International Women’s Day (Taiwan)

The Chinese way of referring to dates is in this order: year month day.  For well-known events, the convention is to shorten it to just the numbers for the month and the day, with people being expected to know which year it’d happened.  So, the Tian’anmen Square incident, which took place on 4^th June 1989, in Chinese: 一九八九年六月四号 / yìjiǔbājiǔnián liùyuè sìhào / “1989 year 6 month 4 day”, would be referred to as liù sì (“6 4”).

International Women’s Day is 8^th March, so the Chinese would call it 三八妇女节 (sān bā fùnǚjié / “3 8 women festival”).

In Taiwan, there’s an equivalent for the English expression “the lights are on but nobody’s home” (to describe someone who’s not entirely with it), which is 三八 (sān bā / “3 8”).  If you were to do or say something your friends consider daft, they’ll say you’re sān bā.  

During my two years in Taiwan, men would ask me on 8^th March, in Chinese, “今天是不是三八妇女节？(jīntiān shì búshì sān bā fùnǚjié / “today is not-is 3 8 women festival”)”.  

Every time, I’d answer “是 / It is”, which they’d immediately pounce upon with, “So you’re saying that there is a festival for daft women then?!?”  

The parsing for their version would be 三八妇女 sān bā fùnǚ (daft women) as one cluster and 节 jié (festival) as one cluster, instead of 三八 sān bā (March 8) as one cluster and 妇女节 fùnǚjié (women's festival) as one.  

The Chinese sense of humour just loves such word play and catching people out.