阿凸仔也民調
◎ Biko Lang
自由廣場的讀者或許還記得筆者去年七月中旬發表有關西方人對「阿凸仔」這個稱呼的負面觀感。其實這篇文章的英文版早在去年五月份台北時報(Taipei Times)發表之後，TNS模範巿場研究公司(TNS Taiwan)就阿凸仔的問題舉辦了一次民調。從2009/5/22到2009/5/24三天期間，超過兩萬五千多位台灣人參與了是項民調。
就因為這份民調相當有趣，筆者特別引述其簡要如下，以饗讀者：
您是否使用「阿凸仔」來通稱西方人士？ 45％ 說（是），55％ 說（不）。 當您發現有些在台西方人士認為「阿凸仔」帶有無禮的負面感覺時，您是否會停止使用？ 93％ 說（會停用），7％ 說（繼續使用）。
值得一提的是，這項民調受訪人數高達25.276位，而受訪人的剖面概況是依目前台灣總人口之性別及年齡層的比例來取樣的，其中年齡層則限定在十三到六十四歲之間。
筆者邀請有興趣的讀者們繼續回應。
（作者本名 Biko Lang, aka, Dan Bloom，為美籍資深新聞從業人員；翻譯者黃大河）
部落格http://www.goodweber.com/?terry
================
RE:
自由新聞 2009-7-14
翻譯官回應「阿凸仔」
◎ 黃大河
署名Biko Lang的西方人士，在自由廣場投書呼籲台灣人：請別叫我「阿凸仔」！其理由是因為許多住在台灣工作的西方人認為，那是一個侮辱和不尊敬的詞句，不應該出現在公眾場合。
筆者同意Biko的看法。打從少年時代開始接觸西方傳教士，到了成年在美軍駐台顧問團工作，筆者接觸過的西方人為數不少，但是我始終沒有使用過「阿凸仔」來稱呼西方人。當然，我承認目前在台灣還有許多人使用「阿凸仔」來稱呼西方人。在新加坡、馬來西亞等國家使用福建方言的華人族群裡，他們雖然不講出「阿凸仔」，卻使用另類獨特的稱呼。他們把西方白種人統稱為「紅毛仔」，看場合有時也叫「紅毛猴」，而且是現在進行式。在新加坡的地理中心地帶就有個大社區叫做紅毛橋（Ang Mo Kio）。新加坡政府早察覺到此語不妥，所以帶頭把華文的正式名稱改為「宏茂橋」，以期誘導新加坡人漸漸地淡忘「紅毛橋」。高明吧！比較之下，台灣的政府對此現象似乎很遲鈍，令「有品」的台灣人無語問蒼天。
（作者早期曾任美軍駐台顧問團翻譯官，
部落格http://www.goodweber.com/?terry）
Sunday, January 3, 2010
More on Taiwan's possible Y2K bug next year on January 1, 2011 because the ROC counts the years from 1911 birth of the nation of the ROC and therefore next year will be Year 100 and some computer systems might not be able to handle the three digits, 1-0-0-, for dating documents, such as inh banks, hospitals, schools, credit card firms, rather than 2 digits of 9-9. YES? NO? IS THERE GOING TO BE A PROBLEM?
Don in Taipie notes:
You relax dude. Gotta say false on the 2010/100 bug for Taiwan Year 100 on the ROC calendar. Every PC I've ever seen--and most
of them have parts or are completely made by Taiwanese-owned
companies--run a BIOS and OS that works on the Western calendar. Never
seen a BIOS set to the TW calendar; never seen a Taiwan-specific OS
for that matter, just localized versions of Mac, Windows and Ubuntu.
Then again, if I owned a PC software service company, I'd be spreading
fear of the bug and then offering expensive plans to "cure" it.
COMMENTS BELOW?
You relax dude. Gotta say false on the 2010/100 bug for Taiwan Year 100 on the ROC calendar. Every PC I've ever seen--and most
of them have parts or are completely made by Taiwanese-owned
companies--run a BIOS and OS that works on the Western calendar. Never
seen a BIOS set to the TW calendar; never seen a Taiwan-specific OS
for that matter, just localized versions of Mac, Windows and Ubuntu.
