Don'ts

There are some gifts which you shouldn't give. If you wrap a clock 鐘 (zhōng), doesn't matter how nicely, and give to someone 送鐘 (sòng zhōng), it sounds as 送終 (sòng zhōng), the end, death. Which is actually quiet unpleasant present.

The same goes with the umbrella. In Chinese, the umbrella is 傘 (săn) sharing the same sound&tone with 散, to separate. Of course, this making any umbrellas totally wrong gift to your partner...

Pear isn't so bad, though can be still dangerous under certain circumstances. Why? Pear is in Chinese 梨 (lí) and the same sound is also to leave, 離.

Another interesting and similar language-related examples might be: number four 四 (sì) is similar to 死 (sĭ), death, die (well, the tone is different here!). The consequences are like that -- if you're choosing your cell number you can see a lot of options with 4s involved and hardly any without this number. At some places, there is no 4th floor or apartment with the same number (especially in Hong Kong) they will just use for instance 3B instead.

Another obvious example -- character 春 (chūn) which means spring and can be seen at many places during Chinese New Year (Spring Festival).

Put it simply upside down, 倒 (dào), and since 到 (dào), to arrive, has got the same sound, you will get the meaning "spring is coming".


^.^ k.

Night at the Lab

You all know that kind of situation -- the deadline is coming soon and you have to finish your work for sure. What you can do? Save some time and don't "waste" it on going back and forth to your place -- sleep in the lab! :-) No big deal due to perfectly equipped lab. Need to say this isn't so usual, only one guy is doing that in my lab regularly (he study really hard and he's got a nickname HardKid), though you can meet people in the lab in almost every day and night time. It makes perfect sense especially considering hard working people here and Chinese habit stay up late after midnight.

It's possible also to sleep just on three or four chairs, but this is quite close to torturing yourself. And they were looking at me as a weird person when I took a couch into my place in the University back in Europe...


Personally I'm staying in the lab all night long seldom, only when it's really necessary -- it has pretty heavy impact on the day after.

^.^ k.


Soundtrack: Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams

Second Floor

I already saw many kinds of parking places for cars and high-capacity storage carousels for them as well, though it was first time when I've seen anything similar for bicycles. One can find it close to 劍潭 (Jiàntán) MRT station and they've built lately another in 公館 (Gōngguăn) station too (that's the place where I took a picture).


You can park roughly as twice bikes as before and it seems to be way more organized (and instruction table is available), you will just miss fun taking out your bike from the huge pack :-)

k.


Soundtrack: Moby - Lift Me Up

Thin Yellow Line

As usually in subway, in Taipei MRT system (Mass Rapid Transit) there is a line on the platform which you shouldn't cross. In the most frequent stations, there is even barrier with automated doors between the platform and railtrack. At some places one can see staff with whistle supervising the traffic (on the other hand, there are no "pushers" with white gloves which you can see in Japan). The entire system seems to be very well organized.


The others noticeable features are the screens all around the platform announcing ETA for the next train (perhaps the main reason is to make people watch the ads going on over and over) and the fact that train is suppose to stop each time at the certain place. Then, people waiting for the train in small line-ups (see the white stripe -- 候車線 (hòu chē xiàn)) can just walk in.

k.


Soundtrack: Fatboy Slim - Right Here, Right Now

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

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.

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.

A Word

Convenient. A word which you can hear around here again and again, and I'm still wondering why. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against that term, I'm just surprised by high frequency of using. When I first spoke with few people here, I though it was just some personal thing -- after some time I've found out this is really favorite word here.

I'm so surprised because I can't recall any conversation with native speaker where convenient came up as well as I don't remember some movies where was anyone using this word. Perhaps my poor, leaking memory. For me, there is only one reference, a music band which I like called The Kings of Convenience. The catch is, they're Norwegians ;-) Among others, I'm not the only one foreigner who noticed that...

Sorry for not-so-exact picture, I couldn't find any convenient in written form so I just took a picture of its variation :-)

^.^ k.

Soundtrack: The Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street