Thursday, 7 April 2011
Famous Chinese singer in Paul McCartney death riddle mystery
What is the connection between Tong Li (童麗), the Chinese singer, May Pang, once John Lennon's girlfriend, and Paul McCartney, widely rumoured to have died in 1966 and been replaced in the Beatles by a lookalike named Billy Shears?
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Why was his back turned? |
If you follow this link, you can not only hear Tong Li singing "葬花吟", you can also read the lyrics:
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| What is Tong Li thinking? |
"爾今死去儂收葬，未卜儂身何日喪。
Lennon died now closed funeral, uncertain Lennon the day when I lose.
儂今葬花人笑痴，他年葬儂知是誰
Lennon laughed this mourner crazy, he knows of who is buried in Shannon."
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| What did John tell May? |
P.S. Paul-is-dead deniers only need to compare "Yesterday" to "The Frog Chorus" to see the utter improbability of these having been written by the same person.
Monday, 4 April 2011
Your worship
Today is Ching Ming (清明節) when traditionally Chinese people engage in "ancestor worship" by sweeping and generally tidying up the graves of their ancestors, although in Taipei these days it seems most ancestors are housed in pagodas, so the sweeping is a bit metaphorical. Did you know a pagoda is actually a ghostly tower block? Inside they look like safe deposits.
Anyway, I thought today was probably a Holy Day of Obligation, so I sallied forth to the Longshan Temple to sample the festive mood. Lots of incense and praying inside, and lots of fortune tellers and sellers of religious paraphenalia outside. I reckon Merrie England's cathedrals would have been similar, before Henry VIII nationalised them.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Only one of these is a saint
Not our Alpine friend, who is merely a Saint Bernard. Whereas the pooch on the right is very definitely The Dog.
He can be found at the "Eighteen Wang Kung Temple" (十八王公廟) on the north coast of Taiwan. According to the legend, his master died out at sea along with sixteen companions, after their boat capsized in the shoals close to shore. The dog, with an arguably excessive display of canine loyalty, ran into the sea so that he could die with his master. All the bodies were washed ashore, and are now interred at the temple, which is devoted to their memory.
"十八王公" could be translated as "the eighteen venerables", but since "saint" is from the Latin sanctus, meaning devoted or venerated - and these undoubtedly are both - a fairer translation is "the eighteen saints". Seventeen are the humans, but the eighteenth and most important is Saint Fido, the dog. Many visitors rub his statue, hoping that this will make their wish come true. And not only does he have a brass statue inside the temple, outside it - well, see for yourself:
Taiwan - an island where people love queuing and dogs. Once they take up cricket, it will be the England of the East.
Saturday, 26 March 2011
A bad sport
If Chinese seems hard (If? IF???) at least I can console myself with the idiosyncrasies of English spelling; sweet linguistic revenge on the Chinese; and indeed the rest of the world. Everyone knows that "ghoti" is pronounced "fish", and there is a clever poem (well known except to those whose mother tongue is English) which starts off:
"Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in this verse
Words like corps and corpse, horse and worse.
Suzy, I will keep you busy.
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So will I. Oh! Hear my prayer."
And on it goes. Magnificent doggerel. Actually, the writer was Danish I think. Yes, a Great Dane! Very appropriate for doggerel. Oh dear, it's been a hard day's night...
Cue other canine puns - suggestions in the "comments", come on! A prize for the best.
P.S. any suggestions for assembly sports? Do sheep dog trials count - assembling all those sheep; but is it a sport? Scrummages?
P.P.S. Why does a temple have an evacuation point? The clue is in the top line of the Chinese wording, which is not translated into English. "核能一廠" means, unless I am mistaken, "Nuclear Power Station Number 1"!
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
What does Santa do after Christmas?
He puts on a viking helmet and comes to Taiwan to work here. At a bakery. All totally logical.
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Hot Dog
The owner of a place where I sometimes eat lunch has a dog. He is a lovely little chap, always scampering around the tables, full of life, and well loved by all the customers.
The dog is too, but the dog seems rather lugubrious, as if he knows that the Chinese for dachshund is "sausage dog" (臘腸狗) and suspects that this might not be just because of his shape. Another dog from the same litter lives in the vegetarian restaurant opposite. He seems so carefree in comparison.
