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12 Jul 2007

《施氏食獅史》 (中文)

《施氏食獅史》

石室詩士施氏, 嗜獅, 誓食十獅。
氏時時適市視獅。
十時, 適十獅適市。
是時, 適施氏適市。
氏視是十獅, 恃矢勢, 使是十獅逝世。
氏拾是十獅屍, 適石室。
石室濕, 氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭, 氏始試食是十獅。
食時, 始識是十獅, 實十石獅屍。
試釋是事。




Wikipedia:

施氏食獅史
维基百科,自由的百科全书
跳转到: 导航, 搜索

《施氏食獅史》是一篇由趙元任所寫的設限文章。全文共九十一字(連標題九十六字),每字的普通話發音都是shi。這篇文言作品在書面閱讀時並沒有問題,但當用普通話朗讀或者將作品拉丁轉寫的時候,問題便出現了,這是近代漢語同音字多的緣故。

很多人認為趙元任是希望通過本篇,引證中文拉丁化所帶來的荒謬。但是支持拉丁化的人卻指出趙元任乃是國語羅馬字的主要設計者,他只是舉例說明拉丁化只適合於白話文,不適合於文言文。

Bijbaantje (Nederlands)

Ja, zonder de IB groep achter je naar het buitenland gaan. Soms wordt het dan gewoon een beetje krap met het geld. Ook de leuke beurs vanuit Taiwan is al lang opgebruikt, het is ook al reeds de 12de van de maand. Dus wat valt er te doen, als je niet alleen maar in de bieb wilt zitten om te studeren?
Klopt! Je hebt een bijbaantje nodig! Harm ging dus vandaag even stage lopen als flyer-verdeler. Het was wel een gezicht voor de mensen in het Ximending (西門町) winkel gebied.
Hoewel Harm voor dit keer 10 flyer verdelen nog geen centje kreeg deed hij dat al zeer goed en met groet succes. Binnen de tijd van de video onderaan waren alle flyer verdeelt!
Dus er bestaan beste kansen voor Harm!

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....


10 Jul 2007

5 day scooter tour: 合歡山 (English)


The next morning started a bit later then planned (due to some nice little visitors to our room who were running around "above our heads"). But after the local breakfast and a not free refill at the gas station, we were unstoppable again.
The next stop of our tour was the 合歡山 Hehuan Mountain, one of the highest peaks in Taiwan. We went up to a height of 3420 meters, with a temperature of around 20 degrees, amazing clouds floating around us and a nice cooling breeze.
As introduced earlier part of our professional equipment was my newly bought Asus Laptop and a copy of Fifa 07, so we combined both things and tried to play the game on the peak of the mountain. But the bright sunlight made it kind of hard, so we had to cancel that plan. But we had the chance to find a special bird, a species which appears to be very rare in Taiwan.
Another highlight while climbing to the peak was to see the only Taiwanese skiing lift ever, but nowadays not in use anymore and there is nothing left but rusty pillars and a ruin of the former crank house.
After climbing back to reach our scooters yet again, we headed towards the next destination. The famous and romantic Sun Moon Lake or 日月潭. A place all Taiwanese couples fancy to go.
We were amazingly lucky and found a nice room (the last one in the hotel), with flat-screen TV, and nice equipment just before the heavy rain started.
The night was filled with dinner, SPA and FIFA.










Hehuan Mountain

9 Jul 2007

5 day scooter tour: Day One (English)

Yet again it was time. The road was calling. We could not ignore our instincts any more. We had to fulfil our own deep desires and go on another scooter tour. The first one was a great success. With a lot of experiences and challenges. But this tour topped everything we have seen before.
This time only Fabian "Atze Tiger vom Kiez" und Florian "Paelzer Atze" were daring the challenge.

The equipment:
- 2 x 125 CC scooter from Taiwanese brands.
- 2 x brand name backpacks
- 1x Panasonic Lumix FZ 30
- 1x Nikon Digital Camera
- 1x Asus A8Js
- 2x Joypad
- 1x Fifa 07 (original version)
- X x a lot of other stuff

The tour of our lives guided us through mountain roads, clouds, some of the highest mountain peaks in Taiwan, tropical heat, and a lot of kilometres on the road.

