Taichung department store in sexist promotion shock

Chaps, is this really the way to market a spa?

Sadly it must be reported that a store in Taichung has hired these engagingly feminine young females to stand at the door wearing not very much to promote its spa.  It seems that even these days people in Taiwan think that almost naked statuesque women might boost sales, but there it is.  All we can do is report the facts.

No prejudice part 2

It was suggested that yesterday's Liu Yuxin was merely a token female in this generally male-dominated blog, and not a genuine statement of liberal non-alignment.  So just to prove the point here is another photo of a Chinese starlet. 

Will she have a vote in this weekend's election of the 1,200 functional constituency representatives who will in turn "elect" the new Chief Executive next March?  Hmmm...

No prejudices here

She has a PhD in linguistics.  OK, she doesn't really.

Just to prove that this blog is NOT biased against attractive Chinese starlets, even those with suspiciously large breasts, let's hear it for Liu Yuxin (劉雨欣), an attractive Chinese starlet whose breasts are suspiciously large.

Meanwhile, Christmas continues apace in HK.  I was about to trample on this Santa today when I noticed the sign just in time. 

Hand's across the sea

Hu's hand is it anyway?

 This is Hu Chi-yang (胡其揚), a Taiwanese businessman.  Mr Hu visited the PRC recently where he claims he was attacked by a gang which cut off his left hand.  Fortunately, he had taken out over NT$50,000,000 (about £1,000,000) in personal injury insurance just before his visit.

The PRC police investigated the attack.  Anaesthetic was found in Mr Hu's blood.  His DNA was found on a chopper picked up near where he was injured, and the owner of the nearby knife shop recognised Mr Hu as the person who had bought it off him.  After the gang attacked him, Mr Hu went home alone and did not call for help; his wife phoned the hospital later.  Nobody near the crime scene saw or heard anything unusual.  Hospital doctors said Mr Hu had rejected surgery to stitch the hand back on, and that the 16 parallel cuts to his hand would be difficult to explain unless he had held himself motionless and not resisted while the gang attacked.

Mr Hu's daughter is incensed, and says that her father would never sink so low as to try to defraud  insurers by chopping his own hand off.

Perish the thought.  

She has demanded that the PRC police return the hand at once.

Wednesday 30th November update:  Taiwan police have charged Mr Hu with attempted fraud. 

No, nothing's happening

The "big news" is that the next HK chief executive will probably be Henry Tang rather than C.Y. Leung.

Tang

He won't win.

 Tang is gradually gaining more support in public from the tycoons who run HK.  Most people are waiting to see who Beijing wants but Tang seems to have nicked it.  He is way behind in the general public opinion polls, but the general public does not have a vote and so does not matter much.  The winner will be chosen by a committee of 1,200 HK folk once the PRC central government has told it whom to choose. Broadly, Leung is a bit closer to Beijing it seems, and not as rich.  These days this does not seem to cut much ice.

In Taiwan things seem to trickle along... 

There are some minor celebrities doing what minor celebrities do.

There must be more to life than this...

The weather is quite nice.

Is this really all there is?  Crikey.

Is anything happening?

It doesn't seem so.  So what's been going on?  The HK-Macau bridge (apparently 30 km in length) has finally been approved, and it might be built by 2015.  HK had almost no growth in the last 3 months.  Nobody is terribly sure what is going to happen next  The weather is quite nice.  Sorry, there really isn't anything to say.  Oh, Christmas started about a fortnight ago so we have appropriate muzak and advertising in all the shopping malls.  The true spirit of HK.

The ups and downs of HK office life

Nice teeth and hair.  What was that about dollar/yen?

One of the drawbacks to high-rise offices in HK is being captive for a couple of minutes a day in a lift in front of a Bl0omberg TV screen.

BTV is a depressing triumph of form over substance.  A typical start to the day might include an admittedly decorative female spouting: "Bur-reak-king news... China Consolidated down 3 on US trade numbers!  So, Jim, what's going on?", with smirking Jim drawling, "Well Susan, just take a look at this, er, chart, it spiked on October 14th, and what the market, er, seems to be saying is, 'heh, you know, are these numbers actually for, er, real given where we are in, er, Asia-Pacific at this time in the current cycle'...".