What is the German for dachshund? Not "ein Dachshund" but "ein Teckel". Not a lot of people know that. Except Germans obviously, they know everything.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Chillin out wid de shorty, ya m8, etc.
Taipei is definitely on the beaten track for pop music. Next week we have beat combo Far East Movement whose "Like a G6" recently topped the UK hit parade, and later this month the stage is thrown open to none other than Carlos Santana. Is Carlos still using the Secret Chord Progression, as revealed by Frank Zappa? Similar dodgy moustaches those two.
A talent to amuse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuZb8bs0fbE
Monday, 7 March 2011
Get the morphia
My trip to A&E on Saturday night (very nasty headache and sore throat)...
Waiting time to see doctor 0 hours, 0 minutes
Cleanliness of hospital 9/10
Helplfulness of staff 10/10
Number of geschwogan* binge
drinkers helping to create that uniquely
uplifting A&E customer experience 0
*see earlier post
Just like back home then. I picked up some useful medical phrases. "Yes, there's something going around", "it's probably a virus". All right, some things are the same as the UK.
P.S. Is someone on holiday in Mauritius?
Friday, 4 March 2011
Street life
Taipei is what urban planners call "mixed use" - everywhere is a mix of residential, retail, office, commercial, even a bit of light industrial. Restaurants and convenience food shops (and other shops) are everywhere, and with taxis and the public transport (including the modern MRT) and fast-moving traffic and wide pavements which allow bicycles, the place works pretty well.
One characteristic thing about Taipei is the scooter. They are everywhere, and it is not uncommon to see an entire family on one. I snapped this one of three, but I have seen a family of four, and also a man with his child and dog. The dog was not wearing a helmet (nor were these children). I bet Dog Peace* sell them.
*See earlier post.
Thursday, 3 March 2011
More about swooning
It has been pointed out that swooning* - Anglo Saxon geswogan, and 暈倒 in the vernacular - went out along with Barbara Cartland, tight corsets and stays (whatever they are) and that no women alive today, absent a few great aunts somewhere, will therefore ever have actually swooned. The modern equivalent of collapsing after a night of lager and bacardis does not count; although "she's totally geschwogan" does sound quite appropriate somehow for a paralytic member of the female species.
Do women in Taiwan ever swoon? If I can delicately nudge tomorrow's lessons around to the subject of tight corsets (or indeed tight stays), I will try to find out. Or perhaps not...
*See earlier post.
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
Dog Peace be with you
We have all the shops here, Armani, Gucci, Prada, Dog Peace... If anyone wants anything from Dog Peace, let me know, I might be able to get a discount. "My codpiece is from Dog Peace" has huge cachet. Imagine the effect at parties. Women would swoon. I bet you can't say it quickly.
Saturday, 26 February 2011
The Forgotten Tales of Kai Lung
Ernest Bramah is the writer of the Kai Lung books. 80 years ago he was hugely popular. Now he is almost unknown except to his devotees. Even the Wikipaedia page is just a stub: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Lung
Recently one Bramah lover unearthed a treasure trove of his short stories and in 2010 they were published for the very first time in book format as "Kai Lung Raises His Voice". The publisher (Paul Durrant) is another Bramah fan. Both of them will be lucky to get their costs back, although I doubt they expect to.
Here is an extract of Bramah at his best.
"Hia was disporting herself in the dark shades of a secluded pool, as her custom was after the heat of her labours, when a phoenix, flying across the glade, dropped a pearl of unusual size and lustre into the stream. Possessing herself of the jewel and placing it in her mouth, so that it should not impede the action of her hands, Hia sought the bank and would have drawn herself up when she became aware of the presence of one having the guise of a noble commander. He was regarding her with a look in which well-expressed admiration was blended with a delicate intimation that owing to the unparalleled brilliance of her eyes he was unable to perceive any other detail of her appearance, and was, indeed, under the impression that she was devoid of ordinary outline. At the same time, without permitting her glance to be in any but an entirely opposite direction, Hia was able to satisfy herself that the stranger was a person on whom she might prudently lavish the full depths of her regard if the necessity arose.
