Saturday, October 15, 2011
Why is Sigourney Weaver's stage name called "Sigourney Weaver" since her real first name is Susan?
Born in 1949, she changed her name in 1963 to "Sigourney", after the character "Sigourney Howard" in F. Scott Fitzgerald's
"The Great Gatsby" (her
own birth name, Susan, was in honor of her mother's best friend,
explorer Susan Pretzlik).
FROM BOOK:
“I’ve just heard the most amazing thing,” she whispered. “How long were we in there?”
“Why, about an hour.” “It was — simply amazing,” she repeated abstractedly. “But I swore I wouldn’t tell it and here I am tantalizing you.” She yawned gracefully in my face: “Please come and see me. . . . Phone book . . . Under the name of Mrs. Sigourney Howard . . . My aunt . . .” She was hurrying off as she talked — her brown hand waved a jaunty salute as she melted into her party at the door.''
Fell falls in love in 'New Taiwan' all over again with new 'fun' -- and scholarly -- tome
''Government and Politics in Taiwan'' is an essential text for any
course on freewheeling Taiwanese politics, Communist Chinese Party
politics of brainwashing and mind control (sic),
and will be useful to students worldwide, especially those in Beijing
and Shanhai mystified at Taiwan's success in the modern world.
The has a November 6 pub date and is available now for pre-ordering.
The tome has already garnerned some
very good reviews, with Robert Ash of the Taiwan Studies Program at
the University of London, noting: "Fell’s [book] offers an accessible,
authoritative and comprehensive
interpretation of Taiwan’s political development through the period of
authoritarian rule [during Martial Law days] to the establishment of a
fully-fledged democratic
system of governance [under the modern KMT and DPP parties]."
Shelley Rigger, a political science professor at Davidson College in
the USA, could not hold back
her enthousiam, noting: "Fell’s new book is ....brimming with
enthusiasm for its subject and affection for its readers, ....Thanks to [his]
.....heartfelt engagement with
his topic, readers will gain both a comprehensive knowledge of a vast
scholarly literature and a gut-level appreciation for Taiwan’s lively
political scene.'
NOTE: Dafydd Fell is a British scholar from an island nation who focuses on Taiwan studies from his base in London. He often visits the island nation on the other side of the world, too.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
UPDATE: 7-Eleven chain store in Taiwan recalls Hitler key chain, doll. Game over
To make a long story short, after the wire services ran a story about a convenience store chain in Taiwan selling cartoonish images modelled after what appeared to be a Hitler face and armband, although modified as a parody and not designed to promote Nazi thinking, the chain store's CEO decided to recall the items from all 4,500 stores nationwide. Game over.
However, it took a few days of follow-up news reports from the Agence France-Press news agency, the Deutsche Press-Agentur German News agency, Taiwan's own Central News Agency, the Chinese-language Liberty Times and CNN for the recall to be finalized. But did anyone in Taiwan learn anything from this Hitler brouhaha? Probably not. Another Hitler cartoon or parody sighting will occur again, within the year, and always with the same naive and innocent intentions.
There is no antisemitism in Taiwan; repeat: there is no antisemitism in Taiwan. But there is a lack of education in schools and in society at large about issues such as the Holocaust or the Nazi period in Europe. And the lack of education is not just about Jewish or Israeli history, it's also concerns ignorance about events taking place far away in Africa or Europe or South America. Remember, Taiwan is a small island nation just off the coast of China, just south of Japan, and while it boasts one of the most hospitable and friendly people on the face on the Earth, due its own history as an island batted back and forth between neighboring Asian powers -- and long ago by the Dutch and the French and the Spanish, not to mention the American presence during the Vietnam War period -- Taiwan is a very unique place.
Blogger Mark Lee, who designed of the recent Hitler items, admitted that while the figure’s appearance was inspired by Hitler, the cartoon was not meant to endorse any of Hitler’s views. In addition to depicting the dictator’s famous mustache, the caricature also wears a red dollar-sign armband and, in one version, has its arm raised in the fashion of the iconic Nazi salute. Lee told reporters that the doll was meant to represent a dictatorial angry boss, and the whole thing was a parody. He said he loves Israel and he loves the Jewish people, and he meant no harm at all. But now he has learned a lesson, at least on a personal level, and that's good.
