PRC Tourists

This is a political advertisement from Taiwan. It was paid for, I believe, by Chen Shuibian's party. The basic idea of the ad is that if people from the mainland come they will trample and rampage all over the island. The caption runs something like "Public parks change into public toilets, a conversation becomes a spitting contest." The second bit about spitting can't really be translated because its a clever pun, but you get the idea. Some of the Taiwanese politicians for some reason believe that their constituency can be made to believe that tourists from the mainland will immediately proceed to make the whole place stink by urinating and tossing garbage about the entire place as soon as their plane touches down and that everyone in Taiwan will die from the infectious diseases that flood the island as soon as the hapless tourists got there, mostly due to tuberculosis from all the aforementioned supererogatory expectoration. I found this picture some time ago and meant to post it, but forgot. Since then I haven't heard much about Taiwan, so they are either all dead from tuberculosis, rabies or some other complaint, or I need to bone up on my current events.

The Trendsetter

This is the extremely fashionable man who I found waving at me, smiling at something and doing little dances when on the bus just outside Willow Market. We were stuck in traffic, so I had plenty of time to take some glamour shots of the duffer.

Various 拼音输入法 and the "Sometime-gay Sometime-brooding Monkey"

I have recently become enamoured of the new software that has become available online for entering Pinyin romanization. I have been using the Google system for over a year now and while I may be biased, or just ignorant of a more attractive alternative, it is still my favorite. I have also used for the past couple of months the system from Sogou. It is also a good system, and it has attractive 'skins' with which to update your Chinese Character typing software and step into line with the latest fashion. This is, indeed, the inspiration for this post. My favorite skin is the sometime-gay sometime-brooding monkey, as I in my infinite wisdom have deemed the only likely construing of 悠嘻猴 in the native tongue, as it were.


The Pinyin romanization schemes can be accessed from the links below:
谷歌拼音输入法
搜狗拼音输入法
QQ拼音输入法


And the 'skin' in question here, or from the Sougou page above:
悠嘻猴皮

sometime-gay sometime-brooding monkey 'skin' illustrative and instructing figure

Of course the most important part of the input system is the advantage it offers over others. The three I have described above are superior in the following aspects. Of course they are free and easily accessible by download, although the Microsoft input system can often be hounded from said company at a considerable waste of life on the part of the Microsoft customer, it is not advisable if he values his sanity. Some almost neolithic systems can be downloaded from any Chinese website bursting with trojans, or can be had from the dustiest old box at the now superannuated DVD and software shop at any mall in China.

On to the real advantages, The software updates itself automatically and will integrate new words and terms. They also can remember words an individual uses frequently and will even remember things it doesn't normally recognize as words if they are used often. In Sogou the user can even save shortcuts to frequently used, but rare characters. In both Sogou and Google there are registration schemes where one can sign in from any computer and the information about user preference will be downloaded automatically from the Internet. QQ also allows the user to check the pronunciation of an unfamiliar character by first typing u and then entering the stroke order.

An interesting feature unique to the Sougou software is that the user may opt to download expansions which include words and expressions specific to the user's favorite video games will in turn update the program with new vocabulary as it becomes current. It is not useful to the author, but is certainly an inspired scheme. It is also a good thing these are separate from the main vocabulary as users unfamiliar with the expressions of certain online games might become quite confused when they came uninvited into his compositions or conversations inadvertently.

The Park on the Island in the Lake

Sometimes people ask me why I married my wife. They just use a different tone when they ask, for example: "What attracted you to her?" or "What made you fall in love?" What follows is a partial explanation. My wife has the habit of imparting humorous and entertaining tales when I least expect it. Usually they are bucolic tales from her rural home, as is the following. At other times they might be from the news or internet. Without further ado, I would like to impart the latest one.

Two days ago my wife and I were relaxing at my mother in laws house. I was upstairs reading while she was downstairs chatting with her mother and grandmother. The wife later recounted part of the conversation.

About a week ago there were three migrant workers from sichuan sitting in a pavilion in the park on the lake right across from the inlaws' house. The pavilion in question is the second one from the right, just to the right of the covered hallway. The picture in question is from February when they were burning brush in the field in the background. I had planned several posts of chinese people burning things, esp. garbage; these, sadly, have not yet come to fruition, but I digress.

The workers were sitting in the pavilion relaxing and a local came in to the same pavilion and sat down. The non-locals told him not to sit there, they were sitting in the pavilion. The local said,
"So what if I do sit here?"
"We'll throw you out!" they replied.
"Throw me out then!"
They jumped on him, but the local was strong and the three sichuanese couldn't get the best of him. One said:
"I'm going to get a knife, and when I come back you're dead for sure!"
The local man just ignored him, but sure enough, the sichuanese came back with a kitchen knife and hacked each of his arms to the bone in three places.

At the conclusion of the story my wife's grandmother said,
"Just hope you can find food to keep your stomach full. Finding food to eat for a few more years is all anyone can really hope for..."

drive-by

Yesterday I was on the public bus headed back to my home at the foot of Tea mountain in the desolate university 'town.' The bus was nearing the university town when my wife and I noticed the right rear wheel lurch into one of ubiquitous potholes filled with mud and gravel sending a spray of murky liquid directly into the face of a young man who was riding his moped at close quarters. We both gasped in empathetic disgust, and my wife said she would have stopped the bus and demanded recompense, which is exactly what the young man did. He followed the bus under the overpass, and overtook the us when we had to slow down where the road has not been finished yet. he then stopped his moped directly in front of the bus and the driver opened the door so they could have a shouting match. It is at this point I must apologize to the reader, for this tale is anticlimactic. They just shouted for awhile, and did not fight or even swear at each other. I should have taken a picture, but didn't. Eventually the young man left when he realized that the bus driver was willing to say sorry, but with a caveat, he still blamed the moped rider for not looking where he was going. We saw another person get nailed by a careless driver the same day, but this was a pedestrian, and while he swore the car drove on and there was no fight then either.
I suppose this post is somewhat disappointing, but at least now the reader can share mine and I will feel better.

Chinese Antiterror Unit

Here are a couple of nice pictures I found of a Chinese Anti-terror Cavalry Unit. I guess it would be helpful for chasing terrorists down the runway or any other flat paved area so you don't get tired and have plenty of energy to wrestle with them. Maybe it makes the bad guys collapse laughing and you can just bring them in.

I found these photos on the xinhua website a couple of days ago.

Chinese Bling

I found some pictures I took in Honk Kong the first time I went which I think might have been last November. The pictures are of huge pigs made of 24K gold. (I took them in 2007, which was still the year of the pig.) I am a big fan of Chinese pigs be they gold, stuffed animals or some sort of food product. I am not used to trotters, and hate liver, but anything else goes. Kidney is great, and intestines are even decent if prepared nicely.