Category Archives: Word of the Day

「是在哈佛」: a variant of 「是在哈囉」 and taking the piss out of celebrities

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In a previous post, I mentioned the phrase 「是在哈囉」 to mean *sassy voice*”Hello~~!” or “What the f*ck is going on?” Well, recently, I spotted a variant of this phrase on a friend’s Facebook post, playing on the similarity in sound: 「是在哈佛」, which is used to mean the same thing, but with a twist:

確診者之各種電話打不通。
遠端電話掛號打不通
區公所打不通
關懷物資第五天還是沒收到
隔離通知書也沒有收到

“I can’t get through to any of the numbers for confirmed positive cases.
I can’t get through to the remote-treatment number
I can’t get through to my district office
It’s the fifth day and I still haven’t received the welfare package
and I’m yet to receive my quarantine notice.”



健康益友沒有一家可以用,出了要幹嘛？
各家醫院百花出了一堆app也沒有一個有用（我需要遠端診療）
區公所衛生局打了23x33x92（萬華區）
直接叫我打23x33x92，根本同一支電話是在哈佛？？

“None of the options on the “Health Companion” app work, why did they even launch it?
Of the mass of various apps launched by hospitals, I wasn’t able to use even one (I need a remote consultation).
I called the number for the health department of the District Office (Wanhua District) 23x33x92
It told me to call 23x33x92 instead. What the f*ck is with giving out the same number??“



然後又打了一次說在忙線中，繼續等候請按*字鍵，然後按了*字鍵後跟 我說該目標無效又被掛電話
沒有一支電話是打得進去的，現在柯檳榔就是要放給人死在家就對了。

“When I dialed it again it said the line was busy, and if I wanted to continue waiting I could press *. After I pressed *, it said this option was invalid and the line cut off.
I wasn’t able to get through to any of the numbers, so it seems Betelnut Ko Wen-je (Taipei Mayor) just wants people to die at home.”

The “hello” in the original phrase is switched up for the Chinese word for Harvard. This phrase originates from the suggestion that Christine Fan (范瑋琪) stated that she was a Harvard alumnus on her CV, when, in fact, she transferred to the Harvard Division of Continuing Education in the second year of a degree and never graduated. The implication in highly-competitive Taiwan is that the Harvard Division of Continuing Education does not count as Harvard proper and that she was trying to plump up her CV, although the portrayal of her as a Harvard grad seems largely to have been led by the media.

The phrase still retains the meaning of the original, basically “What the f*ck is that all about?” but with an extra pop culture reference added.

The reference to Betelnut Ko Wen-je to refer to the Taipei Mayor originates in a series of pranks played by high-schoolers on politicians, where they ask to take a photo together and then ask them awkward questions or find other creative forms of embarrassing them. In this instance, the high-schooler dressed up (rather subtly) as a betelnut to take a photo with Ko:

Asaburo: Bathing in the morning is messy in Taiwanese

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The Taiwanese language has a lot of imported words from Japanese, but one of the most common and fun is “Asaburo” (often transliterated into Chinese as 「阿薩布魯」) used to refer to something messy or chaotic. Like, for example in this article:

空軍在東引所部署的預警雷達並不是阿薩布魯的「歹銅舊錫」，而是與鎮守台灣南北兩端海拔千餘公尺的嵩山雷達站、大漢山雷達站相同的AN/FPS-117三維長程防空雷達。

The early-warning radar deployed on Dongyin Island isn’t a hodge-podge of low-grade copper and shoddy tin, but is rather an AN/FPS-117 3-dimensional air search radar, like those watching over the northern and southern extremes of Taiwan from an altitude of over 1,000 meters above sea-level at the Songshan and Dahanshan radar stations.

The funny thing about this word, however, is that in Japanese (朝風呂/あさぶろ/asaburo) it only refers to morning baths.

The running theory in Taiwan (and among my colleagues when I discussed it with them) is that this word was adopted to mean messy, as the idea of bathing in the morning is a messy thing to do. This touches on a bit of a cultural difference between Taiwan and the UK/Ireland as, although I remember having a bath every night before bed as a child, it was the norm for my entire family to shower in the morning before school/work once we were old enough to wash ourselves. In Taiwan, the general idea is that you should be clean when you go to bed, whereas in the UK/Ireland the general idea is that a shower in the morning wakes you up. If you’ve ever lived with a Taiwanese person, you’ll register their dismay if you choose to shower in the morning instead of before bed.