"I wanted to use it to satirize some bosses,” Lee told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “In the eyes of disgruntled employees, many bosses are greedy and dictatorial and like vampires trying to suck money from them. I was actually making fun of Hitler, mocking him. I know who he was, of course, he was a very evil man."
Sunday, September 25, 2011
''Hi, I'm Mark!'' -- Hitler 'lookalike doll' on sale in convenience stores in Taiwan
LINK FOR 7-11 DOLL ON SALE NOW:
http://www.pcstore.com.tw/immark/M07273286.htm
LINKS TO DOLL MAKER/SELLER. created by ''LIGHT-FORCE'' in Japan or Taiwan
www.wretch.cc/blog/markleeblog
http://www.immark.tw/
New Hitler lookalike dolls are for sale at 7-ELEVEn convenience stores in Taiwan today. Seems as if images of Adolph Hitler, the German Nazi
dictator, have a special place in the marketing hearts of Asian advertising agencies and PR mavens. From Japan to India, from Taiwan to Vietnam, images of Hitler make the news at least once a way, and not in a good way.
Ten years ago, for example, in Taiwan, a
promotional campaign for German-made space heaters featuring an image of Hitler sparked outrage from both German and Israeli trade and culture officials in Taipei. The ads were quickly taken down and apologies were made by the marketing people involved. It was a big mistake they said, sorry sorry.
The resulting news story made headlines for Reuters and the Associated Press in 1999. Could this happen again?
Fast forward to 2011. A new Hitler doll has surfaced, this time being sold by someone calling himself Mark Lee and apparently
designed by a doll firm in Japan.
The doll is a UCB and sells for US$15 at local 7-ELEVEn convenience stores in Taiwan now. The "cute" Hitler lookalike sports an unmistakable Hitler moustache, a Hitler right hand "salute," a Hitler combover for hair, and a red Nazi-looking armband on the doll's arm. Ouch.
Will this doll be for sale in 7-ELEVENs in Taiwan next week after the news gets out that another Hitlet lookalike doll is being merchandised
online and in stores now? Are the 7-ELEVEns in Japan also selling this cute UCB doll?
Will Asians ever understand what Hitler did during World War II or is that "story" just too far away for Asians to grasp? It happened in 1999
and it happens from time to time all over Asia, from India to Japan. Now it's happening in Taiwan, again. Laugh or cry? Your call.
Back in 1999, to recap in older news story, a Taiwanese company provoked an angry response because of an advertising campaign using large subway billboards featuring a cartoon figure of a smiling Adolf Hitler. The advertisements are for German-made electric space heaters.
Israeli and German culture and trade officials in Taipei said they were appalled by the ad.
The maker of the space heaters, DBK, based in the southwest German city of Kandel, said it would of course order an immediate halt to the ad campaign.
The ad showed Hitler in a khaki uniform and black jackboots, his right arm raised high in a Nazi salute. Above him is a slogan that said "Declare war on the cold front!"
There were no swastikas in the ad, but the Hitler figure wears a red arm band on his left arm with a white circle bearing the German manufacturer's name.
"We decided to use Hitler because as soon as you see him, you think of Germany. It leaves a deep impression," said a Taiwanese PR man who worked in the company's planning and design department. He had not inkling of what was going on, but after learning more about history, he said sorry sorry, too.
He said the company had not been worried that the public would have a negative reaction to an ad that features a man who oversaw the killing of millions of Jews during World War II.
"Most people in Taiwan are not that sensitive about Hitler," he said during the 1999 gaffe.
Uri Gutman of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei in 1999 said the advertisement was "unbelievable."
He feared using Hitler's image in such ads would make Nazi atrocities during World War II seem less real.
"It supports the denial of the Holocaust," said Gutman, referring to fringe theories that the Nazis did not kill Jews.
