Taiwan--Land of the Friendlies, Plus Exciting Laptop Update!

Taiwan has a reputation for being absurdly friendly and this is 100% true. People pratically fall over themselves to offer assistance. While there are a number of factors that contribute to this (natural friendliness, national pride, etc.), none of them are the point of this post. This post is to tell you about the most awesome grafitti EVER. On a concrete wall of an overpass outside the Taizhong High-Speed Rail Station, some young artist had graffitied a lovely and completely G-rated picture of a red-headed woman with the words "Welcome to Taiwan" written next to it, with the Chinese below it. Yes, this is the kind of country I am living in, one where even the graffiti is friendly and polite (and bilingual). I wish I had a picture of it. If the government lets it slide for a week, I'll take a picture next Sunday and post it. Perhaps I will even post a picture of the HSR station's "Kiss and Ride" sign. (I believe it's the drop-off area.)

And now, the exciting conclusion of "Adventures in Chinese: The Laptop Cord." No, I shouldn't lie, it's a very anti-climatic conclusion. After five days of not hearing anything from them and losing confidence that both sides had agreed the part should be ordered, Paul and I returned to the 3C store. The saleswoman instantly recognized us, and she swooped into action, rounding up the store's English-speaking manager. All of the customers and another employee also gathered round, just in case they were needed I suppose. After again verifying that we had not purchased the cord there, that our's was broken, and that we wanted a new one, the manager told us he could fix it in a day by splicing on a new connector. Naturally, we agreed, even with only a vague price tag of "yi dian dian," or a little bit (of money). For the official record, it did only cost a little bit and was done the next day. In short, although round two was linguistically a dud, it was a spectacular success monatarily and practically.