Saw this new piece of graffiti on the border of the Zhongzheng and Wanlong Districts of Taipei. It reads 「民不聊生」 (“The people have no way of making a living”) and across the top in a slightly different shade (possibly added by another person?) is 「發現金」 (“Issue Cash”), suggesting the government give out cash for stimulus.
Taiwan is back in heightened Level 2 restrictions, meaning that while restaurants and other venues are gradually opening up, bars and clubs and many entertainment venues are still closed. Not going to jinx it, but cases have been down for several days now, so hopefully life can return to normal soon and business owners will be able to start making some money again.
The fun thing about Taipei is that political opinions are often very in your face, whether it is a taxi driver going on about how the ruling party is driving the economy into the ground or a random bit of graffiti scrawled on a traffic box about the Taoyuan Mayor that piques your curiosity as to the context:
太子鄭文燦 Crown prince Cheng Wen-tsan
The frame of reference for this fantastic piece of “artwork” dates back to the words of Taipei City Councilor Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) back in May. He suggested that there were double standards going on, in that the 1st Mayor of Taoyuan Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) had received special treatment when it came to the Novotel outbreak of coronavirus because of his favorable position in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, as Lo put it he is a 「綠朝太子」 “the crown prince of the Green dynasty” – here green is a reference to the colors of the DPP vs the blue of the opposition KMT (Lo’s party). The accusation is that Cheng was able to push all of the responsibility on to the central government because of this special treatment, while other mayors got lambasted for doing the same. Lo then went on to taunt Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), asking him if he was jealous of this special treatment (an attack based on Ko’s tumultuous past relationship with the DPP).
Ko–who always seems to have a quip at the ready–.replied that if he’d pushed all the the responsibility to the central government, the situation would have been f*cked long ago and he doesn’t have it as easy as some (pointing no elbows at Cheng I’m sure).
Saw this anti-American rant on my way to the shops today. Clearly someone’s out for attention. As the punctuation is a bit of a mess, I’ve tried to interpret the most likely meaning, but welcome any corrections.
If the US thinks Taiwan is a force for good, and a beacon of freedom and democracy in Asia, they should treat us as equals. We shouldn’t accept the Medigen vaccine, just because they sent the health secretary. Everyone should resist Medigen and resist the US strong-arming its way into interfering in domestic vaccine policy and not halting Taiwan-US trade negotiations during the pandemic. Boycott Medigen, resist US medicine’s bullying of Taiwan, resist unequal trade, resist the right to life being exchanged for other interests; See the fake kindness of the US for what it is.
To be honest, this kind of rant is not uncommon on social media platforms in Taiwan, I just thought it was interesting to see it posted over a traffic box.
I also thought it was slightly ironic that the poster used the Japanese variant of 「亞」(亜), given that people with this kind of anti-American stance, are usually very anti-Japan too.
The views expressed above are just an observation, and do not represent my own views.
The internet has brought us all sorts of newly coined terms, like 「五毛」 (Wumao/Five centers/internet users paid to promote PRC talking points), 「小粉紅」 (young jingoistic Chinese netizens) and others. But one that keeps coming up recently is 「反串」fǎnchuàn which is actually a repurposed opera term, originally meaning to play a character deviating from your normal repertoire.
But in the hostility-laden world of cross-strait social media interactions, it’s used to indicate deliberately posing as the enemy or opponent online, either to discredit their arguments, destroy their image or go so extreme that even the people on their side get put off. This is the social media equivalent of a bad guy impersonating Superman and kicking a little boy in the shin on camera. An alternative use is satire, mocking of the way the other side argues their case.
The latter seems to be what Lin Wei-feng, the husband of the deputy director of the DPP’s social media operations center, is claiming he was doing when he took to Taiwan’s popular bulletin board system PTT (which has been closed to new registrations for a while now due to suspected infiltration by Chinese trolls) to tell people to block or delete the Centers of Disease Control’s Line account on their phones and spreading a range of other disinformation. In what some (the KMT mostly) presume was a stage-managed gesture, DPP Legislator drew attention to the posts stating that PRC collaborators had infiltrated the platform and added that fake versions of the CDC Line app were being used to spread disinformation online. Lin’s apology refutes the idea that this was a DPP plot in a “so cringy it has the ring of truth” apology he posted to Facebook, which includes lines like “In fact, my partner has often expressed annoyance at my use of social media, and has advised me not to get caught up in wars of words on the internet.”:
This whole story was summarized recently by one of my favorite Taiwanese internet celebrities Potter King, in which he rightly states, that just because in this case it was a Taiwanese person behind the “disinformation,” doesn’t mean that China isn’t engaged in disinformation campaigns against Taiwan. Lin’s actions have made it all the more difficult for the DPP to make this case without the political baggage that he’s added to it being brought up over and over again.
The moral of the story is, even if you think you’re being extremely witty on the internet, don’t spread anything that could be interpreted as disinformation (especially when your wife works for the party currently in power).
