Typhoons, Blackouts and Travel in Taiwan

4th, September, 2023, Daily English Writing #3

The whether today is quite unstable. Due to the typhoon ‘HaiKui,’ we have two days off. It’s somewhat rare for a typhoon to strike Taiwan and lead to a day-off. In fact, in almost a decade, residents here may have experienced water shortages or restrictions, extremely high temperatures in the summer and occasional power failures, but not typhoons. I would kindly suggest that those who want to travel to Taiwan avoid visiting during the summer. The hot temperature can be torturous, especially when there is an unpredictable blackout.

今天天氣相當不穩定。因為海葵颱風的影響，我們放了兩天颱風假。這在臺灣有點稀奇。接近十年來，居民可能經歷過缺水限水、夏季高溫、停電，但是颱風挺少的。我會誠摯地建議想到臺灣旅遊的人避開夏天。高溫簡直就是酷刑，無預警停電的時候更是如此。

Spring and Fall in Taiwan are more enjoyable. The whether is mild, the temperature is moderate and the spirit is bright. Spring Festival (aka Lunar New Year) and Mid-Autumn Festival (aka Moon Festival) are two of the most important holidays in Chinese communities. The decorations on the streets demonstrate how much Chinese people value these special events. Although people criticize how commercial those holidays have become recently, it is still joyful to relax and spend some quality time with family and friends on these days.

在臺灣，春天和秋天兩個季節是比較怡人的。氣候溫和，溫度適中，人們的精神也比較好。春節和中秋節對華人群體是最重要的兩個節日。街景上的裝飾也可以展現出華人對這些節慶多麼重視。雖然大家會批評最近這些節日變得很商業化，能夠在這樣的節日中放鬆以及與家人朋友享受美好時光還是非常令人開心。

Once again, I turned to ChatGPT for assistance. This time I asked ChatGPT to score my writing, which might frustrate me. Well, it turned out to be okay. As a non-native user, I need to practice more. After all, practice makes perfect.

再一次用 ChatGPT 協助。這次我要求 ChatGPT 幫我的寫作評分，雖然我知道分數可能會讓我很挫折……不過結果其實還 OK。對我這樣的非母語使用者，還是需要多練習才能進步，畢竟就像英語俗話講的：Practice makes perfect。

Today’s progress

1. Daily writing: 5 out of 10 (scored by ChatGPT)
2. Touch-typing practice