A: Listen, the garbage truck’s coming, quick!
B: Wow, it’s time for the Taiwanese most important evening social ritual! As soon as you hear The Maiden’s Prayer, it’s like someone’s pushed a button, you get all flustered, grab all the garbage bags and rush out of the door as if your life depended on it.
A: Ha ha. When in Rome… Hey, look, she seems to be the one who just moved in. And she’s rather well dressed.
Photo: Hua Meng-ching, Liberty Times 照片:自由時報記者花孟璟
B: Yeah, not like us, standing here in our flip-flops and shorts, the standard get-up.
A: Well, I once had a roommate who would insist on changing into their outdoor clothes and shoes whenever they took the trash out, not wanting to look too unkempt, but also wanting to be prepared to run after the garbage truck.
B: Let’s go and say hi to the new neighbor.
A: 你聽,垃圾車來了,快衝!
B: 哇!台灣人每天晚上最重要的社交儀式來了!你們一聽到《少女的祈禱》,就好像被按到什麼開關,都忽然變得好緊張,拿著大包小包的垃圾拼命往前衝!
A: 哈哈,你也已經入境隨俗了啊!欸,你看,她好像是最近搬來的鄰居耶!穿得還蠻漂亮的。
B: 對呀,不像我們,大家都穿人字拖鞋、短褲,這是標準配備。
A: 可是我以前的室友,每次倒垃圾都堅持要換成外出服和鞋子,說是怕太邋遢,而且也方便追垃圾車。
B: 我們去跟新鄰居打個招呼吧!
(Translated by Paul Cooper, Taipei Times/台北時報林俐凱 )
Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
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Around the time of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, the streets of Taiwan are filled with the delightful aroma of zongzi, a traditional snack made of sticky rice wrapped in leaves. The leaves are folded into a cone and then filled with sticky rice and other ingredients such as braised pork belly, peanuts and salted duck egg yolks. The filled leaves are then tightly tied with kitchen twine and ready for cooking. 每到六月端午時節,街頭巷尾就會飄出粽子的香氣。粽子是將糯米包進粽葉的傳統美食,先將粽葉折成圓錐狀塞入糯米,以及紅燒肉、花生、鹹鴨蛋黃等配料,用棉線綁緊後即可烹煮。 Dragon Boat Festival (n. phr.) 端午節 aroma
Everyone has seen a piece of fruit turn brown after being cut. Have you ever wondered why that happens? It is a common phenomenon that occurs due to a chemical reaction called enzymatic browning. The appearance, flavor and nutritional value of the fruit are all affected by this reaction. Some fruits, such as apples, pears, bananas, avocados and peaches, are more prone to enzymatic browning than others. These fruits contain high levels of an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase, or PPO for short. __1__ This causes a chain of chemical reactions that ultimately transforms the phenolic compounds into
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