Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Mandarin and Taiwanese family names
One of the most interesting things about learning Chinese is learning the various names for members of the family. In Germanic languages (such as English), this is relatively easy. A brother of either of your parents is an Uncle. Simple. Your parents’ mothers are Grandmothers. Simple. In Chinese, it just isn’t so. Chinese people place…
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How to use chopsticks
Being able to use chopsticks is an essential skill when living in Taiwan (or China or Japan or anywhere else in Asia). Most restaurants will have chopsticks and spoons available for use (the spoons being for soup). Rarely will you find forks and knives, unless you go to an American restaurant or steakhouse, etc. Chopsticks…
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Japanese oddities
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. I should have bought this banana case when I had the chance. Now the…
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Online banking woes…
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, be so behind when it comes to computers? Every foreigner knows how horribly antiquated and un-foreigner-friendly Taiwanese…
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Transformers 2 comes to Taiwan
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…
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A day in Taichung
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…
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Beat It…. in Taiwanese!
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.
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I think I’m speaking Chinese
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…
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Close enough
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!)
Got any book recommendations?