shu flies :: 舒飛

Happy Year of the Dragon... er... George!

2012-01-24T23:18:00.000+08:00

Happy Year of the ~~Dragon~~ George!

I can't tell if George approves.

A little birdy told me! Fortune telling at Longshan Temple Underground Mall (龍山寺地下街)

2012-01-23T19:37:00.007+08:00

I'm not a superstitious person... well, not anymore. When I was little, I read a children's book called The Ghost Hunting Handbook (or something like that). During the day, I was really excited about the possibility of finding a ghost, but at night I would freak out. For years I slept with the covers pulled over my head. By the time I was in high school, however, I was reading publications like the Skeptical Inquirer. I no longer believe in ghosts, souls or the afterlife -- and I definitely don't believe that you can tell the future. I also feel dumbfounded every time people tell me that Ron and I should have children during the year of the dragon because I can't believe that people are seriously planning their family around an astrology chart. But I still love the ritual and creepily magic atmosphere of fortune telling. When my friend Lauren told me about fortune tellers in the Longshan Temple MRT station underground mall (龍山寺捷運站地下街) who use live birds as divination tools, my head exploded.

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I can't believe I didn't eat that! (or the Dihua St Lunar New Year market)

2012-01-22T01:04:00.005+08:00

My friends and I went to the Dihua St (迪化街) Lunar New Year market today. It was my first year braving the crowds to sample all the snacks and I consumed a sausage, balls rolled from sweet potato and dough, lots of fruit chips, quail eggs on a stick, and a cup of sugar cane juice. Afterward, we went out for Japanese food. As I look through my photos, however, my heart and belly yearns for all the food I didn't eat. Beef jerky, corn on the cob brushed with butter and sprinkled with chili pepper, cookies, pastries, every kind of candy...

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Papercuts by Tim Budden at Suho Memorial Paper Museum

2012-01-20T19:48:00.013+08:00

One of things I enjoy most about interviewing artists and designers is being able to ask them about their process. No matter what materials they use, they always have a different way of starting and a different way of getting bringing their ideas to fruition. I'm especially intrigued when the works they turn out are extremely intricate and complex. When artist Tim Budden starts on a large-scale papercut, he has to figure out how to balance the design with making sure that the final piece does not tear or warp. Every one is a feat of engineering, even though it is made with just a sheet of paper. Tim's work is on display at Suho Memorial Paper Museum (樹火紀念紙博物館) until March 24 (for more information about the exhibit, please see my recent article for the Taipei Times).

生日快樂, Mom!

2012-01-17T19:07:00.002+08:00

Happy birthday to my beautiful mother! Before my wedding, my Mom scanned in all our family photos and gave me a USB with every file sorted by year, occasion and date. I've been browsing through snapshots of our trips to Taiwan when my brother and I were little before my paternal grandparents immigrated to the US. We had some fun times.

No, you shouldn't have. You really shouldn't have. You really, REALLY shouldn't...

2012-01-16T22:45:00.006+08:00

"Money doesn't grow on trees... hey, wait a second..."

One of the differences between Taiwanese and American etiquette that I had the hardest time getting used to are the different gift giving rituals. In Taiwan, you are supposed to refuse a gift several times before you finally accept it. The first time I gave a present in Taipei, I was befuddled when the recipient signaled "stop" with his hands, shook his head and firmly said, "No, no, thank you." He repeated that several times. I practically had to shove the gift into his face. I actually panicked. I kept thinking, "Is he seriously going to make me drag a two pound box of candy back home, where I am going to eat the whole thing?" After going back and forth for a bit, my friend finally accepted it, and I realized that he had just been trying to be polite. After all, who turns down box of delicious gourmet toffee?
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Dealing With Depression and Living Abroad, part 2

2012-01-11T01:06:00.023+08:00

(This is the second part of a two part post. Please click here for the first one).

3) Don’t listen to the depression (or dumbasses)

When my depression and anxiety take a hold of me, I get overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy. I used to get upset during breaks home from college because I was scared that my professors would realize I was stupid when class started again. My Mom would remind me that I usually got good feedback on my papers, but I wondered how long I could maintain the façade of not being a blithering idiot. I felt being "found out" was inevitable and I dreaded the moment.

I struggled with those feelings for a long time. My parents came to visit me during my first semester in graduate school. I started crying during lunch and apologized for being a horrible daughter.

My Dad said, “I know what’s happening. That’s the depression talking. It will say things like that, but you just can’t listen.”
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Depression and Living Abroad, part 1: Sometimes the easiest path is the hardest one to take

2012-01-11T01:03:00.019+08:00

When I first moved abroad, I was scared. I had the benefit of living with my fiancé, but when you are depressed, you feel alone even when someone you love is holding your hand. At times, I felt like I was jumping into a void and I questioned the wisdom of my decision. At the same time, I also knew that if I let clinical depression dictate what I did with my twenties, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

Over the past four years, I’ve done better than I thought I would. I’ve been able to enjoy most of my time here and manage my depressive episodes. I don't want to prattle on like I'm an expert on dealing with depression and anxiety while living abroad. All I know is based on my own experiences, but I'd like to be able to help someone who is asking the same questions I was five years ago.

This blog entry ended up longer than usual, so I've split it into two parts. The second part is here.

1) Don’t listen to dumbasses

I felt like I was caught between two cultural attitudes about depression when I was growing up and neither of them were helpful. There was the Asian attitude, which was to sweep things under the rug, and then there is the American one, where everything is pathologized, medications are carelessly prescribed and you feel like something is wrong with you if you don't run around farting glitter and rainbows all the time.

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Taiwan Best Blog Awards: Thank you!

2012-01-02T17:38:00.012+08:00

I was extremely humbled to find out that I'd won best overall Taiwan blog and best personal blog in the peer judged category of Taiwanderful's Taiwan Best Blog Awards. It was a great New Year's Eve present and really put an extra sparkle on the last day of 2011. More importantly, it was also the impetus for me to think about where I want to take Shu Flies in the next year.

I have to admit that sometimes I've felt detached from this blog. Its direction has changed since my first post in 2007, which was about saying good-bye to friends in New York City. I've focused on the places and sights in Taipei that make this city special to me, but I also worry that I've started to honey-glaze my life here by only presenting the good. I'm proud of Shu Flies because I can go through it when I'm feeling sad or discouraged and it reinforces my decision to live and work in Taiwan. At the same time, I also meant for it to be a record of the more difficult aspects of being an expat. That's fallen off over the past year or so, partly because I'm worried about privacy and partly because writing about personal experiences without seeming self-indulgent takes time and effort.

The Year of the Rabbit in photos

2011-12-30T11:24:00.003+08:00

Some of my favorite blog entries from this past year. I love doing these round-ups and seeing that I did indeed accomplish more last year than fantasizing about food all the time. Mmm... food.

In January, I was surrounded by furry animals and the people who love them very much

Reading time

2011-12-29T14:48:00.004+08:00

That awkward moment when you realize someone is reading over your shoulder, but you can't turn around and tell them to go away because you're a statue.

I'm afraid I've been very delinquent in posting about Taiwanderful's Best Taiwan Blog Awards this year. My husband took a few days off from work this month and I decided I would also take a brief vacation so we could spend as much time as possible together silently holding hands and staring at our cat. Voting ends tomorrow (Dec. 30), but I'd like to take the chance to introduce some blogs that I've really enjoyed reading over the past year. (For more great blogs, check out the list I compiled last year).

[Insert suitably snappy title here...] : Kath is currently working toward her Master's degree in literature and her posts about books are consistently well-written and thoughtful. She also posts occasional entries about expat life -- her post about defining "home" after living abroad really resonated with me.

Eva Everest : Mathilde's blog is written in French with some English and Chinese, but no matter what language you read, you can enjoy the beauty of her photos and illustrations.

My Neon Sign Lullaby : Eileen lives in the US, but is preparing to move to Taiwan, her husband's birthplace. I wish I had kept a detailed journal during the months I spent getting ready to leave New York City for Taipei, because the process of getting here was just as complicated and life-changing as the process of settling in. If you are thinking of moving abroad or have already started your planning, you'll find a lot to relate to in My Neon Sign Lullaby.

Tainan City Guide : This blog is just amazing. Karl writes about everything from tiny cafes to Tainan's major tourist attractions, with gorgeous photos and detailed information. Tainan is my second favorite city in Taiwan and I love visiting Tainan City Guide for the eye candy.

Taiwanxifu : Serina's wonderful food blog covers restaurants in Taipei and also includes mouthwatering recipes. Check out her recent entry on stir-fried eggs and onions inspired by reading Tsai Ying-wen's autobiography.

US Taiwan Defense Command : I enjoy learning about daily life in Taiwan during the 1950s-1970s and this blog, which features photos taken by American soldiers stationed here, gives me a new angle to explore.

Taiwan Duck : A fantastic blog about Taiwanese cooking, with lots of mesmerizing food photos.

Vagabond in Taiwan : Adrienne's photos capture the beauty of things like shop signs or a cluster of abandoned bottles and make me want to re-explore some Taipei neighborhoods I had begun to take to granted.

As a bonus, reader Jarrett recently let me know about this cool video he made. Watch and see how many places you recognize!

Day in Taipei from Jarret Leong on Vimeo.

Merry Christmas, ho ho ho burrrp

2011-12-25T23:57:00.001+08:00

Merry Christmas! 聖誕節快樂! Ron and I celebrated in style by going to an all-you-can-eat buffet at the Howard Plaza Hotel (福華大飯店). While we were tucking into roast beef, I remembered our last big trough feed at La Rotisserie in the Palais de Chine (君品酒店) near Taipei Main Station. It has a ridiculously opulent interior filled with antiques, heavy wood furniture and plush banquettes. At our anniversary lunch, we sat next to a middle-aged couple. They spent their entire meal gathering and then silently munching through plates of food, like they were grimly determined to get their money's worth. After finishing dessert, the man wordlessly picked up a cushion, nestled it behind his head and went to sleep. He was still snoring away when we left and his wife was nowhere to be seen.

