I haven't really stuck to my new year's resolution of having shorter posts, but I think I will be able to do it today. Not only that it will be lacking any research whatsoever.
This is Taipei's mosque. I believe that there is another smaller one, somewhere, but i'm not so sure. Taipei has a relatively high Indonesian population and a small Malaysian population, but from what I've head, they don't really go to this mosque. Mainly it is visited by American, African, and Middle Eastern Muslims who are working in Taipei.
I'd love to go in one day and find out for myself, but I'm not sure how open they are to the public. Most churches here are only open on Sundays. I guess that means I'll have to go here on a Friday.
To be honest, I think the one thing that has always stopped me from going, is saying "hey I want to go to the mosque, would you like to come alone and check it out?" or "I went to the mosque last week, it was a very interesting place." to friends and then have to hear some ignorant or racist thoughts from them. Cause the racism in Taiwan can be overwhelming sometimes. Granted it more comes from a place of ignorance, rather than actual hatred, as most opinions about races, religions, and groups comes from western movies and tv shows, rather than actual interaction with those people. If you'd like a fun exercise, take a look at a few shows from the viewpoint of somebody who doesn't really get the humor and definitely doesn't get sarcasm, and you'll see how pretty much most western media can appear to be just "straight white people are great" and the rest, well....
On top of this I'm getting old and tired. I used to take a lot of time to explain things to people and educate them so at least they can have the information needed to choose to be racist, rather than just being told to be racist. But now a days I don't have the energy to do that anymore, and instead I will just choose to no longer be friends with that person. Meaning I'm a bit scared to go here, cause I can see it causing me to loose one or two friends once having to hear their views on Muslims.