They could scrap all this and show a potter's wheel for 1% of the cost.  Or photos of their presenters modelling swimwear for not much more.

曉格蘭特 (Hugh Grant) 初為人父!

The Hong Kong Metro newspaper got straight to the point about unmarried Hugh Grant and Hong Ting Lan this morning:

51歲英國男星曉格蘭特升呢做爸爸！他和19歲華裔演員前女友洪婷蘭戀情雖短暫，但女方仍心甘情願為他誕下女兒！年過半百的他，晚年有混血小女兒陪伴，實在老懷安慰！ 

The last sentence here says: "Having a mixed race daughter in his evening years will really be a comfort to him in his old age".  Not mincing their words here, although do I detect sarcasm?

PS The Metro says she is only 19.  She is, I believe, 19 years younger...

Boned China

Male chauvinist pig

So Hugh Grant got a Chinese starlet preggers accidentally, skipped the birth, dropped in for half an hour the next day and then shoved straight off to Scotland to play golf.  Good to see he's in touch with his feminine side just as much as the rest of us.

The Daily Telegraph reported today that "Miss Hong, 32, gave birth to the 51-year-old’s daughter five weeks ago.  The girl’s name has not been announced".... said the Telegraph, just after it had announced her name as Miss Hong. 

Taiwanese dark horse

Meanwhile, Taiwan's presidential election has become a three horse race with the entrance of James Soong (宋楚瑜).  The thinking is he could split the vote on the right and the talk is that he was put up to it by some folks on the left.  Great fun!  The crazy Taiwan news animators will probably have a story on this shortly...

It is called bone China for a reason

A Chinese scene

An innocent tourist might spend an whole afternoon scouring the more reputable Taipei or Hong Kong pottery shops for a Willow Pattern (楊柳型) dinner service in vain.

Bizarre?  After all, Taiwan is supposed to be the treasury of traditional Chinese culture, and Hong Kong escaped the Cultural Revolution, yet you can search Hollywood Road or Dunhua Nan Lu in vain for a single cup.

The majority view is that this is because the Willow Pattern is not Chinese at all, and was in fact designed in the late 18th century in Stoke on Trent.  But I ask you...  The gaping hole in this theory is that the scene is unlike anything to be found in Stoke, then or now, so how could Minton have copied it?

A Stoke-on-Trent scene.  Spot the difference

The true story of how Wei Chang and Fa Fei made history, recorded by Ernest Bramah about 90 years ago, is now available, free of charge, for you to read on your overpriced but very well marketed i-tablets:


http://taipeiortypeb.blogspot.com/p/story-of-wong-tsin-and-willow-plate.html

Tales of Apulit Island

Aaah...

Taiwan is not just semi-conductors and bubble tea

This old lady is a Buddhist nun who goes by the name of Zheng Yan( 證嚴). In 1966 she started a charity with some housewives in Hua Lien, Taiwan. The charity is called Tzu Chi (慈濟), and it is now apparently the biggest charity in Asia. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzu_Chi.

Zheng Yan appears on TV and speaks slowly and clearly, ideal for foreigners trying to learn Chinese.  She has been described as the Mother Theresa of Asia, but there are two schools of thought about Mother T, one of which is not very complimentary. I mentioned Tzu Chi  to a (European) friend in Taiwan once: “I don’t trust any organisation that is built so much around a single figurehead” was the gist of her reply. That made me think twice. 

I know there comes a point where we cannot or do not want to find out the reality of an issue and prefer to believe a simple explanation, usually personified. Kennedy was good, Hitler was bad, Lenny Henry is funny, whatever. 

Taiwan has 67,000 慈濟 recycling volunteers

All the same, in this case, I am going to believe on the basis of the evidence that Tzu Chi is a force for Good, and so long as Cheng Yan inspires so many people to do good things, I am happy for her to be an icon. 

Where does Tiddles come from?

"So we know about catty, but what about Tiddles?  Is it Anglo-Saxon?", writes a correspondent.  It is. 

The OED says "tiddle" - to fondle - comes from "tid", which means soft or nice. (Obiter, I wonder whether there might be a related female anatomical term, but anyway).  The OED credits this explanation to that 1755 best-seller, The Dictionary Of The English Language, by none other than the renowned brainbox and cleverest man in England, Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Talking of cats, by coincidence, Baldrick's suggested definition for "dog" in Dr Johnson's Dictionary was: "Not a cat".  

