[Taiwanese roast corn, 7 flavor variations] If you ever visit Taiwan, you can try roast corn in a variety of unusual flavors. The corn cobs in this particular shop (a hole-in-the-wall near Taipei’s Shipai

[English] Because I am retired and living on a limited budget (pension is gone), I can no longer afford to buy expensive imported children's books for my French-speaking grandson. The Alliance Française

狗 gǒu/goou is the Modern word for “dog” (a free morpheme). 犬 quǎn/cheuan is the Classical Chinese word. En chinois moderne le caractère 狗 gǒu/goou represente le mot «chien» (un morphème libre en mandarin).

Halloween weekend has started. Q: what does it have to do with Chinese culture? A: “Absolutely nothing!” Teachers at bǔxíbān / buushyiban 補習班 introduced this holiday to Taiwanese children and the idea

My best early memories involve simple but tasty food. My mom would often serve me bread and chocolate after school: a slice of buttered baguette with a slab of dark chocolate on top (the very best kind)!

Living on a budget, it is not easy to find tasty, affordable French food (#frenchfood) in Taiwan. Carrefour to the rescue! I was delighted to discover that the Shilin branch Carrefour bakery makes quite

Because of their principal prey, in Chinese jumping spiders are sometimes called 蒼蠅老虎 cāngyíng lǎohǔ / tsangyng laohuu “[literally] housefly tigers”. [BEST TAKEDOWN YET!!!! Hyllus diardi hunts down a fly

Silverfish are small insects without wings that move like fish and have bodies covered with very fine silvery scales, hence their name. They mostly eat the carbohydrates (sugar or starches) found in book

草書外籍學生很不容易看懂 Even if you have studied Chinese for several years, figuring out the cursive inscriptions on Chinese paintings can be intimidating. 本文教外籍學生如何根據國學常識和上下文辨認草書。This post explains how fluent readers

Names that SOUND different should LOOK different! 因漢語拼音不標調產生的假同姓問題，其實拼調式拼音（國羅）90年前就分清楚了。 When Chinese people travel abroad, they often encounter name problems (false homonyms) caused by Hanyu Pinyin, a

In hot weather, Chinese people enjoy eating refreshing cool bowls of 綠豆湯 lǜdòu tāng / liuhdow tang [literally] “green bean soup”, which is actually mung beans served in sweetened water (刨冰 bàobīng / bawbing

Dmitry Belyaev selected & bred the least timid foxes. Decades later, they had become doglike: floppy ears, curly tails, playfulness, whimpering and a host of other physiological and behavioral changes

28 Sep 2018: Sulawesi hit by an earthquake and tsunami. 1400+ people in and near Palu died. 2018年9月28日，蘇拉威西島遭遇了7.5級地震和高達6米的海嘯，在省城Palu造成1400多人死亡。 Half a century ago, the strange-shaped island of Sulawesi

Chinese folklore abounds in tales of fox spirits who seduce men by shapeshifting into beautiful women. Japan and Korea have their own variants of such tales. Japanese Fox Spirits The title graphic shows

Discussion While it seems like “shedding crocodile tears”, this idiom refers to true sadness: the death of a hare refers to sense of unease and deep sadness (based on a classical allusion where hares and

When a tiger was about to eat a fox he had caught, the clever canid said that this was forbidden because he had received the Mandate of Heaven to rule over all the denizens of the forest. The skeptical

Red Fox The scientific name of the red fox, Vulpes vulpes (“fox fox” in Latin), is a reminder that this is the most common of all foxes. Its omnivorous appetite and ability to easily adapt to new environments

Words such as 巧克力 qiǎokèlì / cheaukehlih are easy to recognize and remember. But what about “weird” loans such as 沙發 shāfā / shafa and 派對 pàiduì / payduey? Foreign learners quickly figure out that compromises

Eating hardboiled eggs every day for breakfast can be quite boring, so I have experimented with a dab or two of Sichuan chili paste (produced in Taiwan) on each egg to make a delicious no-carb breakfast!

This dog-oriented course covers many economics topics: Brexit, demand, supply, elasticity, types of competition, small firms, micro-economic policy, macro-economic policy, interest rates, health economics,