Out and about in Taipei over the new year, I spotted quite a lot of Year of the Tiger couplets, some printed, some more original. Some of them even gave an insight into the political persuasion of the inhabitants.
This couplet was distributed by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), chair of the Taiwan People’s Party, and it was one of the main rivals to the one issued by President Tsai Ing-wen and Vice President Lai Ching-te. If you’re a Ko-fen (柯粉/a fan of Ko Wen-je) or just fancy a few political discussions in your lobby with neighbours of different political stripes, you can print it yourself at the Taipei City gateway here. The Chinese word for “tiger” (虎 hu3) is a near-homonym for 「褔」 (good fortune/fu2), especially in Taiwanese-accented Mandarin (台灣國語) in which the “h” sound is often pronounced as “f”. So this couplet is a play on this, with the first two characters having the dual meaning of “tiger pouncing” and “a jump in wealth.”
President Tsai volleyed with this snazzy design 「福運旺來」 (again, good fortune also hints at its near homonym in tiger):
The couplet on the right of the doorway below reads: 「事業興旺」 (asking for success in career), while on the right panel there is another tiger couplet.
On the left panel of the door there are some quite cool examples of compound characters (合體字):
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.
I came across these spray-painted messages on the road on the way to my local 7-11 last night. Messages sprayed on to the street are common in Taiwan, and they can be written by car/motorbike tow trucks telling people what number to call to get their vehicle back or construction companies or the city government telling people not to park in the street as construction is about to take place.
I could see that it said 「路面xx勿停車」 (“road surface XX, don’t park), but I was a little puzzled by the third and fourth characters, as they both looked like they had 「金」 as radicals. I assumed that as they were repaving the road, it’s likely that the second one was 「鋪」 (to pave), but I’d never seen the character 「銑」 before. So I wandered down the street a bit further to see another of the messages:
The 「鋪」 was a bit clearer in this pic, so I tried to look up the characters 「銑鋪」 (xiǎnpū), and came across this old video from the China Times, suggesting that I wasn’t the only one to be puzzled:
According to this video, the original meaning of 「銑」, milling, has been extended here, to mean “to roll flat/steamroll.” It seems to be a more technical way of referring to resurfacing roads, but a more common and colloquial way to say this is 「路面翻修」 (lùmiàn fānxiū).
If your online banking is crashing today, it’s likely because the Executive Yuan has released NT$5,000 stimulus vouchers starting today and banks are making a ream of offers to early birds.
If you’ve got an APRC or are a Taiwanese citizen with household registration and a bit of patience, you can get them by navigating to the dedicated website here or the English version here.
There are four options:
You can wait until to book the paper version in advance: First round advance booking: September 25 – October 1 First round withdrawal: October 8 – October 21 Second round advance booking: October 25 – November 1 Second round withdrawal: November 8 – November 21
You can register to tie the vouchers to your credit card.
You tie them to Easycard style cards (like Ipass etc)
You can tie them to a digital wallet, like Taiwan Pay, etc
Currently, the website is patchy as it’s getting a lot of hits, so it’s best to go through your bank or payment method of choice, which all feature prominent links.
I chose to tie mine to Taiwan Pay through the Megabank app. Most banks have a simple enough interface to navigate but don’t give up if they throw up an error message, as everyone is rushing on the first day.
If you’ve panicked and want to check exactly what you’ve registered for, you can use this function to check your status.
The advantage of using digital versions, is that there are often additional offers. The downside, as I’ve mentioned before, is that you don’t get to brag on Instagram.
There are additional bonuses you can accrue, depending on which bank or payment app you tie your vouchers to:
Taiwan Pay is offering additional funds to a certain number of registrants. ESun is offering NT$50 for single registrants, but you can increase this by registering as a group.
Note: the spending period for the vouchers starts October 8!
For Taiwan Pay, the first period of payment runs from October 8-22, which is when they’ll calculate what bonuses you get back. This will be deposited in your account November 1. Then the second spending period runs from October 23-29 and the kickbacks will be deposited into your account on November 8. The third spending period runs from October 30 – November 5, and the kickbacks are deposited on November 15.
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.
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…).
Postcodes in Taiwan changed in Match of this year from a 3 + 2 format (eg. 10058) to a 3 + 3 format (eg. 100013). If you want to make sure to get your parcel, make sure you find out your new postcode on this site:
The site has pretty simple pull down options (in Chinese) to select your city/county and district/township. You’ll have to find your street in the pull down menu, or if you use the second box, just type in your street and select the section.
The results will look something like this:
「雙」 refers to even numbers, 「單」to odd numbers and 「全」 is all numbers (both even and odd), 「以上」 is above and inclusive of, while 「以下」 is below and inclusive of. So for example, the first entry is “even numbers 96 and below on Yanping South Road”. If you’re road has sections, this will be listed under 「段號」 (section no.), while the third is “odd numbers from 87 to (至) 117.
