Read this before you are going to tattooo Chinese characters on your body!!

This is interesting. I read an article yesterday, it's about westerner like to tattoo Chinese character on their body, but most of them even don't know what's the meaning, then, interesting things just happen again and again. However, tattoo is not just a paint on your body, but a mark difficult to remove on the skin, understand the Chinese character you are going to tattoo is a very important homework you should do first, after all, it can't be wash by water.

I have watch a TV advertisement, the advertisement was about extractor fan, it's a common kitchen appliance in Asia, it usually need a net to catch the oil and avoid the oil would drop from the fan. The company guarantee their customer will provide the new net for their customer. Anyway, the idea came from a western young man want to tattoo something on his back to show his girl friend how much that he loves her. The tattooist suggest him to tattoo Chinese characters on his arm. After the tattoo finish, he said to the young man, in Taiwan, it means promise forever, but it actually mean "buy xxx extractor fan, get the net for free". Well, although it just a TV adverisement, but I believe the things like this happen all the time, no matter westerner want to tattoo Chinese characters, or some asian want to tattoo English characters.

Not only misunderstanding about the Chinese character's meaning, the script also bother me... I mean, come on, if you want to tattoo Chinese characters on your body, don't you want it to looks like an art? Even it looks the same to you but at least it might impress people who could read Chinese. Here is a story. Many years ago, use ink to draw on the body as tattoo was very popular in Taiwan, Thailand, even Greece. I have been to Greece, there is an island names Myknos, at night, you could just walk around the lanes in the city center, just like night market. I met a guy whos doing the ink tattoo, of course, there are samples that you could choose to ink tattoo on your body. I was checking out the samples and laughed, because I saw the characters that I use to read, Chinese. Yes, it's Chinese, but I don't know how he got the characters, be honest, the scripts looks awful to me. It doesn't looks like art, but seems like someone try to "draw" the Chinese character and didn't do a good job.

I understand why so many westerners would like to tattoo Chinese characters, because it looks like art as I said before, also could tell want they try to show. But before tattoo it, you better make sure the meaning is what you really want, and try to get the suit script on your body. If you need a suggestion, maybe I could help you.

Seek Tea Culture In Taiwan

Have you try the pearl milk tea? You might had it in your country, but the pearl milk tea definitely is the product from Taiwan. Many Taiwanese know it emerged from Taichung, but do you know, as breakfast shop, you could see there are take away tea shop anywhere. The take away tea shop is popular especially in the summer time, charge low price and also many different choices and flavoring. Beside the take away tea shop, the tea house also provide tea, the price is higher, but also provide meals and snacks, is a nice place to have a meeting, relaxing and chatting.

I was guiding Singaporean friends many weeks ago, they were so starving when they were just arrive Hualien, because they don't eat pork, so I took them to a tea house in Hualien. The menu of the tea house is diversify, chicken, pork, beef even hot pot, fried rice etc. Some meal serve with veges and I have talk to the waiter about my guests don't eat pork, so the chef cook the veges without add any pork, my guests were grateful about this. They were all ordered chicken but cook in different way, Gong bao chicken, Thai spicy chicken, and San bei chicken, each flavoring taste different. The experience in the tea house was new for them, they never thought about you can have nice meals and also nice tea in a place at the same time.

Not just young generations like to hang out with friends in the tea house, tea house also a place to spend time with family, for this reason, that's why the menu is getting diversify. If you are not that hungry but would like to have something to taste, snacks would be a good choice too, deep fried tofu, Dian xin, fried chips, western and Taiwanese snacks would be server in the tea house as well.

Different take away tea shops and tea houses are keeping sort out interesting flavoring tea. Also, each tea shop or tea house have their own customer. If you travel to Taiwan, you must try the tea culture in Taiwan. If you can't speak or read Chinese, then I could tell you what my Singaporean friends did. They used finger to point items on the menu and tell the staff what they want, it's a good way to make an order, don't you think so?

Gou Mao, a wild vegatable in Taiwan

Do you remember the article about the country side in Hualien? I was mention about a wild vages FERN, people call it Gou Mao in Taiwan. Few days ago my mum bought a big bunch of Gou Mao from a farmer whom cultivate it, she picks the soft part and get ready to cook it. As I said before, you could boiling it or fried it, my mum choose to fried it by wok.

Add oil to the wok and add chili, garlic and ginger, when you smell the fragrance of them, add Gou Mao and fried it. Don't forget to add some rice wine, it could make the fried vages taste better and keep the vages green, after flavoring, there is a yummy fried Gou Mao get ready for eat. So if you never try Gou Mao before, I think you sure give it to go, maybe you would love it!