Cinji, a beach for ghost month

Let me tell you about the Asian's relationship with bodies of water and the sun.  They don't like either.  Also, nobody walks anywhere; they ride scooters.  And when they ride scooters, they cover up; whereas the Vietnamese literally dress as mummies covered from head to toe in masks, skirts and gloves whenever venturing onto their motorbikes, the Taiwanese are not quite as fearful.  The Taiwanese will wear a long sleeve shirt to cover their arms, but their feet sport only flip flops.  Yes, you heard me. In Asia, riding a scooter as well as everything else is done in flip flops.   In Vietnam I saw a man arc welding in flop flops.  The reason for this is simple.  Every home, as  well as many restaurants and offices must be visited only in bare feet.  This tradition facilitates frequent changing in and out of shoes, thus the advent of the easy to remove flip flop.  Myself, I wear Crocs. Crocs saved my life. Many thanks to my sister Janet for introducing them to the family.  If you have not tried them, take my word for it.

Anyway, back to the sun/water relationship.  Ghost month or not, Asians rarely go swimming.  The reason goes along with the fear of sun.  They do not want their skin to get darker.  Believe it or not, there are those here in Asia who are lighter than I, a light skinned California girl.  Case in point, many Vietnamese doused themselves with skin bleaching cream and they were considered the most beautiful.  If they were in California, the natives would be claiming, "You need a tan!"  While in Vietnam, one of my friends was from South Africa and she was aghast at this bleaching trend.  She said that politically in Africa it would be taboo.  Recently, I saw that these whitening agents have been outlawed in parts of Africa.

OK, so enough about the Vietnamese and Taiwanese culture.  Suffice it to saw that they do not like the beach but the California girl loves it, so, in spite of Ghost month, Arin and I sneaked away and took a ferry to the island of Cinji in Kiohsiung county and swam today.  Shhhh, don't tell anyone.  We were lucky to catch the tail end of the two month Black Sand Festival so were treated to music and a sand sculpture contest.  Ha, ha, the ghosts did not get us!