S - E - X

Just the word gets everyone excited. I think Taiwan is a little prudish compared to the US but they I don't hang out with the younger crowd so I really don't know. There are some sexshops around Tainan, they are kind of jarring when you run across them.

The sell the usual, it's a much about the mind as it is about the body.

This guy, I think I actually met him in Bali. I don't think he is Taiwanese.

But in some ways Taiwan is more liberal than the US, I don't think I have ever seen a poster for condoms in the US.

Ideas #3

The folder of good ideas is getting full, time for a dump.

There is no shortage of worthless CDs/DVDs. Finding a place to reuse them takes some effort.

When riding the bike and giving a child a buck on the back, we need to keep their feet out of the spokes.

This a traffic barrier made of stiff rubber tubes, better than hitting cement. Warning lights inside the tubes.

Here is sewer in Xin Bei Tou, a northern suburb of Taipei. The sewer is on a steep hill and the curves about the sewer create a whirlpool for better drainage.

Helmets are mandatory for motorcycles in Taiwan, the law isn't always enforced and the helmets are not always protective. The 2 construction workers have the wrong helmets. And the student doesn't have the chin strap connected.

Please, please, please use the correct helmet correctly. In all the accidents I see in Tainan, the helmet is the first thing to go flying. It doesn't help if it's not on your head.

Feng Shui

It's always a surprise for me that for Taiwanese who are so hardheaded about finance are still into Feng Shui. For me, Feng Shui is the positioning of architecture to influence the 'qi". "Qi" is some mystical force that flows in the universe. There is good Qi and bad Qi, by positioning you can deflect the bad and channel the good. I really don't think there is any such thing.

But in Taiwan you often see some strange scuplture in the front of a building, it's not there for an artistic purpose, it's there to influence the qi.

I think shiney things deflect bad Qi and maybe pointy things direct bad Qi towards others.

I know mirrors work and they are often at the entrance to a building, like this one at the entrance to the Chinese Literature Depatment building on the NCKU campus.

It's OK with me because I know gardens influence the Qi and we can always use more gardens.

And aquariums also effect the Qi, and we need more aquariums too!

Bamboo

The big construction material of the East use to be bamboo. But now in modern Taiwan with all the prefab and modular construction it is hard to find. But as a one off renovation of old buildings it's still around. But I think those that know how to use it will not be around forever.

Here we have the renovation of an old temple in Tainan.

There's no prefab modules for this kind of work.

And the workers up there is the sky have to have the gods on their side.

Here is a temple window where they acknowledge the role of bamboo, but in the medium of cement.

For now bamboo is regulated to the role of ornamental garden props.

Fossils on both sides of DaXue Lu

In a previous post

http://tainanchineseclass.blogspot.com/2009/09/rocks-in-tainan.html

I was struck my what a nice boulder of fossils was used on the boulevard of DaXue road on the NCKU Campus. This time as a student, I happen to walk on the other side of the road and saw another boulder of fossils. They are from the same location but someone placed them on opposite sides of the same road.

Who would do such a thing? Probably some frustrated geology major. Anyway for me it was a great discovery, now when I walk along DaXue road I now have to decide which side of the road I will walk on, so which boulder of fossils will I see.

Here is the situation from Google maps, the two black spots mark the location of the two boulders of fossils.

Obviously someone knew what they were doing, but it isn't until someone walks on both sides of the road that they know what was done. On the south side of the road, we have this boulder.

http://tainanchineseclass.blogspot.com/2009/09/rocks-in-tainan.html

including this picture:

But the other side of the street, has an equally impressive set of fossils. Here is the boulder on the other side:

A close up shows they are from the same strata.

Someone with a knowledge of geology/fossils set up two boulders, one on each side of the street. Thank you!

Beetles/Beatles

It wasn't until this year that I realized the "beetles" and "beatles" were 2 different words! Of course they are homonyms, but the former is an insect and the latter is a musical group. For more than 40 years I have been thinking that the "Beatles" was a strange name for a musical group. (At the same time, the 60s, there was another group called the "Turtles".) And I guess because the musical group had a good "beat", they called themselves the "Beatles". Oh, now I get it!

Anyway, beetles are big in Taiwan, that it as a hobby.

They are collected like butterflies and mounted.

And they are sold live as pets in a terrarium. They are sometimes sold as larvae so the owner can watch them molt into an adult beetle. Kind of like caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly.

They are kind of cute, probably don't each much. For children and adults they look like a dinosaur of manageable size.

This is a Hair Salon, it was probably named for that musical group of moptops.

