Hu’s on First

Hu is a common family name here in Taiwan and it happens to be the family name of the Taichung City Mayor. Because of this the following is common conversation I have with my wife.

“Hey look, it’s Taichung City Hall,” I say. “Hu works there.”
“The mayor,” says my wife.
“I know, that’s what I just said, Mayor Hu works there.”

That’s funny, but it lacks a certain spontaneity for me now. That’s why this little student interaction made me very happy.

“Teacher, what is nani(なに))?”
“Yes.”
“Teacher, nani is what?”
“Yes.”
“Nani is yes?”
“No, nani is what.”
…”I don’t understand.” 

The Real Taiwanese KFC

I saw this post a while ago. Sure KLG is quite obviously a rip-off of KFC. Though the name is pretty clever. G has the same pronunciation as the Chinese word for chicken (雞) and it is sometimes used on menus instead of the character. KL is an abbreviation for kuaile(快樂), one Chinese word for happy. So basically KLG is short for happy chicken, and obviously any chicken, or person, in a southern style white suit would be very happy, just ask Thomas Wolfe.

However, I think the real Taiwanese KFC is DingGuaGua(頂呱呱). They write TKK because they are using an old romanization system.

Ding Gua Gua

Sure they have your basic fried chicken, but they also have some truly Taiwanese dishes like their sweet potato dumpling. They also have a pretty tasty pocket pizza. I had one the other day. It was good, but it made my pants dirty.

I saw this in the Taichung Train Station yesterday. At first I though the language was way off and I had a few jokes about birds and Wesley, leaving the bathroom, quietly dejected. However do to a little “research” I found that among other things “snipe” can be a cigarette butt, which is what the Chinese says. Fine I’ll let you off for the obscure translation, but you still have work to do on countable vs. uncountable nouns and the difference between “and” and “or.”
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I saw this in the Taichung Train Station yesterday. At first I though the language was way off and I had a few jokes about birds and Wesley, leaving the bathroom, quietly dejected. However do to a little “research” I found that among other things “snipe” can be a cigarette butt, which is what the Chinese says.

Fine I’ll let you off for the obscure translation, but you still have work to do on countable vs. uncountable nouns and the difference between “and” and “or.”

This Little Light of Mine, I’m Gonna Wait in Line

Goofy and I went to Taipei for the New Year weekend. We did our best to avoid sneaky photography,

MRT Sign Taipei

and went to Longshan Temple, a beautiful old temple with a hard Taoist crust and chewy Buddhist center.

Wade - Longshan

A nice gentleman told me I could find an English pamphlet at the door and that if I’d like to speak with any of the temple gods I could use whatever language I felt comfortable with. (Klingon?)

As we left the temple I was surprised to find a long row of chairs and benches tied together running up and down the temple walls.

Chairs along the Temple Walls

As it turns out these chairs are holding their space in line, for a fee, to get a chance at an interesting Taiwanese religious practice, the Guangming Light.

Guangming stacks

Stacks like these can be found in almost every temple in Taiwan. The stacks are filled with tiny holes where people’s names, groups of names, or little statues with names on them can be found. Depending on the particular prestige and available space in any given temple, the price of one of these little crevices can vary greatly.

So why do people spend the time, and the consequential big bucks, to get their names written and placed in a little cubby hole no larger than a credit card?

Basically, it’s a year of spiritual insurance. When their names are placed in the holes devout receive a blessing from a priest, which brings them luck and protects them from rampaging Angry Birds fans, bureaucrats, and other sorts of bodily harm. Furthermore, you get the yearlong benefit of regular prayers and festivals shining their continence upon you(r name written on an index card).

It seems fair. I mean when my mom went to Rome her Catholic cousin made her bring a rosary or some such medallion so the Pope could wave at it. Maybe it wasn’t the Pope but merely a Bishop wearing the Pope’s hat and slippers.

1-That a rosary you got there?
2- Are you kidding? The pope waved at this. I haven’t cleaned it to this day.

However, it wasn’t until I peered around the corner that I fully realized the extent people were willing to go to to have their names included.

 Sleeping under a tarp

That’s right just like buying tickets for a Lady Gaga concert or getting good deals on Black Friday, it appears people are willing to camp out for the best view of the Buddha and the higher hole on the Guangming pole. And to be clear, it is raining.

 Line of the Devout

I wish them all the best of luck for the coming year, though they may not need it after their names are safely in their new homes. 

Goofy and I left this scene of personal fascination only to stumble into another at the Longshan MRT Station underground mall. A large group of people gathered around six televisions, none of them are muted.

 Lao Ren TV

Oh boy. Happy New Year Everybody!

I Would Hate to be His Therapist

Taiwan Mama was rushing out the door. “Hey where are you going,” I asked.

“I have to go pick on my son,” she said.

I was thinking she must really enjoy picking on her son, if she was in such a hurry to do it, but I still commented, “That’s a little mean, don’t you think.”

I could see her face starting to contort. She didn’t stop walking or say anything else, merely made a lifting motion and mouthed “pick up.”

That is as British as…

As it turns out living and working in Taiwan doesn’t just bring me into contact with Taiwanese people. It also brings me into contact with a fair number of Britons.

Before I came to Taiwan I couldn’t really say I knew any Britons, now I know considerably more (three). Just because we’re fellow westerners, though, doesn’t mean I can’t fall into some unusual cross-cultural interactions.

