台风

I am actually sitting in the middle of a typhoon as I write this. Typhoon Matsa is sweeping across Shanghai as I type. It's pretty exciting. I've never been in a typhoon before. I was out celebrating a friend's birthday last night on a rooftop restaurant when it hit. The restaurant is under glass, so it was really neat to see the rain slamming into the sides and all around. Until it started coming in and getting us wet. Then we had to move, and eventually leave and go to the secret entrance bar again. But that closed early because there was a wedding there today, which I really think takes away the whole secret aspect. Don't worry though, I got my fill of typhoon cocktails to steady my nerves.

Typhoon in chinese is 台风 (taifeng), which literally means 'platform wind'. You got to love the Chinese. I originally thought that was just a phonetic translation from a Japanese word but apparently I'm wrong:

The history of typhoon presents a perfect example of the long journey that many words made in coming to English. It traveled from Greece to Arabia to India, and also arose independently in China, before assuming its current form in our language. The Greek word tuphōn, used both as the name of the father of the winds and a common noun meaning “whirlwind, typhoon,” was borrowed into Arabic during the Middle Ages, when Arabic learning both preserved and expanded the classical heritage and passed it on to Europe and other parts of the world. Ṭūfān, the Arabic version of the Greek word, passed into languages spoken in India, where Arabic-speaking Muslim invaders had settled in the 11th century. Thus the descendant of the Arabic word, passing into English (first recorded in 1588) through an Indian language and appearing in English in forms such as touffon and tufan, originally referred specifically to a severe storm in India. The modern form of typhoon was influenced by a borrowing from the Cantonese variety of Chinese, namely the word taaîfung, and respelled to make it look more like Greek. Taaîfung, meaning literally “great wind,” was coincidentally similar to the Arabic borrowing and is first recorded in English guise as tuffoon in 1699. The various forms coalesced and finally became typhoon, a spelling that first appeared in 1819 in Shelley's Prometheus Unbound.

Wow, gun powder, paper, noodles, and now typhoons. What can't the Chinese do?

I was actually supposed to be in America for my cousin's wedding this weekend, but then I would have missed the typhoon. But congratulations Ben and Natalie, hope you had an amazing, typhoon-free ceremony. Wish I were there.

I was actually totally in the dark that a typhoon was headed my way. I was walking around on Friday thinking that it was a pretty windy day and then a friend of mine clued me in. Also, the Koreans were on top of it. Typhoon sounds the same in Korean as well. So anyway, I'm stuck in my house today because I don't like the wind, and I don't want to get wet, and you know, there’s a typhoon out there. They aren't kidding when they say torrential rains. Water is streaming down my windows right now, and I live on the 17th floor. I may study, or just stare at the wall for the rest of the day. I haven't really decided.

So anyway, that's where I'm at. Wish me luck.