The first day was about leaving Taipei during the beginning of a monsoon phase and gaining kilometres, leaving Fuxing (復興) and other cities behind us. The rain and the sudden drop of temperature made it hard to start of with our tour.
The sudden lack of gas and the early closing time of the local gas station made us stop in a mountain village in a local 民宿 a kind of pension with nice little rats walking on the ceiling of our room.
We still had a chance to get to know the local people and the Filipino house keeper Lisa aka "Pugi" of our host.




Erster Tag Scooter Tour

打屁股 (English)

Yesterday was a day with a lot of events: First of all was it the last day of Annelies' stay in Taiwan, on the other hand was it the day that Malissa, Suey and their Danish friend arrived to get to know the beautiful island of Taiwan.
To celebrate this special day a group of about 10 people went to the Dutch students' "stamkroeg" 5.11 to play the great game 打屁股 or "hit ya bum".
A game played with dices, where one person starts to roll the dices and checks out the amount shown secretly. After that every player of the game has to say a number or give the command to go back or pass. The one who finally says the number which is shown by the dices will be hit on her or his bum. If the hitter hits not hard enough, the tides change and the positions of hitter and victim change. A great game for those with rather special interests, especially in the combination with alcohol.
Annelies, I hope the marks on your bum shall remind you of the great fun we had here in Taiwan with you!





打屁股














1 Jul 2007

Nieuws vanaf het dak (Nederlands)



Sinds een ruim tijd is de uitspraak "ik ga alvast op het dak" bij ons op de dorm vak te horen en zeker niet zeldzaam.
Als wij op het dak gaan, dan gaat meestal ook een lekkere portie bier en enkele zakjes chips mee. Met een aangenaam weertje (niet te heet of benauwd, en geen regen) is het dak inderdaad de leukste plek van ons dorm. De uitzicht is uitstekend en de rust verfrissend.
Ook is er ruimte voor het een of ander leuk gesprek, en zeker een toplocatie om onze gast uit het verre Beijing een bijzonder sfeer van ons Taipei te laten beleven.





Raining Taipei (English)

This summer is really rainy and hot. It can rain for hours or days, and it always rains heavily...

Annelies op bezoek in Taiwan (Nederlands)

Onze medestudente Annelies heeft haar nieuw thuis in Beijing verlaten om te komen kijken hoe het leven of het kleine eiland Taiwan toe gaat. Gister is zij dus op het vliegveld in Taipei door een delegatie in ontvangst genomen. Wel, naar 1,5 uur vertraging vanuit Macau, van wegen onweer.
Nu heeft ze een week om te beleven wat er te beleven valt.
Ik ben al erg naar haar indrukken benieuwd.




29 Jun 2007

First Piano lessen after about 16 years (English)

Shida offers a couple of rooms for students to practice musical instruments for free. So I asked a friend of mine (a qualified music teacher), to give me some piano lessons. Until now, I've had one, and this great piece of music on the video is the result!
Have a look and enjoy:

Guitar never seemed so hard (English)

Just something I found to be worthwhile putting on this blog.
All references to the artist!!!

25 Jun 2007

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.

24 Jun 2007

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.

同學們等一下 - or the FarEast Tone commercial shot (English)


A new star is born, or an old star sparkles yet again...haha!
Today was my first TV Commercial shooting ever in my life. I had to get up really early in the morning to be at the set at 8.30. I was there a bit earlier though and changed clothes right away. Today's mission: I am an office guy advertising the great goods and services of the telecommunication company FarEast Tone. I actually have no idea what the advertisment in detail is all about, nor do I know if I will be visible or cut out by the director.

