Chinese-English, English-Chinese

This is Jasmine and me on our language exchange yesterday

Who needs a dictionary in Taipei, when there is such a thing as language exchange? Not me!
But then again...


who needs a camera when you have a phone?

Not Jasmine. She can take and send photos from anywhere, of anything, including...

her coffee

Life is becoming so "convenient" and city life seems to be the heart of all conveniences. Mobile phones a.k.a cell phones a.k.a handy's... the list goes on.. they are what was envisioned when someone breathed in before coming up with the term mod-con. They used to be used to make quick calls when you wanted to meet your friend in a crowded place, and send text messages to say you would be ten minutes late. (how many people have that message saved and ready to send just before they leave their house?) But now you can surf the net, download music and ring tones, and, as witnessed above, take and send photos. And i'm sure there's more that i haven't mentioned, and that i don't know about, and that will be released on the market tomorrow..

But these conveniences don't come without their problems. My phone is forever running out of either credit (cause i'm pre-paid charge card inhibited) or batteries. And when this happens it completely cripples my ability to function. I'm so dependent on the tiny little machine, that i can't think of how to contact someone without it. And even when i'm not trying to contact someone i just feel nervous that i might need to and won't be able to.

Anyway, back to the language exchange. I started meeting Jasmine about four months ago, during my energy high brought on by my 25th birthday, and realisation that i should be acomplishing more. We try to meet once a week, usually on Sunday evenings, but sometimes have to reschedule or just take a week off here or there... *slack* We do an hour of English and an hour of Chinese, and i'm VERY slowly starting to recognise basic characters around town. Jasmine's English is brilliant. We read newspaper articles and such together and i correct pronunciation and explain difficult words, which there are a lot of in journalistic writing. (sometimes i don't even know what a word means, or how to describe it). We gossip, drink tea/coffee and sometimes go shopping afterward if they're still open.

Jasmine works for EMI music, and a few months ago she scored free passes to a show when a company backed DJ was spinning at Luxy, a real club, with three areas to party to different music styles, and a place to see all sorts of fashion trends (and disasters..) It's probably my favorite night club in Taipei, though I've only been there once, and feel too daggy to go most weekends -and too poor. Next week we're planning to have our exchange in Ximending, a "cool" part of town with great shopping -for youngters, which we're coordinating with the Taipei Film Festival. We're planning to see a Japanese film called Install, about a ten year old boy who makes millions(?) selling porn over the internet. Hmmmm. Idea's man.


I've plans to cook today. Nubia and I are going to put her huge new kitchen and real oven to good use!