German officials in Taiwan also objected to the ad in 1999.
"We are not happy about this, this is not an appropriate way to make an advertisement," said Hilmar Kaht, then-director general of the German Trade Office in Taipei in 1999.
Kaht said while the intention of the ad back in 1999 was to tell consumers that the space heater is a German product, which he does not object to, he added that: "They should not use any political advertisement, especially not from Nazi times ... It creates a negative image of Germany and legitimizes the crimes of the Nazi regime by playing it down."
"Such an ad would be forbidden in Germany," Kaht said.
German officials in Taipei back in 1999
told the Taipei Times that the advertisement didn't surprise them because they often encounter Taiwanese who admire Hitler and lack a deep understanding of European history.
"Taxi drivers will often tell me Hitler was a great man, very strong," one German embassy official in Taipei said.
Monday, September 19, 2011
老美迷台語/要走全台 錄萬人說 LO LAT 新竹市
DAN BLOOM 迷台語/要走全台 錄萬人台灣新竹市說 LO LAT
旅居台灣十年的美國人
丹布隆（Dan Bloom）喜歡台灣、愛台語，無意中聽到他人說「勞力（LO LAT）」，覺得音調、語意很美，逢人即推廣，發願走遍全台錄萬人說LO LAT，日前從居住的嘉義到台南錄音，很多人受其熱情感動，即使不認識或不懂LO LAT意思，但都共襄盛舉。
丹布隆說，已錄下約一百人說LO LAT，錄到目標數後，打算送給台灣文學館，表達自己愛台語的一分心意，也要剪輯上傳網路；為方便推廣，自己以「小星星」的曲調，譜寫LO LAT之歌「感謝、感謝、真LO LAT，謝謝、謝謝、真LO LAT，台灣、台灣、水噹噹，阿嬤、阿公真愛我，爸爸、媽媽真愛我」，希望有朝一日能獲歌手支持共同推廣。
六十二歲的丹布隆，在中正大學兼差教英文，也教小朋友英文，向周遭人打聽才知道LO LAT是台語「感謝、謝謝辛苦」的意思，但也發現很多人不知道LO LAT，覺得不可思議，這麼美與真誠的語詞，怎麼少人使用，決定盡己之力宣傳。
丹布隆說，六月收錄LO LAT的範圍以雲林、嘉義、台南為主，七月要去高雄、屏東及東部，八月去中、北部。
國、台語不很流暢的丹布隆，為了錄LO LAT，國、台、英語夾雜向陌生人說明，大家看到一個老外對台語如此熱情都被感染，樂於開口說LO LAT。
Friday, July 15, 2011
Engagement Bridge in Chiayi City - Filed in Chinglish Department of Amplification
Victor Mair writes from the USA: [Photo by Rain Kuo] [[''Hired Actor'' Posing as local mandarin]]
Here is a sign directing passengers in a new
Chiayi (Jiayi, in southwestern Taiwan) building that links a bus terminal with a railroad terminal:
The Chinese Mandarin characters say:
xiánjiē qiáo .......銜接橋
I would translate this as
"connecting bridge." So how did the makers of this sign came up with "engagement bridge"?
xiánjiē 銜接 usually means "connect; converge; link (up); join" and in some cases "hook (up)" or "articulate".
But xiánjiē 銜接 also has the specialized medical meaning of "engage(ment)", as in "the phase of parturition in which the fetal head passes into the cavity of the true pelvis" (from the American Heritage Dictionary). Online Chinese dictionaries render this sense as 【医】衔接, i.e.,【Med.】xiánjiē 銜接. Perhaps the software chose this sense because of the ordering precedence of "【" (before the beginning of the alphabet). In any event, it was unfortunate that the person(s) responsible for making this sign chose the most specialized and least appropriate of all senses of xiánjiē 銜接, resulting in
"Engagement Bridge", which will surely be baffling for speakers of English (for whom the sign is intended, after all).
They will probably think it signifies a bridge where people go to propose marriage!