It was a nice experience anyway. Nice atmosphere in a nice office building in the nice and new business district called Neihu in Taipei. But most off all the crew and the other actors were really nice and fun to get to know. One funny thing for me to learn was that the crew calls the actors 同學們 (classmates, fellow students), a way to address a younger person or your students (being a teacher), I thought this sounded quite funny.

The job was really relaxing, just standing around and walking in the right moment, or getting out of a crowded lift. I had no lines, so had no one else any lines.
The best part was that we were done after 2,5 h, instead of the estimated 5 h.



The full album:

FarEastTone_Reklame





20 Jun 2007

Some pictures from Taipei (English)

Today, while waiting for my scooter getting cleaned, I just walked around the Wanlong (萬隆)-district in Taipei to take some pictures of normal Taipei.








The full album:
Taipei


19 Jun 2007

Neuer Laptop, neues Glueck (Deutsch)

Ich habe mir gestern einen neuen Laptop gekauft und zwar von der taiwanischen Firma Asus das Modell A8Js. Mit 2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Prozessor, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB Festplatte, nVIDIA GeForceGo 7700 mit 512 MB RAM und eingebauter Webcam!
Und genau die musste auch gleich fuer einen Feldversuch herhalten.
Erfahrungsberichte ueber den A8Js folgen spaeter vielleicht noch, jetzt aber erstmal eine Kostprobe der Webcam, mit Runzelgarantie:

17 Jun 2007

Dragonboat race (English)

Today was the first day of competition after a period of about 3 months of hardship and concentrated preparation. To be part of the dragon boat team of Shida you have to full fill certain criterias, besides being fit and hard working you also have to love the morning, training starts at 6 AM.
But all the hard times (and fun times of course, being with the team and getting to know each other better) were topped by the first great victory of the mixed team on yesterday`s contest.
I didn`t stay long enough to hear the result of the men`s team, I will update tomorrow. You can enjoy the pictures first.


Team Holland

The winners return

Turning around after the victory

The venue between bridge and 5 star hotel in the Dajia Park (大佳公園)

Japanese power...Ken and Xiazi enjoy it to be back after the hard work on board

The complete album can be found here:

Dragonboat Race



Video of the race:




Being celebrated by the numerous fans on-shore:

15 Jun 2007

German restaurants in Taipei (English)

Sometimes you cannot help, but have to go back to your roots. This can be done in several ways, one is to go somewhere, where you expect dishes from back home. Taipei offers a variety of German style restaurants. Today I checked out the Goethe Gourmet Gasthaus, close to the National Taiwan University and the Gongguan shopping area. I went there during tea time, so there was no great variety in German foods offered. Instead there was a choice for 2 people including 2 pieces of home-made cake, 2 drinks (from a choice of different coffees or teas), two sandwiches with German sausage and two sandwiches with something like Saumagen (pig stomach) for 420 NT (excluding service fee of 10%). The taste was not real German, yet close enough. Generally prices in the specialities restaurants are on the higher side, so is the Goethe Gourmet Gasthaus. Yet some teas are offered with free re-fill or the re-fill for half the price. The atmosphere is not like you would expect it to be in a German Schwarzwald restaurant, but also not really intellectual as the name Goethe might suggest. There was no real flair in my eyes. The service was proper, yet cold (haha, at least some German atmosphere, one might believe).

Goethe Gourmet Gasthaus

No. 11, Lane 283, Sec.3, Roosevelt Rd., Taipei
Tel.: +886-2-2362-0060, 2362-0124
Fax: +886-2-2362-0164.

De traditie van de kolonisatie op het ijsland (Nederlands)

De Nederlandisatie van Taiwan gaat zijn gang...steeds meer mensen hier op het ijsland "lijden" onder de nieuwe kolonisators.


14 Jun 2007

Pics: From the dorm's roof


The highway close to our dorm. There happened an accident tonight, followed by a huge fire, which could be seen very clearly and even smelled in my room.

Taipei at night, and in the center: Taipei 101 - a really gorgeous building, which I love to take pictures of and simply watch. There was luckily no smog and there were no clouds, so: picture time!


The other side of the river, all built full of large apartment complexes.