adding context

i’ll update as i go but as taiwanese i kinda wanna provide context
- bubble tea at 3pm is essential to work life. the stress of working needs to be relieved with refreshing tea or something sweet and chewable to help you power through the last few hours of work. honestly efficiency is gone by 3pm and being trapped for another 3 hours truly is torture so bubble tea benefits were the only thing i looked forward to while working (bubble tea doesn’t happen daily and usually is a benefit from the company)
- s1 ch 32: when there’s an appearance of mori hairbun* is a reference to detective conan that every taiwanese should be familiar with. conan who often uses his childhood friend ran’s dad (former police officer now freelance detective. his name is mori kogoro) as his front when he solves cases bc no one will trust a kid but will trust an adult detective. basically they are just saying the coworker is doing bad detective work bc detective mori is shit at deducing it’s an ongoing joke in detective conan
- valentine’s special: with the “stone and flower headquarters” is basically just saying it’s their home as a pun on their last names. shi is stone and hua is flower. so if u see anything like “little stone” or “little flower” it’s a nickname of affection. usually taiwanese use 阿 instead of 小?? either way it’s just a nickname using shi dongyun’s last name
- s2 ch 1: when lin says double wood that’s bc Chinese has SO MANY CHARACTERS so when people ask for ur last name u tell them the parts that make up the character more often than the most common phrase the word is used in. that way people will know the correct characters of ur name!
- s2 bonus: (karaoke with main couple) the song they are singing in the booth is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRwarsqzZ_M super recognizable must karaoke to song lololol
- s2 ch 6: duoduo green is basically yakult green tea. in taiwan we really love making things cute by adding words on top of each other like tutu (rabbit rabbit) bento. so the last letter of yakult (養樂多) for us is the sound “duo” and then we pile on it to make it sound cute uwu
- s2 ch 7: sbdw is a super old taiwanese band. so old in fact that one of the members is probably the top host/mc in taiwan and his daughter is also a really successful host/mc (think yoo jaesuk levels. the dad i mean). not important to the story but *slams desk* don’t have that many opportunities to tout taiwan ya feel. oh also their actual mandarin name is a reference to jazz scat singing “shoo bee doo wah”. and also all the songs he recs are really good ranging from classic to like mayday songs people are familiar with. also i just realized his name is the character for truth… no wonder he’s like that im crying ily lin shi (also do u see what i mean bc shi dongyun’s name the shi is stone where as the shi in lin shi is for truth)
- s2 halloween bonus: fucking crying at a’qiang’s “uniform”. it’s mostly reserved for election season where councilmen members AND their staff all dress in the color of their party
- s2 ch 11: wrong conversion lol he’s not paying his singing tutor that much taiwan doesn’t make that much money. yuan is chinese currency. taiwan uses ntd (new taiwan dollar) and roughly sits around 1 USD = 30 NTD. so he’s paying lin shi roughly 62.25 dollar per hour which is still A HUGE SUM bc our minimum wage for an hour is 196 NTD (6.10 USD). we use the same character for chinese yuan 元 (but so does japan with their yen) which is why it’s misleading
- s2 ch 16: he does not say wtf (i mean it’s more like what the fuck are u saying and shortening it to wtf takes away the taiwanese punch to it ok). it’s a taiwanese swear word/slang 供三小 to basically go what bullshit are u spewing. mostly used amongst close peers (unless ur itching to get punched in the face)
- the stickers lin shi designed:
row 1 column 3 = earthquake
row 2 column 1 is super cute using ㄅㄆㄇㄈ(like our katakana or hiragana) that basically says “fall over” in a cute childlike manner with the wrong spelling too
row 2 column 2 = 100 points or 100%
row 3 column 1 = a hint of a smile/slight smile. smiling when u don’t feel it for politeness etc
row 3 column 2 = “no get” no understand (when chinglish works well why bother)
row 3 column 3 = what?! (but like so informal u might get smacked over the head if u say it in front of elders. very japanese delinquent huh?!)
