Music Stores

Music of all types is popular in Taiwan. It's somewhat of mystery to me why Western Classical Music is so popular here. Certainly China has a longer musical history and those traditional instruments are still in use. But to me, it seems Western Classical Music is even more popular than traditional. But both types are way behind pop music.

If it take diligence and discipline to play an instrument, then Chinese have those two qualities. To be an advanced Chinese reader(like the average college student) the Ministry of Education says you should know 8000 Chinese characters. I'm sure I'm still less than 1000 characters and I'm struggling.

I heard that to learn an instrument like a violin or piano to continue in college requires 10,000 hours of practice and lessons. Where does anyone get that much time? ( 10 years * 350 days * 3 hours per day = 10,500 hours ). Certainly diligence and discipline are required before "artistic" ability can distinguish players.

But walking the streets you see music stores everywhere. Here are some:


Stores like this one sells all instruments, Western, Traditional, Classical, ...




















This one sells both Chinese and Western instruments. The window is filled with violins looking for owners.












All Classical instruments in one shop.













Music teacher gives piano lessons














Learn Western guitar techniques





















Here's a big breakfast

1. Fried onion bread
2. A fried egg wrapped in bread
3. A bowl of hot soybean milk

Rocks in Tainan

In Tainan they like to use rocks with lettering for signs. It certainly lends an air of permanence. Here is the sign in from of my off-campus dorm.










Here is the sign in front of the Chemical Engineering building. It's massive. These rocks are usually metamorphic rocks dreaded up from the deep as the Pacific Ocean plate hits the Eurasian plate.

















Here's the park sign of the park on my street, which you can see from the satellite view of a few blogs ago.















Here are the rocks in front of my school, the College of Foreign Languages. The rock with red writing is an inscription. In the old days, such a stone could be inked and a sheet of paper place on top and hammered to absorb some of the ink. In this way, many copies of a decree from the Emperor could be made. Like a real old-fashion xerox machine.







This a decorative stone on the NCKU campus, it is a fossiliferous. As the Pacific Ocean Plate is pushed up, the island Taiwan comes to the surface about 60 million years ago. That's about 20 million years after the dinosaurs went extinct. So there are no dinosaur fossils on Taiwan.

The Pacific Ocean is still spreading and Taiwan is pushed closer to Mainland China. I heard that it was getting closer to China at a rate of 7cm per year. Given that Taiwan is about 150km from the Mainland we should have unification in about 2 million years. We can only hope it takes that long.

Temple Parade

It's still hot in Tainan although it might be cooling off some, or may be I'm adjusting to the heat. It rained the last two nights and that has cooled off the nights but now the days are humid.

I saw some stars last night. One nice thing about having a holiday when the moon is full is that every night when you look up at the moon you can see that it's getting closer as the moon waxes. As Zhong Qui Jie(Autumn Moon Festival) gets closer we
see the moon getting fuller(or more full?).

I would say that in my area of Tainan we don't have any houses like in the US. Nobody has a front yard or back yard. Space is just too dear. So the parks are as close as they can get to nature. In the morning before work or school, the park are busy with activity. Qigong, Taichi, calisthenics, ball room dancing all are going on before the heat comes on. Even at night, if the park is lighted the same activities are going on.

On the way to the Wusheng market at night on Saturday night I came across this parade. I think it was a parade by one of the Daoist temples. Their route brought them through the traffic circle in front of the Tainan Train Station. Here we have the Japanese era train station next to high rise office building.






They had their own motorcycle(scooter) traffic monitors to direct traffic. It was a pretty brave to go through at this busy time but nobody got upset, everyone just enjoyed the parade.










They had their own gods in costumes on stills or tall figures. This god with a black face I believe is Matsu.

Tainan probably has as many palms as Palm Springs.








Hand carried floats lit up with neon lights,
better than a Saint Patrick's parade.














The tail end of the parade, bright colors everywhere. Firecrackers seem to please the gods.