I think that is the perfect approach to a buffet. That, and some Tupperware hidden away in a tote bag. I'm kidding. Happy holidays!

Take it slow: Hsiao Man (小慢)

2011-12-22T18:56:00.005+08:00

Even though I grew up listening to my parents converse in Mandarin, there were a lot of phrases that I still had to get used to when I first moved to Taiwan. Take 不好意思 for example. I had no idea why everyone was apologizing to me all the time and thought that maybe it was because culture shock was giving me an even worse case of chronic bitchface than usual. 慢慢來 also confused me and I assumed that people were just reacting to my naturally nervous disposition (as in, by "Take it slow" they actually meant "Calm down! Just looking at you makes me jittery."). After a little bit, I realized that "慢慢來" is a conversational nicety... but I think it's a very interesting one. In high school, I spent a couple of summers in theater camp. One of the exercises our drama teacher made us do was to close our eyes and note every single sound we heard, from the thudding of our hearts to the whoosh! of cars on a nearby highway. It was amazing how all the different layers of noises gradually revealed themselves and seemed to slow down at the same time. I still do this exercise sometimes when I am stressed out or anxious and there is no one to bark "慢慢來!" at me.

Hsieh Hsiao-man (謝小曼) takes the same approach to her tea house Hsiao Man (小慢), but with tea instead of sounds. Hsiao Man means "little slow" and the interior has a cozy, home-like atmosphere (the space is the apartment Hsieh grew up in and retains its original stone floors and wooden beams).

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Oysters, will you walk with us?

2011-12-20T00:41:00.003+08:00

Like the Walrus and the Carpenter in "Through the Looking Glass," Ron and I both enjoy raw shellfish. We had oysters for our first anniversary dinner and I saved a shell as a memento. I continued to collect a shell from each of our anniversary meals for a couple years until I realized it wasn't a good idea to accumulate detritus from every special occasion we celebrate together (though I did clean and bleach the shells after I brought them home). We marked the seventh anniversary of our first date recently with a trip to Oyster Bar in Xinyi District's Bellavita mall and I only snapped photos of what we ate, even though I was tempted to discreetly hide a whelk shell in my purse.
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Toy chest: Fun Fun Town (放放堂)

2011-12-14T22:26:00.004+08:00

Vintage or retro-inspired things have become a lot easier to find in Taipei City over the last few years, with stores like Mooi Trouve, Uncle Jack's and VVG Something selling offbeat goods sourced from flea markets in the US and Europe. The owners of Fun Fun Town also sell secondhand items from abroad and its brands include a roster of names familiar to design geeks (such as Kristian Vedel and Finn Juhl), but the store differentiates itself with a sense of playfulness. A lot of its products, like wooden spherical music boxes, are meant to be played with, handled and tossed around (except for the vintage glassware... don't toss the vintage glassware!).

The store is located in leafy Minsheng Community (台北市民生社區), one of my favorite neighborhoods in Taipei City. I always want to take photos of its shady, tree-lined streets, but it has been cloudy and wet every time I've been in the area recently. Minsheng Community is a popular place for design studios and it is easy to see why. Here is more information about its planning.

For more information about the store, please see my article for the Taipei Times or click here to see more photos after the jump.

Made In Taiwan Holiday Gifts (now with 100% more map!)

2011-12-13T21:43:00.005+08:00

Top row: Booday notebook cover, coaster for sale at T. Loafer, Tenon'Art wood sculpture. Middle row: Emily's Handmade soaps at Pinkoi, Tree House mirrors at T. Loafer, felt mini-wallets by Tiger Milk on Pinkoi. Bottom row: Plants by Izy's Home, shade sold at Twine and MoziDozen on Pinkoi

Some of you might have already seen my gift guide for this year in the Taipei Times or on my Facebook page, but I figured I would share it here as well... with a map. That way you can browse stores in the same neighborhood more easily. If you have some spare time, check out fun places to explore on the map for my Design Sponge Taipei City guide as well (please note that I wrote the guide several months ago, so please call ahead to make sure places haven't closed or moved). Pinkoi is also a great place to shop for products by indie designers and artists online. They are planning to roll out their English Web site soon (I'm very excited), but in the meantime you can contact Pinkoi headquarters at contact AT pinkoi dot com if you need help.

Happy shopping!

Doll's well that ends well: Story of Dolls at Taipei Story House

2011-11-29T22:33:00.004+08:00

Taipei Story House (台北故事館), the architectural equivalent of a cupcake, is currently hosting the perfect exhibition for it: Story of Dolls (娃娃的故事). It is geared towards families with young children and school groups, but the displays also touch on Taiwan's manufacturing history and economic growth over the last century. For more information, please see my Taipei Times article.

Want more pairs of tiny eyes staring at you? Click on read more!

The most magical pharmacy in the world

2011-11-19T22:55:00.006+08:00

A few months ago, I finally got an iPhone after four years of using a cheap Nokia bar phone I bought when I was studying Mandarin. The best thing about owning a smartphone, in my opinion, is that I can now surreptitiously take photos in random places, like my pharmacy. It is absolutely fascinating. It's tiny, but they have shelves and shelves filled with vitamins and over-the-counter medications in packaging that looks like it hasn't been changed since the 1980s. I'm sure my pharmacists know I'm off snapping pics of all their wares while they fill my prescriptions... but, seriously, can you blame me? The place features some of the most surreal package design I have ever seen.

And how do you, um, take these capsules?

More photos after the jump.

Dear Photograph, Dear California

2011-11-06T22:15:00.014+08:00

Dear Photograph,
In 1978, my father boarded a plane
and flew to a place where it's always sunny
In this new land, many things he did gain
Including a daughter who speaks Chinese funny.

This afternoon, I printed out a copy of the photo my Dad's family took before he got on a plane at Songshan Airport (台北松山機場) and immigrated to the US so I could take the picture above. I was inspired, of course, by the blog Dear Photograph.

Continued after the jump

Happy Halloween! 萬聖節快樂!

2011-10-30T18:13:00.006+08:00

Happy Halloween! Guess who I am "dressed up" as. Reading Steve Jobs' biography is like reading a history of my hometown. When I read that Jobs used to do LSD in the wheat fields outside of Sunnyvale, my heart fluttered a bit because I spent the first seven years of my life in that little city. I also had no idea that the high school my Saturday Morning Chinese School (that wasn't its real name, that is what we called it because it took place from 7am to 9am each Saturday morning) used as its venue was designed by a prison architect! Well, that certainly explains a lot.

My Halloween weekend was very low key and I had to miss Taiwan Pride because I am on antibiotics and painkillers. Again! This time it's for a gum infection. Fortunately, I go to MetDent, a wonderful clinic run by two dentists who went to the New York University School of Dentistry and their extremely patient and professional staff. Their waiting room is filled with posters from the NYC subway system. I never thought that seeing any imagery produced by the MTA would fill me with warm and fuzzy feelings, but I guess I've been away from NYC long enough to forgive them for all the many hours I spent standing on the N/W/R platform, counting rats as I waited for the freakin' train to Astoria to finally arrive. I highly recommend MetDent's dentists for the quality of their work and their ability to handle my neurosis ("Will it hurt? How much will it hurt? Will it hurt afterward? Will the anesthetic shot hurt? How much will it hurt? How long before the anesthetic works? How long will my gum be numb? Will I be able to eat afterward? How deep are you going to poke that instrument? What is that thing for again? Will it hurt? How do you define 'hurt'?").

Speaking of blood, last week I gave myself zombie nails with a Sally Hansen nail art pen from my friend Lauren. Ron brought it back for me from a recent business trip to the US. I haven't seen nail art pens in Taipei so far except on auction sites for ridiculous prices -- if you know where to buy them, please let me know. I've seen similar nail art where the blood drips from the tip, but my inspiration was the myth that nails and hair continue to grow after someone dies. I figured that if I were a zombie and my nails started to grow again once my corpse had been reanimated, my decaying cuticles would probably start leaking blood and other bodily fluids. George was not impressed.

Happy Halloween!

As you can see, I had a really wild night...

2011-10-22T23:16:00.006+08:00

...And there was a bit of a ruckus! I'm kidding, I totally didn't. My Friday night was spent waiting for a delivery of organic yogurt (the dairy product subscription service I'm trying out keeps really strange hours). But the enigmatic subject of The Abandoned Boudoir clearly had a much more interesting evening than I did.

Post continued after the jump

Occupy Taipei (佔領台北)

2011-10-18T01:30:00.011+08:00

Seriously. How does the Taiwanese government expect the birthrate to increase if people are working so many hours they don't even have time to do it? "Not tonight, honey, I'm ZZZZZZZZZZZZ..."

The main reason I'm posting these photos is because I've seen and read news reports that made it sound as if Occupy Taipei, which took place on Oct. 15, disrupted commerce at Taipei 101, forcing stores to shutdown as "scuffles" broke out between the police and protestors. I was there from noon to 3pm, when the protest ended as scheduled, and that is completely not true.

The protestors first marched in a single-file line around Taipei 101, chanting slogans like "Jobs for all! Student aid for all!" before gathering at the mall's Shifu Rd entrance. At that point, all exterior doors to the mall were locked for about 5 minutes as organizers and mall security guards talked. After the entrances were open, protestors slowly started filtering in, some joking that they just wanted to go shopping. A few started chanting, but were quickly asked to stop by security, leaving to a brief verbal argument between one protestor and several security guards. By that time, a group of protestors had gathered near the Dior cosmetics store on the ground floor to sit down and listen to speeches. I don't agree with their decision to go into the mall, which is private property, but the organizers were conscientious about making sure shoppers were left undisturbed and reminded protestors that security guards and shop workers "are just like us, they are trying to make money." A few stores rolled down their gates for a few minutes, but rolled them back up again. The Dior cosmetic store's front entrance was open and unobstructed (though the store's security guard was posted at the front). If anyone had wanted to walk in and purchase a Dior Skinflash Radiance Booster concealer pen, they certainly would have been able to. I saw several tour groups pass by and the participants either looked confused or amused. If anything, the protest certainly gave them some good photo-ops.