Chinese Rhymes #2

I took the time to translate two more poems(actually ditties is the better term) from the Liao Ning Night Market resturant. Previously written about at:

http://mikeess-trip.blogspot.com/2011/04/taipei-liao-ning-night-market.html

These two are of a "sexual nature" and the kind you would expect in a bar. If anyone can help with my translations, please comment. Notice that the pinyin translations show that they do rhyme when spoken.

男人不喝醉,女人沒小費
女人不喝醉,男人沒機會
男女不喝醉,賓館沒人睡
老婆沒人味,請人說太累
嫖妓嫌太貴,強女姦會犯
早點回家睡,用手來自慰
 
pinyin:

nánren bù hēzuì, nüren méi xiǎofèi
nǚren bù    hēzuì, nánren méi jīhuì
nánnǚ bù hēzuì, bīnguǎn méi rén shuì
lǎopo méi rén wèi, qǐng rén shuō tài lèi
piáojì xián tài guì, qiáng nǚ jiān zuì
zǎo diǎn huíjiā shuì, yòng shǒu zìwèi

My English translation:

If the man doesn't get drunk the waitress doesn't get a tip
If the woman doesn't get drunk, the man has no opportunity
If the man and woman don't get drunk, the resturant people don't get any sleep
If the wife says she's not in the mood, and says she's too tired
To visit a prostitute is too expensive, rape is illegal
So early to bed, and use your hand for pleasure.

沒結婚是對的
結婚是錯誤的
離婚是覺悟的
再婚是執迷不悟
有再婚是自尋死路

pinyin:

méi jiéhūn shì duìde
jiéhūn shì cuòwùde
líhūn shì juéwùde
zài hūn shì zhímíbùwù
yǒu zài hūn shì zixún sǐlù

My English translation:

Not getting married is correct
Getting married is a mistake
Divorce is an enlightenment
To marry again is an obsinate foolish mistake
To marry again brings about your own destruction

A sense of humor is always appreciated.

AIT in Taiwan

While in Taipei, Florence and I went to the AIT(American Institute in Taiwan). This is the "American Embassy" in Taiwan. Since the 1971, recognition of Mainland China as the legitimate authority in China, the US in Taiwan has only an institute and doesn't recognize Taiwan as a country. But Taiwan is #19 of the largest economies in the world. (#1 is US, #2 China, #3 Japan, ... ) Taiwan has more than 23 million people, ... China prevents Taiwan from becoming recognized but the KMT party in Taiwan doesn't help the situation(see below).

Anyway, while at the AIT, we took some photos which was forbidden, a guard came out and made Florence delete the pictures from the camera. This put me on a "Mission Impossible" task of getting pictures in front of the AIT. It turned out to be pretty simple, the guard goes off duty at 5PM, so you only have to wait until after 5PM to take your pictures.

After the drama of having to delete the forbidden photos, it was anticlimactic to get the shots. Just what was the point of forbidding photos? The diplomatic world is like "Alice in Wonderland".

This is a good time to go over the time line of China/Taiwan history.

1895 The Qing Dynasty loses a war with Japan and Taiwan becomes Japanese territory
1911 Sun Yat-Sen overthrows the Qing Dynasty and establishes the ROC(Republic of China)
1928 Chiang Kai-Shek takes over ROC with the KMT(Kuo Ming Tang) party. 
         From this time on the KMT fights with the communists for control of China.
1937 Japan and China are at war.
1945 Japan loses the "War of the Pacific", Taiwan goes back to China.
1949 Chiang Kai-Shek and the ROC/KMT lose to the Communists on the Mainland.
         Chiang Kai-Shek and the ROC/KMT retreat to Taiwan.
         Mao Tze-Tung & Chinese Communists Party(CCP) establish the People's Republic of
         China(PRC) on the Mainland
         The ROC is still recognized as the rightful government of China by the US, UN, ...
1971 Tricky Dick Nixon and "No Scruples" Kissinger switch the recognition of China from the  
         ROC/KMT to CCP/PRC. Done to use China as a counterweight to Communist Russia(USSR)
1972 No more American Embassy in Taiwan, just the AIT
1994 First democratic election for president in Taiwan, Lee Tung-Hui(KMT) elected.
2000 First nonKMT elected in president in Taiwan, Chen Shui-Bian, 
         Democratic Progressive Party(DPP).
2004 Chen Shui-Bian reelected
2008 Ma Ying-Jeou(KMT) elected president of Taiwan
2012 another presidential election        

Taiwanese Reciept Lottery

In Taiwan, just by buying anything you wind up in a lottery. Taiwan encourages businesses to use receipts so that they can keep track of sales for tax purposes. To get stores to issue receipts, every receipt has a lottery number. Every two months, customers can compare their accumulated receipt numbers to the winning numbers. So customers are happy to shop at stores that issue receipts. Other stores that don't want the government to have an accurate accounting of their sales don't issue receipts. The receipts are a way for the government to encourage businesses to record their business.

