my trad chars are exploding, mainly because i’ve spent at least the past six months chatting almost exclusively to people in taiwan and forcing myself to use the trad keyboard. it’s sticking. this will be my fourth time in taiwan, and i can’t wait to see how much easier it is to just read all the stuff that baffled me in 2014.if you feel your chinese is waning, keep up something on a regular basis. watch youtube videos, listen to podcasts, anything to keep it moving. that’s what i did in my horror year (2016–2017) and it paid off enormously.
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 30 January 2018 08:16 (six years ago) link
My mom is super old school. She won't even use a computer. So she gets stressed out about having to use a machine to buy tickets, etc.
― Yerac, Tuesday, 30 January 2018 08:25 (six years ago) link
ohhh, yeah that would be stressful if you don’t want to learn how to do a load of things that were once done for you
― rove mcmanus island (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 30 January 2018 08:28 (six years ago) link
i had planned to stay in taipei and meet a load of people, but (a) having realised most will just english at me the whole time and (b) one guy i haven’t even met was desperate to travel across the country just to meet me (despite me saying no a hundred times), i’m going off on my own. fuck it.definitely going to hualien because the earthquake has rendered the locals desperate for visitors/income and because the damage was relatively minor beyond those four buildings that fell down. enough of taroko’s open to make it worthwhile. also i’ll probably go back to kaohsiung for longer than a few hours this time. really loved it the first time round.
― reverse-periscoping (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 26 February 2018 05:56 (six years ago) link
tainan? i took a day trip up from kaohsiung and really liked the city
― alomar lines, Monday, 26 February 2018 06:10 (six years ago) link
i’ve spent time in tainan before, also getting around is a pain in the arse. not compelled to rush back there tbh.
― reverse-periscoping (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 26 February 2018 06:19 (six years ago) link
i’m in tianmu (failing to find a bluetooth keyboard) and have just eaten a deconstructed hamburger
― karl wallogina (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 2 April 2018 06:18 (six years ago) link
oh and hualien is all running as normal, apart from some completely unremarkable car parks where the damaged buildings used to be. everything i wanted to see in taroko is accessible. also i’m convinced there’s more soft jazz per capita than anywhere else in the world.
― karl wallogina (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 2 April 2018 06:22 (six years ago) link
i have no memory of tianmu or the deconstructed hamburger, but i did find a six storey building full of bluetooth keyboards
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 8 February 2019 21:38 (five years ago) link
i had planned to stay in taipei and meet a load of people, but (a) having realised most will just english at me the whole time
i’m going back soon (fifth time iirc) and would be open to a lot more englishing, since my chinese has gone backwards recently and i need a leg up to get back in.
towards the end of the above trip i ended up going to drinks with some people who spoke varying levels of english and played cards against humanity all night. it was fun. usually i put so much pressure on myself to achieve that i forget to just enjoy the place.
― calamity gammon (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 8 February 2019 21:47 (five years ago) link
this time i have put very little pressure on myself to achieve and as a consequence i have achieved. made an absolute pantsload of friends too. i love the hell out of this place.
― times 牛肉麵 (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 26 April 2019 04:06 (four years ago) link
Pig intestines flew in Taiwan legislature as fist fights broke out in bitter debate abt Taiwan gov decision to import US ractopamine pork which is banned in EU and mainland China pic.twitter.com/XVRd5OM6wG— Carl Zha (@CarlZha) November 27, 2020
I would religiously watch PMQ every week if it ever got this good
― calzino, Friday, 27 November 2020 11:33 (three years ago) link
I want to see similar resistance to that ghastly US chlorinated chicken in the UK as well. I want to see chicken guts getting thrown about like confetti!
― calzino, Friday, 27 November 2020 11:39 (three years ago) link
A Taiwan politics perspective
https://labourreview.org/labor-politics-in-taiwan/
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 13 January 2024 13:08 (three months ago) link