An Expatriate in Taiwan

Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • President shoes

    I learned something new from one of my students the other day. She was wearing Crocs shoes, and I asked her what they called those shoes in Chinese. She replied that they were called [hanzi]布希鞋[/hanzi] (bùxÄ«xié) or Bu Shi Shoes. You see, ever since W. was caught wearing crocs, the Taiwanese decided to venerate him…

  • Cell Phones in Taiwan

    I was reading through the news, as I do every morning, and came across an interesting blog entry on the use of cell phones, which I’ve decided to cover here. Here’s a linky so you can read through it yourself: Top 10 Cell Phone Etiquette Rules People Break. Let me state right off the bat…

  • Engrish kitty treats

    Miss Expatriate and I wandered into the local pet store after dinner and started perusing the cat section to find some treats for our cat. We ended up finding some small twigs from a Japanese tree, which are apparently wildly popular with cats. Our cat really loves them – like catnip, but without a mess…

  • Taiwan Driving Laws – idiocy in practice

    I’ve talked before about how horrible Taiwanese people are behind the wheel and on the road. This post is dedicated to lawyers and judges and people making and interpreting the laws, as they are not far behind and, in this case, apparently leading the pack of morons. From The China Post, with a nod to…

  • Macgyver Outdoor Store

    Miss Expatriate and I went to Taichung yesterday to do some shopping and have dinner. While walking on the street, we happened upon this gem of a store: The Macgyver Outdoor Store. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Macgyver, other than putting “Macgyver” in the title might possibly attract westerners who grew up…

  • Ghosts, spirits, and demons, oh my!

    Spirits and demons are big business in Taiwan. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to me or any other American – after all, about 40% of Americans believe in ghosts, 34% believe in UFOs, and 68% believe in Angels. Not in the spiritual sense, either… they honestly believe they exist and interact in the world.…

  • Learning Chinese

    Chinese is a very difficult language for most to learn. Among the factors include certain sounds which are foreign to speakers of English and most European languages and the writing system, in which complex strokes are used to create characters. These characters must simply be memorized. No ifs, ands, or buts about it and no…

  • Recycling

    Just another Engrish picture tonight. This one comes from a disposable chopsticks cover at a local restaurant. What they obviously mean to say is to please recycle the wrapper, which is odd because very few people are going to take this out of the restaurant. (click for full size) It’s interesting to note here that…

  • Education in Taiwan

    This will probably be the first post of many where I examine the education that students in Taiwan receive and talk about the greater issue of education and problems with the educational system (as I see them, obviously) in Taiwan. This first post will be rather short and concerns the teaching of history in Taiwan.…

  • Gas prices on the rise

    It’s not happening only in America. Even here in Taiwan, gas prices are moving up. Just tonight news was released that effective at midnight tonight, gas prices in Taiwan would be increased by 6 NT/Liter. That shifts the price from 30.7 NT to 36.7 NT per liter nationwide. Truth be told, it should have been…

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