You can always shower twice a day, especially during the humid summers in Taiwan, to keep everyone happy.

I also found this list of Japanese imported words on the internet, if you want to broaden your vocabulary (unfortunately the blog has been deleted, so have used the wayback machine to find it):

JapaneseTaiwaneseEnglish
焼き芋 (やきいも)Akimo (阿奇毛)(J/T) Roast sweet potatoes
あっさりAsari (阿莎力)lightly (seasoned/applied) in Japanese;
readily (乾脆) in Japanese and Taiwanese
頭(あたま) コンクリートAdamakonguri (阿達馬孔固力)slow-witted

「某某很雷，跟他共事很累。」 What a difference a tone makes…

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Tones play an even more important role in Chinese than accurate pronunciation a lot of the time, but you know you’re swimming in the deep end when even native speakers have to clarify the difference.

One of my friends was talking about a colleague of theirs and said:

「XX很雷，跟他共事很累。」
“XX is a real liability, working with him is exhausting.”

When the person he was talking to appeared confused, another friend clarified 「地雷的雷」.

Literally “thunder,” or “landmine” in the context of 「地雷」, 「雷」lei2 is an adjective used to describe someone as clumsy or always mucking things up. My friend made a real effort to emphasize that it was second tone, to distinguish it from 「累」 lei4 (tiring/tired).

Taiwanese besties: 「換帖的」and 「麻吉」

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The use of Taiwanese in this Ministry of Foreign Affairs post struck me as interesting. As the term 「換帖」 exists in Mandarin too, they used romanized script to ensure that it is read in Taiwanese. I guess this makes it harder for people in a certain country to work out what it’s supposed to mean, but I also wonder how many Taiwanese people would catch on:

「可以說是台灣的uānn-thiap–ê 的柯寧參議員」

You could say Senator Cornyn is bosom buddies with Taiwan.

“uānn-thiap–ê” describes a close friendship formed by a blood-brothers style pact, wherein two friends exchange cards with information on each other (name, age, place of origin, family history), to forge a kinship. Now it’s used to describe good friends.

Another, more common term to describe a close friend is 「麻吉」. The term is pretty common and was even used for the title of the film Ted in Taiwan 《熊麻吉》:


There are several folk morphologies for this term, from the stickiness of mochi cakes (pronounced similarly in Taiwanese/ muâ-tsî) to a corruption of the word 「默契」 (though no clear reason for the corruption is given). The most convincing theory is that it’s a corruption of the English word “match” in Taiwanese. Whatever its origin, it’s a pretty handy word to use and will let everyone know that you’re in touch with the popular culture references of 10 years ago.

Humblebragging with the Palace of Versailles 「凡爾賽」文體

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The humble brag needs little explanation, but it was interesting to hear the host of the GooAye podcast use a Chinese term that means something similar the other day when talking about him and a bunch of other renowned Taiwanese podcasters becoming fathers recently. Basically, he said that people have been recommending him thought pieces on how to be a parent, and some of them are a little fucked up.

我覺得很多那種……推給我的文章，我看看，我覺得是生病了。因為像是，可能家長當時自己書沒有念好吧。還有什麼，家長有念好，但是沒有念到頂，所以他就有點希望投射在自己的小朋友身上，就是我做不到的事情小朋友要幫我達成。就很有病這樣。然後還有一些甚至是那種很凡爾賽的文章。「凡爾賽」是中國用語，所以支語警察不要來抓我。我只是覺得這種用詞還蠻精準的。這是講說有些人不經意地去炫富–不經意地，但是這個不經意地決對是故意的–不經意地去講自己的優勢、自己家人的優勢。這個東西叫做一個凡爾賽的文體。那舉例來說「喔！我是叫我老公不要買東西給我。很煩喔！他又買一台maserati給我。」

Among the pieces people have recommended, I looked at a lot of them and they were pretty messed up. Like maybe the parent hadn’t studied properly when they were young, or, in some cases, the parent had done well in their studies, but never really pursued them to any conclusion. So it’s like they want to project themselves onto their children so that their children can help them accomplish what they never could. It’s fucked up like that. Then some of them are even “humblebrag” pieces. This word for “humblebrag” is used mainly in China, so don’t come after me word police. I just think it’s a pretty accurate expression. It refers to people who accidentally–and of course this “accidentally” is totally on purpose–let slip their own strengths and the strengths of their family members. This is called the “Versailles” genre of writing. So, for example: “Ugh! I told my husband not to buy me anything else. He’s so annoying! He only went and bought me a new maserati!”

