Unit 2 - Wisdom from Charlie Chan

Above photo from:filmographie des serials

Theories like fingerprints... everybody has them.
Money talks. When money talk, few are deaf.
One enemy one too many.
Suspicion is only toy of fools.
To describe bitter medicine will not improve its flavor.
Too soon to count chickens until eggs are in nest.
To speak without thinking is to shoot without aiming.
Wheel of fate has many spokes.
Truth like oil, will in time rise to surface.
Small things sometimes tell big stories.
Problems rarely wait for clearing weather.
Praise in any language very sweet.
Make haste only when withdrawing hand from mouth of tiger.

These are some of Charlie's aphorisms. Actually, I don't know much about Charlie Chan and neither do my Taiwanese teacher friends. Yesterday evening was spend in a meeting in the office with our teacher friends reviewing unit 2. It startes off with a detective story. In every unit, we try to include some interesting fact about something related the the story before we move into more boring grammar exercises. In this unit, we chose a quote from Charlie Chan... but judging from the reactions, perhaps the teachers and students in Taiwan either have never hear of Charlie Chan... or are getting sick of overseas Chinese appearances: Henry C. Lee, Bruce Lee, etc... Is Sherlock Holmes more interesting? Or some fictional teen character: Hardy boys? Nancy Drew? Or the fact that there was no Caroline Keene (author of Nancy Drew) - the books were written by ghost writers? NO ideas what detectives are known to teenagers in Taiwan? Scooby Doo? How difficult might it be to obtain copyright to have a cameo appearance by Scooby Doo? Ideas anyone?