An Expatriate in Taiwan

Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • Japanese Engrish

    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.

  • Random 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.

  • More Engrish pictures

    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…

  • Robin Hood – Ooh de Lally in Chinese!

    I don’t know about you, but I watched Disney’s 1973 version of Robin Hood about 893 times when I was a kid. I’ll still sit down and watch it if I catch it on tv. It’s just a fun movie. The songs are quite catchy, too. I’m sure everyone that has seen it remembers the…

  • Counting money in Taiwan

    Did you know that people count money differently in different parts of the world? I had never really realized this until I came to Taiwan. I’ve always counted American style, as that was what I learned growing up and is the most comfortable to me, but in Asia they do it differently. Here is a…

  • Engrish

    It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I’ve been quite busy both with work and the Chinese New Year, which was quite fun. Time to get back on track with some Engrish. I don’t quite remember where I snapped this sign, but needless to say, they messed up the translation just a little bit.

  • Free Fresh Fruit!

    No matter where you go in Taiwan, you can be assured there will be a large stock of locally grown, fresh fruit available.  Much of this fruit is similar to the Western World: apples, bananas, oranges, etc.  Much of it, however, is also very eastern: Bell Fruit, Passion Fruit (and other tropical fruits), Dragon Fruit,…

  • Taiwanese Winter dessert

    Many foods in Taiwan are seasonal. That is, you can only get them during a certain time of year.  One of my favorites is only available during the winter months: [hanzi]燒仙草[/hanzi] (shāoxiāncÇŽo). Literally, Hot Immortal Grass. In English, it’s commonly known as Hot Grass Jelly. This is one of those foods that just looks so…

  • Thanksgiving Dinner

    Well, it was a pretty uneventful Thanksgiving, as Thanksgiving is wont to be in Taiwan.  It isn’t particularly celebrated, although the Taiwanese do have a name for it: [hanzi]感恩节[/hanzi] (gÇŽnÄ“njié). If you have been reading the Taipei Times, you may know that the Kaohsiung Ambassador Hotel, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, was holding an American…

  • Going to the hospital in Taiwan

    I was having a rather good workout on Saturday; that is, until I twisted my knee and felt a very sharp pain. I sat down for a few minutes, then got up by grabbing a window frame and pulling myself up. I limped over to a bench and sat for a while. I was pretty…

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