I went to this resturant on a Saturday night and because they were busy they didn't time to bother with me. So I went back on Thursday at 530PM and I was the only customer so they had to help me. This was a night meal of chicken and rice. The small plate has sunflower seeds which goes with the beer. The decore was nice, the tableware was matching, the staff was pleasant(this time) ... But the price was 380NT which is about $11US. It wasn't worth it compared to other meals in Tainan, I'm not going back. It's amazing how relative price sets out expectations, it was still only $11 dollars.

Wusheng, a market at night

Last night I walked to the Wusheng Night market, it was on the west side of Tainan and is about as far as I can walk in Tainan at night. It was a bust, as it was more of a "market at night", rather than a "night market". It was big, with lots of meat, fish, fruit and vegetables for sale but none of the carnival atmosphere of a night market. I'm glad the Da Dong real night market is only a half hour walk from my dorm.

The Da Dong market is three times a week and everyday in Tainan there might be 3 or 4 night markets. Because everyone has a motorcycle they can choose which one on any night. Similarly I think the vendors are independent business men and women and they'll go to where every the customers are.

But it was a good hike. I had the biggest and best baozhi I've ever had. It's steamed bread wrapping a meat ball. I ate them both before I took a picture, sorry. Next time.

That's the difference between living in a country and being a tourist. As a tourist you have a limited time and so you want to do everything, eat everything, see everything and buy everything before you go back. If you have the time, like me, there's really no hurry. If I see a good place to eat just after having a good meal, I just put that new place on the list of things to do. No worry that I'll miss something.


Next weekend is Zhong Qui Jie, the Mid Autumn Festival when the moon is the roundest and brightest of the year. One of the traditional dishes is Zongzi, it is sticky rice wrapped in a bamboo leave. Inside can be many fillings like pork, egg, peanuts, ... On the way back from the Wusheng market at night, I bought 2 at this side walk restaurant, they sold them with gravy, I swear it was the same gravy I've see on mashed potatoes. Actually I like hot sauce on my zongzi. This a container of zongzi.

These two pictures below were along the road on a sandwich board format. I don't know what's going on my but the pictures are intense.




















Here's my camera in Taiwan, it's working pretty well. But I still learning. It's about 2 inches by 3 inches, I carry it in my left front pocket. There are two features I wish it had:


1. Record sound without movie producing an MP3 file.
2. Record smells

There are plenty of sounds that I'd like to have you listen to: firecrackers, traffic, funeral music, temple music, ... but if I take a movie I have to line up a movie to match the sound.

The recording of smells, will probably be a technological way off. But there are smells like cho dou fu, flowers, sewers, ... that are unique to Taiwan.


This weekend I was brave enough to try three local fruits. Here they are before facing the knife. I don't know the names of any of them in either English or Chinese.










The brown one turned out to be a giant Asian pear. The orange one might be a persimmon? The green one seemed to be a small pamello.

Da Dong

Well I survived the first week of classes and everything is going well. My teachers are all great, I can't believe the enthusiasm and energy that they have. Even though most of the classes are 2 hours long the time goes really quickly. I have a hard time remembering such classes in the US.

My schedule now is:

Regular class 2 hours, five days a week
Pronunciation 2 hours, once per week
Grammar 1 hour, once per week
Chinese singing 2 hours, once per week


One of the things most foreigners like about Taiwan is the Night Market scene. It's like a carnival with games and stalls selling clothes, tools, jewelry, knickknacks, ... And food, lots and lots of different food. The crowds are huge, you can't go quickly through the aisles because the crowds slowly move around.











Here is one of the traditional children's games. For 50NT you are given 3 "nets" to catch fish but the nets are made with thin filter paper and easily break. All the fish you can catch are yours. If you're greedy and go for a big fish your net will definitely break.













I tried it, thinking I would give away the fish I caught but I quickly went through my nets without a single fish. The vendor teased me showing me how she could catch fish even with the nets that I thought were broken. Kind of humiliating, but fun.








