Water Machine

They say that tap water here isn't suitable for drinking (especially for long-term using) and I've actually never tried. There are many water machines available providing basically the same: cold, warmer, and hot water (with approx. temperature 7, 22, and 100 Celsius according to the indicator) which suppose to be clean. You just need to push the right button (blue, white, and red).


There goes cleaning routine procedure (I don't know much about it, it seems that machine's cleaning its pipes with boiling water for one hour and half) every night after midnight. For sure, there's another required maintance in order to keep the filters working.

Happy drinking!

k.


Soundtrack: The Chemical Brothers - Push the Button

Měli by ze mě radost...

... kdyby se to dozvěděli. Aneb Novosvětská v mém novém světě. Minulý měsíc se v Taipeii zastavil Královský orchestr z Holandska a na programu měl Dvořákovu symfonii č.9 a Svěcení jara od Stravinského. Toho skladatele jsem znal jen po jménu a nevěděl jsem, o co se jedná ; definitivně mě ale zaujala fakta, že premiéra "způsobila legendární poprask poprask" a "...hudba na posluchače v prvních řadách hudba působí doslova fyzicky." Shodou okolností jsem pak ve třetí řadě seděl. O koncertu mi pověděla učitelka na čínštinu a protože vím, že má Dvořáka ráda, dvakrát jsem se nerozmýšlel a zeptal jsem se, zda by nechtěla jít. Chtěla.

Rozumějte, tohle bylo pro mne velká událost, symfonie Z Nového světa je ta nejkrásnější hudba, kterou jsem kdy slyšel a hudba, která mě dokáže rozplakat. A tentokrát to bylo poprvé, co jsem ji slyšel živě. Pozorovat dirigenta a orchestr při hraní důvěrně známých tónů bylo doslova magické, navíc umocněné blízkostí, ze které jsem je mohl sledovat.

A kdo by ze mě měl radost?

• moje máma, která se ze mě s oblibou utahuje, že nemám hudební sluch a hudbě nerozumím (té to povím :-) )


• všechny ty partičky českých vlastenců a nacionalistů (ti si to mohou přečíst)


• já před nějakými dvanácti lety, pokukujíc po jedné atraktivní vyučující -- ovšem bez nejmenšího ždibce odvahy ji někam pozvat (tomu to již bohužel do minulosti nepošlu)

V neposlední řadě mají jistě radost všichni ti, kteří jsou již unaveni z anglicky psaných postů. Tohle je ale zrovna případ té jedné vlašťovky, která ještě jaro nedělá. Omlouvám se...


k.

7/11? 24/7!

7 Eleven is the brand of small shops which are literally everywhere (talking about Taipei). Their opening hours is 24/7 and another advantage is its service: from food to the toothpaste, magazines and newspapers, and at some places ATM and copy machine.

There are several shops in NTU campus (providing 7 or so % discount for the students), which is useful especially for those students who keep to study till late night. There are some others brands, such as Hi-Life, Family Markt (全家 -- Quán Jiā).

^.^ k.

P.S. The view from the other side -- taking picture of 7 Eleven can be interesting for me in the same way as for Chinese people can be witnessing a foreigner taking picture of something so common.

Movies (04)

Scoop:

Oh, incidentally, he thinks my name is Jade Spence, so that makes you Mr. Spence.

Imagine yourself as a reporter, got a big story as a first one, but you're actually dead... What will you do? 2006, IMDb. ~


Casino Royale:

My name is Bond, James Bond.

This might be one giant leap for Bond movies, one small step for the cinematography. 2006, IMDb.


Miami Vice:

Somebody's something's got to go somewhere, some when.

If you gotta mess up with bad guys, you better be bad guy too. I've got an impression this movie has similar atmosphere as Collateral, then checked this out, and... Michael Mann is the link :-) Perfect movie, not only for Isabella plus Sonny, and the end. At first, I wanted to quote "Hola, chica" which is saying quite a lot, still not enough though. 2006, IMDb. ~

A Scanner Darkly:

What happened? How'd I get here? ... Nothing would ever change. Nothing new could ever be expected. It had to end, and it did.

I think, this is the first movie based on novel by Philip K. Dick which actually has got the same atmosphere as his books has (I mean, Blade Runner, Minority Report are perfect movies, but the feelings coming from them doesn't match). Careful though, it's really paranoid, scary, and sort of dark. 2006, IMDb. ~

Hard Candy:

Is this insane? Am I insane? Is Jeff?

Crime and punishment... who's more sick though? 2005, IMDb.

Back to Your Childhood

Have you ever wanted to be younger? Well, being in foreign country can make you feel that way. Talking about the country with remarkably different culture, for instance Western people living in Far Asia and vice versa. Doing that, you will probably find out yourself facing interesting experience called culture shock. How come you can feel younger? Perhaps you can already guess, I can see several steps. Let's start from the beginning.