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T. Loafer (閑隅): Got sit in a corner and drink about it

2011-10-11T01:43:00.006+08:00

One of the things I enjoy most about living in this city is the mixed-use development. A seemingly quiet residential neighborhood yields tons of surprises once you start exploring its lanes. T. Loafer (閑隅) is located on the ground floor of a corner apartment building near Shida and tiny (only 5.5 pings), but hard to miss. The cafe's exterior features more than 20 window frames salvaged from demolished buildings.

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Busy, busy, busy

2011-09-26T23:40:00.002+08:00

Mingnium Chair by Liu Chuan-kai (劉傳凱)

AHHHHHHHHHHHH! And that is why I have not been posting recently. I have, however, been gradually adding new entries to Eye Taiwan (愛Taiwan), including one about the gorgeous chairs above, because we are in the thick of design expo season here in Taipei. Taiwan Designers' Week (台灣設計師週) recently ended and the Taipei World Design Expo (台北世界設計大會) starts at the end of this month. (I try to post event information as often as possible on my Facebook page). I get to cover all of these things for work, so I'll be very busy for the next few weeks, but please keep me in your hearts (or at least on your RSS readers). I have a lot of photos I can't wait to share here (and no, they aren't all of my cat, shockingly enough).

Daniel Pearl Music Day (丹尼的音樂節)

2011-09-13T00:14:00.014+08:00

From reading my Facebook feed, I know that a lot of my friends, classmates and former colleagues back in New York City felt extremely overwhelmed by the news coverage of 9/11. Living abroad, however, I felt disconnected from all the ceremonies and events meant to mark the 10th anniversary. I wanted to do something to observe the day, but was at a loss until I found out that this year's Daniel Pearl Music Day was on Sunday.

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Where's the Cat?

2011-09-07T21:09:00.002+08:00

I just wanted to let you know that I am STILL ALIVE!!! despite slacking off on my blog posts. My weekend was great... and by "great," I mean "oh, great" because it involved antibiotics. My doctor also told me I was dehydrated and ordered me to drink at least two liters of water a day. I was about to whine "I already drink two liters of water a day," but then I remembered that Diet Coke does not count as water. Oops. Anyway, can you spot the kitty in the photo above? I took it near Yongkang St (永康街). Every time I see a stray cat, it makes me want to run home and hug Taroko George, but Taroko George does not appreciate my gestures of affection. Awful beast.

My fourth Taiwanniversary

2011-08-31T20:43:00.012+08:00

I no longer think of myself as a shy person (having to conduct interviews in a language I only recently acquired fluency in certainly beat that out of me), but I still spend more time in my head than I probably should, peeking out every so often to catch a glimpse of something: a sign warning of marauding coconut branches, a discarded rain slicker, lions with their mouths full. Most of these photos were taken around the Shida (師大) and Gongguan (公館) neighborhoods.

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As old as my age and a little older than my teeth...

2011-08-28T04:16:00.014+08:00

While going through photo scans for family snaps to display in our living room, I came across this photo of my Nainai and me during my one-month celebration at my parents' first house in Sunnyvale, California. I must have seen it before because it is in our family albums, but it still surprised me because I remember my Nainai as a gentle, emotionally reserved woman (when she wasn't replacing my baby formula with Coors Light). It warms my heart so much to see that huge smile on her face. It reminds me that even though there were times when I felt disconnected from my family because of our language and cultural differences, I always truly belonged to them, and they to me.

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Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood hit Ximending

2011-08-15T21:11:00.007+08:00

(Clockwise from upper left: Is this a Nargle?; Posing with Dobby the elf at the movie theater; Taipei's Hogwarts; Luna Lovegood's radish earrings; Harry standing on a Portkey)

One of the things I regret most about not starting the Harry Potter series when it first became a worldwide phenomena is that being conversant about the books probably would have helped me get over my shyness and meet more people. I first became aware of the series as a freshman or sophomore in college, but did not read them until just a few months ago, when I had to spend a lot of time in physical therapy hooked up to various machines for tendinitis. Yes, I put off reading the Harry Potter books for a third of my life. I know I procrastinate a lot, but damn. I have been making up for lost time ever since. The last film is out, but I can still party like it's 2007 and I'm lining up at midnight in front of Barnes and Nobles, waiting breathlessly for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Back then I didn't get what all the fuss was about and laughed at all those people in their silly graduation gowns and wigs. Now I wish I could use a time-turner to go back and punch some sense into myself.

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Weel-heeled: Liebe Hsing shoes and Juisheng Shoemaking Center

2011-08-05T20:03:00.004+08:00

When I was younger, I was obsessed with hand embroidery. My library had a reference book with giant, closeup photos of the Bayeux Tapestry that I checked out repeatedly. I studied the panels, wandering about the people who had worked each woolen stitch so many years ago and what they were thinking or feeling in that second. I felt as if handmade objects captured a piece of the person who had spent so many hours creating it... each one is almost like a memory (or a positive Horcrux, for you Harry Potter fans out there). That is one of the reasons I enjoy writing about independent designers in Taiwan, because many of their items are painstakingly created one by one by people who put a lot of thought into every step of the crafting process.

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A Canny Craft: Transforming soda cans in Tainan

2011-07-27T23:17:00.002+08:00

A few months ago, the price of 600ml bottles of Diet Coke in Taiwan rose from NT$25 to NT$29. The fact that I even care about this does not bode well for my dental health. I am sensitive to caffeine, but Diet Coke is a gateway drug. Now I'm just innocently sipping an ice cubed filled glass on hot mornings to perk up... the next thing I know, I'll be guzzling down pints of espresso on an empty stomach, screaming "IT'S NOT WORKING!!! I'VE PLATEAUED!!! " Anyway, when I was in Tainan a couple months ago, I found a very cool stall across the street from the Anping Tree House (安平樹屋) where a couple make and sell intricate sculptures carefully twisted from thin aluminum strands cut out of soda cans. When I was purchasing my miniature Diet Coke chair, hands shaking and pupils dilating as I handed over the money, they told me that Diet Coke cans are the hardest to find. Oh?

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Borrowed memories, random families, fleeting glimpses

2011-07-18T16:10:00.020+08:00

(Today's post is part of the Elegant Musings Cherished Collections blog tour, organized by the brilliant and always generous Casey Brown. Based in the US, Elegant Musings focuses on vintage style and design. Casey is an amazing seamstress... her detailed tutorials on fine dressmaking techniques are invaluable if you enjoy sewing and reproducing vintage clothing. My contribution to the blog tour is about my trove of vintage photos taken in Taiwan from around the 1940s to the late 1970s).

A few days ago, I realized that I had never seen a photo of my paternal grandmother taken when she was young. In my mind, my nainai always looks the same as she did when I was born. Most of my family's old photos are scattered between my relatives' homes in Taiwan, Singapore, Canada and the US. I suppose some were also lost when my father's parents were separated from their relatives and young son during the Chinese Civil War.

When we visited my grandparents in Taipei or Vancouver and I got to see my Mom or Dad's childhood snaps, I would marvel at them, trying to imagine the years and years my parents had already lived before my brother and I came along. I think this is one of the reasons I love looking for old photos in vintage stores here in Taipei. They give me a sense of my own past, even if it is a borrowed past. I like feeling as if I am saving another family's history because I felt so disconnected from my own while I was growing up.

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Okra a beautiful day: Herbs and vegetables at Suho Memorial Paper Museum

2011-07-14T18:45:00.012+08:00

Taipei has been overcast, very rainy and hot for the past few days. That, in my opinion, is the worst kind of weather. For one thing, it is a challenge just to decide what footwear to wear. Sandals will get stretched out and ruined, but then it feels too muggy to wear shoes that require socks. The edges of slip-on styles rub my feet raw when my skin is wet and sneakers just get soggy. Crocs were very popular here a few years ago and I can see why, but I refuse to wear foam rubber boats on my feet. Anyway, I thought it would be refreshing to look at some photos of pretty green things taken on a gorgeous day (we've actually had a few uncharacteristically lovely, languid stretches of sunny weather lately, in between the stuffiness). These are vegetables or herbs grown by Suho Memorial Paper Museum (樹火紀念紙博物館) on their rooftop garden for A Dining Scenery (用餐風景：紙，在方寸之間).

(Continued after the jump)

We Are Plastic One of a Kind: Taipei Toy Festival 2011

2011-07-09T17:04:00.004+08:00

The Taipei Toy Festival is on right now (mmm, I can almost smell the vinyl wafting from Huashan 1914 Creative Park over to my apartment) and runs through tomorrow. I spend each year looking forward to it and then a day or two running like crazy through the exhibition, taking photos, inspecting handmade figures and blowing way more cash than I planned. I think I comported myself pretty well this year, though, because I only bought an Amanda Visell seahorse and rider figure by Paradise Toy. One of a kind versions of the seahorse made by Visell were also on sale.

(Continued after the jump)

Chewing the dining scenery at Suho Memorial Paper Museum

2011-07-08T22:12:00.007+08:00

A few days ago, my friend and I reminisced about a professor at our grad school who ate paper. She'd tear off pieces of it and roll it into tiny balls while you were engaged in an otherwise normal conversation. A few minutes later, you'd look down and realize that the entire sheet was gone. I'm not judging her because my favorite snack when I was a kid was Elmer's Glue, so I can understand the compulsion to eat stationery products. Our professor would find lots to chew over at Suho Memorial Paper Museum (樹火紀念紙博物館), especially since their current exhibit is called A Dining Scenery (用餐風景：紙，在方寸之間) and focuses on food (actual food, not paper) and the art of eating.

