There was a big celebration going on in in Wanhua (萬華) on Saturday, with people from the local temples dressed up as gods (some of which were eating bento boxes and others sneaking a quick pee in alleys, but well-behaved all in all). As I was cycling home, I saw this Budaixi truck, playing to no one, so I stopped to have a lookey-loo and as no experience is complete without being filtered through the ‘me-machine’ (a description of smartphones in Joshua Ferris’ new book To Rise Again at a Decent Hour – a promising book that didn’t really seem to come to a satisfactory end), I filmed a bit of it. This kind of thing offers a great opportunity to study a bit of Taiwanese, although I’m not sure how useful the vocab is. Below the video is a transcript courtesy of a Pingtung friend, the “x”s mark the bits that even he couldn’t understand. Anyone with a better ear for Taiwanese welcome to comment below to fill in the gaps:

[wpvideo K0iPJVb8]

XXX的信使，到現在一點消息都沒有，我的女兒XXX，女兒不見只好對付(fight)大宋(Song Dynasty 960-1279)官兵，來去(出發)啊~~~ (015~025音樂)

Vocabulary:

使差 or 使俠? (This one isn’t clear but the meaning is 信使 or messenger) it sounds like sú kiap or gia̍p, but can’t be sure. Any help in the comments below would be appreciated. Continue reading →