Smoke The Bed?

Taiwan has one thing in abundance – one-, two-, three – star hotels, and I have stayed in my fair share of them over the years. I used to wonder at the abundance – why so many and why one on almost every corner? Was this the sign of a flourishing tourist industry? I have never equated Taiwan with tourism despite the cheery signs that now appear at the airports – although these days boisterous groups from Mainland China do in fact tour about in large highway buses. But twelve years ago it was not a tourist destination by any . . . → Read More: Smoke The Bed?

Spitting the Dummy

Meet my vertical neighbor, Mr. Wang. Mr. Wang doesn’t like me for some perfectly unsound reasons; there are any number of sound reasons why he might dislike me, but Mr. Wang hasn’t been exposed to any of these so he has to make do with totally illusory ones. Mr. Wang is a body-builder, or at least that is his hobby; he also owns a large black dog which figures significantly in this story, and has a girlfriend who wears excessive quantities of perfume. He is one of the few Chinese I have met with bulging chest and shoulder muscles; his . . . → Read More: Spitting the Dummy

From Here To Wodonga and Back

As noted in an earlier post, being an Australian expatriate living in Taiwan has its upsides and its downsides. One of the many upsides is the fact that one is able to preserve one’s colorful linguistic heritage against dilution or degeneration, keeping it intact as if in a time capsule. You are at one and the same time removed from the home environment where usage might result in a natural attrition or evolution, yet in a cultural milieu where any corruption is effectively impossible. An example of this is the phrase ‘From here to Wodonga and back’, which invites a . . . → Read More: From Here To Wodonga and Back