(Continued after the jump)

Welcome Design Sponge readers!

2011-07-05T23:16:00.004+08:00

I am thrilled to offer a big 你好 to readers who are clicking over from my Taipei City guide for Design Sponge! I am so happy that you want to find out more about Taipei, my beloved adopted city. Do you want to learn more about the design scene here? Please see my posts about indie designers and stores (which I am lucky enough to write about for my reporting job at the Taipei Times). My "retro Taiwan" tag looks at Taiwanese pop culture during the 1960s and 1970s and I have a few posts about residential architecture in this country. I am also currently compiling a list of Taiwanese independent designers at Eye Taiwan Design. Do you have questions about living in Taipei? Suggestions for indie stores or designers I should check out? Please feel free to leave a comment here or contact me through e-mail or Facebook.

Also, it is extremely important that I make sure as many people in the world as possible see what our cat Taroko George looks like:

Found Objects: Mooi Trouve

2011-07-05T23:01:00.002+08:00

The Taipei I reside in is very different from the city my parents grew up in. When he was a little boy, my Dad lived in a timber house built during the Japanese colonial era in what is now a parking lot near the Taipower Building MRT stop. As fun as it is to nostalgize those buildings, living in them during the 1950s and 1960s wasn't always that enjoyable (for one thing, the wood frames hosted a lot of insects). They are now becoming increasingly rare, however, and some Taipei City residents are keen on saving the few houses that are left scattered around the city. Several of them have been turned into cafes or stores, which is great news for me because I love getting a peek into how my family once lived. National Taiwan University recently invited some business owners to renovate old faculty housing that had stood empty for many years. Minfu Chien (簡銘甫), who is known as the founder of vintage furniture importer Mooi, took the opportunity to open a combination cafe and store called Mooi Trouve (找到魔椅).
(Read more after the jump)

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The little people: Changyifang studio

2011-06-28T00:26:00.003+08:00

I have loved miniatures since I was just a miniature human being myself. I enjoy seeing things completely out of scale and marveling over ridiculously tiny, intricate details. Dolls and puppets fascinate me because they are inanimate objects, usually made out of humble materials (plastic, wood) that seem so alive you can project many things onto them (I'd be happy to live in Uncanny Valley). I've posted about Re-ment miniatures from Japan, the Miniatures Museum of Taiwan (袖珍博物館) and Blythe dolls here before. Three and a half years ago my Uncle Daniel took Ron and me to Changyifang (彰藝坊), a traditional glove puppet puppet studio (or bùdàixì, 布袋戲), near Yongkang St. Back in 2007, Changyifang's handmade puppets and bags were sold at Eslite Dunnan. Last year, they converted their studio into a store and moved all of their retail operations there. I recently returned to Changyifang to profile its founders, husband-and-wife team Chen I-tzu (陳羿錫) and Chen Tsung-ping (陳宗萍).
(Continued after the jump)
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Something to chew over regarding freedom of speech in Taiwan

2011-06-26T22:30:00.040+08:00

As a journalist and blogger, I was alarmed by the recent news that a Taiwanese blogger has been sentenced to jail after writing a negative post about a beef noodle restaurant. It is important to note that the court decision to find her guilty of defamation was not based solely on her complaints about the establishment's food (she also criticized its cleanliness and called the boss an "evil tyrant" after a heated argument over parking), but the ruling still has troubling implications for Taiwan's freedom of speech. It has also clearly hit a nerve worldwide: the case has been mentioned on Time magazine's Web site, the Daily Mail and Boing Boing, among many other publications.

I review restaurants as a features reporter for the Taipei Times (which, as far as I know, was the first newspaper to report on the case in English) and frequently post about places to eat on this blog. I always thought the main thing I had to worry about was an irate reader telling me that an eatery I reviewed positively gave him or her massive indigestion, not getting thrown in prison. (The Taipei Times just reported today that another blogger is being sued for posting negatively about a restaurant).
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The original Shu Flies

2011-06-19T23:39:00.004+08:00

In 1978, my Dad boarded a plane, flew across the Pacific and enrolled as a Master's student in UC Berkeley's Department of Architecture. A year later, my Mom joined him and in 1981 they had a happy accident -- me! A year later, another surprise from heaven arrived (my brother Mike) and my Dad suddenly had his hands full:

I love how stunned he looks in this photo. My Dad is a very loving and devoted parent, qualities I'll illustrate with a story about our family's cat, Deedee.

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Exhibit: 101 Shots of Taipei

2011-06-17T15:58:00.000+08:00

After living in Taipei for almost four years, I've developed a cozy routine. Many things about the city that seemed surprising, odd and delightful when I first moved here are now part of my day-to-day landscape. Taipei is home, but I often take it for granted. Looking at the photos in "101 Shots of Taipei," which is on at Good Cho's in Xinyi District until this Sunday, really helped rekindle my joy in the small details of life here. Photographers Kenya Nagamine and Dicky Chalmers gave themselves a challenge: create 101 photos, each with a numeral in them, that represent aspects of Taipei using four vintage twin-lens reflex cameras, which are also on display at Good Cho's. I highly recommend this exhibit if you are new to Taipei or have visitors, because it really portrays the different, contrasting facets of the city. You'll see photos that show things like dragon boats, KTV, Taiwan Beer bottles, election posters and night market games in fresh and unexpected ways. There are also shots that capture quieter moments -- a park bench in the golden light of the early evening, a secondhand bookstore with framed calligraphy carefully displayed on crowded shelves, a man carefully painting a curb line by hand.

For more information about the exhibit, please see my article for the Taipei Times. My March story about Good Cho's is at this link.

Of snow princesses, bronze goddesses and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Girl

2011-06-15T23:10:00.012+08:00

A few weeks ago my old friend Justin arrived in Taipei. We’ve known each other since elementary school and, as such, can remember every single mortifying thing that happened to each other and all our classmates between the ages of 9 and 17.

“Do you remember how everybody called me the Stay Puft Marshmallow Girl in fifth and sixth grade?” I asked him recently. Justin said he had no recollection of that, which was surprising because I remember the teasing being pretty pervasive (as in, people who didn’t actually know my real name knew me as Stay Puft). I figured that maybe I’d completely blown things out of proportion in my memory until I suddenly remembered… my classmates never called me the Stay Puft Marshmallow Girl! Nope! They called me the Pillsbury Dough Girl.
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Did someone say... food? A few Tainan treats.

2011-06-11T20:48:00.004+08:00

Hi my lovely, patient readers! I have been busy trying to balance work with giving my tendinitis a chance to get better over the last few weeks, and now I have a big backlog of posts that I am looking forward to sharing with you. But before I do that, here is a quick one about a favorite pastime of mine... consuming massive quantities of food. My parents took Ron and me to SO MANY PLACES in Tainan during the two weekends we spent with them there. I wonder what the total calorie count was and if my stomach is now permanently stretched out. It was all worth it! You know that if a city is famous for its food in a country filled with people who take their eating really, really seriously, then you are in for an amazing treat. The addresses of the restaurants I mention below are in my article for the Taipei Times (along with yet more culinary establishments and a few cool places to visit). More photos of the glorious goodies I shoveled into my piehole are after the jump.

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Past in the present

2011-05-31T00:01:00.011+08:00

If you have followed my blog for a while, you know that I am obsessed with social history, old houses and vintage items (in particular goods from the 1950s to late 1970s). One of my first posts was about the house my waigong built in the 1960s and feeling a connection to my family's past that was bittersweet because its immediacy was so novel for me. When I was a little girl, I loved visiting places like the History Museum of San Jose and the different Spanish missions, including San Juan Bautista. American history intrigued me (and it still does), but my family had only lived in the States since the late 1970s and I was curious about their experiences.

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Asian parents and the art of the humblebrag

2011-05-18T21:24:00.012+08:00

"Our optometrist bills are through the roof. All my daughter does is read and read and read, and win medals for reading, and read and read five grades above her level and read. She's obsessed [sigh]."

One of the things that Asian people like to do when they get together is trade Asian parent war stories (but not me, Mom and Dad, you're perfect!!!). The stories I hear might not be at the Tiger Mom level, but they are still pretty intense. Sometimes my friends will tell me things like "When I was little, my mother called me ugly in front of all her friends. Then she said it wouldn't matter if I weren't also so stupid," or "My parents say that I am condemned to be alone for the rest of my life because I have no social skills, so I should study harder since I will never have a husband to provide for me. But I don't have any social skills because I study so hard to please them."

It always makes me sad to hear these stories because I know my friends are still hurt by their parents' words. Since I majored in psychology and am only one PhD and a few years of fieldwork away from becoming a qualified therapist, I feel compelled to offer words of comfort.

"I'm sure they are proud of you," I say. "Maybe they were just humblebragging?"

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Walk With Pride

2011-05-17T16:47:00.010+08:00

Taiwan Pride, 2009 (all photos in this post are by Chad Meacham)

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. I want to encourage all of you to see an exhibit by Taipei-based photographer Chad Meacham. Inspired by the 2009 Taiwan Pride march, Meacham and his partner Sarah Baxter embarked on an extraordinary year-long photojournalism project that documented 15 pride events in cities throughout the world, including Jerusalem, Moscow and Manila. The two did not just focus on the celebratory aspects of the parades. They also documented the sickening -- and often violent -- homophobia encountered by marchers.

I profiled the Walk With Pride project for the Taipei Times last October. See the Walk With Pride Web site for information about their ongoing photo exhibit, which is currently taking place at locations throughout the world. In Taipei City, it is at Gingin bookstore's h*ours cafe in Gongguan and the Banciao Train Station.
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We two, we three

2011-05-16T22:32:00.001+08:00

Ron and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary today. We've been together for six and a half years, but it feels like it is only the beginning -- and not just because I have a bad memory. That's actually one of the reasons I enjoy being married. It's like having an extra brain! Ron has an especially good brain, too.

