Waiting (English)

Waiting means, that what you want to do cannot be done right now.
We do have to wait a lot of times during our lives.
Waiting can put a lot of stress on us. Waiting can be very relaxing too.
We can wait for good things, that we think it is worthwhile waiting for;
we can wait for things that we don't actually want to wait for.

When I was still studying in good old Europe one of my teachers told me that we should be busy with Chinese language all the time, for example while waiting or doing the laundry. He recommened us to listen to CD's or maybe mp3's during those waiting periods, or periods when our brain is not fully used up. The reason for that is that our brain needs to get stimulated by the language we want to learn repetition.

Another thing that need a lot of training and repetition is dancing! A young man showed us today in the MRT in Taipei that waiting for the MRT does indeed not need to be a waste of time....

Scooter art in Taipei (English)

Just a random shot of one of the many scooters driving around in Taipei. The owner of the species below seems to enjoy putting a special note to a common thing. He put some small plastic figures around the back light and scooter licence plate.
Ten points for creativity.
Another great discovery today was a scooter with an illuminating installation on the inside of the scooter tire. Only eye catching at night, but then a real threat to traffic safety.

Nice perspective (English)

Taiwanese women do quite enjoy a reputation of being sexy, or at least attractive. That is what the term 辣妹(la4mei4), or hot/spicy girl refers to.
Taiwanese men instead don't really have that kind of reputation. I think this is particulary unfair, and therefore I am starting a small campain to show that even Taiwanese guys have a lot of sex appeal.
One first indicator was found in my dorm today, some really interesting perspectives on the real potential of Taiwanese dudes:

Nice one, these slips will make every woman to make you see naked (a good way to head right to where you want to go...)

Well, if one biking glove is enough, why waste resources and wash both of them?

Wrong, the reddish thing below is not a nice blanket, and whitish thing next to it is not a beautiful towel. The left one is a pant, the right one a short. I know, you cannot wait to see them being worne.

"Remodelling" (English)

Due to some unexpected road conditions it was necessary to get my scooter to the garage trust and get the front of my "knight rider" remodelled again...The good thing about Taiwan is that the total damage of the "remodelling" was less then 25€. But definitely no reason do look for another similar reason...

Combat the negative stereotype of Germans (English)

The text below is written by my Irish friend Duncan, as he put it on youtube.com:

In 1983 the German Government, in an effort to combat the negative stereotype of Germans being no fun and too serious created a special 20 year program for recently born babies to make them grow into more fun adults. Recent graduate Mr. Florian Gobel was the 26th baby selected for the program. Dr. Helmut Kohl, the German Chancellor at the time, still speaks of it as his most worthwhile contribution to the German Nation and humanity itself, even topping the destruction of the Berlin Wall, which also occurred during this period. Some might argue otherwise....

Hold your rifle tight...(English)

This picture was taken on a toilet of the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU).
And what does it mean?

別發抖!
握緊槍再射
Don't tremble!
Hold your rifle tight and then shoot

Haha, any more explanation needed? Or is it obvious enough about what kind of "rifle" this board is talking about?

Taiwanese police at work! (English)

Enjoy this funny of Taiwanese police agents hunting one little black car! See and learn their superiour methods.
The video is really funny!

BUT BE AWARE OF THE END, it might disturb some of you!!!!!

台灣 - 自殺之島?

本文章為荷蘭來頓中文系學生報紙出版:

這次KmK的版本是有關於暴力。我想了半天，想不到我的文章要怎麼寫。我在台灣生活的經驗都是非常安穩的,很有安全感。除了一次在迪斯可舞廳前，早上五點半，遇到了從沒有過的暴力相向經驗。那天我們剛出迪斯可舞廳，就有一些黑社會成員在打架，用棒球棒互相毆打對方，但我們因已經坐上計程車而沒有發生任何問題。

我之所以認為台灣是一個沒有像荷蘭那麼危險或暴力的原因?我不確定，就覺得這兩個國家社會暴力表達的方法不一樣。

在荷蘭跟別的西方國家，很多事情是較明顯的。台灣跟其他亞洲的社會國家較不會表達自己的感覺。但是有另外一個因素，對我來說亞洲比其他西方國家起來好像嚴格許多：「社會壓力」。

父母對於子女期待很高，因此造成學生壓力非常大。學生整天上課，回家以前還要去補習班學語言或數學。上班族平常要加班，甚至不能有一絲怨言。每個人都像機械化的機器人，按表做事，不出差錯，要不然家人，公司老闆，或老師等都會覺得很失望。

我認識的台灣的大學生都是非常努力的學生，天天都要寫功課，平常要打報告，只餵了應付期中跟期末考試。即使大部分的學生希望有個輕鬆一點的生活不行。

社會壓力也包括了經濟壓力。國立清華大學經濟學系的Hwei-Lin Chuang 跟 Wei-Chiao Huang研究過自殺與事業的關係 (Suicide and Unemployment: Is There a Connection? An Empirical Analysis of Suicide Rates in Taiwan).

