lyric mitrochondria

my roommate lish has a taiwanese friend, whose name is lester, who has a band. he invited us to watch him play at his family reunion. he took us to his family's home which is in a farming community around taipei. lester's family is huge, even by american standards. lester's father comes from a family of 12 siblings. most of the families live together. lester's father is a retired chef and made amazing, fresh chinese food. we took a walk around their home which is surrounded by rice fields.

lester's band was awesome. they played taiwanese music, and american music that lish and i could sing along to. one highlight was when the band played "hey jude" by the beatles and the entire audience joined in for the "na, na na" part.

we met some of lester's friends as well. on the left is kaiser. lester and kaiser have been friends since junior high together. isn't that amazing? in the middle is linda, who is an art teacher and drew wonderful cartoons of lish and i after we met.

lish and i felt extremely welcome by lester's family. while MCing, they translated some things into english for us. they welcomed us in english and joked around and like true kin, made us dance to the band's music in front of everyone. here lish and i are pictured with 12-year-old handsome jo-jo. he was a little shy with us because we were the first white people he had ever met. but he was good-natured enough to pose for a few pictures with us.

the band's name is lyric mitrochondria. lester explained to me that the mitrochondria is the most important element of a cell because it gives the rest of the cell, and thus the rest of the body, power. that is what this band hopes to accomplish through their music. i was also really impressed by their singer. not only is she a cute little china punk rock doll, she has a beautiful singing voice that i could listen to all day. i want to take lessons from her.

i think the above shot would be amazing if that music stand wasn't blocking the boy's head. oh well.

i made fast friends with the family dog, whose english name translates to pineapple. the poor thing is considered unlucky because according to chinese traditions, if a dog has white on its tail or toenails, it is an unlucky dog. pineapple has both of those things. i noticed that people in china don't really pet dogs with their hands. they stick their feet out for the animals to smell and rub against, but that's that. once i met pineapple and started to rub his ears, he couldn't stay away from me.

like i mentioned earlier, the family was very gracious to us american guests and did everything they could to help us feel included. in the middle of the band's performance, there was a short break for a trivia quiz. they handed out small prizes. the MC was so kind that his questions were quite simple, or about the american guests. for instance, he asked the question in chinese and then our new friends would nudge us and say, "the question is what is lish's full name. raise your hand! answer!"

both lish and i won little prizes to take home. cute huh? after the band was done performing, it was time to take lish and i home, but they insisted that we stay to perform some english karaoke for them. taiwanese people LOVE karaoke and they are popular household items to have. kind of like where americans have video games, the taiwanese have karaoke. but isn't it just like your own family to insist on doing something in front of them that could potentially be very embarrassing but then cheer you on like a powerhouse when you're in the middle of pushing your comfort zone? i think so.

with love, miss lish and miss megan