We also observed our first 18 months with Taroko George a few days ago. He's a lovely cat. All I ever wanted when I was a young girl was to have a good husband, a job I liked and a dear little cat. I have all three things now, and I'm going to do everything in my power to keep deserving the unbelievable good fortune I've enjoyed over the last few years.

The food of my peoples: Chiachia Hakka Seafood Restaurant

2011-05-15T20:15:00.010+08:00

Classic Hakka stir fry, with scallions, pork and squid

One of the best ways to learn about a new culture is to eat it. When I was little, I didn't really know anything about Hakka history or traditions, only that it was the name of the language my maternal relatives spoke and that I couldn't understand (unless they were talking about me, because then every few word were "愷凌 this" and "愷凌 that," accompanied by solemn glances my way. Life in a multicultural family is always filled with intrigue.). The first time I remember eating Hakka food was a few months after I moved to Taiwan, when my parents, Ron and I went down to Miaoli County (苗栗縣) to visit my relatives.

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"And that's why you never run with chopsticks," or 母親節快樂！

2011-05-08T12:44:00.011+08:00

My Mom and Grandma in Kaohsiung, April 2011

Ah, Mother's Day! I know plenty of moms think that every day should be mother's day, but Mother's Day the holiday gives us children an opportunity to ritualistically apologize to the women who raised us for all the suffering we put them through. It's also a good chance to reflect on what we've learned from our mothers and grandmas. I really love the little nuggets of wisdom my maternal grandmother tries to pass along, even when they scare the crap out of me.

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Rooting around the Anping Tree House (安平樹屋)

2011-05-04T00:27:00.003+08:00

Ron and I returned to Tainan last weekend to visit my Dad (my Mom went back to the States last week). Both of my parents are very familiar with the city because they graduated from the architecture department of National Cheng Kung University (國立成功大學). In fact, my father earned his bachelor's and master's degrees there -- or, as he put it, Tainan City is where he grew up from a teenager to a handsome young man (this was in response to my asking him "So, Tainan made you old?"). It is where my parents met and started dating, so I guess I have the city to thank for my existence. It also has the world's coolest, bloodthirsty Man-Eating Trees!

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Join Taroko George and me on Facebook!

2011-04-25T22:53:00.001+08:00

Taroko George and I have launched a joint Facebook page! People constantly ask me if my cat has a profile (and by "people," I mean my parents), but Taroko George is 11.5 years too young to join Facebook. I figured he might as well make a fan page instead. Taroko George graciously let me tag along, so I will add links to my favorite things in Taipei: indie stores, cafes, restaurants, musicians, events and fun blogs. In other words, all the things I would put here if I weren't so lazy (though in my defense, some things are too short for a proper blog post). Please come and join us!

That Taiwanese Cushion

2011-04-22T00:30:00.003+08:00

One of the most bittersweet things about living in Taiwan is realizing how different the collective memory I share with other Americans my age is from that of most of my family. It's not just the big things like growing up in different cultures, being schooled in educational systems that seem diametrically opposed to one another or speaking two completely unrelated languages. The things that evoke feelings of nostalgia and longing in my relatives merely stir curiosity in me, and vice versa.

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Tainan vignettes

2011-04-18T16:27:00.005+08:00

Ron and I spent a relaxing, sunny weekend in Tainan, my new favorite city. We stayed in a lovely bed-and-breakfast filled with vintage furniture and selected items from the owner's collection of vinyl records and Beavis and Butthead memorabilia (I'll write about it soon). My parents, who graduated from National Cheng Kung University (國立成功大學), showed us around their old haunts and fed us so much food that we may never have to eat again. Seriously, I'm still not hungry even though it's 4pm and all I've eaten today is a piece of bread (granted, it's whole wheat bread stuffed with walnuts and dried longan fruit from Pasadena Bakery in Kaohsiung that my uncle bought us. You never have to cook the day after seeing family!). See a few more of my favorite snaps from the neighborhood around our B&B (I'm planning a few more posts. Yes, it was a very fun couple of days!) after the cut.

My doggy lumps

2011-04-14T23:14:00.011+08:00

A few weeks ago, I was walking away from the Xinyi Public Assembly Hall (信義公民會館) after visiting Good Cho's (好,丘), a combination cafe/performance/gallery space/store/cafe that was recently opened by the organizers of the Simple Life (簡單生活) festival, when I stumbled upon a fascinating sight...

At first I thought it was an installation, since there is a lot of public art in the area and another gallery besides the one at Good Cho's. As I got closer, I marveled at how finely crafted and realistic the details on the sculpture were...

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Note to RSS feed subscribers

2011-04-11T23:37:00.023+08:00

From now on I will only have the short version of my RSS feed enabled, because I found out that, once again, someone is stealing my blog content and re-posting it onto his/her Web site in a hopefully futile attempt to raise ad revenue. I resisted doing this for a long time because I want people to enjoy the convenience of reading my blog without having to leave their RSS reader. I am sorry that certain people [link removed because I don't want to send them anymore traffic] have finally forced me to change my mind about that. The final straw was that they were accidentally linked to on a Facebook page with a fairly large follower base that I wished had been directed to my blog (since I did, you know, write the content and take the photos and all). ~~If you want to help me get my stolen content removed, please send an e-mail to doni.sudirman@gmail.com, the address listed at the top of the site.~~ (Content removed. Thanks, guy. Try not to do it again.)

Autoblogs jack my RSS feed on a fairly regular basis. I have no idea what search terms they use to find me and, obviously, I have no control over what my posts are slapped next to on these sites. I do not want my journalism clips or family photos ending up next to soft core porn. I mean, as a cat mommy, nothing hurts my delicate heart more than seeing my darling, innocent Taroko George's kitten photos next to some lady in a white string bikini bending over and spraying herself with a hose. It would be one thing if these Web sites were so obscure that they got zero hits, but, as I found out, that is not the case. If any of you have dealt with this problem on your blogs before, I'm certainly open to advice.

In the meantime, I promise I will make the first 400 characters of each post so scintillating, so fascinating, so provocative, that it will set your RSS feeder on fire (pronounced: fiiiiiiieeee-yah!).

(Re-post) Tea and history: The Formosa Vintage Museum Cafe

2011-04-11T23:26:00.009+08:00

*I am reposting this because the RSS feed on the original post was plagiarized by an autoblog.*

Hand-painted advertising poster from the Japanese colonial era. The model has Taiwanese-style embroidery on her cuffs.

I have tendinitis in both wrists and a sore throat (I assume the two maladies are not related), so I'll just a link to my recent story about the Formosa Vintage Museum Cafe (秋惠文庫) on Xinyi Rd near Din Tai Fung and post some extra photos.

If you have followed my blog for a while, then you probably know about my intense love for Taiwan Storyland (台灣故事館). Unfortunately, Taiwan Storyland closed at the end of December. The management taped a sign on their door saying that they had to move because their lease had run out, but they haven't answered repeated questions from fans on their Facebook page about when they plan to re-open.

The Formosa Vintage Museum Cafe is less tourist-oriented, but it also gives people a chance to look at items and documents related to Taiwan's cultural and social history in a relaxed environment. Items from owner Lin Yu-fang's (林于昉) collection are frequently displayed in museums around the country, but it is really nice to just sit with a cup of tea next to posters from the Japanese colonial era or stick my nose within inches of a carving from the Qing Dynasty. One of the reasons Lin started collecting in the early 1990s was because he feels the Taiwanese government and other collectors put so much emphasis on Chinese-style items that Taiwan's own unique culture is ignored. He also preserves items that some people would rather toss, like brothel signs. The cafe is located in the former home of Lin's parents, which means that it should be able to survive for as long as Lin wants to run it, since he doesn't have to worry about making rent.

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Accio Chopsticks!

2011-04-11T21:27:00.014+08:00

Last weekend, I fulfilled my week-long dream of owning a pair of Harry Potter wand chopsticks. After years of claiming to be too busy to do so, I recently made enough space in my procrastination schedule to read the entire series. Wow. I really wish I had started the books back in college when they first came out. For one thing, I would have understood many important cultural references. When somebody refers to someone as Lord Voldemort, for example, it does not mean that person it is just unpleasant to be around. Oh no, it means that they are the ultimate evil and you are being warned to either run away quickly or kill them before they kill you. Knowing that would have saved me so much trouble.

I picked up the series because Mollie Used Books (茉莉二手書店) had almost all the books in their Shida branch, which only carries a few English-language books in a tiny, closet-like space. I figured I would just buy the first book and see whether or not I took to it. Well, as it turns out, I finished it in a day, and then ran back to Mollie at 9PM looking for my next hit. It took me about a month to read all seven books. I got through them really quickly because I hauled each volume to my physical therapy sessions, where I managed to prop them up in my lap even though both my wrists were attached to electrodes. It was a lot better than watching the endless loop of TVBS's scintillating reports about ramen safety on television (seriously, it seems like every third clip is about ramen).

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A few of my tendons seized

2011-04-09T23:48:00.007+08:00

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I developed tendinitis in both my wrists just before Lunar New Year. Since then, a lot of my free time has been spent going to physical therapy, making my work space more ergonomic and brainstorming ways to get things done without using my hands too much.

A couple days ago, I stopped banging my head against the wall long enough to buy Dragon Dictate for Mac, which I am using to “write” most of this entry. It’s accurate and does a fairly good job of deciphering my Californian accent, but I think it will take a while for me to get used to it. This is in large part because the software does not seem to recognize a lot of my favorite swear words.

It's also very distracting trying to monitor what appears on screen while I'm dictating, while simultaneously making sure I compose something coherent (I ramble a lot when I talk and it is hard to avoid the temptation to do that while dictating). It makes me feel like all the signals in my brain are criss-crossing each other and getting tangled up. David Pogue gave Dragon Dictate a very good review on the New York Times, in which he declared he would be dictating e-mails from then on with an ice-cold lemonade in one hand and yo-yo in the other. I trust Pogue’s opinion, so that’s encouraging (though with tendinitis I doubt I’ll be playing with yo-yos anytime soon).

