Some more things about TaiwanAugust 28th, 2008 by Roy Berman |
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Continuing from this post:
- Restaurant bathrooms are often oddly residential looking, sometimes even with a bathtub, which is usually converted into storage space. Oddly, this is sometimes seen even in restaurants which do not even remotely appear to have conceivably been converted from houses.
- Traffic on the right side (coming from Japan here).
- Seaweed very common in food. Much more than in Japan (at least parts of Japan I’m used to).
- Men sometimes grow a single fingernail, or one on each hand, creepily long.
- Restaurants typically bring you lukewarm drinking water, although they will add ice if you request it.
- Military bases right in the city.
- The truly genius 統一發票 system, which deserves its own post.
- Ordering food in most places is done by checking off boxes on a disposable menu. There may be room to write in any specials not included on the regular menu.
- Pedestrian crossing signals often count down how much time is left. This is an amazing stress reliever, like the electronic signs telling you how much time remains before the next train that almost every system outside of the US seems to have.
- Cell phone signals are available throughout the ENTIRE Taipei Subway-not just in the stations. I have never seen this anywhere else in the world.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:28 am
What type of men grow one fingernail? I recall that a long fingernail on your little finger used to be a symbol of cocaine use back in the 1980s in the US, I guess they dipped and snorted from the nail.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I’m not quite sure what it’s for- digging out ear wax? Interesting thing, this is NOT a habit of your metrosexual dandy Taiwanese men, but of your grimy working class men, like taxi drivers or manual laborers.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
The best crossing signals are the ones with not just a countdown but a little walking man who starts to run when time is almost up. Did you see those?
August 28th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I noticed the same thing about cell phone signals in Seoul. (Noted it on the blog, in fact)
Wonder why Japan hasn’t figured this out yet…
August 28th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Probably because it’s fucking expensive, and not ALL that useful.
August 28th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Where I’m from (Stockholm) you can use your mobile everywhere in the underground. I was shocked to find that this was not the case in Tokyo when I lived there. I was not so surprised to find that it was not possible in London, most things are crap here. Glad to here Taipei hasn’t failed to implement this obvious idea.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
“I’m not quite sure what it’s for- digging out ear wax?”
It makes it easier to do the “Touch of Death”.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Some places in Osaka have “countdown traffic lights”.
August 28th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
“Wonder why Japan hasn’t figured this out yet…”
Well, maybe it has to do with the fact that here in Japan you are supposed not to use the cell phone while your on the train. There is always an announcement to refrain using the cell phone or at least to change to “manner mode”.
If I notice that someone has called me while I am boarding a train or a subway, and if it seems to be important and urgent, the only thing I can do is just to wait until the train/subway reaches the nearest station, get out of the train, and call back. If I talk to the cell phone while on the train, I always feel someone staring at me with disgust.
The Shinkansen however, is a different story.
August 28th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
I agree with Tomojiro here: they should be trying to block keitai signals on trains (and cinemas).
August 28th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Why block keitai signals on trains? In all my time in Japan I could probably count the number of times someone has had an annoyingly loud mobile phone conversation on one hand. Everybody just emails, or makes brief and quiet calls. There’s no problem with it here. Now, cell phone jamming IS something I wish New Jersey Transit had almost every time I ride into Manhattan, but of course I have found myself texting or looking at web sites many times.
I also long for cell phone jamming inside movie theatres, but unfortunately the technology just isn’t that precise. Radio waves propagate in a sphere, and I don’t think it would be feasible for a jammer to block the theatre without affecting part of the surrounding area, where you really would not want to jam signals.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:50 am
“the electronic signs telling you how much time remains before the next train that almost every system outside of the US seems to have.”
Not true – the Washington DC Metro system has a system indicating time until the next train. Also, decent cell coverage extends to the entire Metro (if you have Verizon as your carrier—in the future the system may be opened up to all carriers). As I recall, Verizon also has an exclusive in some of the tunnels leading into Manhattan.
August 29th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Yeah, I would definitely not be in favor of allowing people to blab on their phones in a packed subway train. What I would like is the ability to, say, read news sites or update the blog during the 50 minutes a day I spend in subway tunnels.
It’s a pain even to send e-mails: so many times I hit “send,” the train goes out of the station just a second too early, and I end up standing around waiting for two REALLY long minutes, staring at the screen and waiting for the signal to return. Why should one have to chase bars on their phone in the middle of the city?
August 29th, 2008 at 6:58 am
“Not true – the Washington DC Metro system has a system indicating time until the next train.”
One just has to hope that it’s not a darkened “no passengers” train or so full of people crammed in next to the doors that it’s impossible to get on and stand in the empty space near the center of the car…
August 29th, 2008 at 7:00 am
“Not true – the Washington DC Metro system has a system indicating time until the next train.”
Yes, and so does the L in NYC. The rest of the lines should have it in a few years when the 100 year old mechanical relay based navigation systems are fully replaced with electronic systems. And Penn Station or Grand Central, and other major train hubs, also tell you when trains are leaving, but local stations pretty much never do, which is annoying as hell.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
“I also long for cell phone jamming inside movie theatres, but unfortunately the technology just isn’t that precise.”
That`s when the Touch of Death comes in handy.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:10 pm
“Not true – the Washington DC Metro system has a system indicating time until the next train.”
Many stations in Japan have such devices too. They are called “clocks”.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:29 am
Long fingernails in europe, especially the little finger, were an attempt to show off the fact that the grower didn’t do manual labour, you still see some people with extra long nose pickers. Ironically over here it also tends to be machinery operators and the like.
Cell phones work perfectly in the Prague subway (and not at all in other parts of the city!), in Milan they work on a handful of central stops on one line.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Charles, luke & M – Bone : unfortunately in asia, people here have the filthiest of habits. Long fingernails are indeed for the purpose of diggin’ their ears (god only knows what else). I used to live in this cosmopolitan state where I had to experience listenin’ to “symphonized hawkin’ ” early one mornin’ due to the fact the entire block was occupied by foreign workers from mainland china. Can’t blame ‘em, supposedly it “clears” their throats of germs accumulated durin’ sleep. A habit adopted since they’ve been kids, I guess.