Mid-Autumn Flamenco

It's the Mid-Autumn Festival in Taiwan. Everyone is taking a break for the next five days. And everyone needs it! I just called a friend (at ten) and it sounded like I woke her up from the night of the living dead. So sorry, dear! Go back to sleep and call me at four.

I am having a lazy morning, listening to flamenco music. Listening to it makes me want to dance fiercely and shout with passion!

Something in this music moves me deeply. Perhaps my own Middle Eastern roots. Since half of my family is Moroccan-Jewish, I wonder where in Spain my sephardic ancestors once lived.

I think back to last year, my friend Michael and I hiked near the Maokang tea plantations, and found an old temple, where some old Taiwanese men were drinking tea. Since Michael speaks fluent Chinese (and is just a jovial kind of guy), they invited us to join them. They probably were wondering how this waiguoren who stands at over six feet speaks such good Chinese. We sat and chatted and let the tea do its wonders. Up on the mountain, drinking wulong cha, communing with nature and our new friends, it was quite a refined moment, typically Chinese.

The spirit of flamenco, hands raised, eyes closed, a foot piercing the floor in defiance. The spirit of Chinese culture, epitomized by that moment drinking tea on the mountain, maybe even reciting some old classic poetry. Totally different.

And yet, you can find flamenco-lovers here in Taiwan. There is a flamenco dance troupe at Zhengda, where I study. At lunch the other day, they put on a performance. I felt moved by the music and by the beautiful dancers. They were all Taiwanese, but they all got the spirit of the dance. We were all in Andalusia, right there at the foot of the Maokang hills.

Different culture have their specialties, but we are all human and we have everything inside of us. Surprising but true.