also their daughter’s name means that dongyun took fei’s last name (hua/flower) and their daughter is truly just a combination of their names (yun from dongyun with the same character for cloud)
- s2 ch 28: 轟 is a character made up of three 車 cars so like u can imagine the rumble sound. it depicts a loud noise but also most oftenly used to describe bombing thus its like an explosion sound too. also earthquakes are SUPER common in taiwan that we don’t hide unless it’s hella big. so this was at least a level 4 or above (makes sense with the power outage too bc it rarely happens but when it does u know it’s big enough to break something within the power grid)
- s2 ch 30: pretty sure their breakfast was danbing 蛋餅 it’s a flaky pancake (kind of like green onion pancake for the more modern version. the traditional take is a softer skin) and egg that’s wrapped within it. u pair it with this sweet and savory soy sauce glaze it’s pretty traditional Taiwanese breakfast food (u can get it at any shop. making it urself is a little time consuming so u wouldn’t do it normally)
- s2 ch 31: the author censors LINE (messaging software) but not taiwan beer???? also in the high school extra they also add in a pretty typical taiwanese snack. OH AND I JUST REALIZED FHEMDNDJD man taiwanese and our love of fucking puns. so remember how vice prez always calls lin shi snack (lingshi)? his seniors in the band call him guai guai which is actually a Taiwanese snack. SUPER FAMOUS like our entire tmsc business and tech rely on that one green coconut flavored puff bag. if u think ur machine isn’t working slap on a kuai kuai bc it means it’ll be “good good” (the machine will listen well and work properly). the proper name for it is kuai kuai and if ur curious pls look up “kuai kuai culture”
- s2 ch 36: end of year banquet (尾牙) depends on the company but should definitely happen as a way to say thanks and conclude the year on a high note. usually there’s lottery with prizes for company staff to win and larger companies will like hire singers and performance groups as well as very seasoned mcs to keep the atmosphere lively. larger companies will also allow u to bring ur whole family to the banquet (usually round table with like 10 courses and not a buffet) but i think this company is smaller so it’s just the staff and the supervisor humiliation ritual. oh this is also where they sometimes announce end of year bonuses and draw red pocket money
- s2 ch 37: since lin shi can’t go grab antibiotic he’s pressing on vice prez pressure points for indigestion. it’s an old method passed down from elders about like that area in ur snuff box being for relief of indigestion
- s2 ch 39: the hon is clearly airplane sfx but like the word itself would have clued a taiwanese reader about the airplane over head (bc it’s kinda specific)
- a/b/o part 2: after the marriage registration the title in brackets is just the sound of the camera clicking. when lin shi is packing the clothes for the hospital the title is just saying that BUT ALSO “nesting luggage” and not in the form of like omega nests but rather a reference to them building a home together. so the author puts and X and O to indicate it’s not a pregnancy delivery bag but rather the start of their love nest bag

NOOOOO I NEED TO CHECK THE RAWS BUT IM SURE THE NAME FOR THEIR BABY IS 石果 so he takes stone as his last name after his dad’s “shi” but the guo is the character for fruit and remember when lin shi introduced himself to fei about his name being 果實 the character for fruit. so the first character is guo the second is shi so it’s a combination of their names imma throw up

also in the official you will see the different romanized name bc China and taiwan don’t use the same characters in romanization. pinyin has a lot of x for the sh sound and in taiwan we do hs instead. so 小 you will see as xiao most often (thanks genshin) but in taiwan it’s literally the same character we just spell it as hsiao. like how cai and tsai are the same character 菜 with vastly different spelling (pls respect the Taiwanese version thanks!)

ALSO I FORGOT WHICH CHAPTER IS THE SONG CONFESSION BUT CHUNLEI’S NAME IS THE CHARACTER FOR SPRING AND THUNDER SO LIN SHIH IS SINGING ABOUT SPRING AND STORMS BC ITS LITERALLY SPELLING OIT HIS LOVE FOR CHUNLEI IM LOSING IT

also the bag of plums say “the taste of first love”