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Today I decided to go looking through some of my old photos from Taiwan to find some of the more peculiar things I have stumbled upon while being in the far east. Obviously, Taiwan is a place with lots of interesting things. Many of which will seem somewhat bizarre to foreigners despite the locals being totally used to them.
To start out with, here's a picture that will seem more strange than it actually is. Frog eggs are what the Taiwanese like to call the chewy, black things that go in drinks such as pearl milk tea. Pearl milk tea looks like this:
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The frog eggs are actually made from some kind of seed from a plant I don't know. They only resemble frog eggs on the looks and their soft, sticky texture. If real frog eggs are anything like fish eggs, then these things are nothing like that at all. They're more dense and chewy in the core and very soft on the outside. Pearl Milk Tea is really just milk with tea and a little sugar and then these "frog eggs". You usually drink it with a big straw. It's quite an experience, and tastes good. But don't get addicted, you'll just end up becoming fat.
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Take a close look at this picture. Can't find the button for 4th floor? Guess what? There is no 4th floor!
Many Taiwanese are superstitious to some degree. Since many of their words sound similar, they often connotate certain things to other just because of their sounding. Four sounds a little similar to "death" in Chinese, so superstitiout people don't like this number.
Despite this, you'll probably find lots of 4th floors still, just not in the house of my second host family.
Similarly, the Chinese word for "book" sounds a lot similar to "loose", so don't give books as a present to people who enjoys gambling.
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Since Taiwan is an Asian country, there'll be lots of Engrish too. Actually the Taiwanese are in general much better than most Asians at English, so you'll probably find more of this in China and Japan, but it's still possible to find a few rather hilarious translations.
But Engrish is not the only thing. Some places you might just find really weird names for products or stores, such as Love Milk, or this peculiar Hair Salon in Tainan.
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Then of course, there's art. Taiwanese museums don't seem to be very picky. Actually they often exhibit some rather experimenting things, such as these cars with a lightshow that makes one think of explosions.
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One thing is cars hanging from the ceiling. Another thing is this weird manlady thing with disproportionate head and body. What does it mean? It was at an exhibition with undertones of sexuality and perversion, but also just generally estranging installations such as anthromorph superheroes/villains and a digital man picking apart his own limbs amongst other things. I think some of it was made by a japanese artist, but it's still the kind of things you can bump into in Taiwan.
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Now for the edibles. Stuff that you can eat is probably what is going to surprise you the most. This is just one of many strange things Taiwanese like to eat: Chicken feet. There's not really any meat on this. It is just skin and bones, but Taiwanese women love to eat it because they believe it will benefit their own skin.
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An even more unlikely chicken product is this: Essence of Chicken.
Yeah, that's probably not a gramatically correct name. A more correct name would be Chicken Extract or something the like. It tastes horrible if I am to rate it. It's just really concentrated chicken, perhaps mixed with herbs or some medicine, who knows? I wrote more about it in this article: Essence of Chicken.
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And then there's this: A whole, fried chicken.
Yeah. Taiwanese love chicken. I do too. But there's another animal they love just as much, and it's pig. And they'll eat all of it's organs too. Skin, ears, intestines, everything. Read The Four Gods Soup to find out just to what extend they eat pigs innards.
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I've already done a fair share of food blogging, and I will need to do more, but I won't be able to condense all of their weird foods down to one post.
This here is a small mouse in a glass jar. It's a prize at a night market game stall. You win by throwing a tabletennis ball into the jar. I guess Taiwan has it's less romantic sides too. Treat animals more nicely, please.
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Oh yeah, and Taiwan has aboriginees. Whole cities are dedicated to them, so if you suddenly see drawings of people with spears on rocks and other strange things - don't worry. This is just another side of Taiwan.
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I could go on forever. One year in Taiwan brings in lots of memories. I'd like to end this post with this photo of a kind of robot you can sometimes see around the big shopping streets in Taiwan. It's a big, walking balloon actually, and you'll be seeing chicken, robots, anthromorphic food and all sorts of stuff walking about if you're lucky. These are usually herded by an employee from the company that set it on the street who will hand out flyers asking people to come eat at their restaurant or visit their shop.
Well.. Maybe I'll make a sequel some time.