Ever since I started taking Spanish as a language at 15-years old, I dreamed of visiting the “motherland,” the place where the language originated. I finally got that chance recently. I didn’t truly get to spend much time on the “Spanish mainland,” the Iberian peninsula, instead, I actually stopped over in Madrid to catch a flight over to Tenerife, part of the Canary Island chain. The island chain is located off of the main Iberian Peninsula, the situation and geographic location is a lot like Hawaii is to the US, except the Canary Islands are an hour by plane from mainland Spain, not 5 hours from the nearest land mass like Hawaii. The other thing that feels like home? Well, that it’s an island chain of course! The climate and scenery are a lot like Hawaii, except of course that everyone speaks Spanish and there are fewer Asians. Although the surprising thing is that there are a large number of Asians in Tenerife who, get this, speak perfect Spanish! There’s a large population of ethnic Chinese in Tenerife and the interesting part is they’ve maintained a lot of their home culture in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. For example, I went to a Taoist temple to attend a service and the prayers are done in Chinese, while the sermon is done in Spanish, the congregation is made up of both native Chinese and Spanish speakers. It’s an extremely interesting cultural mix and display. More to come on my adventures in Spain, after all ¡la vida es así!
La vida es así 