Aquariums are big in Taiwan, I wonder how many of them got started at the night market? I know aquariums had some effect on Feng Shui but I'm not to sure about that.














Here is the Chinese subway. It was good, the bread is about 6 inches long and it's fried bread, not baked. The bread is split open and the mayo, egg slices, luncheon meat, cucumbers and tomatoes go inside. It holds much less. They also have "3 inch
hamburgers". I think the idea is that there are so many good things to eat that no one wants to get filled up just eating one thing.










Here are some other goodies I brought home. The candied cherries turned out to be candied cherry tomatoes. The garlic bread was the same as US. The two pastries were like in the US with an egg custard filing. The fried bread was heavily seasons with parsley or oregano. It's better hot than the next day.

Name that tune.

I'm getting this post out a little early because we have a field trip tomorrow. But I just realized that it conflicts with my Chinese singing class. Oh well, I've been to those places already, we'll see what happens.


Listen to the music of this first clip, and try to guess what is coming.









At first I thought we were in for ice cream, it's certainly hot enough, but in the second clip we have a close up of where the music is coming from.




There's not enough space for big trash cans in Taiwan and the garbage goes bad quickly in this heat. So in my neighborhood, once every other day the garbage truck comes. The schedule is fairly regular but the music lets the residents know exactly when to bring out your garbage. This the same music as 15 years ago in HsinChu but I just forgot.



I had such a good experience going to the Tainan City Hall that I went to one of the local district buildings. Not as good. Not anything in English and the Exhibit Hall was under construction, The Plaza was called the "Starlight Plaza". Then I remembered, I have never seen the stars while here in Tainan, maybe it's because it's always overcast, or the City Light drown out the stars or maybe I'm never looking up. I don't know, I'll just have to keep looking.








Our sun is a star, and in Taiwan it sets in the west over mainland China. I think the dust from the deserts in Tibet, Mongolia and Xinjiang give the setting sun this red color. Remember according to the communists: "The East is Red".

Girls and boys

Well it's official, I am a NCKU student. I have both the student ID card and the library card to prove. Now we'll see what I can do with these cards. I luckily brought a page of passport size self pictures printed out on photo quality paper. Don't leave home without them.

Our class has another new student. I think he transferred up from a beginner class to our basic class. Four of my fellow students are pursuing an International MBA taught at NCKU. The IMBA program is taught in English.


One day last week I saw a guy on my dorm 1st floor take the elevator and bring a load of wet laundry up to the 5th floor. Later I went up to the 5th floor and then one flight of stairs up is the roof. Open to all. Nice view, but the most popular part is that you can hang your clothes to dry in the breeze.

But there are separate areas for men and women's clothes. We wouldn't want women's underwear sharing the same space with men's underwear? Would we?


In some ways Taiwan is a prudish society with men and women's roles being defined from what they were in traditional times. Of course, that is changing, Taiwanese women have the lowest fertility rate in the world of just 1 child per 1 women. Part of that is because raising a child in Taiwan is tough job. No doubt.

Pornography is illegal in Taiwan as it is in mainland China. But the internet is unrestricted in Taiwan while on the mainland the internet is censored for


pornography, incorrect political thoughts, criticism of the government, ...

(I have a hard time calling my fellow students "men and women", they are so young looking I have to hold back from calling them "boys and girls".)

Here is as close a view from the satellite as I can get. My dorm is the long gray building in the center. The two dark rectangles on top are the men and women's clothes drying areas.


Here's one of my favorite eating places. They have a take away menu and I have a copy of it in my room. I look over the menu before I go there, find a good dish, practice pronouncing it and then go to the restaurant prepared. I am working my way through every dish on the menu. Good for my vocabulary.

The place is right in the middle of the after school cram schools, so the tables and chairs are those for elementary school children. It's like a parent going to a kindergarten meet-the-teacher meeting.


Here's a combination of chicken and duck on rice. I know a lot of good people are noodle people but I am a rice person.
40NT = ~$1.25

Fruit in Taiwan

The third day of classes continues the trend of getting better and better. We now have 10 people in the class, nobody told the woman from Slovenia that she had to go to class this week so she missed the first 2 days. There's always mis- communication if you don't ask questions but it's embarrassing to ask questions.

