A Week In Taiwan, Part 2: Synergy

In Taipei, at the underground tunnels leading to subway stations, one can often see pedestrians - wearing busy if not dour expressions - walking briskly and fast, like they’re bent to, without delay, go someplace. Brummagem wares are ignored, bums are not spared any penny, and street musicians are paid no mind. But on one Sunday, July 27th of 2008, something strange happened inside the tunnels. Suddenly, people were not dashing out as fast as they could; but they were converging on a particularly noisy spot. They looked fascinated. They were watching singers and dancers from Utah who had come to perform all over Taiwan. Songs are sung, dances are danced, hands are clapped, and cheers are yelled. Synergy, as the group is called, was on a mission to inspire everyone with music, and this was the first day.

08 Set the Night to Music (Synergy)

I was one of the audiences, but what set me and another three apart from the rest of the spectators was that we travel with Synergy. We were their tour guides. Okay, a more accurate description is “Those other three are Synergy’s tour guides; Nightdreamer came along to pretend to be a tour guide like being a tour guide was a walter-mitty fantasy of Snoopy.” Meanwhile, I also felt stupid about myself. Yin Chu, tour guide #1, earned a magna cum laude in her college years, and she works in a UN-subsidized organization while moonlighting as a piano teacher. Barry, tour guide #2, is an international school graduate and is also a singer, and he is just about to go to New York University for college. Perlette, tour guide #3, is a singer/model/pianist and, despite being child of a French and a Taiwanese, can speak Filipino. Nightdreamer was tour (mis)guide #4 who, on most occasions, felt like hiding behind curtains; his greatest musical achievement is his playing a perfect “Mary Has a Little Lamb” with the 1-2-3 keys of a tone-dialed telephone (the lone audience of that performance is his own left ear). I was the only nonmusical person among the guides and the travelers. In a completely mediocre way I stood out!

Barry

Perlette

A random nobody posing with Yin Chu

The days went by like this: sightsee at daytimes, perform at nighttimes. We took Synergy from the north to the south of Taiwan, stopping to let them perform on venues that were both formal (like National Concert Hall [the Carnegie Hall of Taiwan], Sanchung Society Center, Churches of Latter Day Saints in Taipei and in Kaoshung, Sun Yat Sen Theater of Tai Chung, Yun Lin Theater, and in a Kaoshung’s park) and informal (like in an underground tunnel, outside the Shinkong Department Store of the Xinyi District, in a school of Kaoshung, and at a crossroad of Ximending). We also sent them to tourist spots like the Shilin Night Market, Taipei 101, Xinyi District, Ximending, Feng Chia Night Market, Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, National Palace Museum, Long Shan Temple, Sun Moon Lake, and Holiday Jade and Flower Market.

Sorry for the name-drop overloads. I’ll atone by pictures!

THERE ARE A LOT OF PICTURES IN HERE! YOU’RE READY FOR THAT? THEN CLICK “MORE”!

(Note: Pictures are not in chronological order.) 

Longshan Temple

Singing in Ximending 

A Stroll in Ximending

At Xinyi District

They’re about to sing

Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall

A Church of Latter Day Saints

Shilin Night Market. It’s too crowded here on Saturdays.

Shilin Night Market

Inside Long Shan Temple

Long Shan Temple

Err, there are easier ways to remove that pillar

Stairway to Sun Moon Lake

DJ

 Sun Moon Lake Temple

Vanessa

Vanessa

Umm…

Lindsay S, signing autographs

Randy making shrieking fangirls happy

Lindsay D and Randy

Randy and Katie

Natalie

Natalie

Michelle 

Michelle

Lindsay D

Lindsay S and Colton 

Laurel

Laurel

Kyle, Perlette and Yin Chu

Colton and Kyle

Some passerby with Bergandee

Kim. He’s their conductor.

Katie

Jonathan

Jesse

Jared

Our photographer, DJ

Dave

Dave 

Dantzel

Dantzel

Our bus driver, saying goodbye to us

Bergandee

Benjamin

Barry and Yin Chu

Allie

Alexi

Bumming in the bus

Bumming in the bus again

Boat made of money

Guanyu’s Altar

Mountain Trail

Stairway out of Sun Moon Lake

Sun Moon Lake

Temple atop Sun Moon Lake

Singing in the airport

At Kaoshung’s Park

Kim asking Yin Chu to translate what he says

Choir from Georgia who joined us in our tour

Inside a school of Kaoshung

Further proof that girls today dig the dorky types

Vanessa

Jesse

Practicing their dance

Sun Yat Sen Theater

Inside a mormon church

All the ladies in the hauz!

All the boyz in da hood!

Despite being so thoroughly out-of-place among both the tour guides and all members of Synergy, I loved hanging around with them. They were so nice! How nice, you ask? Like, a person like me who most of my readers think is one of the most angst-ridden guys on the side of Holden Caulfield, would and did travel halfway of Taiwan just to reunite with them (I went my own ways for a day when I needed to take care of travel document burdens). Not a strong enough testimony? Okay, how about this: they managed to make a surly bus driver - who acted as tempestuously as a fairly tale’s antagonist - become amiable. 

While they were being endlessly fascinated by Taiwan’s culture, I was being endlessly fascinated by their talents, and by the heart they put to the songs they sing. I’ve not felt so inspired for a long time. Even if I was a mere hulking excess baggage to everyone, I was treated like a brother, and by the time we parted ways, their goodbyes sounded like “could cry”. I miss them very dearly now that I’m back in the Philippines and with only their pictures and their letters as memorabilias. 

Vacation days always go by too quickly. They’re like boats driven by the currents borne toward ceaselessly to a waterfall. If Synergy ever decides to come to Philippines I’d be thrilled to accompany them. And then I bet the days will run like athletes on steroids, again. To me, it didn’t matter that I didn’t buy a lot of stuff in Taiwan. What’s more important to me is my being able to meet people worth having long-lasting friendships with. How does consumerism even compare to that?