Names can be second-handed

(Opera at Vienna 1994)

When we got introduced to a city, normally it is not simple like "this is Mr. Brown." In fact, the name of a foreign city is normally translated into other languages before it got translated to Chinese.

The name of Vienna in German is "Wien", which means "wind" in German. Vienna is a windy city due to its location in a large plane and that was where her name came from. The translation was taken from the word "Vienna" and most likely because we took it from English. Similar was Prague which is called Praha locally and Hungary Magyar.

The name Magyar is worth some noting as when we learned the history of Yuan Dynasty at high school, we actually learned there were Magyar people in China by the name Magyar but as Hungary was always translated by its English name, I wasn't aware of this acquaintance until I was at Hungary the first time noting this formal name. Names are somehow buried in history and second handed translation. I would bet there are more in the names of the central asian countries where we were familiar by their historical chinese names but not their modern names...

Another interesting example is Seoul demanding China and Taiwan to correct its translation in Chinese. Originally Seoul was translated as Han-city (漢城). In Chinese, it can mean city of Han people and Han people normally means Chinese. No wonder Korean people want a change. Now Seoul is named 首爾 by the pronunciation...

Corridor of the Rathaus at Vienna

For buddist, the golden paint (sometimes genuine gold) over the budda is to show the respect to the budda himself. Here at the Stadtpark, johann Strauss is painted in gold for similar reasons.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Ethan plays ginger-bread man

Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noel!

Two great 2008 movies, same elements: Cape No. 7 vs Bienvenue Chez Lez Sh'tis

Cape No. 7 took Taiwanese movie market by storm this year. Coincidently, a French movie "Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis" (Welcome to the north) also did the same earlier this year in France. 20 million people have seen this movie in France and perhaps no coincidence, both movies have some in common: Cape No. 7 is about the south of Taiwan that was never a focus of media and Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis is all about Bergue, the small town in the north of France that used to let southern people feel cold and unfriendly. Both are revealing how sincere and friendly the local people are. Another common theme is how people from different background try to live together. And maybe a coincidence, both movie are about postman's life and story. I guess all around the world, people are tired of repeated elements of Hollywood movies and love to see the stories about the lands we are living on. Especially in Taiwan, more and more people are hungry to seek our own identities as real people living in this land, be it Taiwan or Republic of China. We would want to see more like this in Taiwan, wouldn't we?

3D Anaglyph photos of Ethan I have made

These are made from old DVDs. Ethan was 2 years old then. You need Red-Cyan 3D Anaglyph glasses to see them in 3D

Dinosaurs in Paris!

This is not an advertisement for a new Godzilla movie. We actually went to see Dinosaurs in Paris and you may be surprised that we did plan for this before we left Taiwan for Paris. That was 2007. Ethan was 5 and grew very interested in Dinosaurs. When we planned our trip to Paris, I found from the web that we can actually see the Dinosaur skeletons in Le museum national d'histoire naturelle (Natural History Museum).


So we bought the tickets and entered the Evolution Gallery happily. Ethan felt on stone stairs days before at Sacre Coeur and still had bruise on his face. The clerk must have seen that and was inquiring my address but had to give up when he learned we were only visiting. I think he must be suspecting we abused Ethan. Good to know people caring about your kid...

The shark behind seems to be imitating them...


This guy is huge but doesn't look like a Dinosaur to me... It turned out to be a blue whale skeleton. One of the largest in the world. So where are the Dinosaurs? We went to the wrong gallery. Must go to the Paleothology Gallery according to the clerk...


Well, not a long walk... And a beautiful road...


I am sure no mistake this time... Got some discounts as we just came out of Evolution Gallery.

Hello, seen you twice today, Mr. Giraffe. Where are your skin and flesh?




Only until today, we know that it is impossible for a turtle to jump out of its shell. How are the cartoons teaching our kids these days...


Michelle had taken this photo to show her boss: if anytime he needs a brain, he can come here. There are plenty of them...


Whale again...


We finally found the Dinosaurs on the 2nd floor (1st floor for European people...)




The ancestor of the ones we have seen above...


We had seen the Mammoth flesh before the 2008 Taipei exhibition of Mammoth from Sakha Republic but we would want to see the big whole one if possible.


Dinosaur Eggs?


Are we related?



Tired but happy...


This modern dragon is situated just outside the museum. It is made 100% with recycled materials.

