August 2010
1 post
July 2010
1 post
June 2010
1 post
May 2010
2 posts
...and we're back!
Gentle reader, lo these many months, HsinchuAsked has grown dusty.
But, since you asked (ahem), the blog is back!
Life as an expat continues to present daily mysteries/amusement. Like tonight, there was a knock at the door. A woman stood at my door, a five flight walk up stairs, in a blue dress uniform with an armful of red carnations. I figured she was selling them for a charity and was...
December 2009
7 posts
Democracy now
Last weekend people in 17 of Taiwan’s 25 counties voted for a slew of local candidates. We knew it was election season because when we arrived in August, there were already scads of colorful flags and makeshift billboards featuring the smiling, Photoshopped faces of candidates cluttering roads and overpasses.
(Looks like they like change in Taiwan, too. Behind No. 16 is our building.)
...
If you're reading this right now
Then please vote for Hsinchu asked in the 2009 Taiwan Best Blog Awards! You can click on the plus button next to the “Hsinchu asked” listing (just search for “Hsinchu” on this page) every 24 hours through Dec. 20.
Many thanks and a good day to you, gentle readers! 謝謝！
So, Tiger Woods drives a Ford Aerostar minivan? →
This video has been making the rounds as Tiger Woods and his traveling lady-circus continue to suck the air out of the news cycle. It’s from the Apple Daily, Taiwan’s juiciest and most popular paper, part of Hong Kong-based Next Media. The paper recently launched computer graphic “reenactments” of shocking news events to draw younger readers. Woods’ weirdly robotic...
The world's greatest rest stop
Aaron and I drove in Taiwan for the first time last week. The freeways were easy peasy. City streets, however, requires video gamer alertness and agility, as scooters dart and weave with abandon and trucks merge in front of one’s Honda Fit, which is just a smidge larger than a Smart Car.
As we barreled south on the 3 freeway, one of the island’s 10 incredibly well-maintained highways,...
November 2009
10 posts
A China primer, or how Taiwan fits into the big,... →
Taiwan health care: universal, cheap,... →
A Halloween field trip
Aaron and I spent part of our Halloween getting to know our community a little better. We joined the Tsing Hua University chapter of the Tzu Chi Foundation, a worldwide Buddhist charitable organization, visiting a home for people with cerebral palsy and other mental and physical disabilities. We took a bus to the group home in Jhudong, about a half hour outside Hsinchu, where the patients live and...
“In the last 24 years, Hsiao has caught about 20,000 rats in the fields so his...”
– A story this week from United Daily News. Unfortunately, no photos.
A smart take on the delicate dance of... →
My latest contribution to The China Post →
October 2009
7 posts
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Who needs a job when you can get rich off... →
“In Taiwan, there’s only one place you can go where you won’t bump...”
– A literature professor colleague of Aaron’s describing Taiwan’s overeducated populace. The island, a little bigger than Maryland, is home to 23 million people…and 150-some colleges and universities.
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Happy 中秋節!
Today is Moon Festival, the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar. This is an important holiday that once marked the end of the harvest season, but now is a time for families to come together, admire the brightest moon of the year, eat pomelos and wear the peels like little hats (really), barbecue outside and, of course, eat mooncakes!
Asia’s answer to fruitcake, these little...
September 2009
12 posts
A delightful blog about Taiwan, Mandarin, vintage... →
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File under useful-but-embarrassing information
Me: Wo xihuan chao fan. That's all I know how to order in restaurants, fried rice.
Michelle the Taiwanese lady: Wo xihuan chi chao fan. (I would like to eat fried rice).
Me: You can't just say I would like fried rice?
Michelle: In Chinese, fried rice also means to make love.
Me: (Hands fly to open mouth). I've been saying that all over town!
Michelle: (Laughter).
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“Don’t ask me am I Taiwanese or Chinese in class. It’s complicated....”
– My Basic Chinese Listening and Speaking teacher, Wang, at National Tsing Hua University, discussing the political ramifications of various pinyin Romanization systems. Even the alphabet here is political.
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WatchA jolly little tune that would send American children scurrying for ice cream is the Taiwanese signal for…garbage. Instead of dumping trash cans and bags at the curb on designated pickup days like in the U.S., trash trucks here roam around town bleating a catchy, high-pitched electronic melody so people can rush outside to toss their rubbish. Choco taco not included.
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LB represent
So I discovered that the former inhabitant of our apartment (you know, the Spaniel-loving, beer-drinking, panty-having one) has another amazing attribute. I unearthed a couple of old magazines of his. Zip code? 90815. Three miles from where Aaron and I used to live. In Long Beach. Small freaking world.
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Ghosts among us
Today, the people of Hsinchu were out in force commemorating ghost month, when ancestors’ spirits return. Outside nearly every home we passed, families gathered, burning incense on tables covered with bottles of tea and juice, boxes of crackers and cookies, plates of mangoes, oranges and apples, whole chickens and other treats to keep dead relatives well-fed. They also fed folded bits of...
August 2009
18 posts
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欢迎 (welcome) home
Yesterday was the easiest move I’ll ever make. An hour packing suitcases, a five-minute cab ride, jamming stuff into the elevator and boom! We were in our new Hsinchu apartment. The place, a one-bedroom in a former hotel, is 26 ping, a Taiwanese unit of area measurement roughly equivalent to the size of a tatami sleeping mat. (Or 35.6 square feet). This means that our apartment in...
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At the campus food court, after successfully ordering chicken and rice by smiling and pointing.
Susannah: I need some fruit juice.
Aaron: Do you remember how to say it?
Susannah: Wo yao gongzuo?
Lady at counter: ...
Aaron: I think you just asked her for a job.
Susannah: Oh. Guozi, guozi.
Lady: (In Mandarin) We only have tea.
Survivors
There are some powerful first-person accounts of Typhoon Morakot’s destruction here, discovered on the informative The Daily Bubble Tea.
Ruffling China's feathers, the Dalai Lama is... →
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