So, I was at the Nan Dae Mum market when it was around the dinner time.
As I was walking around, I walked into this street where the restaurants show you the samples... Unfortunately, even by looking at the samples themselves, you still can't quite tell what these dishes are... except for.. by the color of the dish, you know the majority of them have hot chilly sauce as one of the ingredients.
At some point, I chose one of these restaurants where there was AC.... ordering my food by finger pointing... while asking... "Is this Korean?"
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| My first dinner in Seoul |
To be honest, I can't quite tell you what this dish is... since... in order to forget something, you need to know what it is first. Since I had never really known what it was, it makes it impossible for me to forget it.. right? 8-O lol
All that I could recall is... there is kimchi, blood and intestine of some kind.
The dish also came with a bowl of rice and four side dishes.
From then on, this became my default shopping method regardless whether it is the watery yellow peaches or this sausage like snack ... finger-pointing plus "That... How much?" (Finger-pointing has never felt more legit.... 8-O lol)
What is stuffed inside of this sausage like traditional Korean snack might be sticky rice and some kind of blood... sort of like the Taiwanese 糯米大腸 minus blood... (I even took a trip to the night market to get some 糯米大腸 in order to show you what the Taiwanese sticky rice sausage looks like)
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| Korean sausage stuffed with sticky rice etc |
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| Taiwanese sausage stuffed with sticky rice etc |
So, after my short trip in Korea, I went to Shanghai... feeling such a relief because... come on... I grew up in Chinese!
Though, to be honest... I was only semi-literate...
So my brother-in-law dropped me at the Bund so that I could take a small walk on the boardwalk. We were supposed to meet up somewhere after I walked past the 百度橋 (Baidu Bridge)... When trying to locate my brother-in-law, I saw a armed guard and a sign like the one shown in the picture..."卫兵神圣, 不可侵犯"...
Well, the word "兵" is the same in both the traditional and the simplified Chinese. That I recognized...
Yet, I couldn't recognize the word 卫... As a result, in my attempt to understand these four words, I replaced the word 卫 with the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols ㄗ...
Since this sign was located right next to an armed soldier or a police, the term "卫兵" must refer to some kind of soldier.
As for the second part of the phrase "神圣," the first word 神 is also the same in both traditional and simplified Chinese. Yet, the word "圣" looked almost like the word "經". Combining these two words together, we have the phrase "神經"... which, in English, would mean... "Neurotic."
In other words, this sign tells people that.... "The [some kind of] soldier is neurotic. Shouldn't be assaulted or offended." 8-O
怎麼會這樣? How could it be?
Doesn't quite make sense..... although... there is something true to it... you don't want to offend neurotic people... @#$&*@#$
Finally, I found my brother in law. As we were driving by the Russian embassy next to the Baidu bridge, I saw the guard and the sign again... and commented...
"Why do they tell people that the soldier is neurotic and should not be assaulted?"
Ended up, the word "圣" is not... "經"... rather it is the simplified version of "聖"... with these two words "神聖" together meaning... "sacred."
Thus... the reason why the guards shouldn't be assaulted or offended is not because they are neurotic but because they are... sacred... It is 衛兵神聖 rather than ㄗ兵神經... 8-O lol
(Aren't you so glad that I am not your Chinese teacher?! lol)
Guess this is the reason why... children of the world... wherever you are.... it is very important to develop your literacy skill... otherwise, not only would you have problem putting food on the dinner table, you might think of something sacred as neurotic. 8-O lol
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