An Expatriate in Taiwan

Stores that sell Japanese products are very popular here in Taiwan. I enjoy going to them and browsing, just because the Japanese are insane and I always find peculiar items. Today I thought I’d share some of my finds with you.

The elusive Banana Case! Holds and protects your banana so that no harm comes to it!

I should have bought this banana case when I had the chance. Now the store doesn’t have them anymore.

Continue reading Japanese oddities

Even after having lived in Taiwan for quite a while, I’m still surprised every now and again at the sad state of things. How can a country that is, quite possibly, the world leader in manufacturing computing technology, bo so behind when it comes to computers?

Every foriegner knows how horribly antiquated and un-foriegner-friendly Taiwanese banks are. Today, however, I had the mispleasure of finding out another horrible aspect of it. It all started when Miss Expatriate signed up for online banking with Bank of Taiwan so she could wire money back to her American account without going to the bank. Since we send money back every month, this seemed like a good deal. This past week, however, when she logged in, it simply wouldn’t let her do it. She tried a few more times until she finally called them today. Their answer? You can’t use Internet Explorer 8.

Continue reading Online banking woes…

Transformers 2 came to Taiwan this past week. It started on Thursday, I believe, but we didn’t get a chance to see it until yesterday, Saturday. We tried reserving a few tickets, but were repeatedly shot down by the theaters: they were sold out or weren’t selling tickets over the phone. Finally, we had a friend go purchase tickets for us at a smaller theater in Taichung so that we could watch the movie. This turned out to be a rather good idea, because apparently Taiwanese people love horrible movies with lots of explosions. The line at this smaller theater was quite long:

People waiting in line

Continue reading Transformers 2 comes to Taiwan

I think I’m speaking Chinese

Zoo Engrish

President shoes

Learning Chinese

English speakers have it easy…

Miss Expatriate and I decided to spend the day in Taichung and had quite a bit of fun. For once, we actually did something and I got the photos organized and am blogging about it (I’m usually too busy to put the photos up until months later when it’s too late).

We started off with lunch. Miss Expatriate had heard about a Muslim Restaurant that was getting very good reviews among the locals, so we decided to give it a try. The building was very drab and unassuming. The only giveaways were the green signs hanging out front.

Continue reading A day in Taichung

Miss Expatriate showed me this video the other day. It’s a Taiwanese version of Michael Jackson’s Beat It. Obviously, it doesn’t have quite the same meaning and the beat it slightly different too, but you can definitely notice the similarity.

If anyone’s learning Taiwanese, I’m sure you’ll find this entertaining.

I check in on the Forumosa Forums every now and then. If you can manage to get past all the threads where people just bitch about everything that’s wrong with Taiwan and how it should be fixed, there are some interesting threads there.

One of the threads I’ve been reading lately is the “Ways to force people to use Chinese on you” thread. This thread bears particular relevance to me, since I am learning Mandarin and and often like to practice it when Miss Expatriate and I go out.

Now, there are a few problems with this:
1) Many, many people in Taiwan speak English
2) Even more people think they speak English and want to practice
3) Spoken Chinese coming from a white person often goes completely unnoticed

Combine these three factors, and it’s often difficult, I find, to do anything completely in Chinese. Just this last weekend, Miss Expatriate and I went for dinner in Taichung. As soon as we walked in, the hostess was there with a “Hello! Welcome!”

I immediately responded with “你好. 來位.” (Hi. A seat for 2 people please.)
Her rebuttal: “Yes, come this way please.

I turned to Miss Expatriate and said “I hate her already.”
To be honest, I’ll often completely ignore anyone that speaks English to me. If I’m at the nightmarket and a vendor shouts “Come. Try! Very good!” at me, I’ll keep walking. It annoys me to no end, for a few reasons:

1) They see a white person and they assume I’m American. OK, I am, but I might also be German. What about all the white people in Taiwan that don’t speak English as a first language. How many vendors bother learning “Hello, come try this” in Norwegian? Probably none.

2) They are treating me differently. I’ve lived in Taiwan for 2 years. This is, for all intents and purposes, my home. I have a job, I have my papers in order. I’m at your nightmarket. Why are you treating me as if I’m any different from the hundreds/thousands of other people wandering around looking for a late night snack?

Anyway, it irks me because it makes it that much more difficult to practice Chinese. Getting back to our hostess in Taichung, we ate our meal and then Miss Expatriate left to go get the car while I paid. I knew it was coming. I could see it in our hostesses eyes. I knew she would speak English to me again. I was determined to steer the conversation into Chinese.

I got to the counter and she said “655.” (how much we owed).
I pretended I didn’t understand her and said “多少錢?” (how much is it?) Actually, I didn’t even say that. Saying that is what would be considered “Textbook Mandarin.” Most locals in Taiwan will shorten it to “多少” and it comes out pronounced like “dōu sǎo? I’m fairly certain I say it much like a local, too: Miss Expatriate seems to approve of it and it has worked in many situations before.
She repeated herself, in Chinese this time: “六百五十五.” “Victory!” I thought. I handed her some money. Then, she immediately started writing down the bill and explaining it to me in English!
“2 teas. 20 each.
2 dinners. blah blah blah blah blah” for the entire bill, in English. Immediately after her and I just had our small exchange in Chinese.

Anyway, I suffered through it since I’m much to nice to start yelling at her, even though I really wanted to.

So where does that leave me? Even after I speak Chinese to a local and they answer me in Chinese, they revert back to English for God knows what reason. What else can I do?

I’ve thought of lying and saying “我聽不懂” (I don’t understand) but that wouldn’t be very nice.
I’ve thought of adopting a very heavy Irish or Scottish accent and letting them struggle with my English then.
I’ve thought of only speaking German when presented with English.

In the end, I guess I’ll just keep trying to speak Chinese, hard as the locals make it. Perhaps I should a try a tactic that seems to have worked for the guys in this video:

Transformers 2 comes to Taiwan

Zoo Engrish

President shoes

Learning Chinese

English speakers have it easy…

Number of times per week, on average, someone from back home asks me “So… how is Thailand?”: 542
Number of people from back home who remember that I actually live in Taiwan: 1 (thanks, Mom!)

This is a series of Japanese anti-smoking pictures that line the walls of my school. I find these quite entertaining, but also somewhat confusing. Not all of them are entirely clear, but I’m sure they make much more sense in Japanese.

Continue reading Japanese Engrish

Found this on a poster for a new Jazz club opening up. Honestly, I have no idea how it gets this bad. With dictionaries, online dictionaries, spell checkers in every program, there’s really no excuse. I simply don’t understand.

Japanese Engrish

More Engrish pictures

Engrish

Some Engrish pictures

Zoo Engrish

I’ve had these pictures on my phone for a while and just lately got around to tagging and cataloging them. About time, I guess.

First up is courtesy of Bank of Taiwan, one of the oldest banking institutions on the island, with branches pretty much everywhere. I saw this upstairs when I was sending money back to America. It reads “飲水區” or “yǐn shuǐ qū” – literally, water drinking area. For some reason, they translated it as “kitchen,” even though it’s only a water machine and nothing else.

Continue reading More Engrish pictures