For xiánjiē 衔接, nCiku.com gives "link up; join; connect". That's pretty straightforward and wouldn't have caused a problem.
Most online dictionaries do not have an entry for xiánjiē qiáo 衔接桥; it seems that "engagement bridge" isn't a standard mistranslation. One of the few online occurrences of "engagement bridge" for xiánjiē qiáo 銜接橋 I could find was in a blog about Taiwan (see below in the acknowledgements), and it is talking about the same sign that I am discussing here.
But cf. the fourth definition of
the entry for xiánjiē 衔接 in iciba (which is the web interface for Jinshan/Kingsoft Ciba). Since Jinshan/Kingsoft Ciba is so widely used and was the source of what is undoubtedly
the most colossal series of mistranslations in the annals of Chinglish, it is plausible that it is also culpable in this case –
Google Translate renders xiánjiē qiáo 銜接橋 as "convergence bridge", which would be just as puzzling for English speakers as "engagement bridge".
Curiously, there's a "
Go Between Bridge" in Brisbane. This is
suitably translated into Chinese as jiēlián qiáo 接連橋, which is another (more common than xiánjiē qiáo 銜接橋) term for "connecting bridge".
"Go Between Bridge" is unidiomatic in American English, unless it were referring to a place where matchmakers ply their trade. Speakers of Australian English can tell us whether it is idiomatic for them when they want to refer to what we call a "connecting bridge".
Incidentally, architects refer to such structures as "
building to building pedestrian bridges". More colloquially, such a bridge may be styled a
"skyway," "catwalk," "sky bridge," or "skywalk".
[With a tip of the hat to Brendan O'Kane, Rebecca Fu, Joel Martinsen, Cyndy Ning, and Leinad Moolb, who sent me the photograph that was snapped on a cellphone camera by Miss Rain Kuo from Taichung. Nad said that in the future he hopes local officials putting up English signs in Chiayi and other parts of Taiwan would first check with some Western born native speakers to make sure they are correct.] 
Monday, July 04, 2011
pics files
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
Is Australian motivational guru and writer Bradley Trevor Greive gay perhaps, the way Leo Buscaglia was also gay? Why not come out and admit it and embrace his gayness, if he is gay? Anybody know?
Is Australian ''motivational guru'' and writer
Bradley Trevor Greive gay perhaps, the way
Leo Buscaglia was also gay? Why not come out and admit it and embrace his gayness, if he is gay? Anybody know? The author of the Blue Day Book and Looking for Mr Right? Just curious. It just seems so, but not sure, and not outing anyone, just curious what internetters think, or know about BTG. Because for all his money and fame and 9 billion books sold, he has not found love. Why not?
Many famous artists remain in the closet all their lives, from Tom Cruise to Leo Buscaglia to Anderson Cooper. It's a shame I think. We need to get
over our hangups about gay people. They are part of this wonderful world, too. BTG, if you are there, answer. And if I am wrong, of course, I am wrong. I often am. Just asking. I do know he was engaged in 2004 but the E was broken off by the women from UK after 7 months. These things happen. But too many things on the BTG website point to a gay artist who doesn't want to admit he is gay to his adoring female fans. Right, BTG? get over it. come out, come out, where-ever you are!
Enjoy life the way God made you. It's okay.
http://btgstudios.com/
National Essay for Foreign Nationals Launched. Great Prizes Offered
National Essay for Foreign Nationals Launched (sic, no period or semi-colon, just a run on headline) Great Prizes Offered
Sadly, the advert that appeared in local expat newspapers in English was not written by a native English speaker or writer and what was printed was embarrassing, to say the least. The entire advert was poorly worded, poorly written, and hard to read, and it's too bad that whoever was charged with putting out this advert and writing it did not consult a foreign person to at least check the grammar and wording, in order to get it right!
Once again, whoever was in charge of this, probably someone at the Tourism bureau, did not take time to ask a foreigner person to fix the poor English. And this was an advert aimed at foreigenrs in English for an English essay writing contest!
It's too late now. The damage is done. Par for the course! But it does not have to be this way!