Does Dr Johnson's dictionary really not contain "aardvark"?

How heavy is Tiddles?

In Hong Kong you still find some colonial English being used, often from Malay, or an Indian dialect.

Do you eat it, or has it already been eaten?

The popular (here and in Taiwan anyway) rice gruel called 粥 (zhou in Mandarin, "zhuk" in Cantonese) is "congee" in English.  This word is Tamil.  The chap who collects the car park fee is called a shroff (Persian), a warehouse is a godown (Malay).  There are others.  And I must explain about tomato sauce some other time.

Anyway, everyone knows that the English slang "cha" for tea is simply the Chinese word "cha" (茶).  But what about its container?

This is controversial.  One school of thought is that caddy is from "catty", a Malay word used in Hong Kong to translate the Chinese unit of weight which is a "jin" in Mandarin (斤).  This weighs roughly an English (avoirdupois, as we say in English) pound.  A caddy, so it goes, is so-called because it would hold about a pound of tea.

But where does catty come from?  The more enlightened explanation is that it is so called because the average cat stuffed into a small box would weigh about this much.  Especially once you have added a few large stones to make sure it sinks.

Spot the ray of sunshine...

How did this come to mean also the dour Scotsman who carries your golf clubs?  Easy.  It didn't, the words are completely unconnected.  The Scotsman comes from the French word "cadet", a junior or young brother.

Chinese Ladies' Open c. 1841

Since recent posts have been about democracy, here's a chance to vote for your preferred explanation.  Please use the buttons below.

Update: buttons now removed because they appeared under every posting, and "Malay"  or "Dead cat" didn't make much sense under other posts!

To explore strange new worlds...

Taiwan's President Ma yesterday

Ma Ying Jiu sounded quite forthright yesterday.  “大陸政府不能忘記孫中山的建國理想是要建立自由民主均富國家,大陸應該勇敢朝這個方向邁進", he said, "the Mainland Government cannot forget that Sun Yat-sen's founding principles were independence, democracy and wealth for everyone, the Mainland ought to boldly go* in that direction".

This sounds like fighting talk, but since it will not be reported in the PRC, it is probably directed to those in the Taiwan electorate who are nervous that Ma is too keen on Beijing, and is not a pragmatic realist who has no intention of surrendering Taiwan's de facto independence to the old enemy (the Chinese Communist Party). 

Anyway, this is a PFZ.  Any bananas left in the fridge?

* Was he a Trekkie during his time as a law professor at Harvard?  

UPDATE:  yes, he really did say this, although in Chinese you don't have the split infinitive.  
"勇敢" means boldly or courageously.

祝辛亥革命生日快樂 - １００歲!

Taiwan's history is uniquely complex.  Forget Northern Ireland, forget the Great Game, this is the 21st century's Schleswig-Holstein Question.

This blog is a Politics-Free Zone, but I can't ignore today, officially 100 years since the fall of the Qing Dynasty.  It's Taiwan's National Day.  For various reasons (but this is a PFZ...) it's an ambiguous event in the official PRC calendar.  It's also ambiguous for Taiwanese families who were already on the island before 1949, when the big influx of Nationalists arrived after the end of the Chinese civil war.  But, this is a PFZ... 

It would be complicated enough even without the Americans, but history has added them to the mix too.  If Sir Harry Flashman was alive today, he'd be in Taiwan (perhaps with a weather girl in tow).

Update:  Anyone interested in this might want to read this fairly even-handed piece from the BBC's correspondent  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15218596:

Language a la carte

English is fun if it's your mother tongue, and otherwise... well, just remember "ghoti" for an example of how the spelling works*. I liked this quotation of a Canadian writer, James Nicoll, circulated by Michael Quinion in his free weekly email (available via http://www.worldwidewords.org):

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary".

* See earlier post.

Hong Kong scientific breakthrough

It's everyone's worst nightmare.

 
You discover you've bought too many bananas.

Do you (a) eat them all and make yourself sick; (b) put them in a cupboard and probably forget them; or (c) stick them in the fridge? 

