It makes you wonder

(Those with an aversion to bad language or, more precisely, the bad use of bad language should skip this post.)

Okay, this was the view I was greeted with while eating my breakfast this morning. I knew I should have stuck with my original breakfast spot (despite the annoyances of lady who seems to believe it is her right to force me to teach English to her twin daughters.) Bigger than death. "Tit". This is the name of a posh new highrise somewhere in the city. And, to make things even worse, this is not even the only sign for it. I spotted another one up by the train station later in the day.

And, you know, where you have "T", you'd better have "A", right? This offering is from the traditional "wet market" at Nanmen, home of meat on slabs, live frogs the size of both your fists together (those're called "field chickens"), fish with their tails tied to their heads, and bin upon bin of unidentifiable, salty-smelling stuff to eat. Makes me want to pop open an icy cold can of "Pocari Sweat" (I am not making this up).




These aren't linguistically obscene, but if you think about the concept long enough, it kind of seems like it. Dog socks? Although half the dogs you see in Taipei are scruffy old streetwise mutts, while the other half are tiny drop-kick dogs who have been stuffed into the purse of some woman with suspiciously maroon hair, a short skirt, tights and high heels on, wearing (the dog, usually) an expression of "Kill me now."

And then, just to round things off, you have the nutters. The banner declares, "In this yearʻs election, Ma Ying-jeou will win. This is the Will of Heaven." The last line, which I canʻt make out from the picture, says something about some lesser political figure "who will be elected too." Since this was well after the Presidential election, I'm not really sure what the guy thought his role was.