There's an old quote from Mark Twain:

"It's better to keep you mouth shut and let them think that you are stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

We've all learned this lesson too well.


These two pictures are of the 24 hour fruit stand about 5 blocks from my dorm. I like going there at night after the heat has gone down. Last time I spend 260NT(~$8.12) for
4 Fuji apples, 2 Bala and 1/8 of a watermelon, I don't think this was exactly a good deal. Then I read the labels and it turns out the apples are from Chile and the price of the watermelon seems to indicate that it was imported too. Only the bala was local and cheap. There are lots of local fruit for sale but I don't know there name


and haven't tried them. I should be more adventurous and try some of the mystery fruits. lots of them need a knife and cutting board to get through the skin. So for today I'm buying a cutting board.

I think Taiwanese love fruit and are willing to spend to try foreign fruit from New Zealand, Chile and California. I have to confess I did buy two peaches without looking at the label until I got back to the dorm. They were from California. The locavor movement hasn't yet made it to Taiwan.



Here's the Fuji apple from Chile and the inside of the native bala(Guava). Watch out for the seeds inside, they can be hard of the teeth.










Here's a different kind of apple from Chile and the peach from California.


My new motto is:

"More fruit, Less pai gu!"








This the typical taxi in Taipei and Tainan. It is a Toyota Altis, which is pretty close to a Toyota Corrolla. Not all of the taxis are this new.

While in Taipei, we once rode in a BMW taxis and my nephew asked him what's the deal? The driver was retired but didn't want to stay at home so he bought the BMW and turned it into a Taxis which he drives all day. (The bus man's holiday). It costs him twice as much to operate because it uses premium gas and it gets lower gas mileage and the fares are fixed by the city government. He is my retirement hero.

Second day of class

Well the second day went better than the first, it turns out I am not the worst in the class(but I'm also not close to the top either). My year of home study is coming through for me. I can read better than some and my pronunciation is not the worst.
Teachers like it when you ask questions even if you should know the answer, they are very encouraging if you try it in Chinese. Today was fun.

Almost all the students are like me, they come into Taiwan on a tourist visa that is good for 2 months and then can be renewed 2 months at a time. Because some 'students' have come to Taiwan to illegally teach English, the Ministry of Education requires students to take 15 hours of instruction every week and use a certificate from the Chinese Language School to verify that they are a student in good standing. So attendance is what the Chinese Language School uses to issue the certificate of good standing for the visa renewal.

My 15 hours are as follows:

Regular class, 2 hours, 5 days a week...............................10 hours
Mandatory pronunciation class once a week.....................2 hours
Mandatory grammar class once a week.............................1 hour
Optionals classes(pick one).................................................2 hours
Chinese Painting, 2 hours per week
Chinese Calligraphy, 2 hours per week
Chinese Conversation, 2 hours per week
Chinese Listening and Speaking, 2 hours per week
Chinese Cuisine and Culture, 2 hours per week
Chinese Singing, 2 hours per week.
Taijituan, 2 hours per week
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 15 hours

We can sample these optional classes in the first week and they choose one in the second week. My mature decision is to pick the easiest possible optional class. That rules out Painting, Calligraphy and Taijituan because I already know I suck at those three. I went to Listening and Speaking class but it was hard. The Culture and Cuisine class is at a teacher's house and I can't get there fast enough after my regular class. Basic Conversation conflicts with the Grammar class, so my last best hope is that Chinese Singing is an easy class. I don't get to sample that class until Friday. Wish me luck.