他們論文的重點著重在研究發現在事業率較高的地區自殺率也會相對提高。他們指出，台灣最近幾年經歷了很多經濟、環境上跟社會上的變化。特別的例子是在一九九九年九月二十一日的大地震(造成兩千多個人過世,一萬多棟樓遭到破壞)。接著因為這樣的災難，許多人民與人民財產都受到了極大的損害。台灣的經濟也不如以往發展的迅速，這樣的情況造成了人民生活水準的下降，而相對的，失業率也跟著直線上升。

根據PEOPLE’S DAILY ONLINE 的報告，大部分自殺的人民通常是因為沒有工作或年齡六十歲以上。

我已經提出了我在台灣的經驗都是非常好的。暴力真的是很難找到的現象。但是我們也不能忘記大部分的暴力有可能不如我們平常所看到的表面那樣簡單。每一個社會跟每一個人民有自己的特性與差異性， 有的是優點，有的是缺點。總而言之，在我認為，台灣的社會自殺問題應該比荷蘭的比率高。

照片:“你可以不必自殺”,在台北劍潭拍的廣告

Nachschlag: Der zweite Bericht über die Tarokoschlucht mit Ton (Deutsch)

Nachschlag: Der erste Bericht über die Tarokoschlucht mit Ton (Deutsch)

Everything is safe! Only a practice alarm... (English)

Tuesday, 10th of April, 2pm. My class was about to finish, while I was packing my stuff, I still chatted a bit with my teacher. A lot of other students were already walking around in the hallway, passing by our classroom. The normal noise level was beginning to arouse.
Then all of a sudden lights began to be turned out, from afar a siren could be heard. All of a sudden traffic outside the classroom began to slow down, people moving inside the buildings, like the big library opposite of my classroom. After another short while the Mandarin Training Centre was totally blacked out and traffic was absolutely disrupted. What has happened within the last one to three minutes was really scary, what was going on? My teacher smiles: "Should we also turn off the lights, we are actually supposed to. Well until last year we had to go down and assemble on the big parking lot somewhere around here. Ah, do you see the lights in the library are all turned off now. Well this is a practice alarm for a potential air raid. Now we may not move for 30 minutes and need to wait for the sign that it is over."
People who were walking on the streets had to stop right where they are (when you were in the middle of crossing an intersection, that was your spot to wait for the next 30 minutes), cars had to be stopped and police assembled in every major intersection to ensure security. I heard until last year some kind of inspection police actually controlled public buildings whether everyone was obeying the rules or not.
Nowadays, only the lights had to be turned off and we were actually supposed to have class. Well in times when the direction of the MTC decides that the air-conditioning system need to be renovated for the coming 80 days (which means that the air-co may only work at lower power or not at all), we can also have class without light!
Only a small group of antagonists in the 10th floor (the floor for research students of Chinese as a Second language), resisted to turn off the lights. This might be another form of protest against the current government of President Chen Shuibian.
For most people this kind of exercise is ridiculous and a waste of time and money. I assume that there is still a slight chance existing that makes this kind of exercises necessary and it is wise to be alert. After half an hour of silence and shut-down the sirens sounded again and everything came back to live.

Gaoxiong from the sky (English)

Part of every visit to Gaoxiong has to be the 85 Tower and its 74th floor. There is a viewing deck and you can see almost in 360 degrees from some 300 metres down to Gaoxiong. Especially the harbour looks very nice from that perspective. But other parts of the city are also worthwhile being seen.
It was a great day when I was up there, so I had the chance to make some nice pictures.

3-day trip to Gaoxiong (English)

I spent the past three days in Gaoxiong (高雄) the 2nd largest city of Taiwan. It the metropolis of the Southern part of the island. And was previously known for its large industrial harbour as well as polluting industry. Since the 1990ies the city government has made quite some effort to increase live quality in the city.
There are some interesting sights, like the romantic Love-River (愛河), the modern harbour and the island Qijin (旗津), with a tourist area and a beach with black sand. Other highlights within the city are the Lotus-lake (蓮池潭) and the modern city centre around the Tuntex Skytower (東帝士58國際廣場). The city can be reached by air plane, bus, car, train and the newly build High-speed Railway (HSR). The trip from Taipei by bus takes about 5hours, for 500 NT, the same by HSR takes only 2.30h but costs 1450 NT.

Tuntex Skytower (東帝士58國際廣場) seen from the taxi driving by

The scooter is the most favourite way of transport in Taiwan, families, furniture anything can be fitted on the 2wheeler.
Ikea in down town Gaoxiong. Part of the modern city centre, where also the 遠東 Far Eastern (?) shopping wall (one of the largest in the world) can be found.

The harbour in Gaoxiong, besides old fashioned ferries, there can be nice yachts and huge cargo ships found.
A nice breeze in the afternoon, relaxing, cooling and very beautiful in combination with palm trees at the beach.
Not swimming, but playing the water is very famous among students in Taiwan.

Always ready for a nice picture. Taiwanese love taking pictures as much as I do...


Another example of the great flexibility of Taiwanese how to use a scooter to get around.

Taiwanese people love cars, and German cars. Some people can afford German cars, some people can only afford German licence plates and but them behind their Taiwanese licence plate.

Playing Mahjong in the harbour of Gaoxiong.

"Don`t stare at the foreigner", foregneiers should not ask that of the people in Taiwan. We love to look around and they do so as well. Yet sometimes the reactions of the local children are quite exaggerated: A girl called us Ghost (鬼), while walking up the stairs to a temple. Still quite cute compared to a boy who called us lecher (色狼)...well we keep smiling and look around.

Who is doing the wrong thing here? Taking a picture of someone peeing in the harbour, or the peeing itself???

The ferry from the harbour to Qijin island. 10 minutes, 10 NT and a great experience.

The largest Confucius temple of Taiwan is in? Right, Gaoxiong. A very beautiful recently (in 1976) re-built centre of concentration and calmness.

Another example of love to Germany. We'll sometimes people here love German history in a way that a properly educated and clearly thinking German would never do...

High-tech with bamboo! A characteristic of Taiwan?

The former British consulate, close to the Sun-Yatsen University.

Picture: Cute sticker-face!



If you don't like chewing betle nuts you still have to love the result of locals spitting on the floor after having chewed for the whole day! I admit, I am a fan. And you can find these spots of worship through out the island. They are even more numerous that all kinds of temples...

The lover river at night!

The Lotus lake during the day.

A great special edition for increased driving comfort. A model from Piaggio with two separated seats.