After a bit of a search on Chinese social media, I realized that it can mean humblebragging, or satire of humblebraggers. As well as the obvious reference to the subtlety of the Palace of Versailles, the phrase (like a lot of popular Chinese slang) originated in Japanese manga. The Rose of Versailles / ベルサイユのばら / 凡爾賽玫瑰 (玉女英豪 in Taiwan) was originally serialized in 1972-1973, but was revamped from 2013-2018. There have also been an anime series and a film.

The Green Crown Prince Cheng Wen-tsan of Taoyuan

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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).

Posing as the Enemy: Wang Ting-yu and the 反串ing DPP Hubby

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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).

‘Your Name Engraved Herein’ Review: No Means Yes 《刻在你心底的名字》影評

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The message this film seemed to want to convey was of a tragic unrealized potential of love between two high school guys because the time (1988, just after the end of Martial Law in Taiwan) was not yet right for their love to flourish. The narrative that it seems like we’re supposed to read into the film is that, out of his love for Jia-Han, Birdy pretends not to love Jia-Han back and pursues a female classmate called Banban in order to try and give Jia-Han the opportunity to live a “normal life”.

If we examine the events that actually take place in the film, however, it’s clear Jia-Han crosses boundaries on several occasions, kissing Birdy when he’s asleep. Birdy, in appearance at least, is in love with a female classmate called Banban and is increasingly uncomfortable with Jia-Han’s jealousy and attempts to intervene in his love life.

This culminates in a scene in which, under the pretext of helping Birdy shower, Jia-Han forcibly masturbates him when he’s unable to defend himself due to his injury. The narrative it seems we’re supposed to read into this is that Birdy’s erection is a manifestation of the love he has for Jia-Han that he’s sacrificing for Jia-Han’s own good. This is not a reasonable deduction to make, although it may be a major theme of Japanese porn. Birdy did not consent and repeatedly tries to fend off Jia-Han’s advances. Even if this is some (rather convoluted) act of gallantry by which Birdy sacrifices his own feelings for Jia-Han so that Jia-Han can live as a model straight citizen in society (this is a major break in character for him given his constant impulses throughout the film to defend gay people, including a younger Chi Chia-wei), no means no. From Jia-Han’s perspective at this point in the movie, Birdy could very well be a straight man who is sympathetic to the disgusting way gay characters in the movie are being treated.

The film romanticizes an obsessive jealous idea of what love is, although to some extent the Canadian priest tries to deter Jia-Han from the pursuit of this unrequited love.

The ending of the film echoes this dynamic of teasing and violation of consent, with a middle-aged Jia-Han asking Birdy to come up to his hotel room, only to be refused, but then insisting on walking to Birdy’s hotel room instead, despite the rejection being quite clear.

In my imagination of the end of the film, Jia-Han walks with Birdy to his hotel, asks to come up and is politely rejected again, roll credits. This film left me uncomfortable and to some extent I think if Jia-Han had been cast as a less jaw-droppingly handsome actor, the creepiness would have been more noticeable.

It’s definitely worth a watch, but perhaps we can read it as the unreliable narration of a stalker, rather than a romantic film.

OK, so I couldn’t let a film go by without spotting an interesting bit of Taiwanese. One phrase which stuck with me was 「坩仔」 khaⁿ-á (lit. crucible) which is a contraction of 「坩仔仙」 khaⁿ-á-sian (fairy of the crucible) which is a derogatory term for a male homosexual. You can read a debate about what the term used actually is on ptt here.

Revisiting 「佛系」 with the GooAye and Commute for Me Podcast

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It’s always fun to hear a piece of vocab you’ve learned previously in the wild.

