Finding Our Way Around 找路

If you look at a map, you'll see that Beitou is on the north side of Taipei. In fact, it literally means "North Head."

(Yeah, we know: "Toe" = "Head." Go figure. Also, a "Shoe" here is actually a "Tree." "Poo Boo" has nothing to do with having a lousy Halloween; it means "Waterfall.")

Back to the original point: we're learning how to get around on public transportation and on foot. The good maps are all in Chinese.
The best maps have both Chinese and English, at least enough English so Mark can get oriented. The tourist maps are kind of frustrating because they simply point out specific places tourists would want to go. How you get there doesn't seem to be important.

When we want to go somewhere, Ping goes to the computer to find the place and then hook up bus routes to see which one(s) will get us there from here. She's been quite successful! For example:

Got it. No problem.

(Ping points out that if she were trying to give Mark directions, she would have written it down in Pin Yin.)

Signs around here use a mix of screwy English semi-pronunciations and Pin Yin. Some signs spell things one way, and other signs spell the very same thing another way. Maps indicate a town called Danshui, but the MRT marquis spells the same place "Tamsui" even though the printed signs in the MRT station distinctly point out that the train is the "Danshui" Line. The "Keelung" River is actually "Qilong."

Why the difference? Ping explains that the old system is based on British spellings which were rough approximations of what the English-oriented ear heard when Chinese was spoken (remember when Beijing was called "Peking?"). Pin Yin is relatively new, and it's the best system so far for spelling Chinese words with a 26-letter alphabet.

The key element missing from virtually all signs and maps is the tones! True Pin Yin includes marks for the tones but these are omitted from most printed materials, so when Mark reads some alphabetically-spelled street sign to Ping, he often gets a puzzled look. There are 4 tones in Chinese (actually 5, but that's another story), so if the sign has three "syllables" in it and Mark doesn't already know the Chinese words for any of them, there are 4x4x4 = 64 possible combinations of tones. Ping has to guess which ones are most likely to come up with the actual words.

Imagine puzzling out where you are and where you're going in one language while trying to communicate with your husband in a totally different language. For you IT geeks, it's like trying to debug COBOL while writing the interface on the fly in Java. Sort of. That's the effort Ping goes through getting us from one place to another.

When we're on the bus, Mark looks out the window and tries to pick out street names. He tends to use various motorcycle and coffee shops as landmarks. "Oh, yeah, this is near the Kymco place on that main drag with so many helmet stores; not far from the 85 Degree cafe." Another good orientation landmark is a Jie Yuin Chan: an MRT station. Downtown, we can sometimes get an idea where we are by our position relative to Taipei 101, the once-tallest building in the world. Mark's looking forward to carrying a compass. He wishes he'd packed it in the luggage!

The buses are good here! And they're way cheaper than the train, so we're using them as much as possible. Lucky for us, our main stop is only two blocks away. We always pass the guys in the corner picnic area. Usually the Nearly Toothless Buddha calls out to us in Taiwanese, inviting us to sample whatever goodies they're munching at the time. At some point, we'll take him up on his offer! Then we take a left and walk down past the community garden. We don't know if it's an official garden, but the locals use pretty much every piece of arable soil for growing vegetables. When we get to the "T" at  Zhonghe Jie, we'll either cross the street to catch the southbound bus to Taipei, or go right to wait for the westbound bus to Zhuwei where Ping's family lives.

One way or another, we find our way. We're looking forward to getting an actual bus route book soon. Then we can really make use of the full system.