Baby Cakes

One thing I have noticed about Taiwan is that there is far less of an aversion to things that are cute. In America, I think the word "cute" is linked to "childhood" which is linked to "Barney" which is linked to "lame." And that's too bad. By contrast, in Taiwan, as far as I can tell, cute is cute and that's okay. In fact, if you ask me, there aren't many places that do cute better. For example, check out my pillow:

cute, right?

Today, I saw two high school guys walking down the street wearing matching black t-shirts. I think it was their class t-shirt because many classes buy matching t-shirts in Taiwan. Kind of like senior t-shirts in America. Anyway, from far away the shirt had a picture of a skull and crossbones. Pretty tough, right? Wrong. Because it was a pink skull and crossbones. As I got closer, I could read the lettering. It was also pink and said something like "be real" and then, in cursive "Hello Kitty" and there was an accompanying picture of Hello Kitty. There were a lot of things going on on the back of that t-shirt, actually. There was something else written which was neither tough, nor masculine according to typical American ideas about what these words mean. In America, I think that to wear this shirt as a high school male, you would probably need to be either securely heterosexual, or securely homosexual. I don't know these boys at all, but based on my experience with Taiwanese fashion, they're not trying to make any kind of fashion statement by wearing this shirt. It's just a shirt. It has pink letters and a picture of Hello Kitty on the back. It's cute. And that's okay.

Speaking of cute and Hello Kitty. In Taiwan, when you have a baby, it is customary to buy copious amounts of cake in cute, pastel colored boxes, to give to your friends. My friend recently had a baby. She gave all of her friends baby cake that came in a really adorable Baby Hello Kitty box that played music when you opened it to eat a slice. The other day I brought some baby cake to school to eat for breakfast. My student, Bunny (ain't she cute?) took note of my breakfast.


Bunny: Teacher! You have baby cake!
Kate: Yep. You know, in English, I think "baby cake" sounds a little weird.
Bunny: Why??
Kate: Well, you know chocolate cake?
Bunny: Yes.
Kate: Chocolate cake has chocolate inside.
Bunny: Ohh...
Kate: You know vanilla cake?
Bunny: Yes.
Kate: Vanilla cake has vanilla inside.
Bunny: Ohhhhhhh.
Kate: You know baby cake?
Bunny: Has baby inside!?!
Kate: exactly.

While this is not entirely true (we do have birthday cake and wedding cake, after all), I stand by this assessment of the phrase "baby cake." And, it was a cuuuute exchange. Spot on Bunny, spot on.