Imagethief

Tag: Taiwan

  • Traditional Characters

    Traditional Characters

    How many strokes do you want?

    I’m back in Taiwan this week. Since the beginning of September I’ve spent more than a month here, spread over three trips. In general, it’s been a delight! And a welcome opportunity to dust off my appallingly decayed Mandarin. 

    But, man, am I struggling with traditional characters.

    I was never what you’d call literate in Chinese. But I could navigate everyday situations, signs, instructions, menus, bank transactions and the like. That was generally enough to get me through life. With time to spare, and a dictionary, I could even manage the occasional lightweight newspaper article.

    I started studying Chinese in Singapore and then lived in China, both of which use simplified characters for everyday purposes. This is not the case in Taiwan, which still uses traditional characters, and I’ve found myself catapulted back into more or less complete illiteracy.

    Read the rest on Substack

  • The Overnight Hsinchu Express

    I asked for it, and I got it.

    I’ve been on the road, which is why it’s been a minute since the last post. About a week ago I flew from San Francisco to Taipei. It turns out that all the flights on that route suffer from the same problem, which is that they leave San Francisco at about 1AM and arrive in Taipei at about 5:30AM.

    I’m an early-to-bed / early-to-rise type, so going to the airport at 10:30PM is like going to hell. Who wants to deal with the TSA at midnight? Stupidly, I had allowed my pre-check status to expire five days before this trip so it was shoes off, belt off. At that hour, there was some risk I would just keep going, peel off my pants and lie down on the conveyer belt in my underwear. Wake me in Taipei.

    My employers are frugal. I don’t blame them! You gotta spend the money on important things and fabs are expensive. But it means that we get premium economy for long hauls, at least at my job grade. This is better than regular economy, but it does not allow you to lie flat which, for me, is the only way I can sleep. I can sort of doze sitting up, but it’s just a rotating set of stress positions interrupted by brief periods of semi-conscious fugue state and fever dreams.

    Read the rest on Substack