For 170 years after Frederick Ridge invented the household apparatus that bears his name, the orthodox view was that option (c) was unworkable.  The banana would gradually develop brown spots eventually covering its entire body, rendering it unattractive even to the most desperate chimpanzee; the opposite of Michael Jackson in fact (at least Bubbles liked him).  How many people succumbed to option (a) as a result is unknown.  A conservative estimate is several millions.

And so matters rested until 2010 when the wife of a certain S. B. from Hong Kong discovered that bananas wrapped in a green polythene bag survived for up to a fortnight in a refrigerated state.  This Special Theory was a revolution.  Almost immediately, amateur scientists took up the challenge of developing a Generalised Theory.  Two schools of thought contended.  One team wondered whether different green wrappings - leaves, the green baize used on snooker tables, green socks, small environmentalists, etc -  might all be equally effective.  Another speculated that the material, rather than the colour, was crucial.  Nightly experimentation proved the latter to be correct.  Polythene of any colour, or indeed of none, did the trick.

It has been discovered that, just as there is no Nobel Prize for Mathematics, neither is there for this branch of science. 

It's amazing what you get for pudding on Royal Caribbean

I would not be seen dead on a cruise ship.  Unlike the fish in the previous post, which would be seen dead anywhere.  But if you go on Royal Caribbean, you might find this (courtesy of a certain D.L. of Taipei and Arizona):

"Chicken and mushroom tart".  "La torta di pollo e fungo" - so far so good.  But "膽小和迅速增長的妓女"?  Oh dear.  This means "cowardly mushrooming prostitute"...

Someone commented: "I wonder what it tastes like?"

Is this fish pining for the fjords?

When you go into fish restaurants there is usually a fish tank full of fish swimming around.  If one looks tasty, you ask for it.  The point is that you can see that the fish are fresh.  This attracts the punters.  None of your frozen rubbish.  But you don't usually see one worn out after a long squawk...

 
 I'm not sure how long ago this one had been Resting In Peace when I took this.  It was not there when we left.  I haven't been back.

The new Tales of Hong Kong blog

Taipei and Hong Kong are so different that it would be easier to say what they have in common, rather than say what the differences are.  Except that I cannot think of anything that they have in common.  Sadly.  Anyway... by "popular" demand, the blog is back up and staggering.

Of course, HK is part of the People's [i.e. no democracy] Republic of China, whereas Taipei is in the Republic of China [election campaign in full swing as we speak].  And one of the benefits of being in the PRC is exposure to PRC advertising.  Here's a cracker - come to Chengdu, where this is a common sight in any public park:

 Who needs J Walter Thompson?  The one on the see-saw is particularly impressive, although I wonder if the picture of the girl might have been superimposed.

The old Tales of Taipei blog

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?

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: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLaIYHl3-wM

What is Tong Li thinking?

If you paste those lyrics into Google translator, you will see that two lines (sung at about 3:00) are translated as follows:

"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."

What did John tell May?

Is Paul buried in Shannon? And did John ("uncertain Lennon"), wracked by King Midas-like uncertainty whether or not to reveal it to the world,  once tell May Pang this secret? And did May, now herself going crazy with the knowledge, unable to speak the truth out loud but desperate to reveal it somehow, arrange to hide it in this song?   Remember, you read it here first.

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.

"Ancestor worship" has overtones of superstition, whereas, so far as I can gather, the point about Ching Ming is to reflect on how we have reached where we are and to be thankful for the help of our parents etc.  "Worship" is from Old English weorðscipe - worthship, being regarded as valuable or worthy of esteem.  Gradually the religious or superstitious sense has become dominant, which obfuscates the meaning.

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

 Channel 64 is entirely devoted to old Hong Kong films, so let's hear it for Nina Li Zhi (利智), in some respects, verb sap, surely the biggest Hong Kong film actress of the 1980's.  Li Zhi had an effortless ability to make audiences laugh, whether in comedy or dramatic roles, but her apotheosis was surely this, her 1990 singing debut, blazing a trail Lady Gaga would later follow. The tune seems to be "The River of No Return", but any memory of Marylin Monroe's rendition is convincingly obliterated by this breath-taking demonstration.  Roll over Beyonce, and tell Rihanna the news.

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:

Cynical loading of unrelated but popular search terms to attract random visits by googlers
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]