Week of November 1st, 2013

The family and I were on an elevator the other day and it stops on a floor to let more people get on, and a little local kid (5ish) gets on, takes one look at me and runs behind his mother.  She grabs him and says something and they get on, but the whole time he is eyeballing me suspiciously.  Betty later translated what the mother said..."it's OK, he's just like Santa Claus.  Do all us white people look like Santa Claus to you?  How racist.  On the bright side, at least I look like someone famous.

Figuring out a new culture is like peeling an onion as some things are slowly revealed.  Have been perplexed by the pathological need for the locals to back into parking spots.  My working theory was that it was due to centuries (millennium?) of being forever vigilant to the need to get away from the invading hordes in an instant and that it was somehow built into their DNA.  When we got married, Betty told me that Chinese people like to give gold as a gift cause that is something you can grab and  carry with you if you are forced to flee.  Back to parking, I am not advocating one way over the other but personally, I think pulling in straight lowers the risk of damage to your/other cars, and is ultimately faster, but will decide which way based on the situation...traffic, size of space, etc.   One of the places where pulling in straight is always the right thing to do is at the Costco, obviously to be able to load in the huge bag of paper towels or giant box of Lucky Charms, but I'd say over 50% of the cars insist on backing in there (and then they pull into the road to load their crap and block traffic).  Anyway, I am in some random parking structure the other day, and when I get back to the car, there is this an official looking note on my windshield (that I can't read), but notice that none of the other cars have them so figure it wasn't an ad and was trying to tell me something.  I took it into Chinese class today, and the teacher tells me it says that I should have backed into the spot as it is safer so as to not hit pedestrians.  I know from experience that the use of rear view mirrors is not a regular habit of the Taiwanese, and it's obvious they don't give a shit about the pedestrians in general, but I am guessing that there must be some public service campaign to help reduce the number of people they run over, which finally explains this habit.

I haven't bitched about Chinese class much this year, mainly because the other students aren't pains in the ass.  It is a conversation class, so we learn words and phrases to use in situations that we find ourselves in...making reservations, dealing with taxi drivers, etc.  She will also pepper the dialogue with Chinese sayings from time to time...today's was about being married and whether to ditch the old wife for a younger model.  It goes...it is better to have an old enemy than a new friend.  It feels more poignant if you put 'Confucious say' in front and then say it with a bad Chinese accent.  Last week, it was my turn to suggest a topic to learn about, and having the maturity of a 12 year-old boy, I wanted to learn about the body and more specifically, bodily functions.  Snot, diarrhea, poop...funny in any language.  My favorite was the equivalent to saying bullshit in Chinese is gao pi, which translated means dog fart.  So useful.  Along that line is saying to someone pai nide ma pi, which is you pat the horse to make it fart.  This is calling someone a brown noser.  I told the teacher that by the end of this year, I want to be able to tell at least one joke in Chinese that is funny...they've had 4000 years of history, you'd think they would have come up with one by now.  I tried to translate a couple of my favorites this week and it went no where.  They were; if you don't like the weather in Taipei, wait 5 minutes and then shoot yourself in the face.  And...when someone tells you that something hurts, I will reply that 'your face is killing me'.  The expression on her face was priceless.  She asks the other students (Turkish, French and English)...'do people say that?'  From their reactions, that brand of humor doesn't travel past the American border. 

Was at a fancy store the other day, and an entire shelf of the refrigerated seafood section was devoted to the sale of fish heads.  I know they are into seeing them on the plate, and always thought it was to ensure that the fish was fresh, but what the hell do they do with just the head.  Sharing the below picture as he was the most colorful...

Hard to see the price, but for this head and tail, the cost was NT$312, which is 10 bucks US.  No gag here...just sayin'

Finally, Halloween is not a thing here (although it does fall on Chiang Kai Shek's b-day, so Betty had it off of work), but they do have parties in the elementary school classes at the American School, and the kids dress up and do goofy games.  Carolyn went as a boxer, but with the baggy boxer shorts, sleazy robe and white tank top, I suggested she throw a little pasta sauce on her tank and call herself an Italian wife beater.  She was not amused.