Hopefully it will help give me my blogging mojo back. My wrists feel okay if I let them rest for a day or so, but then the swelling in my tendons flares back up again when I type, so I try to stay away from writing unless it's for my job. Sometimes they make a weird clicking noise when I rotate my hands from side to side. Did you know that there is a term for that? It’s called crepitus. Yeck, what a creepy, suitably unpleasant sounding word.

Right into his left mind: New media artist Huang Hsin-chien (黃心健)

2011-03-27T18:46:00.006+08:00

Photo by Justin Guariglia

I'm still feeling under the weather and incapable of writing anything that's not "Oh man! Oh God! Oh man! Oh God! Oh man! Oh God! Oh man! Oh God!" While I'm recovering, however, I'll be posting some of my recent clips. This is mostly for my parents' benefit, but I hope you enjoy them, too. I recently profiled new media artist Huang Hsin-chien (黃心健) for IEEE Spectrum, a magazine targeted to technology professionals. Huang studied to become a mechanical engineer before switching gears to pursue an art career and is now one of Taiwan's top multimedia artists. He helped create the installations inside the Flora Expo's Pavilion of Dreams (夢想館), which I hear is its most popular attraction. Please also check out the video at the end of the story with excerpts from my interview and examples of Huang's past work. Here are a few more videos of my favorite pieces, all from his YouTube channel:

Put a Taiwanese Crested Myna on it

2011-03-19T18:48:00.008+08:00

One of the most interesting and rewarding aspects of covering emerging designers here is seeing how they strive to create a unique aesthetic identity for Taiwan. You sometimes hear people say that Taiwan has no art of its own (aside from Taiwanese aboriginal art) and that everything is derivative of Chinese or Japanese traditions. Until recently, pursuing a career in art or design was also simply financially unfeasible for many people. But I don't think that means Taiwan has no creative voice. On the contrary, young designers and artists now have the opportunity to create a visual vocabulary for this country that combines influences from many different cultures while at the same time highlighting things that are particularly Taiwanese.

Textile brand In Blooom's (印花樂) goal is to make designs that touch on the collective impressions Taiwanese people have of everyday life. One series is inspired by native animals and plants, including their signature Taiwanese crested myna (台灣八哥) prints. Once frequently seen, Taiwanese crested mynas are becoming rarer as they are pushed out of their habitats by other, more aggressive non-indigenous birds.

Another series of tessellated prints is based on the ceramic tiles that were once a common sight in Taiwanese dwellings. After seeing In Blooom's prints, I always keep my eyes out for flooring whenever I go into an older building (Le Magasin du Ciel (現在夢中 ● 雜貨商行), which is located in a converted apartment, has a really great example). I like how they derived inspiration from something many people take for granted and turned it into an eye-catching but versatile design.

In Blooom is only a couple of years old and its three designers are all recent university graduates. I first met them at last year's Taiwan International Cultural and Creative Industry Expo (台灣國際文化創意產業博覽會) and am happy to see how quickly the brand is growing. They recently opened their first store in Art Yard (小藝埕), which is located in a converted colonial era residence right across Dihua St from Yongle Fabric Market. For more information and the address, please check out my recent article for the Taipei Times.

Help support disaster relief in Japan and New Zealand

2011-03-13T22:47:00.004+08:00

Please consider donating to the Red Cross to help provide disaster relief services for earthquake victims in Japan and New Zealand or check this list on Racialicious for other charities. The above image was created by English artist Aled Lewis in support of fundraising efforts by Shelterbox and Threadless.

Happy International Women's Day!

2011-03-08T00:28:00.015+08:00

The picture above is of my lovely maternal grandmother in 1951, around the time she graduated from teacher's college in Taipei. My grandma recently went to her 60th class reunion! Isn't that amazing? She was dealt many challenges in life, but faced all of them with grace and endurance. My grandma is a wonderful woman, with a wicked sense of humor, and I am proud to be her granddaughter. I am lucky that all my life, I have been surrounded by strong female role models and a family that never, ever made me feel like being a girl meant I was weaker or had less potential.

Today is the 100th International Women's Day (國際婦女節) and a good time to reflect on the strides that women over the world have made over the past century -- and the obstacles we still face. In Taiwan, a third of women are the primary breadwinners in their households. But while they have more economic clout, Taiwanese women still face many challenges, including misogynist attitudes in the workplace and from family members. Foreign workers from southeast Asia are mostly female and when something like the row between the governments of the Philippines and Taiwan happens, it hits them especially hard.

Since moving here, I've become very interested in learning about the feminist movement in Taiwan. Unfortunately, English language literature on the topic is hard to come by. The only book I've found so far is Doris T. Chang's "Women's Movements in Twentieth-Century Taiwan" (which I am looking forward to reading). I'm also interested in reading more about feminism from an Asian-American perspective (as anyone who is interested in American women's studies knows, a lot of the literature focuses on the experiences of white, middle-class women. Seriously, I'll read certain books or articles and feel like I don't even exist). If you have any recommended reading, please let me know!

Jenna from Lao Ren Cha recently wrote an in-depth post exploring why there is a relative dearth of female expats from Western countries living in Taiwan. (Jenna is one of the few bloggers in Taiwan -- in fact, she may be the only one -- who write frequently about feminism and expat life.) She picks apart some of the more asinine ideas she's heard (like women don't want to go where they think it's icky) and offers her own analysis (one reason may be the casual misogyny rampant in the Western expat community... I know from my own experience how discomfiting it can be). The comments on her post are also very interesting: for example, one reader mentioned that many women don't have the luxury of living abroad because the responsibility for aging relatives falls on their shoulders, which is something I hadn't thought about before. I can say from my personal experience that some women are hesitant about living in a foreign country, even for a few years, because they feel like that time should be spent in their home countries working their way up in a company or earning a graduate degree in order to compete in male-dominated professions. I felt the same way until a confluence of factors (a romance, a scholarship and the promise of marinated offal carts on every street corner) blew my carefully charted plans asunder. I'll write more about that in another post.

Pinkoi: Taiwan's indie designers online

2011-03-02T09:54:00.005+08:00

Clockwise from upper left: lamp by Mozi Dozen, porcelain vases by Wooow, necklace by 20/20, bench by ROC 69, bopomofo necklaces by 157-4

As a big fan of Taiwan's independent designers and an avid Etsy shopper, I've often wished someone would create a Taiwanese version of Etsy. Well, someone has!

My article in today's Taipei Times profiles online marketplace Pinkoi and its three person founding team, which includes a former Yahoo software engineer who helped lead the development of Yahoo! Answers. Pinkoi went live in October and is still in beta stage, but it already has an great roster of designers. You can buy sophisticated leather pumps, cute wooden desk lamps, gift boxes filled with handmade soap, even wooden furniture. Most of Pinkoi's current sellers were handpicked by its founders, who traveled to craft fairs and studios around Taiwan to pitch their Web site.

I am looking forward to watching Pinkoi develop. I was one of the first users of Etsy when it launched in 2005 around the time I graduated from journalism school (I even listed some handmade jewelry) and it was exciting to watch it grow. The site now has 7.2 million users, more than 400,000 of who have listed items at one time or another. Over the last half decade, Etsy has changed the lives of many independent designers in the US and other English-speaking countries (though of course a lot of their success depends on combination of good luck and very, very hard work, as this New York Times article describes). Back in the US, Etsy was my site of choice for finding cool gifts, craft supplies and vintage clothing.

I still love shopping there, but shipping from the US (where most Etsy sellers are located) is pricey (and, of course, I really want to support Taiwanese designers whenever I can). Registered Etsy users hail from more than 150 countries, but there are relatively few sellers from Taiwan or the rest of Asia. A lot of independent designers here launch their brands by selling at weekend craft fairs or on consignment while saving up to open their own stores. If they do sell online, it's on their own Web sites or blogs. Many avoid e-commerce sites like Ruten (露天) or Yahoo! Auctions Taiwan because most shoppers there are looking for bargains, not one-of-a-kind, handmade items. A site like Pinkoi enables designers to take advantage of Internet marketing with a very low outlay of money and time.

Having talked to its founders, several Pinkoi vendors and browsed the Web site myself, I think they've done a good job of making the site into a social networking experience by integrating the Web site with Facebook and offering features like a section where you can ask other users to help you decide what to buy. I purchased a Hexagonal Extensity necklace from 20/20 and thought Pinkoi was very easy to use (if you don't want to log in with your Facebook account, you just need to supply your e-mail and pick a username and password). A lot of sellers let you check out with Paypal and offer international shipping. The site will be available in English within the next few months, but if you live outside of Taiwan and want to go shopping right now, you can contact the Pinkoi staff for assistance via the Web site or Facebook.

228 Memorial Peace Park

2011-03-01T00:14:00.002+08:00

Tape mixes: Le Magasin du Ciel (現在夢中 ● 雜貨商行)

2011-02-28T00:34:00.009+08:00

My last post featured kinesiology tape from Japan... and this post features washi tape from Japan! Japanese "washi" tape is usually used by scrapbookers and paper crafters, but Heaven Tai (戴海雯) layers, pleats and braids it to create appliques and badges that embellish bags hand-sewn from a mix of new fabrics found in Yongle Fabric Market (永樂市場) and vintage cloth. I love her offbeat aesthetic -- it's quiet, childlike, wacky and zany at the same time. I also love washi tape (I use it for everything from photo albums to fixing our Internet wires to taping up sofa corners to keep Taroko George from using them as a scratching post), but never thought of using it on cloth before. My article today tells how Tai went from a graphic designer to the sole designer and proprietor of her store, Le Magasin du Ciel (現在夢中 ● 雜貨商行) near Shida night market.