When the distinguished-looking personage had thus regarded Hia for some moments he drew an instrument of hollow tubes from a fold of his garment and began to sing of two who, as the outcome of a romantic encounter similar to that then existing, had professed an agreeable attachment for one another and had, without unnecessary delay, entered upon a period of incomparable felicity. Doubtless Hia would have uttered words of high-minded rebuke at some of the more detailed analogies of the recital had not the pearl deprived her of the power of expressing herself clearly on any subject whatever, nor did it seem practicable to her to remove it without withdrawing her hands from the modest attitudes into which she had at once distributed them. Thus positioned, she was compelled to listen to the stranger's well-considered flattery, and this (together with the increasing coldness of the stream as the evening deepened) convincingly explains her ultimate acquiescence to his questionable offers".
The mystery man*
This is Chen Forng Shean (陳逢顯) and his ambition is to make microscopic carvings. He has been so successful he has recently had to move to smaller premises. Yes, all the old jokes get recycled here, that one was originally about Japanese transistor radios. If I had not seen them with my own eyes I would have said it was impossible. A lovely bloke. His latest one is a 1/2 millimetre high rabbit, just the thing to mount on your 24 carrot gold ring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeO-fd7iBDk
*See earlier post.
Friday, 25 February 2011
Friday thought - Letting the grass grow under your feet
People say "head over heels" when they really mean "heels over head". And when they say "you cannot underestimate so-and-so" what they mean is that you can very easily underestimate him. (One law firm's marketing department quoted, for an entire year, a comment in a legal directory that in a particular area, "you cannot underestimate B------ any more", to hoots of derision from those partners who realised what it meant, and wondered how sincere the commentator was).
Anyway, someone said about these trips to Taiwan that I "don't let the grass grow under my feet". They meant "not stand still", but don't you think it must mean the opposite, because if you stand still the grass under your feet will not grow at all, it will turn yellow and die. Grass struggles to grow under a tree, so feet would have to be let's say a good foot 304.8 millimetres above grass at least for it to grow. No, the only way this phrase works is if the speaker intends to conjure up an image of someone lying in bed or on a sofa with his or her feet dangling off the edge but at least 304.8mm above the ground...
I must get out more.
Still no-one has guessed what that chap does for a living.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Glad a few people did not know about the Spanish fireman who named his two sons Jose and Hose B.
Who is this man? He is not a calligrapher. Clue: you have to look very carefully, a microscope would help. Stained glass - 9 out of 12 panels before I left, Canterbury Cathedral refurbishment contract surely just a matter of time. Breakfast done, vocab revision time. Bring 'em on.
Thursday 23rd
Arrived last night, first day at school today, 4 hours one-to-one, no jet lag, hard core or what? Anyway, still got homework to do. Type A is a pun in the best tradition, and nods its head to the world's best joke (about the Spanish Fireman...). Here's a photo I took earlier: don't bully plant life in the park it's against the law:
Brittany Spears naked Justin Timberlake. Jay Zed. Gisele Bundchen, George Clooney. Nick Clegg (shome mistake?). Is Christopher Hitchens actually God incarnate, and his arguments for atheism just a cunning divine plan? dubstep. flo rida. gummy bear song. madonna, oscar ceremony. Bullingdon club. bbc news, secret German plan to do 25 year sale and leaseback on all Greek sun-loungers, cheap flights and hotels, facebook, barak obama, barrack obama, brick obama, youtube, google maps, wikipedia (wikipaedia for those who can spell), bank of america, itunes, kwentong epiko ng ibalon (I don't know who or what this is but it is apparently a popular search term), jennifer aniston, hurricane tracker, besplatni strani filmovi za gledanje sa prevodom (ditto), emma watson fake pix (wouldn't people want real pictures?), 100 uses for a dead cat, justin bieber, how do I change this lightbulb in accordance with applicable EU health and safety guidelines if indeed this is possible, mga tulang pambata booty, pamela anderson (included for old timers), halloween costumes, miley cyrus, reverse phone lookup, simon cowell, if the universe is closed then is it curved in a fourth spatial dimension or in time, roger federer, raphael nadal, will.i.am, poor old amy winehouse,the mahavishnu orchestra (OK not popular I admit but they were pretty good, especially the live album]
That Pauk is dead thing is amazing man, I checked it out, you are right! How did you find it?
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