The payoff matrix for receipts is like:

3 digits correct -   200NT ~     7 dollars(US)
4 digits              - 1000NT ~   33 dollars(US)
5 digits              - 4000NT ~ 132 dollars(US)

up to

specific numbers 10,000,000 NT ~ 33,000 dollars US

I have receipts, so I could be a big winner.

After sorting them into two month intervals. I had:

Checking the numbers against the numbers on the website, I thought I had one receipt with 4 numbers correct(1000NT,~33US). But then I realized it was for the wrong two month period.

Oh well, in the next 2 month period, I'm sure I'll be a big winner!

I know in the US this kind of social engineering can make a difference. Lots are against cameras catching speeders and automatically issuing traffic tickets. But if those caught on camera obeying the speed limits were given a small reward, it would be a much more popular program. Programs with carrots and sticks are more popular than those with only sticks.

Mistakes in Chinese

Chinese is a tough language for foreigners. The characters are a big memorization drill and the tones in pronunciation are two hurtles.

But even for native speakers the characters can be challenge. Being a language of almost 3500 years there have been changes. Below is a list of all the characters have been used for the word "shou4", the word for longevity.

As you can see there has been a few variations over the years, so which one is correct?

Below is a picture of the big stella in front of my language school on the National Cheng Kung University. The characters on the stone were taken from a dedication written by Lee Teng-Hui, the first democratically elected president of Taiwan. One character is miswritten.

The character in question is the last one of the 4 big gold characters. As we learn in class the correct character is:


樓

this character is pronounced "lóu" and is a general world for building. In this more detailed picture, you can see one of the horizontal strokes on the right of the character is not as long as the version above.

Lee Teng-Hui should be forgiven for this mistake. He grew up during the Japanese time and spoke Hakka(a local dialect) at home and went to school taught in Japanese. During WWII he went to college in Japan and learned English
as his third language. He did graduate school at Iowa State. After 1949 and the retrocession of Taiwan back to the China/ROC, he had to learn Chinese as at least his 4th language. I think it is wonderful that his history with language is enshrined in stone now.

Below is a recent article from the Taipei Times newspaper:

beginning-of-article

Presidential Office caught using wrong character
By Fan Cheng-hsiang  /  Staff Reporter

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) took part in the nation’s first National Women’s Conference (全國婦女國是會議) yesterday to demonstrate how much they care about policies relating to women’s affairs, but there was one small glitch: The Presidential Office was caught using a wrong character on its Web site when referring to the event.

In the section of the Presidential Office Web site listing the president’s public appearances, it was written that Ma would take part in the 全國婦女國事會議, mistaking the character 事 for 是.

Although the two characters have the same pronunciation, they have very different meanings.

While the term 國事 refers to “state affairs,” or everyday issues relating to a country, the term 國是 refers to a government’s policy directions.

Despite the Presidential Office’s error, both the Executive Yuan and the Ministry of the Interior, as well as the official event Web site, have been using the correct characters whenever the event is mentioned.

An unnamed official said that no one in government had “dared” inform the Presidential Office that it had made a mistake in its selection of characters.

The ministry made a special presentation on women’s rights and gender equality during the Cabinet meeting on Thursday and announced that a National Women’s Conference was to be held yesterday and today at the National Central Library in Taipei.

The meeting, which involves the participation of non--governmental groups, academics and representatives from government agencies dealing with women’s issues, aims to outline future policy directions to improve gender equality in the country.

end-of-article

I use a similar software program to do my Chinese homework and I have made similar mistakes over and over and over and over and ....

Correction:

I talked with the Director of the Language Institute about the misdrawn character on the stone monument. As usual, I got the situation wrong. From what I understood of his explanation, in artistic/memorial settings characters can be drawn to be more "balanced" and therefore more beautiful. Extending the horizontal stroke as in the dictionary would "unbalance" the character, so as it was is better than what I thought it should have been. Wrong again.

flip and blogger from Taipei

While in Taipei, I had access to a better internet connection than I have in Taiwan. The flipshare software allowed me to upload a longer flip movie of Balinese dancers, where as I never got this to work from Tainan. Below is the link to my flipshare movies. The login is:

mike_ess@yahoo.com

the password(all lowercase) is:

taiwanisnotchina

check it out.