The store is at 78, Yunhe St, Taipei City (台北市雲和街78號, near Shida night market), open 3pm to 10pm, Tuesdays are off. Contact: heaventai@gmail.com (she checks her e-mail often). Heaven's blog is at tw.myblog.yahoo.com/heaven-shop

A-wristed development

2011-02-26T23:35:00.008+08:00

What's even better than shocking pink kinesiology tape that matches my favorite Nars lipstick? Not having freaking tendonitis in both wrists!

Remember the wrist pain I mentioned a few entries back? Turns out it's not a sprain, it's tendonitis! And I have it in both wrists! I am going to a physical therapy clinic that also specializes in pediatric care, which means they know how to deal with me. The way PT works in Taiwan under the national health care program is that for every visit with the doctor (and the examination fee of about NT$200), you get six PT sessions. Each one is NT$50 and after your six are up, you have to see the doctor and pay the exam fee again. I pay an extra NT$60 per wrist for the kinesiology tape, which lasts about two days.

As an American accustomed to dealing with US health care, the cost of my PT is so low that my mind is whirling and while I am personally thrilled (and also very glad to live in a country with universal health care), I also worry about NHI becoming financially overstretched. I can't really write anymore about it right now, though. Apparently I type too fast (99 wpm) and I hit the keyboard too hard. At least the tape is pretty (I have a lipstick that matches it).

Presenting 愛 Taiwan Design

2011-02-23T20:09:00.004+08:00

Are you a fan of Taiwan's design scene? Then you might find my new site 愛 Taiwan Design helpful! I hope it will give people in English-speaking countries (and, of course, expats in Taiwan) a chance to scope out some of the lovely things that are being created in this beautiful country. Taiwan is known for its technological prowess, but it is also home to a bevy of designers and artists who are quickly earning international recognition. From talking to people in different design professions for my job, I know that they often feel overshadowed by the emphasis on science and technology here, both in school and as they pursued their careers, but I think that is gradually changing. 愛 Taiwan Design will feature styles ranging from cute to conceptual and everything from textile design to new media art. Feel free to let me know your favorite designers, labels or artists! Also, if you have a Web site, please consider linking to the blog as 愛 Taiwan Design or Eye Taiwan Design.

And, yes, I love dorky interlingual puns. 愛 Taiwan Design. Eye Taiwan Design. Eye on Taiwan Design. Heh heh heh.

Body image: Kiss my curvy yellow butt

2011-02-17T21:49:00.046+08:00

Actress and blogger Lynn Chen and Hyphen magazine publisher Lisa Lee, both Taiwanese Americans, just co-founded a new blog that I am extremely excited about. Called Thick Dumpling Skin, it is the first Web site that focuses on Asian Americans and body image.

This is a very personal and painful topic for me. I grew up hearing myself described as fat by other Asian kids and adults (and the non-Asian ones weren't so nice either, to be honest). I was known as the chubby girl for most of my childhood and adolescence, a confidence-quashing experience I described in this piece I wrote for Hyphen Magazine blog last year.

I never developed an eating disorder, but my relationship with food was extremely messed up. One thing I didn't talk about in the Hyphen article was a depressive episode I went through in college. One of the symptoms of my depression was a complete loss of appetite. I would spend an hour working my way through half a potato knish. Most of my calories were from soft drinks and juice, since those were the only things I could get down without gagging. After several months of barely eating and sleeping, I had a physical and mental breakdown and ended up in the hospital twice. One of the worst parts was laying huddled in a shivering, sobbing ball on the cold, grimy tile floor of a psychiatric ward because I had a lung infection and was too weak to stand up, but the doctor on call refused to treat me until my student health insurance was verified. My college contemplated forcing me to take a leave of absence. It was a nightmare.

But you know what I would think every morning when I got up and looked in the mirror? "At least I'm thin!" (Clearly, my body had started digesting brain matter in its desperation for fuel.)

It makes me sad to look at photos of myself as a young girl now. Despite all the labels that were attached to me and the names I was called, I was never fat. But my lack of self-confidence and discomfort with my developing body is obvious. I wore a lot of clothes from the boy's section: baggy sweatshirts, formless corduroys, X-large T-shirts. I begged and begged my parents to let me buy a full-torso girdle or at least a waist cincher from Mervyn's. If I had to sit down without a table or school desk in front of me, I plopped my backpack on my lap. Seeing the roundness of my thighs or the curve of my belly sometimes made me feel physically ill with disgust.

I think I was about 13 in this photo.

After my health problems in college, however, I realized that taking care of myself is not an aesthetic issue. It's about physical and emotional well-being. It's about eating nutritious foods and exercising to be mentally healthy, not to get down to a certain dress size. It's about never, ever getting to the point again where I obsessively fantasize about suicide or actually attempt to overdose, as I did in high school before being diagnosed with depression. I had to learn to be okay with my body and whatever size and shape it wants to be. I didn't completely succeed, but I made progress.

But when I got to Taiwan and saw diet ads like the one above, where 60 kg is considered grotesque and you aren't skinny until you get down to 45 kg, I felt my hard-won confidence slipping. (Seriously, the people in that ad have to slouch for their bellies to pop out. That's called poor posture, not obesity). I encountered the root of a cultural dogma -- the one that hurt me when I was still a little girl growing up an ocean away -- that states women have to be extremely thin not just to be seen as attractive, but for their minds to be taken seriously, too. Any heavier, and you are considered lazy or a figure of fun.

This is something I struggle with more often than I like to admit. The other day I went into a clothing store and the saleswoman told me I wouldn't fit into a dress and not to bother trying it on. It was hard for me to remind myself that she didn't call me fat -- she just said the dress was too small. But a lot of mainstream clothing stores carry an extremely limited range of sizes. And, frankly, a lot of places have crappy customer service. If you don't fit into something, it's not because the dress is too small, it's because your bust or hips are too big. From the way certain salespeople act, you'd think my ass was single-handedly changing weather patterns in Taiwan. And that is just stupid, because no matter what the media or fashion retailers insist, not everyone here is 45kg. There doesn't seem to be the same movement towards size acceptance in Taiwan that there is in the US. Commenting on other people's bodies is also more culturally acceptable here, as I blogged about a couple years ago, and if you have body image issues or a history of disordered eating, that can be triggering. Every time somebody comments on my weight -- even if they mean it as a compliment -- I start to panic. If I've gained weight, then it's a moral judgment on my sloth and lack of willpower. And if I've lost weight, it just makes me remember my health issues and the fact that I will never be free from the specter of depression, because psychopharmaceuticals and a good attitude only go so far.

I'm still trying to find my peace with my body. I want to have the strength and the sass to tell anyone who is bothered by my size to, in the immortal words of Homer Simpson, kiss my curvy yellow butt. I can't wait to read the posts on Thick Dumpling Skin. And, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat a sandwich right now.

Get booked: The Taipei International Book Exhibition 2011

2011-02-12T17:37:00.015+08:00

The Taipei International Book Exhibition (台北國際書展) runs through Monday at the Taipei World Trade Center (台北世界貿易中心). If you are a devoted bookworm, you will love it -- unless you have a horror of crowds. Here is my review, in bullet point form. For information, check out my article in the Taipei Times or the exhibition's Web site.

THE GOOD

The Taipei International Book Exhibition isn't just about selling books -- it explores new ways of transmitting information, as well as the tactile pleasures of reading. The event makes an argument for how books are still relevant in the digital age while honoring their history. There are plenty of interactive displays and e-readers at this year's festival: visitors get to try out everything from the Hami application for iPhones to digital illustration software. The beauty of printed books and book design is also celebrated. The National Taiwan Museum of Literature has a concise but informative exhibit that features vintage maps of Taiwan, schoolbooks from the 1930s to 1960s and handwriting samples from famous authors. Another art exhibit called The Impossible Library showcases handmade art books inspired by conceptual, Dadaist and surreal art.

This year's theme country is Bhutan, an unexpected but intriguing choice. Their display is organized like a reference library, with hundreds of books that visitors are free to pick up and peruse. Unfortunately, Bhutan's new monarch, the totally hot 30-year-old King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck won't be visiting, but there are some artifacts, including 12th century copy of "The Eight Thousand Verses of Transcendental Wisdom" (八千誦), traditional clothing, stunning textiles, samples of hot butter tea and a documentary with this ironic line: "In 2008, the king introduced democracy to Bhutan against the wishes of his people." (ETA: One of my readers, Andrea from Green Tea, recently wrote a fascinating post about Bhutan's national dress code).

TIBE's organizers do an excellent job of making sure there is something to engage readers of all ages. Halls 2 and 3 of the Taipei World Trader Center are devoted to manga, children's books and art/school supplies. One of the exhibitors in the main hall also had this fascinating contraption, which a small boy was being strapped into. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to stay and watch him being launched.

The exhibition draws an impressive roster of international literary talent, with 300 authors participating in the event. These include Jostein Gaarder and Dan Millman, who spoke yesterday.

In addition to books, the TIBE also had a section dedicated to Taiwanese indie designers and artists, including Por Que Base. I wrote about Por Que Base last year and was thrilled to run into Syko and Evan and take a pinhole camera workshop with them.

THE BAD

The scale of the event is overwhelming. The first day of the exhibition drew 88,000 visitors, a new record. I don't mind being surrounded by thousands of other bookworms and the gigantic main exhibition hall is okay -- the trade off for getting lost a few times is being able to peruse items from hundreds of publishers and distributors from around the world. But the Comics Hall was so tightly packed and the aisles so narrow that I had to leave within a few minutes because it was extremely uncomfortable. Maybe I would feel differently if I was a bigger fan of manga and animation. As it was, I agreed with the sentiment behind this sign that was randomly taped next to a restroom (presumably not by TIBE's organizers): "If you want to vomit, you can vomit here."

