AWOL Geordie - Steve’s global adventure

Taiwan has a lot of neon. Like China, Korea and Japan neon seems to be very important in these parts. Don’t even think about starting a small business without the requisite 3 tonnes of neon signage. Walking down any main drag is like starring in ’Tron’.

Cameras. Last night at the Tainan lantern festival I could not believe the amount of people with expensive photography equipment. I think I breached my tripod exposure tolerance threshold. If I am exposed to one more tripod I reckon I might pass-out.

This lantern festival was great. I have some pics to try and give you an idea what it is like. The sights, sounds and smells that accost your senses are pretty hard to describe.

Another ambition fulfilled. To stand in front of a massive illuminated rat with laser beams.

Another huge dragon - all lit up of course!

Zi Ting and I at the vegetable stall.

Famous disabled Taiwanese singer - Ah Ji.

Yep - it’s a lantern festival alright.

Posing next to one of thousands of community made lanterns.

Holding hands like teenagers.

The food, music, fireworks, lanterns and lights made this a thrilling evening. After a few hours we retreated to the serenity of a ’shaboo shaboo’ establishment. This is one of those hot-pot deals where you cook all the food yourself in a pot of spicy liquid soup in the middle of the table. Very messy but fun. I can never get my head around the concept of going to a restaurant to cook your own food? I think I ate enough food for two people at this eat-all-you-want for 3gbp place. Consequently, my guts were in agony afterwards. I was so full the pain was excruciating.

I am having some major trauma with my UK bank. Why are these places staffed with incompetent imbeciles? Interest rates are still sliding and the pound is performing poorly in Asia. All this is conspiring to make life more difficult for me. Baaa humbug.

I have to go and buy some stuff before it gets dark and Jiali high street turns into a lightsaber panorama!

再见

Today is 29th February. In the Gregorian calendar, the current standard calendar in most of the world, most years that are divisible by 4 are leap years. In a leap year, the month of February has 29 days instead of 28. Adding an extra day to the calendar every four years compensates for the fact that a solar year is almost 6 hours longer than 365 days. However, some exceptions to this rule are required since the duration of a solar year is slightly less than 365.25 days. Years which are divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they are also divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years.

The last paragraph is from Wikipedia. I find calendars interesting because the Chinese and Gregorian calendars are vastly different. In the West we have given up on using the moon to mark our months, thus our ‘1st of the month’ has no bearing on the position of the moon. We focus purely on the Earth’s solar orbit. We use a solar calendar. Conversely, in China they do keep their months in sync with the moon. They use a lunar calendar. This is why Asia has so many lunar festivals. However, a problem arises when trying to fit the Moon’s orbit of the Earth (27.3 days - 1 month) into the Earth’s solar orbit of the Sun (365.25 days - 1 year). The Chinese scholars circumvent this issue by inserting ‘leap months’ into their calendars at certain times. The rules that govern when a leap month is inserted are very complicated - like everything else seems to be here! Interestingly, as this calendar stuff overspills into everyday language, the word for month and moon are the same (yue, 月).

Does any of that make sense? Or am I talking bollicks again?

One thing that is fun here is the language barrier. Many funny things happen that I forget but I want to mention a couple here that made me smile. Zi Ting’s Mother is currently in hospital. I asked what is wrong with her? Zi Ting said: “He is having his baby-house removed”. I couldn’t help myself but I laughed even though this is a serious operation. She asked what was so funny. I explained how your Mother is a ‘She’ and ‘Her’ - not ‘He’. I also said that we call a woman’s ‘baby-house’ a ‘womb’. Haha, this still makes me smile. I knew what she meant but it just sounds funny - His baby-house!

The he/she problem stems from the fact that in spoken Chinese you don’t distinguish between gender. An example is “He/She is good”. In both cases you would say “Ta shi hao”. This is why they muddle up he and she so much. They also don’t conjugate verbs depending on tense. This is another huge problem but that’s another story.

This next one made me laugh too. When I woke up the other morning I had a lot of sleep in my eyes. In Chinese I asked the name for sleep. She said it is ‘Yeng shi’. I pissed myself with this one. It translates as ‘eye shit’. Haha. She then went onto explain that ear wax is ear shit and snots are nose shit. How mint is that? Loving it!…..eye shit, ear shit and nose shit - cool!

Tonight we are going to another lantern festival which I am looking forward too. Loads of stuffing our faces - great.

I have to say that in rural Taiwan you do not have access to any bars or discos. The thing here is KTV or karaoke but you have to go there as a group and listen to shit singers all night. I just wanna sup a pint in a quiet bar on me Jack Jones but they just don’t exist. Well, they do but you would have to slog all the way to Tainan, and frankly, I can’t be arsed. So, unlike Manila where I almost killed myself, I am a model of healthy living here in Cigu. I haven’t touched alcohol or nicotine for two weeks - Champion.

再见 Bye

你想知道什么 ni xiang zhidao shenme? What do you want to know?

眼屎 yen shi - eye shit

鼻屎 bi shi - nose shit

耳屎 er shi - ear shit

If you manage to remain on the mortal coil for 70 years, then 1 year is approx 1.5% of your life. I was thinking of this last night as I was slipping in and out of a nightmare. Briefly, I ... [Continue reading this entry]

I forgot to mention on the last post how I ate a thing known as Balut. This is a Philippine delicacy. It is also eaten in Vietnam but I bottled it there. Not this time though. Balut is basically an ... [Continue reading this entry]

I arrived in Taiwan yesterday at Taoyuan International Airport. To give you some idea of the difference between the Philippines and Taiwan, try to imagine travelling from the Earth to the Moon. They are THAT different man! At Manila airport ... [Continue reading this entry]

I mention this because I have just returned from a Tagalog dinner of Chicken Mami followed by Pancit Canton. Total cost? Just under 1gbp. I must add that the following happens every single time I leave the 'comfort and security' of ... [Continue reading this entry]

I have been in Manila for 17 days. I had only one job to do and that was obtain a 60 day visitor visa for Taiwan. I failed this unassuming task after a demented trip to the Taiwan embassy. I spent ... [Continue reading this entry]