An Expatriate in Taiwan

Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Repeat offender

    Mrs. Expatriate and I were coming home this morning. I decided to stop by the school and pick up some books to make an order. I ran up to my office, grabbed my books, and popped into the office. The secretary was working and my boss was gone. Me: [hanzi]早安[/hanzi] ([pinyin]zao3an1[/pinyin]) [Good morning!] Secretary: [hanzi]æ—©[/hanzi]…

  • Grocery Store Engrish

    I spotted this Worm Reminder at the Carrefour shopping center last December. For those of you that don’t get it, it’s supposed to be a “warm reminder.”

  • Another Engrish menu

    Here’s another menu; this one includes full-on Engrish. The restaurants delicious dishes include: The Thai Jiao tingles a chicken Chips cattle grain The Thai dozen throws a cattle Japanese pottery plank beef Sheet iron cattle and many more!

  • Engrish Menu

    Often, restaurants will have English menus for foreigners. Most of the time they are copies of the Chinese menus. Often they are simply lists. However, never before have I seen such a detailed menu as this:

  • “Rock” ‘n Roll Elvis

    Last November, Mrs. Expatriate and I went with her grandfather to some garden/art exhibit near Changhua. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but there was a small building adorned with geodes, jade, and other such “natural” art pieces. One of them was a rock with a naturally-formed Elvis on it. I just came across…

  • Bicycle security

    Snapped this picture last November. This person really doesn’t want their bike stolen.

  • Engrish TV Show

    Found this DVD while browsing in Taichung. It’s the Taiwanese version of the American show “Ugly Betty.” The Chinese title is [hanzi]醜女無敵[/hanzi] ([pinyin]chou3nu3wu2di2[/pinyin]), which literally means “ugly woman without equal,” denoting an exceptionally ugly woman. I presume their choice of invincible is due to a very poor dictionary. “Invincible Ugly Woman” (thanks Luuke!). Notice the…

  • Where the Wild Things are

    One thing you must absolutely get used to when living in Taiwan is the bewildering amount of stray cats and dogs. It’s rather heartbreaking, really, and the Taiwanese government doesn’t seem in the least bit interested in doing anything about it. As far as I know, all Humane Society/Animal Protection organizations have been started and…

  • 新年快樂! Happy New Year!

    新年快樂! Happy New Year!

    I just want to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year!

  • Awesome student response of the day

    My students are pretty creative sometimes. I was teaching a Language and Culture course recently. After going over the chapter on Nonverbal Communication, I gave my students several questions as homework. One of them was to interpret several situations according to their culture. The question was, “How would you interpret a young man dressing entirely…

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