When listening to the 「股癌」 (GooAye) podcast I heard the phrase 「佛系」 (Buddhist/noninterference approach) which is a variant of the 「佛系……法」 (Buddhist/noninterference approach to…) phrase I featured in a previous post here.

At the 8:56 (-33:19) point roughly, he says:

「你不要幫上漲跟下跌找理由，但是我發現有些人會去把我講的話有點極端化，就變成說完全不找理由。好像完全是佛系自由。」

“Don’t try and explain rises and falls, but I’ve found that some people have taken what I said to the extreme, and they don’t try and look for reasons at all. It’s like they’re dedicated to noninterference and freedom.”

Here he is cautioning people not to try and try and explain short term rises and falls in stock prices, but then qualifying this by saying that they can look for longer term reasons for price rises and falls.

From listening over the last few months, I found out that the guy behind the podcast was hopeful that Trump would win the election, although his reasons are largely to do with financial policy. The podcast is definitely worth listening to for insights on Taiwanese society and the business world as well as analysis of trends in stocks and shares.

In the same week, the phrase also came up in the 台通 (Commute For Me) podcast in an interview with the spokesperson of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party (台灣基進) Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟), who led the recall petition movement against Han Kuo-yu (from 12:33 or -41:31):

Host: 那你有得到正面的回饋啊。
陳柏惟：對啊。所以那個不是自我說服唉，我覺得那個是有時間的過程。那個不是坐在家裡瞑想佛系態度。
Host: So you got positive feedback.
Chen Po-wei: Yes. So I don’t think it was me convincing myself, I think it happened over time. It wasn’t like I was sitting at home meditating hoping that things would just fall in my lap.

This is also a reference to the 佛系 memes, which play on the Buddhist concept of noninterference that I featured in the previous post.

Chen also used the Taiwanese word 「𨑨迌／企投 」 chhit-thô featured in a previous post as well at the 21:57 (-32:07) point. Although I only mentioned these two, there are lots of gems in this interview and it’s definitely worth a listen.

From 穿褲仔 to the 婆/T dichotomy Lesbians and putting on a spread in Taiwan

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You have to respect a gay male podcast host for doing an entire episode on middle-aged and elderly lesbians! That’s exactly what the WetBoyRoom ( 「潤男的Room」) podcast host did this week, interviewing the contributors to a book about this subject called 《阿媽的女朋友》 (Grandma’s Girlfriends), lesbians from older generations in Taiwan.

If you’re not super familiar with the lesbian scene in Taiwan, many of them of about my generation (30s) tend to identify as either 「T」 (short for the English word “Tomboy”) or 「婆」 (lipstick lesbian). With time, the lines between these categories have blurred just as they have in the male gay community, and many people now consider these terms outdated and being a heteronormative way of perceiving gay relationships (i.e. trying to figure out who is “the man” and who is “the woman” in the relationship). It was interesting to hear in the podcast that this dichotomy was actually a more recent phenomenon in the lesbian community, but a Taiwanese term in the podcast really peaked my interest. At the 10:55 mark, one of the characters is described (in a Mandarin sentence) in Taiwanese as 「漂撇 ê 穿 褲 仔」phiau-phiat ê chhēng khò͘ á (瀟灑的穿褲子/ dashing trouser-wearer). Although I think the host actually said 「穿褲ê」, 「穿褲仔」 or girls who wore trousers, could be identified more easily as lesbians (if they were in fact lesbians) back in the day. So, it can be considered as an older version of the concept of 「T」.

Another handy Taiwanese term in the podcast (which you could likely insert in a Mandarin sentence to compliment a dinner-party host, or, more likely, to mock your friend’s paltry offering of a packet of Lays as an hors d’oeuvre) is 「腥臊」 chhe-chhau (also pronounced chheⁿ-chhau or chhiⁿ-chhau), which is equivalent to the term 「豐盛」 in Mandarin, meaning “rich and sumptuous”:

那天同媽準備了很豐盛的食物，不只是麻油雞，我記得她準備了一整桌非常腥臊 （chhe-chhau ） 的菜。

(That day, Aunty Tong prepared a bounty of food, not just sesame oil chicken, I remember she prepared an entire table of rich sumptuous food.)

Definitely looks like an interesting books to read, will have to add it to my list!