A: Finally, I am able to send a birthday card to my niece in the UK.
B: What was the problem before? Couldn’t you afford the price of a stamp?
A: No, for a period of time there was no post to certain countries, due to the pandemic. The post office is now accepting mail to the UK again.
Photo: Pixabay 照片:Pixabay
B: That’s a relief. I have a care package that I want to send to my son, who is studying over there.
A: You should check at the post office. I’m not sure they’re able to send large parcels.
A: 我終於能寄生日卡給在英國的姪女了。
B: 之前不能寄嗎?難道你買不起郵票啊?
A: 不是啦,受到疫情影響,有一段時間沒辦法寄東西到某些國家,現在郵局重新接受寄往英國的郵件了。
B: 那就好,我正想寄個愛心包裹給我兒子,他在英國留學。
A: 你應該先向郵局確認,我不確定他們目前能不能寄大件包裹。
(Paul Cooper, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩譯)
Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
Rice is an essential ingredient in Taiwanese cuisine. Many foods are made of rice, adding more variety to our cooking, such as rice cake, or “gui.” Wagui is made by steaming rice flour batter in a bowl. The term “gui” refers to a type of food made from rice, while “wa” refers to a bowl. The pronunciation of “gui” in Taiwanese Hokkien is similar to the word for “nobility” in Chinese, so it is common for people to prepare various types of gui, including wagui, as offerings to the gods or ancestors,. 米是台灣重要的主食,用米製成的食品十分多元,豐富我們的飲食,如米做成的「粿」。粿的意思是米做成的糕點,碗粿是將在來米漿倒入碗中蒸熟,因而得名。粿因為音同「貴」,因此碗粿等粿食常用作供品祭拜神明和祖先。 nobility (n.) 高貴,高尚;貴族 offering (n.) 供品 While Taiwan may not be
It’s no secret that Japanese people have a deep affection for noodles. Like in the rest of East Asia, noodles are an important staple food, second only to rice. Japanese people have enjoyed noodles for over 1,000 years. The first noodles came from China and were introduced around 800 CE. As time passed, noodles in Japan not only became widespread but also developed some unique Japanese characteristics. The three most popular types of noodles in Japan are ramen, soba, and udon. Ramen, typically made from wheat flour, is usually thin and firm. The dough is kneaded and left to
On Tuesday last week, the flame for this summer’s Paris Olympics was lit at the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games in southern Greece in a meticulously choreographed ceremony. It will then be carried through Greece for more than 5,000km before being handed over to French organizers at the Athens venue used for the first modern Olympics in 1896. The pageantry at Olympia has been an essential part of every Olympics for nearly 90 years since the Games in Berlin. It’s meant to provide an ineluctable link between the modern event and the ancient Greek original on which it was initially modelled. Once
Drive-through (or drive-thru) restaurants provide people with the immense convenience of being able to purchase and pick up meals without needing to leave their vehicles. These restaurants have been around for decades, and their success has spawned a number of equally handy services. The drive-through concept originated with the drive-in restaurant, the first of which was established in the US in 1921. Patrons would order and eat the food that was delivered to their cars by workers called “carhops.” Ten years later, a drive-through service was introduced, but it was not until 1947 that the first exclusively drive-through restaurant opened its