Today we learned words that are used to say many of “something”, kind of like “pride of lions, murder of crows, flock of sheep,…” only ours were weird, there is a word that means “many long fuzzy things” it can be used with pants, skirts, fuzzy snakes and cats tails. The next time I want to go on a rampage ripping out “fuzzy” cats tail I will be ready (note that hairless cats tails probably have a different word).

Of course that doesn’t have anything to do with anything I just found it amusing and wanted to share. On a more serious note I have a serious case of vertigo here. They have some of the same things that are available in the states but here they are slightly changed so that a US frame of reference only causes you to become more confused. Easy examples would be the cartoonnetwork.com.tw and mtvchinese.com, not quiet the same. Order a pizza and you just might get corn in it, go out for a night of kabab at a Persian restaurant and you can replace your rice with mashed potatoes, the rice will be sticky and your salad will have thousand island dressing mixed in it. It’s close to what you know but not really the same.

Of course this makes it a bit harder to figure out how you should act or react. When someone bumps you on the train is that just normal behavior ? Can you bump other people out of your way ? When you want to order breakfast do you just yell out your order or do you wait for the cook to acknowledge your presence first ?

I am sure the American way of doing things is just as confusing for any Taiwanese who visit the US after all people have a habit of getting comfortable with their frame of reference. In my case my frame of reference is sorely lacking meat, so if any kind person could send me a side of beef or a few frozen steaks I would be most grateful.

Pictures baltently stolen from http://cuteoverload.com/ you really should check out their pics.

It is a little known fact that while he was not contemplating the orbits of the planets and the trajectory of the stars Newton was trying to come up with a washing machine. The quest for clean clothes is an ancient and noble endeavor that not many undertake since the advent of a proper washing machine. I have been lucky to have glimpsed into the past and indeed the very beginning of the washing the source if you will of washing machines. This Adam of washing machine has somehow been placed in my apartment and I have taken a few pictures of it that I will share with you. From afar it appears that this is just another washing machine, you can see a tube brining water to the washing machine and some dials on top.

This is where the similarities end however. Here is a close up of the dials and knobs on the washing machine, thankfully the landlord took a few minutes to explain how this mysterious machine functioned and there is a bit of animal sacrifice involved but beyond that it is no more arcane than your average infernal contraption. To better demonstrate this fact I will walk you through a single load of laundry, please note that due to the small size of the washing machine a typical load is about 1/3-1/4 size of a normal American laundry load.

10:00 AM
The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the clouds are fluffy, it is a great day to be alive. You have decided to do your laundry. You approach the laundry machine with caution and start. First off the little slide thing needs to be all the way to the left this lets the machine know that you wish to use the washing cycle and not the spin cycle. First you have to turn on the water and wait for the washer to fill up, you then manually turn off the water and start the wash cycle thinking that this isn’t so hard. Faust probably said the same thing at some point.

10:30 AM
The birds singing is getting tiring, the wash was over 20 minutes ago and you have to go drain the water, you turn down the drain knob and come back.

11:00 AM
The sun has become a bit overcast, the washing machine has completely drained and you turn back the water again so that you can rinse your cloths from the soap.
11:25 AM
You realize that you forgot to turn off the drain knob so the washing machine is still empty, the sun is now gone and there is a cold wind blowing. Where the hell are those birds ???
12:15 PM
You have finished the rinse cycle and waited for the water to drain, it is now time to use the death spinner. This is that small tube you see on the right of the picture. It somewhat resembles the nozzle of a large tank and does as much damage to your cloths. Say good bye to the sweater you knew, say hello to a piece of tent cloth turned into a sweater by a drunk orangutan.

12:45 PM
You have finished your first load of laundry, the birds now sound like Satan laughing at you. You briefly contemplate wearing dirty cloths for the rest of your stay in Taiwan but then realize that there are laundry services out there.

Now I would like to make clear I am in total awe of the ingenuity this took, I am sure this washing machine was a huge improvement over the previous version where your cloths was beaten with boulders. I imagine people were frequently killed or maimed when pieces of rock would shatter on dirty socks. In this case no one was killed or maimed and the only violence occurred in my imagination where the birds died many horrible and painful deaths.

She smiles expectantly at me, she’s wearing some sort of outfit the most memorable part of which is a short mini-skirt. I passed her going the opposite direction a few minutes ago and she probably thinks that I have returned to talk to her but the reality is that I am lost and all I need from her is to get the hell out of my way. She’s not used to being ignored since she doesn’t move at all and I have to shoulder her out of my way as I run past. She says something to me in Chinese but I don’t have time to talk it’s 8:50 PM and at 9 I have an appointment I can’t be late for.

