Nobody has so far been able to explain to me how it was that the Mid-Autumn Festival turned into the national holiday for BBQing, after making a stop at Hotpoting, but there it is – Moon Festival in Taiwan, as well as in other East-Asian countries like China, Korea, Vietnam etc. is usually celebrated with […]
I’m currently starting my first week of school in NCKU at Tainan on the southern part of Taiwan, supported by the Taiwan scholarship. The Taiwan scholarship offers 30,000NT$ per month for students for a period of 3 years. Usually, when I tell my Taiwanese friends about this scholarship and that I’m studying in Tainan, the response […]
About an hour drive from Tainan to the east is a Tainan County’s Monkey Mountain. The mountain forest jungle scenery has a lot of temples, big and small, dedicated to different Gods, some with beautiful gigantic Buddha statues. John was doing field research for me by chit-chatting to the locals about the Chinese Gods, …
A few days ago I went back with a friend to continue my tour of Tainan’s older area – Anping. First up, was Eternal Golden Castle, Fort Zeelandia’s bigger, newer and more modernized fort. Shen, Bao-Jhen, one of famous officials in Cing Dynasty, built it in 1874 and finished in 1876, in order to …
Snow? in Taiwan? Santa Clause? Mid-summer? well, kind of… welcome to Salt Mountain in Tainan County, a somewhat strange and out-of-place attraction about 30-40 minutes from Tainan where you can find two big white-grey ‘mountains’ made of salt. Although a bit odd, I liked it. Going with John and his family, we had ourselves a […]
Damn, Russel Peters is hilarious. After finding out about Russel Peters, I couldn’t stop watching his show and rolling on the floor listening to his insights about Asians, Chinese folks and Chinese language. You gotta check Russel Peters out: What’d you think? good stuff, eh?
Last week, some of my Chinese school friends and I spent a day out in Kaohsiung. My teacher grew up in the area and was kind to take us around and show us to some of of the local sites. Having a local guide show you around makes all the differences. My Austrian friend, who’s been […]
After all this time, my Chinese is still pretty basic. If someone talks really slow and using everyday words with out any slang, weird accent or some Taiwanese, then I might be able to get most of it, or at least give a good guess by combining the words I do recognize with the body […]
Finally, today, after a month in Tainan, I signed my contract for an apartment. Let me see… I must have probably looked at over 20 apartments, and each of those has opened a new door into some strange bizarre Taiwanese culture and peculiar life in Tainan. I owe a big thanks to my London guardian […]
It’s a tough decision – what would you rather have – a Hello Kitty mini-doll or a special God doll to help my fortune? It seems that every chain convenience store in Taiwan has its own little give-away mini-dolls that you get if you buy enough things. If you buy at 7-11 then you can collect […]