Flip share Movie


Also using this better internet connection I was able to upload a longer movie to my blog with the Google blogger software. Neither flipshare nor blogger gave me a good error message in Tainan that the problem was with my internet connection.















In the past week there have been stories about about Cisco shutting down the flip camera. There are lots of analysis about why after spending over half a billion dollars 2 years ago, Cisco is now shutting it down. My own explanation is that the files were too dam big and the software was primitive. Hardware without support and software will always fail.

Even if flibshare stops supporting, I have a 64GB device connectible thru the USB port. 

Beers in Taiwan

Looking over the 200+ blog entries of the past 2 years, I'm surprised I haven't said anything about beer in Taiwan. Not to worry, they have lots of good beer in Taiwan. Actually I prefer the local Taiwan beer in Taiwan.

Conveniently in both big bottles and 12 oz cans. The green bottle is generally known as "gold medal"(jinpai), the brown bottle is a little cheaper and a little heavier and might be called "non gold medal"(bushijinpai). In hot weather. using ice cubes is OK.

At the 7/11, there is a selection beyond the local, the next most popular beers are the Japanese versions.

I like these too, the "Bar Beer" is particularly good, light and sweet. I think beer made with rice is good. I think most Taiwanese and Japanese beers use rice as a principal ingredient. But beer snobs look down on rice as a replacement for barley or wheat, I think the yeasties that make beer don't really care.

There are foreign beers available at the 7/11 but I don't think they are as popular unless you are trying to show off.

The American Busch and Budweiser are good, I know Budweiser uses rice as an ingredient(check the label). But the imported beers are more expensive but beer drinkers are going for the effect rather than the impression. Heineken is a worldwide product so probably the safe choice no matter where you are. (But in Belize, the Heineken knockoff "Beliken"  was super.) The "Martens", I bought at 7/11 for this report, is from Belgium, it comes in a plastic, green bottle, a little too modern for my tastes.

The rightmost 2 cans are "Tingdao"(Qingdao) beer from Mainland China. This beer has got to be a marketing challenge in Taiwan. In 1994, when we were living in HsinChu, Taiwan, there were about 30 Taiwanese tourists killed by the PLA(People's Liberation Army) at Qingdao Lake in Mainland China. China has never "solved" or explained this massacre. But anyone in Taiwan with a sense of history can't drink a QingDao beer without remembering that this is unfinished business.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiandao_Lake_Incident
Here we have a delivery being made to my dorm room, I hope my mini frig can handle it. Notice no need from refrigeration during transport.

 (No nonhuman subjects were injured in the experiments for this report.)

Dried Youzi

In a previous blog, I talked about the fun with youzi

http://tainanchineseclass.blogspot.com/2009/10/youzi-mauzi.html

Youzi is like a big grapefruit, I think in the US it is called a pomelo. I know they are sold at Costco in the US. I don't think they are so healthy as that Alzheimer victim, Ronald Reagen was big on grapefruit. Nothing wards off the Alzheimer's.

The weather in Tainan is HOT now, it gets up in the 80's/90's now and my room on the North side of the dorm doesn't cool off at night, still in the 80's at night. I'm trying to see if I can hold off on the AC until it's "unbearable". One lesson I've learned: "Cold beer helps".

With the hot weather, lots of Tainan residents are taking advantage of "solar energy" to dry out vegetables. Youzi peels are used as a mosquito repellent, it makes sense, citronella also is a repellent.

Any space exposed to the sun seems suitable, like these motorcycle seats.

I think everyone has been waiting for the Sun to get this drying business done. Garlic needs drying.

I remember in Dallas it was so hot they said you could fry an egg on a car hood, that might be a little extreme. The side walks are taken over by solar energy projects. Here I think they are drying out crab apples.

A walk to the Tainan Airport

Over the Spring Break, I walked to the Tainan Airport. It's about a 2 hour walk one way.

 The Tainan Airport is a small regional airport that has only local connections, here is the arrival board on a Sunday afternoon only 4 flights over an 6 hour period.

The airport also is the home of the Taiwanese Air Force, it easy to tell when you are not in the commercial area.

China has over 2000 missiles pointed at Taiwan, probably many of them are directed at the Tainan Airport.

At the airport they had some interesting posters. Here is one of two for missing children.

They had many more posters of missing old people. Taiwan has a longer life expectancy than the U.S., the older people get the more they go missing.

There is a very good Taiwanese book by Wang Wen-Hsing translated into English called "A Family Catastrophe" about a son searching for his missing father.