Awkward bits and funny bits

I can't believe it's only the third week of classes. I didn't expect to be this busy with school until June. However, one of my classes is intensive, because the professor is from the States and only staying in Taiwan for several months. In fact, there class will be over in 2 weeks, and that's also when the term paper is due.

I went to the gym earlier today. Of the people there, there was one girl performing some high-level taichi, two girls performing a lower level aikido and a whole bunch of guys lifting weights. Strange thing about those guys, about half of them was wearing jeans. In fact, every time I go to the gym, I see many Taiwanese guys exercising there in jeans. With an exception of tuxedo or a rain coat, I can't think of worse clothes to work out in. I also have to add that several other guys in the gym were walking around without a t-shirt. They spend most of the time checking out their bulging muscles in the mirrors. To make things even more awkward, I passed a football field on the way home, with at least 40 or 50 people on the field, playing football. It was pretty crowded.

As announced earlier, I bought my plane tickets home. I will arrive in Prague on June 18 and go back to Taiwan on September 8. The best deal I could find anywhere was flying with KLM, Taipei to Prague with a short stopover in Amsterdam, for 30 000 NTD (this is some "early bird" special price), so I bought a ticket. I was a little annoyed when just yesterday, I checked their website again out of curiosity, and saw exactly the same ticket for 26 500 NTD. Oh well.

Since I'm a media student now, I've been paying increasing attention to news stories about Taiwan in the Czech media. The job is pretty simple, as there is approximately 1 story per 2 months. As far as I remember, the last one was some time in December, I even wrote a blog post about it. Just recently, another story came out. Any wild guesses what it might be about?

It's about the famous toilet-themed restaurant in Taipei. See the report here.

Finally, one thing I haven't had here yet, are Taiwanese jokes. Here is a couple.

Disclaimer: If you're not fluent in Chinese, you probably won't understand them :) No worries, they are not too funny anyways.

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First joke is a little political. Deng Xiao Ping (the former leader of the Communist party in Mainland China) arrives in the United States for the first time. American journalists are already waiting for him with their questions.

First, they want to test whether he has any knowledge about the country he just arrived in: So they ask him: Do you know what is the capital of the United States?

The poor man doesn't know a word of English. However, he assumes that, like in China, the first question people ask each other is what their name is. So he replies: 我姓邓.

Very good, think the journalists. He's done his homework. They question further. Your wife isn't here with you, where is she?

Mr. Deng hasn't completed the introduction yet, so he answers: 小平.

Oh, you wife went shopping! Say the journalists. How did she go?

Mr. Deng really doesn't know what they are asking him, so he thinks of other common questions people ask each other in China. "They probably want to know my age", he finally concludes.
"八十"

Ah, the wife went shopping by bus, understand the journalists. At this point, they want to go to some serious news reporting, so they ask questions about Taiwan. "Mr. Deng, who do you think will be the next president of Taiwan?"等會！

The journalists write down the prediction. 李登輝 will be the next president of Taiwan. And they want to know more: What about the next one, after 登輝? Who will be the president?

Deng doesn't want to deal with these reporters any more. Whatever, he wants to tell them. 隨便！

Hahaha, wasn't that a wonderful joke? Here's another one, equally potent, but at least considerably shorter. A taxi driver told me this one.

Q: What color is spiderman?
A: White.

蜘蛛人是什麽顔色？
是白的人。