Comments on: I Live With a Batty Old Lady

By: trevelyan

trevelyan — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 09:33:26 +0000

Assuming there was a good reason for her to be sprawled out on that table (I’d also suspect back trouble), the incoherence of the rest kind of follows. I’ve done and said some weird shit on being suddenly woke in strange places by foreigners bearing Hello Kitty toys.

I’m more concerned about your having slipped without protest into her Doraemon sect, offering up sacrifices from 7-11 in exchange for illusionary personal safety (”As long as I keep her supplied with toys….”). Sleep with one eye open and keep that door locked.

By: Landlady Reloaded | Doubting to shuō: Chinese, Investing, EFL and Being a Geek in Taiwan

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 13:16:38 +0000

[...] Oh, there’s been quite a bit to write about on the landlady front recently! If only I hadn’t been so busy this week, I’d have written earlier. For those of you who don’t know about the old Chinese lady who’s both my landlady and my flatmate, read I Live With a Batty Old Lady [...]

By: Dan B

Dan B — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 03:59:40 +0000

LOL! That is some funny shit Mark!

I still like sleeping on tables! (and you know I do stuff like that.)

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 18:26:43 +0000

OnTones, I’ve spent four of my last six years sleeping on futons, and I agree that there’s nothing wrong with hard surfaces. Many Taiwanese people have told me they thought it was weird not to have a bed, though. So did a number of Guatemalans.

In any case, the weird thing about my landlord wasn’t the fact that she was sleeping on a hard surface. The weird thing is that she chose the dining room table; it’s that she scared the shit out of me by abruptly asking me for my 7-11 prizes while I was tip-toeing by at 2AM. I had no idea she’d be sleeping there.

Since you’ve made a point of saying how weird I am for thinking she was weird, could you maybe enlighten us as to where outside the US you’ve been living over the last several years, and what sorts of hard surfaces people in those areas usually sleep on? Have you lived anywhere where sleeping on dining room tables is the norm?

By: OnTones

OnTones — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 13:21:08 +0000

Sleeping on hard surfaces is extremely common outside the US. It’s you that’s weird.

By: TC

TC — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 09:46:15 +0000

Haha. I knew this would happen. I wonder what she’ll do next. This woman could be the making of your blog-stardom.

By: Thoth

Thoth — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 15:32:01 +0000

Hmm, Dan’s comment is nothing new to me. That’s the Taiwan logic for you. You can’t shake it, now matter how bright or Westernized she is. I don’t know how men are, since I don’t talk to Taiwan men about these things. Ho does one change that? Probably living in Canada or American. Old British people are weird about things just like old Taiwanse people are. But I don’t know how much of that has passed onto their kids. Ah, culture. I don’t know, Jeez.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 03:30:24 +0000

About her ‘dryers are unsanitary’ comment, my wife absolutely FLIPPED one time when she accompanied me to laundromat and saw me getting ready to wash my socks and underwear together. Her logic was: those go on your feet. In the washing machine they touch your underwear. Your underwear touches your thing. That goes you know where. So it’s basically like you’re putting your dirty feet you know where.

Sorry if that was crass; I tried to be as obtuse as possible… hehe \’-)

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 08:26:47 +0000

But Karen, what guy my own age would insist on giving me daily pieces of advice, refuse to take no for an answer when I say I don’t need an umbrella, or constantly go on about how I’m “such a young man to be so far away from home” even though I’m pushing 30? No, no. These are definitely old lady traits.

By: Karen from georgia

Karen from georgia — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 18:39:47 +0000

If she were a male roommate about your age, you would just laugh it off and think he had bad social skills. She just talks to you the same way she would talk to her friends. But sleeping on the table, hmmm…blame it on a bad back or something. Tell her she should take up tai chi or dancing with the people in the park.