I finally found a good Night Market in Tainan. I know there are more and better ones out there but it took me 4 tries to hit this one. I used googling the web to find possibilities, but with 'fly by night' operations like a night market, the information on the web is quickly stale. One possibility was replaced with a construction site, one was a bunch of cement stalls with few people and the third must have changed the days of the week it was open. But I now know the "Greater Tainan Live Night Market" meets on

Sunday night. It was great! Food on display with prices and all you have to do is point to what you want. I got there early while stalls were being assembled and the crowds were crushing, the parking lot full and everyone in a good mood. The food was probably not FDA and Weight Watcher's approved but it did taste good. I'm going back. More pictures to follow.






I got there early enough that the kids were still playing the carnival games. I didn't see the gold fish pond where the kids buy paper nets and tried to catch live goldfish. (The paper net usually breaks before you can lift the fish out of the pond.) This version has the kids lassoing rubber duckies for prizes.










I'm down to about 5 or 6 regular shops in my neighborhood for regular meals. Do you think I stand out as a customer? No sense trying to hide it, just go with the flow.

On the menu this was called "zhu pai ji bao" Zhu = pig, ji = chicken so I thought I knew what was coming but the ji bao actually mean a bag made with fried egg, i.e. an omelet. The omelet had rice in a tomato sauce. I remember my mother use to make such a hot dish but she called it "Spanish rice". I don't know why.

First day of class

I made it through the first day through the first day of class. I had my regular class of 2 hours and then an possible optional class on "Basic Listening and Speaking for 2 hours. In my regular class there are: 3 Americans, 3 from Thailand, 1 from Russia, 1 from Japan and 1 from Indonesian. I maybe the worst student but the teacher is good so it looks like I'll stick it out. For the optional class, I four other possibilities to check out this week before I have to decide which optional class to take. We'll see, I've never listened to 4 hours of Chinese in one day and expected to understand it, my head still hurts.

I am fortunate to live two blocks from the post office. I mailed a post card to my mother and asked her to email me when she receives it, then I'll know how long the post takes.

My address in the US is:

Mike Ess
Apartment D307
308 10th Avenue NE
Bellevue, WA 98004

Within Taiwan it is:

Tainan City
Donghe Road
Number 169
Nando Development No. 2
Room 116
Michael Ess

Usually the address in Taiwan is given on one continuous line but the difference is clear. In the US the address goes from specific to general, while in Taiwan the address goes from general to specific. So if you wanted to send me something by snail mail the address would be:


Tainan City
Number 169 Donghe Road
Nando Development No. 2
Room 116
Michael Ess
Taiwan

With Taiwan at the bottom the US Postal service looks at the bottom and puts it in the overseas category. Then when it gets to Taiwan the Taiwanese Postal service goes from top to bottom. But I think both postal services are able to handle variations. It's important to put AIRMAIL somewhere on the item otherwise I might be gone before it gets here, if it goes by slow boat to Taiwan.

I checked the postal rates in the US and it looks like:

Post card to Taiwan $.98
Small letter to Taiwan 1.18
Large letter to Taiwan 1.24

I sent a post card to my mother some times ago and it took 12NT(or about $.40). So it's cheaper from Taiwan to the US than the US to Taiwan.

Here's the sign outside my Post Office, there were very friendly when I mailed the post card. The Postal Service in Taiwan also serves as a bank with ATM,
check cashing and savings services, besides all the usual Postal Services.













Here is a typical road side in Tainan(it's outside my Post Office). I live on Donghe road which is short enough to have house numbers from 1 to about 200. The Dongsing Rd is a cross street with house numbers 385-399 on the odd side of the North road and 259-371 on odd side of the South road. I can get a little confusing especially because not every residence/business displays there house number just like in the US. Other problem is that if the road is long enough that 500 house numbers will be exceeded then the road is broken up in to "sections", not just North and South.


Here are the mail boxes in Taiwan. Green is for local mail. Red is for overseas or special delivery.











Here's a convenient, popular meal. It's served in a disposable waxed cardboard container. It's called a "bendan". You pick the three sides and the main meat dish goes on the rice. I try to avoid eating such commonplace meals but in the container you can carry it to home or school or eat it in the park, ...





I'm always amazed at how the Blogger reformats my post. It's kind of a surprise every time I see my own post.