My watch says 9:05 as I make it, I kick off my shoes and quickly say hello to my employer. She’s nice enough about me being late and I head to the back to get ready. Fifteen minutes later the lights are dimmed and they are ringing bells. I grab my big red bag and walk in, the kids are going nuts. Santa Clause is here after all, I am not sure who is more nervous me or them. I have given presentations to executives at Apple, Intel, Qualcomm and I have never been nervous but 20 kindergarten kids screaming their heads off man that’s a lot of expectation to live up to.

A few hours ago I had gotten a call, there was an emergency at this kindergarten they needed someone to play Santa Clause and they were willing to pay $1000NT ($33USD)for one hour of work. I reluctantly took the job since it was pretty far from where I lived and it would take me about an hour to get there. I figured it was better than sitting at home watching TV, now that I am actually doing it I can’t believe I was going to pass up a chance to play Santa Clause.

It’s the end of the night and the kids have all gotten their presents. The girls all asked for Barbies and the boys all wanted Starfishes. This is an English school kindergarten and the kids had to speak English to Santa to get their presents but now that they have their presents they run around and scream in Chinese, I play peek a boo with a few of the bold ones who are not afraid of Santa. The kids come in for a last picture with their parents and scream in joy as I lift them up and tickle them, the parents are happy, the kids are happy and I am having one of the best moments of my life.

It’s time to go and my happy employer is looking in her purse for $NT1000, I think about it for a few seconds and then tell her not to bother. This is my Christmas present to myself. I have had a great time and I would rather not tarnish the memory with money. She asks me a few times if I am sure then tells me to hold on, she returns holding back a packet of fruit, a packet of candy and a banana. I gladly take the snacks and head home. This Christmas don’t forget to get yourself something nice. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go memorize the names of my raindeers. Happy early Christmas.

I can not in fact read, what I can do is pronounce, pronounce badly that is. Since Mandarin has symbols instead of an alphabet you (us the foreigners) never know how to properly pronounce anything. So you have the BoPoMoFo to help you pronounce, once you learn pronouncing you start to memorize characters. I have memorized about a handful of characters so far, me/I, You (both formal you and informal you), good, bad,… oh I almost forgot there are also the tones. I suck a the tones I’d try to explain how the tones work but really it would just be confusing.

Everyday is more or less a mis-adventure. I try to speak Chinese say horse instead of sandwich or please pour milk down my pants instead of french fries. Who knows, all I know is that a look of utter confusion comes over anyones face who encounters my butchering of the language. My best success so far was trying to order an egg sandwich with two eggs and coffee. Instead I got two egg sandwiches and a cup of coffee.

If you are curious about the BoPoMoFo you can take a look here.

Next post how the first washing machine ever made worked and what it’s doing in my apartment.

I can read. Yes really read. Now you can stop laughing I am not talking about English although god knows I have enough trouble reading that sometimes. No I am not talking about what the Japanese call Kanji or Chinese symbols but rather something called BoPoMoFo which is an alphabet used by children in Taiwan to learn how to properly pronounce the real characters. Unfortunately this system is only used in Taiwan and even then only by children or those learning the language so I still can’t read any menus.

I have always thought of languages as cities the more you learn the bigger and more complex the city becomes. So in the middle of my head there is a big metropolis with highways and people flying all around just like in the Jetsons. It’s about as complicated as an expensive Swiss watch and the skyscrapers spell out English.

Behind this city there are two other mid-sized cities one used to be a big metropolis but is now a barely functioning city with sporadic blackouts, there’s a sign overlooking the city that spells out ersian the P having fallen off. The other mid-size city was never very big so it has not gotten that much smaller it has a series of canals that spell out French. If you look a bit closer you’ll see that there is some rebuilding going on in both cities.

Off in the wilderness there is a village with a few mud huts and some loose dogs wandering the streets, at night the dogs bark out and the echo sounds
Dutch/Flemish as it bounces back and forth between the larger cities. But even the mud village looks grand in comparison to the paper village which has nothing but half made paper huts who appear to be an origami nightmare and barely make out Japanese. As a joke someone has put a fence around a rock and put a sign on it that says Arabic.

Now into this crowded place I am trying to fit the foundation for a new city. Mandarin being big and complex it requires a lot of space and all the inhabitants of the other cities have started to complain. This has given me a headache that’s two days old, the headache is not improved by the two earthquakes that I have felt in my 3 weeks here and the fact that the apartment I am in is right across from a propane filling store gives me scant reason to sleep well at night.

So please bear with me while I buy a laptop organize a few thought and get back to blog land with a better entry.