I was making Thanksgiving dinner for my former roommate,  Tall Mike, who is not the tallest Mike I know, not even in Taiwan, but that’s beside the point. I was mashing some potatoes and I said, “hey Mike, have you ever mashed potatoes by hand before?”

“Of course, I’m British,” he replied.

I went back to mashing my potatoes, not realizing I had offended my roommate’s British sense of identity.

I have a new coworker who hails from the United Kingdom as well, Lovable British Constable, or LBC for short.

A new chicken stand opened next door to our school and we’re always looking for something new to eat in our small neighbor hood. This place has a chicken stick, which like the Wang Steak, is of questionable origin, but undeniable tastiness.

I was informing Lovable British Constable about what I thought their secret was, “What really sets them apart LBC, is that they batter, not bread, their chicken. Do you understand the difference?”

“Yes, for god sake’s man, I’m British.”

I was taken aback by the nearly identical phrasing. I decided there is as much to learn about the UK as their is to learn about Taiwan.

Oh well, I guess the next time I see the queen or Posh Spice I can just say, “that’s as British as mashed potatoes and batter.”

For a Cellphone

I started myself on a misadventure the other day, but before I go into it let me tell you why I did it.

First, I’m an Eagle Scout from a town of 5,000 people. Not only did I know most people in my town by name or face, I could identify them by car. (Oh look, Joel’s working at the Pizza Ranch tonight.) One time I found a wallet on the road and spent the next few hours trying to hunt the guy down. When I found him, I turned down the money he offered me, because that’s just the kind of guy I am.

Second, I had had a similar experience to the one I’m about to describe. It was a huge hassle which included several days of searching online, making phone calls and an almost two hour drive to the U-Bus graveyard halfway between downtown Taichung and Taichung port. I was doing my best to save someone that same hassle.

With that preface let me explain to you what happened when I found a cellphone on the bus.

I sat down to find a red cellphone sitting on the seat. I picked it up and looked around for any likely candidates. Seeing none, I put it in my pocket. I wasn’t going to steal it. When I lost my phone one the bus, I had no way of finding out. I filed a report, but no one contacted me. I lucked out, my cellphone held a charge long enough for it to ring when someone was close to it in the U-Bus Graveyard. Had they not heard it, I may have had a new smart phone instead of my adequate Nokia. Damn my luck. It does have some pretty rad stickers though.

So I thought to speed up the process, and reduce the phone’s chance of going to  lost-and-found purgatory, by bringing it to my Taiwanese co-workers and having them call the last dialed number.

The last dialed number was the mother, the mother we found out, of a high school girl. I think the age of her daughter in part lead to some unneeded worry, but let me not get ahead of myself.

Gamma called the woman and asked, “Hello, are you the mother of the person that owns this phone? My coworker found it on a bus and would like to return it to you.”
The woman’s response was, interesting, “I am her mother, but how do I know you really have her cellphone,” or translated into a time and date where caller ID exists, “how do cellphone?”

Gamma and the woman had a little back and forth. “How do I know who you say you are? How can I trust you? I don’t know if my daughter’s cellphone is really missing.” We gave her the school number, which is listed, and said she could call us back if she wanted to make sure.

We transferred operational headquarters over to Three Fates. I, still excited to do the right thing, told her what was going on and that I would be going back to the Train Station later and would be willing to wait and return their phone.

The woman had hung up and called back. Three Fates passed through the “who are you really?” gauntlet only to come to no conclusion. Again the mother hung up and pondered what to do.

At this point some, “You should have just given it to the driver, police, etc.” started to float around. I still felt like I made the right choice.

Shortly thereafter, we received a call from her daughter’s teacher. The daughter was taking a test and could talk neither to us, nor her mother. The teacher, being a cool headed and impartial intermediary, confirmed we were just trying to help and communicated that to the mother.

We on the other hand had decided to just take it to the police. We told them which police station we were taking it to and where they could find it. Rodog took it over there for me. He waited for fifteen minutes after “someone” was supposed to arrive and then threw in our collective towel.

He gave the phone to a police officer. He explained the situation and the police officer again called the woman to explain the transfer of phone ownership (phownership?)

I don’t know what the woman was thinking, but what she said to the officer was, “How do I know you’re really a police officer?”
The uniformed man in the police station wasted little time in saying, “You’re kidding me, right?”

Now being the Smallville Eagle Scout that I am, it was tempting to say, “What’s wrong with these people?” However, I have to say that it’s not just cultural. There is more to it than that. Here’s my short list.

1. Taiwan media has been filled with stories of con-men tricking housewives, grandparents and other such types into giving away their hard earned cash. In fact an onlooker at the police station lauded the mother saying, “You know people can, do stuff.”
2. Population density does some crazy things to people. Taiwan is so dense that a 3 block square neighborhood can have 6 or 7 convenience stores and none of them want for business. I think people do whatever the can to claim a little privacy while running into people everyday and all the time. People aren’t less kind or friendly here. They are just used to keeping to themselves.

There is one thing I will put on Taiwan society. Organized crime is alive and well in Taiwan and it’s not unheard of for rich people to receive threats of extortion. For this reason that island has it’s share of secret rich, people who will buy two ratty looking adjacent homes, then gut the inside to make their own little pleasure palace.  From the outside it looks like just any other home, or two homes in this case, but inside is the epitome of luxury. I believe this phenomenon is strictly Taiwanese. So there is a chance that these people were secret rich and were doing their best to not be taken advantage of.

So will I do it again? Will I let the cell phone be or will I try to return it myself? Of course I will try to return the cell phone on my own again, but next time, I’ll start by calling the dad.