Then again, if I owned a PC software service company, I'd be spreading
fear of the bug and then offering expensive plans to "cure" it.
COMMENTS BELOW?
Taiwan ROC computer bug in 2011... maybe ....see news here
Taiwan ROC computer bug in 2011... maybe ....see news here
i got the news from Louise Bystron, wife of Swedish
ambassador here. she says in 2011, the Taiwan-related year computers
will go from current year 99 to year 100, but the system cannot handle the 3
digits. true or false?
because Taiwan uses the 1911 date as founding of nation date and all newspapers and schools and hospitals use year 99 now....and next will be year 100, the 100th anniversay of the founding of Taiwan ROC in 1911, will this be a new computer problem... maybe>?
i got the news from Louise Bystron, wife of Swedish
ambassador here. she says in 2011, the Taiwan-related year computers
will go from current year 99 to year 100, but the system cannot handle the 3
digits. true or false?
because Taiwan uses the 1911 date as founding of nation date and all newspapers and schools and hospitals use year 99 now....and next will be year 100, the 100th anniversay of the founding of Taiwan ROC in 1911, will this be a new computer problem... maybe>?
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Shakur Kapor, new movie titled PAANI about water wars in future in un named city
Golden Age Creative Adda | Golden Age Diary | Astrophysicist
« Water Wars again ? Can we turn Bangladesh into a Desert ? | Main | Paani - can the making of fim be a community event ? »
December 18, 2009 | 10:16 AM
Copenhagen talks are a complete sham : the wisdom of the prostitutes
In protest the prostitutes of Copenhagen offered free sex to the delegates of the Conference on Climate Change. They knew that nothing else would come off it, so just come and have fun u guys - and since your tax payers paid for all of you to fly down for a sojourn have a few drinks on us too.
What is Copenhagen about ? Posturing ? Politicking ? Individual political profiling ? The whole meaning of the climate conference is lost in meaningless and endless documents and words. The environmental cost of leaders of the world is stunning if nothing comes off it - and it seems nothing will. Meaningless stupidity.
I feel sorry and ashamed that I joined thousands of people around the world to encourage our Prime Minister to go. I did not realize it would have been so easy to subvert the process through such incredible complexity. It is so obvious that not one of the heads of state actually mean what they say.
The planet suffers from over consumption, period. 5 % of the populations consumes 80% of the worlds resources. So we HAVE to learn to live with less. We have to think about everything we do, right from simple things like how much water we expend in a shower, to the environmental cost of packaged food, even to number of clothes we buy, knowing that cotton growing is a hugely water consumptive activity,
We need to reevaluate the way we live.
And yet there is such a contradiction in what we call economic recovery- the so called Stimulus Plans all over the world ! They all work on getting the consumer to go back to consumption levels before the economic meltdown world - wide. The government of the United States is celebrating a a pre - Christmas shopping frenzy in the US as a sign of economic health -
But what about the health of our planet ?
« Water Wars again ? Can we turn Bangladesh into a Desert ? | Main | Paani - can the making of fim be a community event ? »
December 18, 2009 | 10:16 AM
Copenhagen talks are a complete sham : the wisdom of the prostitutes
In protest the prostitutes of Copenhagen offered free sex to the delegates of the Conference on Climate Change. They knew that nothing else would come off it, so just come and have fun u guys - and since your tax payers paid for all of you to fly down for a sojourn have a few drinks on us too.
What is Copenhagen about ? Posturing ? Politicking ? Individual political profiling ? The whole meaning of the climate conference is lost in meaningless and endless documents and words. The environmental cost of leaders of the world is stunning if nothing comes off it - and it seems nothing will. Meaningless stupidity.
I feel sorry and ashamed that I joined thousands of people around the world to encourage our Prime Minister to go. I did not realize it would have been so easy to subvert the process through such incredible complexity. It is so obvious that not one of the heads of state actually mean what they say.
