My daughter contemplates some daikon radishes ダイコン (báiluóbo 白蘿蔔) being dried in the sun. The above picture was taken this afternoon at a vast concrete plaza a short drive from our apartment building. It was originally built by The City Formerly Known As Fengyuan, or TCFKAF (or should that be The District Now Known As Fengyuan, or TDNKAF 豐原區?) to be the new home of a traditional market currently located under the train tracks near the intersection of Yuanhuan and Chungshan Roads. There are numerous concrete pillars erected for the stalls, and a large underground parking garage. However, for reasons unknown (to me, anyway), the market elected to stay in its present cramped (and odoriferous) location, and the city...er, district was left with a new, albeit unintended, recreation area. In addition to drying roots, the plaza is an ideal place for Amber to ride around on her new Hello Kitty ハローキティ bicycle. Along with the two of us, there were a father and son playing catch, a man practicing his tennis backhand against a wall and a middle-aged woman doing some power walking. The plaza may have been a waste of taxpayer money, but at least some citizens are not letting the space go to waste.
In case you're wondering, the character spray-painted on the wall in the background, 幹, does not mean "tree trunk", though that's the definition that will come up if you check an online character dictionary. Well, actually, it does that mean that most of the time, but in this context (according to my wife) gàn is the Mandarin equivalent of the F-bomb. Apparently the local graffiti community has found an ideal forum in which to realize their artistic visions.
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