Hi everyone, welcome to a new episode of News Bites!

I'm Kelly Kimura…

And I'm Nancy Sun.

Coming up next in today's news: Taiwan dishes you've never tried and a 10-year-old girl sees a Japanese wolf on a shelf!

And in today's Tasty Tidbit…comets smell really bad!

Stay tuned for more on those stories!

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這些台灣菜來自哪裡？

These Taiwan Dishes Are From Where?

Do you like "Taiwan ramen"?

Taiwan ramen?! I've never heard of it.

What? We're in Taiwan. Let's go and try some.

Okay. Wait… Hey, there's no Taiwan ramen in Taiwan!

Taiwan ramen is a popular dish in Nagoya (名古屋), a city in Japan.

People in Nagoya LOVE Taiwan ramen.

Where's it from? Nagoya!

A Taiwanese chef (廚師) in Nagoya made noodles for his workers' lunch.

He had eaten danzai noodles (擔仔麵) in Taiwan.

In Nagoya, he changed the danzai soup from shrimp (蝦) to chicken.

He put chives (韭菜) and bean sprouts (豆芽) in the soup.

He put lots of garlic (蒜) and chili pepper powder (辣椒粉) in some ground pork (豬絞肉).

Now this spicy ground pork (辣肉燥) is called "Taiwan mince" (肉燥).

A customer (顧客) said the dish looked delicious.

So the chef put Taiwan ramen on the menu!

Now Taiwan ramen is at over two hundred ramen shops in Nagoya.

People who don't like spicy food order "Taiwan ramen American."

People who love it order super spicy "Taiwan ramen Italian."

There are other Taiwan dishes that people in Nagoya love.

There's Taiwan mazesoba. It's Taiwan ramen with no soup.

Chives, Taiwan mince, and a raw egg yolk (生蛋黃) are on top.

Taiwan mazesoba was first made when a chef couldn't make good Taiwan ramen soup.

He was going to throw away the noodles and Taiwan mince.

But a worker asked him to make a dish without soup!

There's Taiwan curry (咖哩). It has lots of spices (香料), onions (洋蔥), and potatoes (馬鈴薯).

It has Taiwan mince and a raw egg on top.

Taiwan curry was first made when a chef put leftover (剩下的) Taiwan mince on curry for his workers.

There are many other Taiwan dishes in Nagoya.

They all have Taiwan mince in them!

Any dish with Taiwan mince in it is delicious to people there.

When a dish goes from one country to another country, it can change A LOT.

And that's great!

Would you like to try a Taiwan dish in Nagoya one day?

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十歲女孩發現日本狼標本

10-Year-Old Girl Finds a Japanese Wolf

Hinako, a Japanese girl, loves animals.

She's especially interested in animals that are extinct (滅絕的).

When she was three, she saw a Japanese wolf specimen (標本).

It was at a natural history museum (自然歷史博物館)

From then, she studied the animal.

She looked at pictures of Japanese wolf specimens for hours.

Over one hundred years have passed since someone saw a living one.

When Hinako was 10, she went on a tour (參觀).

It's held just once a year at the large research department (研究部) of the museum.

They hold two million specimens for the museum!

Hinako saw a dog-like (跟狗很像的) specimen on a dark bottom shelf (放在底層的架子上).

Its tail was bushy (濃密的).

Its neck and front legs were short.

It was small, but it wasn't a dog.

She thought it looked like a Japanese wolf!

There were only four specimens in the world.

Was this specimen a Japanese wolf too?

The next day, she sent a message (訊息) to the museum about the specimen.

They answered three months later.

The museum thought it was a mountain dog.

Japanese wolves were sometimes called mountain dogs.

Hinako was excited.

She did a lot of research.

She found a zoo in Tokyo got two Japanese wolves in 1888.

She thought this specimen could be one of them.

She wrote a report (報?).

It won an award (獎項) from the Japanese education ministry (教育部).

Two researchers wanted to do research and write a scientific paper (科學論文)with her.

They found a genetic analysis (基因分析) of the specimen matched (匹配) with the Japanese wolf.

But the specimen's head had differences (差異) from other Japanese wolf specimens.

It turned out that the specimen didn't have a skull (頭骨)!

Maybe the person who made the specimen had never seen a Japanese wolf.

They finished the scientific paper.

Hinako is thirteen years old now.

She's in junior high school.

There's still a lot for her to find out about the Japanese wolf!

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So in today's News Bites:

Taiwan dishes are popular in a city in Japan.

All the dishes have a spicy ground pork called Taiwan mince in them.

But none of them are eaten in Taiwan.

When a dish goes from one country to another, it can change a lot!

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And…

A young girl saw a specimen.

She thought it looked like an extinct Japanese wolf.

But nobody knew if it was a Japanese wolf.

The girl and two researchers did research and found that it was!

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趣味小點

Tasty Tidbit

And in today's Tasty Tidbit…

Have you ever seen a comet (彗星)?

They look like a ball of light with a long tail.

They fly very fast and very high in the sky.

We don't see them often, so they're exciting to watch.

Thirty-eight years ago, more than one million visitors went to Kenting National Park to see Halley's Comet!

It was very cloudy, but they still went!

Only about twenty thousand people saw the comet!

Now scientists say comets smell bad.

They smell like rotten (腐爛的)eggs, pee, and vinegar (醋).Pee-ew!

It's good that they're so far away!

Thirty-eight years from now, Halley's comet comes back.

Will you think of how it smells then?

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And that's it for today's episode of News Bites!

If you have a fun fact, a joke, or interesting news you'd like to share with us, record your message and send your Tasty Tidbit to us at [email protected].

You might hear it at the end of an episode!

We'll see you next time for an exciting new episode of News Bites!