rachelmanija: (Default)
rachelmanija ([personal profile] rachelmanija) wrote2007-02-22 09:54 am
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The Mysterious F and C

I forgot to mention that the hotel with the pharoah cherubs and the fake water drops also had key cards that frequently failed to open the doors, leaving us stranded outside till help arrived. Oyce, myself, Oyce's sister N., and N's friend B shared a room.

The first morning, B asked Oyce the words for hot and cold in Chinese. When Oyce replied, B said,"Oh, that doesn't work then... I wondered because the taps are labeled F and C, and I thought it might be in Chinese."

"Maybe the F is a badly-printed H." I suggested.

"F is cold and C is hot," said B. "Otherwise I would have guessed it was caldo and frio."

"Fahrenheit and Celsius?" I offered. Everyone heartily scorned that plausible theory.

It turned out that the taps were labeled in French, for chaud and froid.

The hotel was but one of the ways in which Taiwan kind of reminds me of India. Others are the markets with the food stalls and crowds of people, the narrow market streets packed with pedestrians, cars, and scooters, and the old gates at Hsinchu, in which the city grew outward from the original, so that the old city gates now mark the city center. It is generally much cleaner and less polluted, though, and as far as I am aware, India has no six-deep freeway overpasses, as I was impressed with in Taipei.

Plus, there are no random animals roaming the roads. There are quite a lot of tiny dogs in clothing, though. I saw a white fluffy dog in a dress and a chihuahua in overalls being pushed in a perambulator.
oyceter: teruterubouzu default icon (Default)

[personal profile] oyceter 2007-02-22 02:17 am (UTC)(link)
Oh! You forgot that the hotel had posted a teeny-weeny sticker above the light switch in the bathroom helpfully explaining F and C.

It was truly odd.
octopedingenue: (screw it. cue the lemur.)

[personal profile] octopedingenue 2007-02-22 02:22 am (UTC)(link)
Oh Lord, I remember the froid and chaud bit from French 101, with the textbook sidebar admonishment to not be the foolish l'américaine who scalds herself. Which does not mean I will remember it when I am personally faced with the faucets and it would be the most helpful.

I wonder if there are studies anywhere on whether dog clothing helps dogs or actually harms them by compressing their fur or whatnot.

[identity profile] rilina.livejournal.com 2007-02-22 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
Like [livejournal.com profile] octopedingenue, I also remember learning about this in French class, but I doubt I would have remembered it when confronted with the actual item.

[identity profile] dichroic.livejournal.com 2007-02-22 08:22 am (UTC)(link)
Caldo and frio are hot and cold, in that order - cognate with the French.

Re: French?

[identity profile] blistermyeye.livejournal.com 2007-02-23 02:43 am (UTC)(link)
There might be a fascinating story behind it.

Or not.