Now that the millenial fuss of the last two years has been dispensed with, 2002 comes in rather sheepishly and with only one meager aspect of numerical significance. It's a palindrome: a number, word or phrase that reads the same forwards and backwards.
Another example of a palindrome is "Bob," because spelled backwards or forwards it's still "Bob." Both "Bob" and 2002 are shorter and much more clearly apprehensible palindromes than "A Santa at NASA," "dumb mobs bomb mud" and many of the fine palindromes offered on the web site of The Palindromist magazine, like: "Eva, can I stack Rod's sad-ass, dork cats in a cave?" (Feel free to check these for yourself.)
When it comes to calendars, palindromes are fairly rare. Anyone who's now over 11-years-old, in fact, can consider themselves lucky, because they are preparing to celebrate the second (and probably last) palindrome year of their lives. The last palindrome on the Gregorian calendar came in 1991, and the last one before that came in 1881. The next will be 2112.
So barring those people who've lived to be 110 and timed it right, no one has lived through two palindromes in around a thousand years. That's right. In these advanced millenia, it's only about once about every thousand years, around the turn of any millenium, that some lucky people get to live through two palindromes. Which is why they consider themselves fortunate and go mad with celebration at the beginning of the palindromic new year. Or maybe they just celebrate like most people, for the heck of it.
Either way, Taiwan will have plenty of distractions to offer next Monday night for New Year's Eve. In major cities, governments, radio stations and cable channels will put loads of pop stars on open air stages before the public. The nation's concert halls will ring with symphonies and show tunes. Major hotels will serve special dinners. Dance clubs will, on average, double their cover charges. And some bars that charge an entrance fee on no other day of the year will ask their regular patrons to pay for the sad privilege of being somewhere crowded.
So to help you decide where to spend your New Year's Eve, we've compiled a rough guide of what's going on. So have fun in 2002 -- ninu fe vahos!
SPECIAL EVENTS
Hsimenting free concert, Taipei: Wave Radio, FM96.3, is sponsoring a free outdoor concert in the middle of Taipei's Hsimenting, bringing in the new year with stage performances from 7:30pm to 1am. The arrival of the new year will be signaled by the illumination of a column of light rings and the release of around 10,000 "wish balloons" bearing the wishes of spectators and performers alike. On stage, there will be at least 25 performing artists in all, including 30-minute sets by pop stars Winnie Hsin (
Taichung will have its own cavalcade of stars, with Jolin Tsai (
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