7 Days Later

4/5/06

Update: Hsu Chih-ching (許芷青) the Jhongli (中壢) entertainer who gave her father part of her liver has been honored by the Jhongli city government. She was given the 'model resident award,' by Jhongli Mayor Yeh Pu-liang (葉步樑). Yeh mentioned that she had lost her fiancé because of the liver operation and said:

I ask all the good guys out there not to give up on such a wonderful girl, who is willing to give her own liver to save her father.

Well this little remark created a romantic firestorm as 1000s of men responded to the Mayor’s appeal. This caused problems at the Jhongli City Office as the phones lines were tied up with lonely bachelors calling looking for love. Hsu’s e-mail account was also inundated with inquiries into her availability. Despite her new found popularity Hsu doesn’t seem very happy. She has refused interview requests wishing to be left alone. Evidently she has a new boyfriend and he isn’t too happy that 1000s of men want to hook up with his gal. When asked about her new relationship Hsu said:

We will think about it [marriage] after my father checks out of the hospital," adding that all she wanted was to be left in peace.

4/7/06

The MOFA warns Taiwanese ex-pats and tourists to stay away from skinheads in Russia Russia. Big Ell thinks that the MOFA should warn Taiwanese ex-pats and tourists to stay away from skinheads in all countries. They also need to warn Taiwanese ex-pats and tourists to understand the different shades of bald: skinhead, bald or just plain cool.

[Skinhead picture from lexikon.idgr.de]
[Matt Hasselbeck from www.baldrus.com]
[Telly Savalas from handson.provocateuse.com]

Most of my students love getting some kind of certificate of achievement. I am not sure what it says on these certificates but I doubt they say:

Congratulate you being a model student. Studying is the way to success. effort is the base of harvest. You can get this honor because of diligence, enthusiasm and politeness. We are pround of you and hope you will keep working hard to devote to the society in the future.

This little piece fo Chinglish was written on the "Best Performance Award" presented by the Keelung City Government to a number of the city's elementary school students. to celebrate Children’s Day. The story gets even better folks. The Chinese-language daily paper that first reported the story published a "corrected" version of the certificates:

Congratulates you on being a model student. Studying is the way to success. Effort is the base of harvest. You earn your honor because of diligence, enthusiasm and politeness. We are proud of you and hope you will keep working hard to devote to the society in the future.

They should have had my former co-worker the German/Dutch native English speaker proof read it.

4/8/06
This story isn’t as good as the dog eat dog story I posted a few weeks back but it still needs to be said. The Taipei Zoo has been mistreating a male chimpanzee by jailing him for nine years. DPP Councilors Lee Chien-chang and Hsu Chia-ching said:

there are now five male chimpanzees in small cages, and they cannot play and act freely like female chimpanzees. One of them, nicknamed "Little Chiang," has been caged for nine years, the longest period among the five.

When the Councilors visited "Little Chiang," they found the 24-year-old male chimpanzee helplessly repeating the practice of eating and vomiting tree leaves in the cage. The report says:

Little Chiang was sent to the Taipei Zoo in 1986, when both male and female chimpanzees were put in the same dormitory. The Little Chiang, misbehaved, making the female chimpanzees join forces to attack him.

Lin Hua-ching from the Taipei Zoo denied any mistreatment of Little Chiang and the four other male chimpanzees. She did say that the space was too small but everything is okay because they can all enjoy sunshine. Lin said the problem should be alleviated by the end of next year when a larger area will be ready for housing the chimpanzees I just hope for the love of god that Little Chiang can make it that long.

4/9/06
Taiwanese University students can breathe a sigh of relief as school work just got a whole lot easier. There is a website called monsterpapers.com with ready-made research papers and reports in all subjects. Not to be outdone Chen Chun-hung has set up a Taiwanese version of the site. The best part is that the site is name passla.com/. The naming of the site Pass La is funny on so many different levels and I nearly shit myself when I heard the name. Details about the site:

The PassLa.com offers thousands of research papers uploaded by registered members for the only NT$15.

Members can search for information according to content, school, major, and even by names of professors. They can also upload their own papers to sell on the Web site.

Some may accuse of Chen Chun-hung of encouring plagirism and deciet but he believes he is actually planning on helping students reach their full potential. Chen said:

as information technology is developing rapidly, university students nowadays rarely need to spend all day in the library and "burn the midnight oil" for their research assignments, because resources can often be located on the Internet in a flash, if one knows the right keywords.

Wow, I wish their was somebody like Chen when I went to university. University life would have been a breeze without troublesome papers to write.