Borders and Signs

I have said earlier that a real border is something I have never seen in my life living in an island country but I had seen and crossing ones a lot during my stay in France. I used to drive through Mont Blanc tunnel to visit customers in Italy. When I drove near the tunnel du Mont Blanc, one interesting thing was the road sign of Mont blanc suddenly became Monte Bianco and Turin became Torino and I was still on the French side, not entering Italy yet...


Road signs were big challenges to me when I started to drive in France (in fact, I started to drive cars only when I started my work in France and I was offered a British car!). For example, this one above says "All Diretion". If you are first time in France, you probably won't have a clue what exactly does this mean. I would say this sign is a kind reminder telling that if you got lost, don't worry, move a ahead and there will be other signs telling you where to go and those will include all directions...


There is an American joke saying "Ausfahrt is probably the largest city in Germany as on the motorway, you can drive for a very long time but still can exit the motorway into Ausfahrt...". Actually "Ausfahrt" means exit for the motorway in German and the same joke can apply to "Sortie" in French. Somehow it becomes even more interesting when driving in Swiss. Once I drove through Geneva to Bern to apply for Hungarian Visa and I found that when I drove near Bern, the exit sign changed from "Sortie" to "Ausfahrt". This should be saying you are leaving French speaking region and entering German one

Harbor in Taiwan 1950

This was taken by Life magazine in 1950. I keep wondering how it will look like today if it is reserved. Below are the harbor of Monaco and Marseille taken in 1996.

Ivrea Carnival 96': Orange Battle

Honestly these photos are not my taking. I just borrowed them from Flickr. It was the Lunar New Year of 1996. I was alone in Europe. I was visiting Olivetti with Paolo, our sales manager. Olivetti was built in 1912, the same year as Republic of China, our current government in Taiwan. Ivrea used to be a small village. It had become a big city mainly because Olivetti set up a big factory there. This is why most Ivrea people are grateful for Dr. Olivetti. It wasn't a coincidence that that Lunar New Year was the Ivrea Carnival. In fact, the Carnival was always held on Lunar New Year, same day as Chinese New Year. Very interesting...


Unfortunately I was having a long meeting with Olivetti people and wasn't able to see orange battle in action. After I come out of Olivetti, I saw only oranges and oranges everywhere on the ground. The product manager of Olivetti is an old friend of Paolo who also was grown up in this city. He told me what Paolo has done during Ivrea Carnival in his youth. He used to keep oranges in the fridge the day before...

The Catalunya Gegants and Taiwanese Giant Puppets 大仙尪仔

We found these big gegants during our trip to Barcelona in 1997. They reminded me of 大仙尪仔 that we had for rituals back home at Taiwan. As young children, we always got fascinated and frightened together by them. Catalan is the french name of Catalunya where it used to be an independent kingdom between France and Spain. Today you still see the signs of yellow and red Catalan/Catalunya across both countries. In fact, when we travelled through Perpignan to Barcelona, we even felt the French languages turned gradually to Spanish with the accent changes...

More information about Gegants below:
Gegants /Giants and Capgrossos originate from the Corpus Christi processions. Nowadays many Catalan towns have "giants" which are brought out on high days and holidays. There is an annual "giant" meeting in early September every year in which all the local "giants" come to L'Escala for the day and parade around the town.


Ethan became a fan of Chien-Li-Yen (far-seeing) and Shun-Feng-Erh (far-hearing) after the animation movie Matzu. We found this a good opportunity to have some historical education and took him to the Tienhou Temple （天后宮）at Lukang where he took pictures with both "gegants".



The parade of gegants of Barcelona. Search "gegants" in Youtube to see more gegants in parade.



The "gegants"(大仙尪仔) at Taiwan during the parade for Matzu. Matzu is the goddess of the sea for Taiwan. She guides and guards the fisherman on the sea, a very important goddess to Taiwanese people. In fact she is as popular as Mother Maria for mediterranean people. Some even said they are related due to 16th~17th Century European settlement in Tawain. Interestingly I also found Taiwanese pronunciation of "Mah-Niu", the original name of Matzu, is very similar to "Maria" and for unclear reason, Matzu was entitled Holy Mother from the Heaven, which is also similar to the status of Mother Maria.



Interestingly, even the instruments used in the Catalan parade is almost the same as what we called Sonar 嗩吶 in Taiwan.