Nobody?...So

Yesterday, my roommate Daniel and I were supposed to go out looking for apartments but ended up sitting in a cafe and talking instead. Really this was fine since the one place we wanted to see resulted in a conversation on a busy street on a cell phone between me and some woman who I could barely understand. Rodger has observed that you really need a Chinese person to help you and after yesterday I pretty much agree. In talking to Daniel, he revealed the address of his own website which, if you are curious about you can read here.

Taiwan or Jilong is starting to grow on me. I've found a place to eat that serves vegetarian food, particularly eggplant and tofu and it only costs between 40-50 NT. I like both of my roommates a lot, and so for now, that and email make up a good amount of my social interaction. I think if I can afford it, I will take classes in September, if simply to meet more people and also because I know my writing and reading of Chinese is rapidly going downhill. Actually that's not entirely true, often I can make sense of the Chinese subtitles on the TV, but I prefer channels which have both English and Chinese.

A couple days ago, I amused myself by reading the Backstreet Boys' new music video's subtitles and comparing them to the original song. They're nothing alike according to my understanding of Chinese but it was fun to be able to read it. I have also noticed that I am picking up the Taiwanese "lazy s" in which sh becomes an s sound. Actually, learning Beijinghua means I am sometimes rather incomprehensible to other people, for example sishi (40) means nothing, you have say si tsi.