The planet suffers from over consumption, period. 5 % of the populations consumes 80% of the worlds resources. So we HAVE to learn to live with less. We have to think about everything we do, right from simple things like how much water we expend in a shower, to the environmental cost of packaged food, even to number of clothes we buy, knowing that cotton growing is a hugely water consumptive activity,
We need to reevaluate the way we live.
And yet there is such a contradiction in what we call economic recovery- the so called Stimulus Plans all over the world ! They all work on getting the consumer to go back to consumption levels before the economic meltdown world - wide. The government of the United States is celebrating a a pre - Christmas shopping frenzy in the US as a sign of economic health -
But what about the health of our planet ?
Friday, January 1, 2010
If the predictions of British scientist James Lovelock are any guide....
If the predictions of British scientist James Lovelock are any guide
to the future, climate change and global warming are unstoppable now,
and the next 500 years will bring major changes to life on Earth as we
know it now. Billions of people from central and temperate regions
will move north, Lovelock says, finding refuge in climate refuges
known as polar cities in Alaska and Canada.
>
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin does not believe in Lovelock's
predictions, preferring to base her life and thinking on the baseless
predictions of the Bible and the debunked ideas of Intelligent Design.
While she believes that global warming is real, she also believes it
is caused not by men and their machines but by the natural cycles of
the Sun and Moon.
>
> But with her head in the sand, Palin -- widely tipped to be the
> Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential elections in the USA --
> cannot fathom the ideas of Dr Lovelock. Nor can she fathom the ideas
> of a former Alaskan resident named Danny Bloom who bills himself as
> "a modern-day climate Jeremiah" on blogs and websites worldwide.
> Bloom, taking his cue from interviews with Lovelock, is predicting
> that millions, perhaps billions, of climate refugees will flood Alaska
> in the coming centuries, beginning around 2121 A.D. and continuing
> until well in what he calls "The Great Interruption" (a 10,000-year
> period in which all of mankind will migrate north to polar cities in
> the Arctic regions in order to serve as breeding pairs for the
> survival of the human species).
>
> Bloom says that as the Earth heats up in the next 100 to 500 years,
> temperatures will rise, sea levels will rise, food will become scarce
> in the Lower 48 due to soaring temperatures in agricultural areas and
> millions of Americans (and Mexicans) will move "north to Alaska". The
> modern-day climate Jeremiah predicts that these events will not signal
> the end of the world but the beginning of a new chapter in human
> history, with a lot hanging on the outcome.
>
> "If we survive The Great Interruption, the human species will be okay,
> and we will thrive again later," Bloom, 60, says. "I am an optimist
> and I fully believe we will survive, the breeding pairs in the Arctic
> will become part of Lifeboat Earth and all will be well, in the end.
> Around 12,500 A.D, humans will come out of the polar cities in the
> north and begin to repopulate the Earth again. I only wish former
> Governor Palin could understand the massive shift that is about to
> begin. Sadly, due to her education and upbringing, she cannot see the
> forest from the trees. She thinks everything is okay now, and that Al
> Gore and James Lovelock are nuts, not to mention James Hansen or Mark
> Lynas. But the descendants of Sarah Palin in the next few centuries
> come to learn just how wrong their famous relative was!"
>
> Bloom predicts that by the year 2500 A.D. the entire U.S. government
> will have relocated north to Alaska and parts of Canada. The Northern
> White House will be in Juneau, he says. The U.S. Congress will be
> housed on the campus of what is now the Univeristy of Alaska in
> Fairbanks. And the Supreme Court will be located in Anchorage, Alaska,
> housed in the buildings that were formerly part of the then-defunct
> Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport there. By 2500, Bloom
> says, there will be no more aviation fuel and all airplanes worldwide
> will be grounded.
>
> So get ready, Alaska, for an influx of millions of climate refugees
> and climate stragglers within the next 500 years. The flood will occur
> slowly, glacially, over time, and the state will be able to handle the
> mass migration events as they occur. But it won't be a pretty picture,
> Bloom says, comparing it to something like when "'Mad Max' meets
> Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'."
>
> Bloom's jeremiads on the Internet are worth reading, if only to get a
> glimpse of what the future might be for our descendants, a few
> centuries down the road. On the other hand, this modern-day Jeremiah
> might be completely off his rocker and not worth listening to at all.