KMT supporters protesting Chen Chu’s (陳菊) appointment to the presidency of the Control Yuan, with the slogans 「拒絕酬庸撤換陳菊」 (Reject cronyism, withdraw Chen Chu), 「民主已死，暴政必亡」 (Democracy is dead, tyranny must fall) and 「民心已死，還我民主」(The hopes of the people are dead, give us back our democracy). There was a middling crowd outside the Legislative Yuan in the morning, where KMT legislators occupied the floor. These were taken after work.
So there have been rumours that some establishments that shall not be named here, are asking foreigners to provide a passport and their entry and exit records for the last few months. What better way to annoy these establishments than to actually provide them without leaving the comfort of your own home or spending an hour or two in the queue at the Immigration Office. If you have an Alien Citizen Digital Certificate, you can apply for your entry and exit records online for free (while the epidemic continues). Simply follow the steps below (fire up your card reader though, there’s no option to use the FIDO app to log in).
Navigate to this page on the National Immigration Agency’s website (it must be the English site as the Chinese version only recognizes Taiwanese IDs).
Choose “Certificate of Entry and Exit Dates” as below:
You’ll get a pop-up which will try and check your system, so ensure you have your card reader attached and your Alien Citizen Digital Certificate plugged in. You can dismiss this pop-up and you’ll see the following page:
Make sure 「外國人民」 (Foreigner) is ticked and then enter your ARC number and your Alien Citizen Digital Certificate pin.
Then you’ll be asked if you want your entry and exit records in the span of two specific dates or just your latest entry and exit dates. I chose the latter, as part of my cunning plan:
Next, you’ll get your entry records, but they’ll probably be somewhat off-centre as below:
If you navigate to the bottom of this, you’ll see the option to view tables which you can click. You can then print to PDF and print later at a 711, or if you’ve got a color printer at home (get you!) then you can print right away:
If you download it as a rar file, your password will be your ARC number + your date of birth in the format YYYYMMDD.
Once you print it, it should look something like this:
Complete with the NIA watermark, and the owner of said establishment will have to find some other reason to reject you (that’s not suitable footwear, mate, sorry, can’t let you in).
I guess I’m missing queues at the Immigration Office after getting an APRC or am super motivated to find things to do other than the long-term project I’m supposed to be working on, but I went and applied for an Alien Citizen Digital Certificate on April 24. I plan on documenting the “journey” here:
Don’t be fooled by the heading by the way, you can apply online after you go in person to the immigration office with your ARC/APRC, so not technically all online.
The ID can be used for filing taxes (although you can also file taxes without it) and for various government websites and systems, giving you access to information and allowing you to apply for things online. For Taiwanese people it also means they can apply for bank accounts and credit cards online, but I’m not sure that applies to foreigners, but we’ll see. The cost of the card is NT$275 and it lasts for 5 years (subject to your ARC being valid).
April 24: Today was pretty simple, brought my ARC (no photocopies required) to the National Immigration Agency (the ground floor in Taipei where you go to apply for your ARC) and then wrote down my phone number and email address and gave it to the lady (after fielding a quizzical look from her), who then made me sign a form and then gave me a sheet of paper with the following information on it:
The key bit of information is the 用戶代碼 (username) which you’ll need to log in to the site. She said to wait for the letter to go through, so I’ll give it a few days. It says on the website one working day, so we’ll see.
You have to pay within 15 days through the system or you will have to apply again. If you make changes to your ARC (including the number) you have to apply again.
April 27 Update
I paid for the card last night on the website. If you have trouble accessing the website, make sure to delete the www. from the address bar.
Click ‘Application Progress’ on the left side and you’ll be prompted to enter your ARC number and your 用戶代碼 (username). If it’s been approved, it should give you the option to pay by credit card. And then it will link to a page where you enter your credit card information. Once that’s done you’ll just have to fill in/confirm more details, like postal address and phone number. Then press save.
April 29 Update:
When I looked up the website today it said it was in the mail and they even provided the parcel number, so that I can track it on the Post Office website:
May 5 Update:
The card finally arrived (it went to my home address, so had to wait for three unsuccessful deliveries before I could go pick it up):
So here it is:
The various security/design elements are listed in the letter it comes with:
Now to unlock it:
If you’re using Microsoft, you need at least Microsoft Windows XP Sp3, a card reader (learn to install one here) and then download and install the HiCOS digital certificate management tool at this website (you have to restart your computer so prepare for that).
So, this bit was a little complicated, and I ended up having to ring them to activate my card…. BUT hypothetically, the next step you take is to navigate to this website, where you can activate your card (the pin is supposed to be your year and month of birth in the format YYYYMM), although it says in the letter you only need your subscriber code (which is on the printed piece of paper you got at immigration. If you have trouble accessing the website, insert your card first and then try opening it. If you still have trouble try opening the link in another tab, and if you still have trouble use IE explorer.
Once you’ve activated your card, you can change the pin at this website. You just need the subscriber code and your card reader.
Then you’re all set.
To use the government’s FIDO app to use your phone to verify your identity, see this post.
