That's a neat idea!/その発想、いいね！

木曜日に用事が有って高雄に行って来た。レストランで昼食を食べながら、面白い物に気がついた。下の写真見て下さい：

I had to go to Kaohsiung for an errand on Thursday, and while I was there I got lunch at a small restaurant and noticed something interesting on the table (see below):

我禮拜四有事去了高雄一下。吃午餐的時候我注意到了一個有意思的東西。請看看以下的照片：

この店は割り箸を使っている。割り箸を使うところはあまりほめられないけど、もし使うなら、この物を置けばいいと思う。作りはめっちゃ簡単だけど、これが有るだけで、割り箸のビニールは風に飛ばされない。
It's a holder for the plastic cases that chopsticks come in.  I've actually probably seen these before at other places, but I don't think I ever really took notice of them before.  These are really necessary in Taiwan since many restaurants have their tables placed outside and even the slightest gust will send anything paper or plastic flying.
臺灣人的話，應該這個東西看過。我也可能已經看過，可是沒主意到。是不讓筷子的塑膠套子被風飛走的東西。因為臺灣的飯館常常把桌子放在外面，我覺得這個“套子架”（我想出來的名字）非常方便。因為在臺灣這樣的設計是很普遍的，所以台灣人可能對這樣的店，沒有那麼興趣。可是對我來說這樣的店的設計很有意思。紐約的飯館也把桌子放在外面（當然夏天限定）可是他們用的空間是步道的一部分。另一方面，臺灣的馬路常常本來沒有步道，所以飯館用的外面就是店的一部分。才有這個差點，紐約跟臺灣的城市樣子就看起來不太一樣。

台湾ではこの物（「ビニール挟み」と言っていいかな）が特に必要だと思う。テーブルが外に置かれている店が多い。上と下の写真を見たら分かると思うけど、テーブルの周りには全く壁は無い。暑い台湾では、風通しのいいデザインだから、凄く気候に合っていると思う。単に、風通しがいいせいで、風に飛ばされる物が多い。台湾のこう言う食堂で食事したら、ティッシュや、空に成った紙コップなどは手が離せない。直ぐどこかに飛んで行ってしまう。

The design you can see in the photo above and the ones below is a very normal design for a restaurant in Taiwan.  The building is sitting over this open space where the tables are.  The cover means that people won't get rained on or be subject to the extremely strong sunlight, but the open design with no walls means that the wind can pass through and keep things cool.  Given that the average temperature down here in the southern part of the island is still around 68 degrees even in the middle of "winter", a design that keeps things cool is pretty important.

Now some of you may be noticing that there does not appear to be a sidewalk anywhere in this photo.  To this I can only say, you are 100% correct.  There is no real sidewalk.  There's kind of a space to walk right on the side of the street, but it's often blocked by haphazardly parked cars or potted plants that the tenant of the first floor space has let spill out practically into the street.  You can also walk through the open area under the roof, but this only works as long as there aren't tables or motorcycles blocking your way.  Not all of Taiwan is like this mind you, some streets do have proper sidewalks, but still, many don't.  I found this to be often true in Japan as well.  While overall Japan and Taiwan are probably more friendly to pedestrians than the US (mostly just because of their more built up public transport infrastructure and more compact cities) one place they both lose a lot of points is in not having proper, walkable sidewalks in places where people actually want to walk.  The US, admittedly, doesn't have sidewalks in lots of places, but also these places are typically places where you wouldn't want to walk anyway seeing as the entire area has been designed with the assumption that everyone will just drive where they need to go.
However, I'm not from the US, I'm from NYC, so I find the state of sidewalks here to be rather appalling.

こういうデザインの店のもう一つのいいところは、テーブルとかが邪魔に成っていない時は歩行者がこのスペースを使って日差しと車を避けながら歩いて通る事が出来る。台湾は日本と同じく、都市の中にで、も道路の横にちゃんとした歩道が無い所が多いから、こう言う店の存在は有り難い。
でも有り難いと言っても、ちゃんとした歩道を作って貰った方がもっと有り難い。