Photos from Taipei, Taiwan

[Bison]

Yeah I draw the line at feet.  And eyes.  Unless I was really hungery and stranded in the wilderness and I'd just caught a fish.  I'd eat the whole damn thing scales, eyes and tail.

[besilarius]

Was told that the people of Shanghai will eat everything on four legs.
Except a table.

[MarkShot]

Well, I haven't had much time for gaming.

We just signed a three year lease on new apartment (three bedroom, two baths, terrace, and parking).  We now have a new home.

I just cannot help being struck by how nice and friendly the people are here.  As it was 30 years ago, it really is something for someone who partially grew up in NYC and lived in worked in NYC.

Everywhere you encounter people who go out of their way to help you.  Now, in the past, I might have said that it is because I am a foreigner.  But I've generally been traveling around with my wife (who is Chinese and speaks Mandarin) and her friend from Hong Kong who has lived here 30 years.  So, people are just generally quite helpful if you ask for something.  Also, the friendliness you encounter from people you have business interactions with is often sincere as opposed to the phony chit chat put on for customers elsewhere.

As years ago, everyone is highly complementary even if your Mandarin is poor.  Mine is still quite poor, since my mind is stuck in Cantonese.  Almost two weeks here, I've spoken 90% Cantonese, but heard maybe 25% Mandarin; as my wife and all her friends are Cantonese.  On the other hand, we've made our first Taiwanese friend, a former classmate from NTU.

Getting back to niceness and culture.  We had our lease negotiation and signing.  Things are much more done on trust here.  Yes, there was a lease contract, but there was absolutely no background checks at all.  Everything was just a process of meeting and seeing how people felt about each other.  So, I am sitting in this meeting.  On one hand, the landlord is being so nice and I understand this is the Taiwanese culture.  On the other hand, my American culture is looking for the "fine print gotcha clause" that will screw the tenant, because it is all about winners and losers.  It's going to take me a while to adjust to people here.  In the sense, that I need to accept it as being sincere and not be suspicious.

Well, the landlord is someone whose family has owned the land upon which the new building resides for 60 years.  He and his brothers are not interested in selling units as you don't sell off your family inheritance.  I learned some Taiwanese from him today.  First, because it cannot hurt to know a little.  Second, I've always found showing an interest in peoples' language and culture is the best way to make a good impression.  Sadly, I only remember one of three things he taught me, mainly because it is very similar to how it is said in Cantonese.

We were in desperate need of a printer.  We have a laptop and iPad with us, but were emailing stuff to my wife's friend to print.  So, we bought a $30 USD color ink jet (HP D1560).  Dirt cheap, but I know the cartridges are where the money is made, but this is only a stop gap printer.  Well, I learned an important new word in Mandarin:

Air blaster (for cleaning computers, I need for the laptop heat exchanger):

高壓空氣罐

This is basically how I learned my Chinese 30 years ago.  The necessities of life.  When you need something it easy to learn how to say something and remember it.  In fact, neither my wife or friend knew this word before out shopping trip.  So, each day I learn something.  The biggest problem will be keeping Cantonese and Mandarin straight, since my wife and friend are already complaining that I am starting to mix the two like some confused child.  :)

[MarkShot]

For those of you who are looking for more practical Chinese fitting into your daily life, the last character reoccurs in the following in the second position:

一罐啤酒

meaning a can of beer.  So, you can see how specialized characters can be directly applied to your daily alcohol consumption!  :)

[Sparhawk]

Thanks for sharing MarkShot. I've always been intrigued by Taiwan, particularly the aborigines( is it ok to refer to them as that?) and the evergreen trees in the mountainous forests. Just my eccentricities and facination of two of my loves, anthropology and forestry. My wife's cousin's husband is in the US foriegn service and they were assigned to Taiwan earlier this year and were very excited to go as the cousin spent time there before and loved the place and people.
That food looks so wholesome and delicious.

Sparhawk

[MarkShot]

Sparhawk,

I'll make this brief as we are in "shop until you drop mode" as we try to start a new life from scratch and move out of the hotel to our apartment before the next billing cycle.

The people who refer to themselves as Taiwanese here are not aboriginals.

台灣人 - Taiwanese

Are those people who ancestors came here from Fu Chien province across the Strait in the last 300 years.  They are culturally very similar to the Fukinese and their dialect is pretty much identical.

大陆人 - Mainlanders

Are those people who flee the Communists to Taiwan in 1949.  They tend to natively speak Mandarin.

山地人 - Aboriginals

Are those people (not racially Han {Chinese} who ancestors have lived here for thousands of years.)  Literally, meaning in Chinese "Mountain People".  There aren't that many of them, and they are generally looked down upon in this society.  Their situation is not  dissimilar to Native Americans.

I hope that helps.

[Space6ghost]

Love the photographs. Thanks for sharing.  :)

[LongBlade]

Sparhawk,

I'll make this brief as we are in "shop until you drop mode" as we try to start a new life from scratch and move out of the hotel to our apartment before the next billing cycle.

The people who refer to themselves as Taiwanese here are not aboriginals.

台灣人 - Taiwanese

Are those people who ancestors came here from Fu Chien province across the Strait in the last 300 years.  They are culturally very similar to the Fukinese and their dialect is pretty much identical.

大陆人 - Mainlanders

Are those people who flee the Communists to Taiwan in 1949.  They tend to natively speak Mandarin.

山地人 - Aboriginals

Are those people (not racially Han {Chinese} who ancestors have lived here for thousands of years.)  Literally, meaning in Chinese "Mountain People".  There aren't that many of them, and they are generally looked down upon in this society.  Their situation is not  dissimilar to Native Americans.

I hope that helps.

I understand the simple characters because I lived in Japan, but especially the middle ones are unknown to me. I, for one, would be interested in learning what each of the characters means and how it comes together.

Because aside from SDR, Shad, you, and perhaps one or two other guys who escape memory at present, I doubt anyone knows what 山 or 人 mean.

Explaining each character, its meaning, and how it produces a word would be even more helpful to those who've never seen a real Chinese word before.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

That is some great looking food.  :-*


The city is drab to my eye. Its very difficult to make a densely populated city an attractive place to be.

[MarkShot]

Well, as I am self taught (an not school taught), I am perhaps not the best person to teach the history behind Chinese characters.  Of course, some common ones.  I know.  Initial Chinese characters as pictographs looked like the thing they describe.

[MarkShot]

人 - Meaning a person/people looks like someone walking.

山 - Meaning mountain, we see the peeks of three mountains.

中國 - The word for China literally meaning the "middle kingdom".  The first character depicts and archery stand with and arrow hitting the middle.  The second character for country ... the box shows a walled city and inside the walls we see what looks like weapon.  This character is very common for countries.

美國 - The USA literally meaning "beautiful country".

金山 - Old Cantonese slang for the USA.  Literally meaning the "golden mountain", and thus they came to build the railroads.

And here is one you should easily know LB, but I won't tell you, 日本.

[MarkShot]

So, simply combining what we know:

美國人 - An American/Americans

中國人 - A Chinese/Chinese

日本人 - What's that LB?

[Staggerwing]

And here is one you should easily know LB, but I won't tell you, 日本.

Was there a very large battleship named after it?

[MarkShot]

Not sure ... but I will LB practice his knowledge from his time in Japan.  :)

[LongBlade]

I got this. One is Ni Hon, or Nippon - Japan, the other is a Japanese person. :)

It's been 20 years now since I was in Japan, I was there as an English teacher and never learned much Japanese - they always wanted to practice English.

But toss some more my way. Simple stuff I'll know: high, bridge, exit, etc. The names of some cities in the Kanto Plain.