Childhood. "In the beginning was the Word...", but what if the word is spoken in the language which you don't understand? That throwing you back to your very first childhood. With different conditions though. You have no comfort to suck in the language little by little from your parents and the others. Your in the middle different language environment right now and you want to understand right away. You wish, but just now it's the start and one can have the same trouble as me not to be able talking even with a kid (happily, not a problem with communication). They are saying you can achieve the same level of Chinese language as 6 six years old children after one year of study. It doesn't sound so bad, does it? :-) (in fact, it freaked me out when I heard that first time)

OK, let's assume you can speak and what else do you like to do? Make some friends, right? Socializing. This is another part. It needs some time to figure out how it works between guys and girls, older people and youngsters, classmates, roommates, teachers and students, ... And what's the concept of society in generally (the Face, importance of Chinese family, ...). What to do and what not to do. I'm not saying you're necessary thinking about all these consciously. Though sometimes you need it consider, to stop and try to make a note, recall, or verify. Dealing with the different culture means that many of your previous experiences and ways how to act in common everyday life situation is useless. However, even though I'm trying to avoid of any misunderstanding and thought actually I've been doing well, this isn't a case. I already made some mistakes, and felt guilty afterwards. Unintentionally of course, but still it happened. My thoughts are also wondering about something else -- I'm a foreigner and it's expected from me to act as a foreigner and perhaps this can excuse something. What happen if I try to adopt to the local environment and act by its standards? First though is fine, everything seems good. Though it can also cause another misinterpretation because of the foreigner not acting as a foreigner. A lot of riddles already :-)

And what does make you feel teenager again? Dating. Need to say, this part is based on the real experience of the others and my observations. Many differences in that topic -- the purpose of the game is the same, unlike its rules though. And how can you play the game if you don't the rules? :-) Badly... First thing -- one of most favorite question is "Do you have a girlfriend?" (it's coming after "Why did you choose Taiwan?" :) ). They're just curious and I was told that many people think you will be more happy if you have a partner, so they won't hesitate to introduce some their single friends. Girls here seems to tend to have always a boyfriend and when they aren't quite satisfy with him, they will change him for another one in the first good opportunity. Among others, girls looks to be always nice to you. They're polite, smiling and you, treating you really nice. That it is so nice that I'm everytime confused. Although I think I'm not so bad with reading body language and guessing girls' thoughts about me back in Europe, I'm definitely lost here. I have no idea what are they actually thinking about me. This whole thing without getting any readable feedback (it means there is some, I just don't see) makes you feel like you're driving fast in the fog, which is really uncomfortable feeling. Better to slow down? It didn't help? Should you stop the car?

And where are we now? Still in your teenage years. You got some other extra "years" to live ahead. Enjoy...


^.^ k. (this time "k." stands for a kid ;-) )


Soundtrack: UNKLE - Back and Forth

...and we talked.

Three or four weeks ago I've been writing about my experience concerning talking with my Chinese friends. Few days afterwards I went out with 韶憶 (Sháo Yì). She read my post before and I already told her not to be worried at all. I think, it helped a bit :-) She's friend and former classmate of 儒鴻 (Rú Hóng), one guy from our lab. When he told her I joined the lab this semester, she wanted to speak English with me. She asked 儒鴻 for my MSN after and told him something which I found out quite a funny -- she's asking for my MSN, but she don't want to nothing but talk :) Well, in many cases if one is asking for someones MSN, what else besides talking it can means? I know why she did that, her purpose was to make sure that everything's clear. Actually, from European point of view it should be like a girl's trying to challenge you though (Hey you, only talking, you have no chance, do you understand?) :-)

And we talked the other day and it was good. We kept talking and talking about many things including Taiwan, Chinese, our impressions from Finland, life, and stuff like that... She can speak fluently and even though she's got some small doubts still, we have no troubles with understanding each other. I knew before she's writing her blog, but I didn't expect I'm going to read her post about our talking. Surprisingly, bilingual post. It is nice to know the thoughts and opinion of the others, thanks 韶憶 ;-)

Should I say something more? Read her post if you like to. Just I can add that I don't feel fearless, traveling and living in different country doesn't require anything special (and one can say, it can be actually easier then living in your country). She told me about her dreams and visions for the future and I have to say she knows pretty well where is she heading. And I'm sure she can make it.

Does it saying something to you others? Sure, you can see that talking and sharing thoughts it isn't so difficult after all as it may seems.

^.^ k.

All Systems Go, 39 to Go and Counting...

The traffic lights for pedestrians here are featured with the perfect idea -- when you're walking on the green light, you can see how much time in seconds is left before it turns into red sign.


Really handy.


^.^ k.