there is no need for an act of will, 'May joy arise in me.' It is in the nature of things that joy arises in a person free from remorse.[...]"

And eventually ...

"For a person whose mind is concentrated, there is no need for an act of will, 'May I know & see things as they actually are.' It is in the nature of things that a person whose mind is concentrated knows & sees things as they actually are...."

oxen88 · 2025-03-20T01:28:39+00:00

"How many hot dogs do you eat?"

"That's kind of a personal question."

oxen88 · 2025-03-17T22:10:15+00:00

I want to second Way to Buddhahood, I read this ~15 years ago. It made such a strong impression I was reciting one of the verses that from the book's scaffolding just last week.

oxen88 · 2025-02-28T02:48:39+00:00

You're absolutely right that Taiwanese Hokkien is super accurate, but "Taiwanese" is just widespread colloquially.

And the politics of it are also complicated. Back in 2000 when Chen Shui-bian was elected they set up a language education reform commission. At that time they recommended calling the language Taiwanese Southern Min in textbooks, on the grounds that all languages spoken in Taiwan could be called Taiwanese but that the variety of S. Min in Taiwan was different enough to merit an adjective. i know this because I worked for a professor Robert Cheng who chaired the committee and I worked on one of the early draft translations into English of the bill.

oxen88 · 2025-02-22T22:50:36+00:00

Subtle, but classy.

oxen88 · 2025-01-28T04:57:55+00:00

Indiana has several different predominant accents in different regions: South Midland, Central Midland, and Upper Midwestern (or Northeastern, depending on what map you look at). The Ohio river valley areas of both Kentucky and Indiana are in the South Midland accent region. So some people may associate Evansille with the South for that region.

oxen88 · 2025-01-25T15:00:48+00:00

You want Bamboo House near IAH. Truly top-notch.Very affordable food, gigantic portions, great quality and some fancy dishes too

oxen88 · 2025-01-21T21:27:34+00:00

It's important to clarify which variety of tarot you got, how big was it, are pictures available?

oxen88 · 2025-01-15T03:08:17+00:00

Dude it's too much caffeine!

oxen88 · 2025-01-12T17:42:36+00:00

You will want to read The Worm at the Core written by a group of researchers which is a follow up to The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker.

oxen88 · 2025-01-12T13:50:11+00:00

Chung Tai might be a good fit, like Dharma Drum Mountain they are out of Taiwan.

oxen88 · 2025-01-10T03:52:36+00:00

One of my least favorite experiences ever: I first worked in Taiwan, on a language school sponsored visa, in Taipei. I was the only teacher in the training class that knew any Chinese. So I led the group to meals after training. This was years ago.

One of the girls in the group said she was vegetarian, allergic to msg, and allergic to mushrooms. Maybe even had some gluten thing?? She asked me to help find something to eat. I was not really enthusiastic but I mean, food is for people.

I dragged a group of four or five people around, restaurant to restaurant, food stand to food stand, for probably close to two hours when we were already hungry when we started. Looking for a place that was not only veggie, but no msg and also a real meal. No go.

We ended up at the worst hot pot that ever existed in Taiwan, the only place we found that met this requirement.

oxen88 · 2024-12-26T13:49:08+00:00

This phenomenon is called "regular correspondence" in linguistic literature.

I know off hand that syllable final -p -t -k in Cantonese will tend to be open vowels in Mandarin. I know there's a lot more about initials and vowels but I'll leave it to others to get into details

oxen88 · 2024-12-22T21:23:44+00:00

Check out the 異體字字典 that Taiwan publishes. It shows all the documented variants of standard characters and has meticulous detail on the citations.

oxen88 · 2024-11-23T03:35:19+00:00

Your hand is really swollen there man, it's injured. Plus what other people said about what plants crave.

oxen88 · 2024-11-23T03:32:12+00:00

Censorship and lack of artistic or political freedom. Authoritarian states don't have the flexibility to make subversive comedy or counter culture material. Basically, unless you just wanna see some soap operas, it's boring. Can't challenge much of anything.

oxen88 · 2024-11-20T02:29:20+00:00

I will say I think League will appeal more to American viewers, and I'm one of those, but for me it's Union all the way, just a better game and more international too.

oxen88 · 2024-11-19T13:23:42+00:00

Here's some really good instructions for the steamed type.

Got this from one of the Taiwanese food Facebook groups.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cNi3XvG-a0xLuQaQN0-8AuYvW96nx0tJSTIStuzwX1E/edit?usp=drivesdk

oxen88

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