I was quite surprised to get this leaflet through the mail earlier today. At first thought it was an advert for a vegetarian restaurants, but looks like it’s just aimed at promoting vegetarianism/veganism in Taiwan:
“After animals die, their flesh contains germs which are the leading cause of tumors and cancer in the human body. So eating a vegetarian diet and exercising to expel these toxins is really of the utmost importance.”
Interesting to find out who is behind this propaganda effort, as there are no clues on the leaflet itself.
This post is not an endorsement of the message of the leaflet or the pseudo-scientific claims therein, purely posted for curiosity (which killed the cat and subsequently led to toxins infecting said cat’s flesh…).
I spotted this intriguing-looking character on a signboard on a road I have walked down a million times before. It looks like a cross between 「優」(yōu/excellent) and 「收」(shōu/to receive):
Google tells me the name of the company–which sells office supplies and prints name cards–is 「猷美」(yóuměi), so the other two characters on the sign seem decorative. If anyone has solved this mystery before or has any suggestions, let me know.
I tried the variant dictionary already and there does seem to be a wide variety of different forms of 「優」, none I saw though replaced the 「心」and 「夂」 with a 「收」though:
Update: Thanks to jdmartinsen for resolving the mystery, stating that the 「丩」 is likely a stylized 「忄」:
劉炳森寫的優
The 「優」 in the sign seems to resemble the style of calligrapher Liu Bingsen, as shown in this calligraphic database.
You can see that the 「有」 also employs a variant form, with 「𠂇」 written 「㐅」, similar but not identical to one of the variants listed below:
Another sign in a shop two streets away had this (rather more common) variant of 「價」(jià/price):
This simplified version of 「價」 is also the Japanese kanji version of the character, 「価」(か/ka). Cool to see the use of variants in action and perhaps Japanese usage influencing choice of shorthand in Chinese.
I’m not sure quite what was going on with this angry red spoldge of red spray paint on the 「拍謝」 on the construction site sign below:
「拍謝」 is the informal way to write the Taiwanese term 「歹勢」 or “phái-sè”, which is the Taiwanese equivalent of the Mandarin term 「不好意思」 (sorry).
I’m curious about the motivations of the vandalizer. Are they against the use of Taiwanese on a formal sign? Are they against the borrowing of Mandarin sounds to represent Taiwanese, rather than the 「歹勢」 that is used more commonly? Or are they against the use of Chinese characters to represent Taiwanese at all? Or was it just a random stain that got on the sign somehow?
Given the history of its suppression, language tends to be a sensitive issue in Taiwan. Writer Huang Chun-ming (黃春明) even took off his shirt during a lecture back in 2011 due to a disagreement with Associate Professor Wi-vun Chiung (蔣為文) in the audience over the necessity for Taiwanese-language instruction for primary schools and Huang’s unwillingness to adopt Latin script to represent the Taiwanese language (as implied by the sign below).
Taiwanese writers don’t use Taiwanese language, but use Chinese language to create, oh the shame!
Ironically you’ll see Professor Chiung uses the Simplified version of the character 「國」 in his sign. Linguistic hardliners are not really my cup of tea, and I much prefer the hodge-podge of English, Mandarin and Taiwanese that the construction site sign portrays.
If you work in an Asian office, a biandang/lunchbox/bento warmer is a standard bit of kit. Lots of people have metallic lunchboxes which you can put inside to keep them warm until lunchtime.
There has been an escalating passive-aggressive argument lately in my office, as someone has been turning off the warmer as soon as they take their own lunch, leaving the remaining coworkers with lukewarm lunches, which is the eighth of the seven deadly sins (James 2:15-17).
I’m a microwave kind of guy, so haven’t been involved in the tussle, but the note was posted back in January without the highlighted text or scrawl down the side:
敬請最後一位使用者關掉即可，感謝！（想吃熱便當 heart emoji) 以上 2021.01.21 Please only turn off the machine if you are the final person to use it! (I want a hot lunch) Yours Jan 21, 2021
Since then, while innocently waiting for the microwave to finish, I’ve noticed the door ajar and the machine off a few times with quickly cooling biandangs still inside.
This led to the escalation down the side and the addition of dots and highlighted text:
*不要再關啦！2021.2.8 Stop turning it off! Feb. 8, 2021
I’m sure the culprit is someone with good intentions but over-wrought anxiety about the biandang warmer never being turned off and consuming the whole building in flames, however, it does seem like a bit of a dick move to continue to turn it off.
I’m always interested to see how variants of standard Chinese characters are still used in everyday life, whether it’s handwriting, signs or an author making a stylistic choice.
I spotted this beauty at a petrol station in Taitung. You can understand the reason for the simplification of the top of the character given the chunky font required by this kind of paint:
This character is 「嚴」(yán/strictly), but the top has been simplified along the same lines as the simplified version of the character 「严」. It retains the 「敢」 of the traditional character though:
