Religion is much more alive here in Taiwan than in mainland China. That much is obvious just from walking around. I don’t mean just the famous, historically significant, tourist-attracting temples, although there are certainly plenty of those.

No, what’s interesting about religion in Taiwan is that it’s more a part of people’s daily lives. Even at the touristy temples, I always saw at least one person there praying, which in China involves kneeling and bowing a bit and holding burning incense sticks in front of an altar of the statue of whatever god or historical figure it is. At the City God Temple in Tainan, I ran into a guy who told me he had been a college professor in Texas somewhere and had returned to Taiwan to start his own business. He paid his respects to the various statues in the temple in a businesslike manner and then left in his BMW. So this is something educated, worldly people participate in.

And then there are all the much smaller, obscure, neighborhood temples and shrines. Many times, I’ll be walking through an alley and glance into what looks like a room in somebody’s house, with a small altar set up there and a little old lady tending it while a potbellied middle-aged man smokes and watches TV in the same room. Or I’ll be walking along the street and randomly run into some religious procession (or hear it — usually religious processions in Taiwan involve cymbals and firecrackers).

The Chinese have a pragmatic, even transactional, take on religion that I find refreshing. People write prayers down on slips of wood or paper and leave them on display in temples. They’re fun to read — some are general appeals for family members’ good health, to find true love, for peace on earth, or whatnot, similar to the kind of things U.S. Christians pray for. But in Taiwan, most of the prayers are from students preparing for exams. And they’re often very specific.

And for that matter, it’s perfectly fine to commercialize your religion.

I remember an anecdote from one of my college classes on Chinese religion. It was from a 19th-century Western missionary account. There was a drought, and a Chinese farmer had a statue of the rain god in his house. He dutifully paid obeisance to the god every day, burning incense, leaving small offerings of food for it, and so forth, for many days. But there was no relief. The drought continued and his crops withered in the fields. Furious, the farmer grabbed the statue with a pair of tongs and held it to the fire in his hearth, saying, “You stupid god! I did everything you wanted and you still won’t make it rain! Well I’ll show you! I won’t let you out of the fire until you hold up your end of the bargain!” Again, refreshingly transactional.

And given the transactional nature of faith here, there’s no real need for modesty in displays of religious commitment. The more you put in, the more you get out. Loud, tacky, arguably tasteless — well, that just shows how dedicated you are! Devout Buddhists (a religion that dismisses the value of material things, mind), rather than simply fixing the leaky roof of the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945) Paochueh Temple (寶覺寺) in Taichung, built a gigantic second temple completely enveloping the first one.

And they didn’t stop there. An equally gargantuan golden Buddha statue squats nearby, next to another huge temple on the same site.

Taiwanese Christians get into the act too.

Religion in Taiwan is also inclusive — people worship Taoist gods, buddhas and bodhisattvas, foreign gods, mythological figures, historical figures, you name it.

I arrived in Taipei just in time for Qing Ming Day (清明節), or Tomb-Sweeping Day, 5 April, when people generally take a long weekend off to visit their ancestral tombs, clean off the leaves and other detritus, pray to the ancestors, leave flowers and other offerings, and so forth.

An ancestral tomb should be high up on a hillside whenever possible. Ancestral spirits like a room with a view as much as anyone else, apparently.

And again, Taiwanese Christians get into the act too.