{"id":4170,"date":"2011-03-12T13:04:16","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T05:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/?p=4170"},"modified":"2015-12-23T17:45:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-23T09:45:14","slug":"ni-neibian-ji-dian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2011\/ni-neibian-ji-dian\/","title":{"rendered":"Ni neibian ji dian?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/nangang_sundial.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/nangang_sundial-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"nangang_sundial\" style=\"width: 225px; height: 300px; float: right;\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4175\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/nangang_sundial-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/nangang_sundial.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a>Here are some photos of a large, elaborate, and no-doubt expensive sundial outside the Nangang high-speed rail station (next door to the Nangang train station and Nangang MRT station). <\/p>\n<p>These were taken at 11 a.m. (The one of the sundial itself was taken on a different day.) But as you can see below, the sundial certainly isn&#8217;t indicating the time is 11:00. Rather, it&#8217;s pointing toward 9:20 or so. <\/p>\n<p>The disc labeled IX is actually XI (11). I took the photo from a reverse vantage point, so the number is upside down in the photo.<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear: both;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/sundial_x.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/sundial_x-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"sundial_x\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4173\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/sundial_x-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/sundial_x.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><span style=\"width: 2em;\"> <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/sundial_xi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/sundial_xi-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"This vantage point puts the number upside down. So you should read this as XI, not IX.\" title=\"sundial_xi\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-4174\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/sundial_xi-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/sundial_xi.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Perhaps whoever erected the main part of the sundial doesn&#8217;t know Roman numerals. (Sorry: that&#8217;s about as close as this post gets to talking about scripts.) But that wouldn&#8217;t account for the dial indicating 9:20 instead of 9:00. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"400\" src=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/harold_lloyd_clock.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"harold_lloyd_clock\" style=\"float: right; width: 170px; height: 400px;\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4172\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/harold_lloyd_clock.jpg 170w, https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/news_photos\/2011\/03\/harold_lloyd_clock-127x300.jpg 127w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 170px) 100vw, 170px\" \/>I contacted the Taipei City Government about this. They said to contact the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation, which I did. They, in turn, responded that I&#8217;d reached the wrong office and should write a different office; but they didn&#8217;t forward the message or provide me with the correct e-mail address. Once I&#8217;d tracked down another office I e-mailed the folk there. That was more than a week ago. There has been no response. <\/p>\n<p>I spoke with someone at the site who appeared to be in a position of authority. He told me that the sundial hadn&#8217;t been adjusted yet and that they would get to it next year. He was too busy to answer any more questions though, such as &#8220;Next <em>year<\/em>?&#8221; Also, I suspect that it won&#8217;t be easy to rotate that huge thingamajig, so why didn&#8217;t they get it right the first time? <\/p>\n<p>Still, at least someone in authority seems to understand there&#8217;s a problem. <\/p>\n<p>*For anyone who doesn&#8217;t recognize the title of this post, it&#8217;s an allusion to the 2001 movie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uhGG4tgK8ko&#038;feature=related\"><em> N&#464; n&#232;ibi&#257;n j&#464; di&#462;n<\/em><\/a>  (&#12298;&#20320;&#37027;&#36793;&#20960;&#28857;&#12299; \/ <em>What Time Is It There?<\/em>). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are some photos of a large, elaborate, and no-doubt expensive sundial outside the Nangang high-speed rail station (next door to the Nangang train station and Nangang MRT station). These were taken at 11 a.m. (The one of the sundial &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2011\/ni-neibian-ji-dian\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,24,3],"tags":[718,721,720,719],"class_list":["post-4170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-taipei","category-taiwan","tag-nangang","tag-roman-numerals","tag-sundial","tag-taiwan-high-speed-rail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4170"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7154,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4170\/revisions\/7154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}