>
> Would you wager he's right or that he's going to be way wrong? It''s
> food for thought, if nothing else. Sarah Palin might even consider the
> consequences.
> --
> POLAR CITIES:
> http://pcillu101.blogspot.com
to the future, climate change and global warming are unstoppable now,
and the next 500 years will bring major changes to life on Earth as we
know it now. Billions of people from central and temperate regions
will move north, Lovelock says, finding refuge in climate refuges
known as polar cities in Alaska and Canada.
>
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin does not believe in Lovelock's
predictions, preferring to base her life and thinking on the baseless
predictions of the Bible and the debunked ideas of Intelligent Design.
While she believes that global warming is real, she also believes it
is caused not by men and their machines but by the natural cycles of
the Sun and Moon.
>
> But with her head in the sand, Palin -- widely tipped to be the
> Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential elections in the USA --
> cannot fathom the ideas of Dr Lovelock. Nor can she fathom the ideas
> of a former Alaskan resident named Danny Bloom who bills himself as
> "a modern-day climate Jeremiah" on blogs and websites worldwide.
> Bloom, taking his cue from interviews with Lovelock, is predicting
> that millions, perhaps billions, of climate refugees will flood Alaska
> in the coming centuries, beginning around 2121 A.D. and continuing
> until well in what he calls "The Great Interruption" (a 10,000-year
> period in which all of mankind will migrate north to polar cities in
> the Arctic regions in order to serve as breeding pairs for the
> survival of the human species).
>
> Bloom says that as the Earth heats up in the next 100 to 500 years,
> temperatures will rise, sea levels will rise, food will become scarce
> in the Lower 48 due to soaring temperatures in agricultural areas and
> millions of Americans (and Mexicans) will move "north to Alaska". The
> modern-day climate Jeremiah predicts that these events will not signal
> the end of the world but the beginning of a new chapter in human
> history, with a lot hanging on the outcome.
>
> "If we survive The Great Interruption, the human species will be okay,
> and we will thrive again later," Bloom, 60, says. "I am an optimist
> and I fully believe we will survive, the breeding pairs in the Arctic
> will become part of Lifeboat Earth and all will be well, in the end.
> Around 12,500 A.D, humans will come out of the polar cities in the
> north and begin to repopulate the Earth again. I only wish former
> Governor Palin could understand the massive shift that is about to
> begin. Sadly, due to her education and upbringing, she cannot see the
> forest from the trees. She thinks everything is okay now, and that Al
> Gore and James Lovelock are nuts, not to mention James Hansen or Mark
> Lynas. But the descendants of Sarah Palin in the next few centuries
> come to learn just how wrong their famous relative was!"
>
> Bloom predicts that by the year 2500 A.D. the entire U.S. government
> will have relocated north to Alaska and parts of Canada. The Northern
> White House will be in Juneau, he says. The U.S. Congress will be
> housed on the campus of what is now the Univeristy of Alaska in
> Fairbanks. And the Supreme Court will be located in Anchorage, Alaska,
> housed in the buildings that were formerly part of the then-defunct
> Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport there. By 2500, Bloom
> says, there will be no more aviation fuel and all airplanes worldwide
> will be grounded.
>
> So get ready, Alaska, for an influx of millions of climate refugees
> and climate stragglers within the next 500 years. The flood will occur
> slowly, glacially, over time, and the state will be able to handle the
> mass migration events as they occur. But it won't be a pretty picture,
> Bloom says, comparing it to something like when "'Mad Max' meets
> Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road'."
>
> Bloom's jeremiads on the Internet are worth reading, if only to get a
> glimpse of what the future might be for our descendants, a few
> centuries down the road. On the other hand, this modern-day Jeremiah
> might be completely off his rocker and not worth listening to at all.
>
> Would you wager he's right or that he's going to be way wrong? It''s
> food for thought, if nothing else. Sarah Palin might even consider the
> consequences.
> --
> POLAR CITIES:
> http://pcillu101.blogspot.com
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