THE INFURIATING

The main hall was swarming with extremely aggressive representatives from Citibank and the National Geographic Channel. I felt like Worf, running a gauntlet filled with Klingons carrying painsticks... only instead of painsticks, the reps had clipboards and promotional materials that they shoved in my face. I made the mistake of looking in one Citibank rep's direction. His eyes lit up like the Terminator and he started yelling after me as I scampered off: "Come here! You're looking for me, lady! You're looking for me. I think you're looking for me. She's looking for me. Yeah, you want to talk to me. Come here, lady! Come back!" Other reps were screaming things like "Hey pretty lady, want to come back to my booth and watch five minutes of our latest series about the African bush?" I saw one National Geographic lackey chase after a woman for several yards, even though she was doing her best to ignore him. The weird thing was that most of the reps were men, and most of them seemed to be targeting women. Overzealous salespeople are par for the course in Taiwan, but when did sexual harassment become a marketing technique for nature documentaries? Aside from making me feel uncomfortable, my run-ins with the reps also kept me from spending money on books. There were a couple of booths I wanted to return to, but I changed my mind because they were located in aisles filled with ~~zombies lusting after my brains~~ marketing reps. I'm annoyed because there were some cool Japanese home decorating books that had been translated into Chinese and were priced at three for NT$500. I could be flipping through them right now, but nooooooooo, all I have is a NT$500 bill in my wallet and a broken heart.

I'll post about some books I am excited about in the next few days.

The Renegade Bean is now A Rainbow Too Far

2011-02-10T01:50:00.004+08:00

I let the URL of my poor, neglected style/DIY/design blog, The Renegade Bean, expire and it got snatched up right away by someone. So I changed the name to A Rainbow Too Far. I was tempted to call it A Fridge Too Far, but it's not my diet diary. I chose the new name because my favorite color is rainbow (seriously, it is); rainbows are elusive, like many things in my life (such as convincing other people that rainbow is a color); and I think I may have gone a rainbow too far. If you are one of the few people who read The Renegade Bean, please check out A Rainbow Too Far... all my old posts are there.

Spin a yarn, weave a web

2011-02-09T18:54:00.007+08:00

About a month ago, I wrote a guide to yarn stores in Taipei City for the Taipei Times. The weather was pretty grim then (as you may recall). It is gradually getting warmer, but it is still just cool enough to enjoy curling up with a cup of hot tea and a skein of yarn. You don't even have to knit or crochet it! Just pet it. I'm kidding. I like knitting, but unfortunately I seem to have sprained my wrist. I say "seemed to" because I have no idea what happened. I had very bad repetitive stress injuries in my wrists during graduate school that only eased up after I started working at an office with an ergonomics consultant (actually an editor who was obsessed with ergonomic health and made sure my work station was properly customized). My wrist hurts in a new way this time, though. Oh, boo. I probably shouldn't even be typing, so please take a look at my article for more stores than the ones mentioned here.

I highly recommend Yarn Passions (炙愛毛線). It's an online store that specializes in earth-friendly and fair trade fibers (I profiled them last year). Ordering is currently on hiatus because the husband-and-wife who run it are getting ready to welcome a baby, but you can browse the lovely yarns, including merino and organic Peruvian cotton in natural colors (as a bonus, they have an English language Web site and you can order with PayPal). To shop Yarn Passions products in person, visit Earth Tree (地球樹), Booday (蘑菇) or Pure Harvest (自然結果) in Taipei City or Twine (繭裹子) in Taichung.

Shilin Yarn Supermarket (士林毛線超市, 2F, 607, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 5, Taipei City/台北市中山北路五段607號2樓, tel: (02) 2831-3777) is probably the best known yarn store in Taipei and a good place to hunt for bargains. It's organized like a giant yarn warehouse and somewhat overwhelming, but has an amazing selection. There is a wide range of prices and fiber quality (ranging from scratchy acrylics to cashmere). Everything is in plastic bags, so you have to ask the staff if you want to feel a ball of yarn, but they are patient.

My favorite brick-and-mortar yarn store in Taipei is Lin Lin (ETA: Lin Lin has moved, please check their blog banner for new address info). It reminds me most of the yarn stores I visited back home in the States. Best of all, you can feel everything! And there is a store cat (named Lin Lin).

Everything in Knitting Trend (時尚手編, 228, Changan E Rd Sec 2, Taipei City/台北市長安東路二段228號, tel: (02) 2777-2930) is pricey, but they have an amazing wall of yarn that is fun to stare at and browse. They also teach amirigumi lessons.

Ke'ai Gone Wrong: "Life says goodbye"

2011-02-08T00:32:00.008+08:00

I think one of the things that people who did not grow up in a culture that values cuteness forget is that the "cuteness" is often mixed with equal amounts of darkness (like Disney movies, but evil on purpose). I think once you understand that, things like sanitary napkin advertisements featuring big-headed dolls and peppy cartoons warning against needle sharing make a lot more sense. Or not. Take the traffic safety announcement above, for example. Look at the adorable little roly-poly cars, the bright primary colors, the... wait a second... what does that caption say?

"Cross double solid lines, life says goodbye
開車跨雙黃白，人生出界Say Goodbye"

And there are even little angel wings and a halo at the end of the Chinese lettering. I saw this ad while sitting in the back of a cab on Renai Rd. It made me very, very scared. I wonder what would have happened if I had screamed at the driver, "開車跨雙黃白，人生出界Say Bye Bye!"

In other news, my Lunar New Year was uneventful. My grandma is in Taiwan (in Kaohsiung with my relatives, to be exact) and we're planning to go down and visit her after Ron gets his cast removed (he broke his leg a few weeks ago, not from crossing double solid lines). My repetitive stress injury flared up again last week, so I went to see an orthopedic surgeon today and got some light physical therapy. In between Ron having to get used to walking on two feet again and the medicated patch and brace on my wrist, I'm sure my 80-year-old grandma will be running circles around us when we see her. We actually met up last week and my grandma told me all sorts of cool things about how the neighborhood around Shida has changed. I'll be sure to share them in another post soon. 1950s Taipei was so different, it was like living in a completely different city... one without freaky traffic safety reminders. But I digress. I hope everyone had a great LNY holiday!

Happy New Year 兔 You!

2011-02-01T17:01:00.003+08:00

I love interlingual puns! Here is a strangely mesmerizing and soothing video of two bunny rabbits in paper cups to ring in the Lunar New Year. It may be the Year of the Rabbit in most countries that observe Lunar New Year, but in Vietnam it is the Year of the Cat! Taroko George approves. He also watched the video and said that with the addition of some ramen and boiling hot water, you'd have Instant Cup O'Rabbit Noodles. He's so mean!

I am taking advantage of the downtime this week to update my blog's design. If it looks absolutely hideous at some point over the next few days, that is why. If it still looks hideous after a week or so... that's just my lousy taste.

恭喜發財!

The Year of the Tiger in clips

2011-01-29T18:27:00.012+08:00

Marooned at home over Lunar New Year with nothing to do but plan your next trip to Mos Burger? My husband is recovering from a broken leg, so that sums up our plans. Fortunately, you can pass the time by reading my clips from 2010! I'm not very good at posting my articles on this blog as they come out and I only update my professional Web site once in a while. To make up for that, here is a collection of my favorite stories from the last year (I'm also saving a few more for later that I want to post with photos). The below list features Q&A's with travel host Janet Hsieh (謝怡芬) and performance artist Mr. Eyeball, a article about White Wabbit, one of Taiwan's top indie labels, and a profile of famous nature writer Liu Ka-shiang (劉克襄).

The first article on the list is about an exhibit that runs until tomorrow, Jan. 30. The above photo is from one of Dan Castelaz's sculptures. I highly recommend it. The exhibit, "True to Life," is at the Wistaria Tea House, which has a rich history and is located in a 100-year-old building.

ART

Thinking inside the box
Jan 26, 2011

Made from found objects, artist Daniel Castelaz’s sculptures contain secrets based on literary references or personal experiences

Accidentally on purpose
Dec 1, 2010

Ceramicist Jack Doherty uses trial and error to hone his technique down to the barest essentials

A cyanotype print I made in a Por Que Base class

Photo opportunities
Jan 28, 2010

Por Que Base offers workshops in alternative photographic processes — as well a chance for students to take a deeper look at the images they have created

CULTURE

In their right minds
Nov 17, 2010

The first Taiwan International Cultural and Creative Industry Expo provided a wide variety of brands — ranging from fashion houses to tea manufacturers — the opportunity to put their products on the map

The concrete fruit bowl
Sept 30, 2010

Writer Liu Ka-shiang has a passion for the environment and an eye on nature's bounty

On a high note
Sep 15, 2010

A House cafe is the first performance venue in Taiwan dedicated to a cappella music

Down the Wabbit hole
Jan 20, 2010

Thanks to its founder’s marketing acumen and attention to customers’ shifting tastes, White Wabbit Records has come a long way from its roots in a converted men’s restroom to become one of the country’s top indie music labels

PROFILES and Q&A's

Weaving Taiwanese history
Aug 25, 2010

Ellen Wu’s two best-selling books trace the history of Taiwan floral cloth, a textile with a special place in this country’s culture

Offbeat Taiwan
March 30, 2010

Best-selling author Aoki Yuka’s travel writing and cultural observations about Taiwan combine a satirical approach with her genuine affection for this country

Janet takes off
Aug 26, 2010

She’s an MIT graduate and former model who once planned to become a doctor, but globe-trotting television show host Janet Hsieh remains appealingly down to earth

Eye wide open
March 18, 2010

Multi-genre artist Mr Eyeball aims to help people answer their everyday existential dilemmas

Engineering fashion
Jan 21, 2010

Goji Lin studied to be a mechanical engineer, but is now one of Taiwan’s most famous fashion designers, known for his over-the-top — but still sexy — creations

Music: Smile Taiwan (微笑台灣）

2011-01-24T19:57:00.009+08:00

Last Saturday I went to Smile Taiwan (微笑台灣), a free outdoor concert. This year's line-up featured Wonfu Jr (小旺福) one of my favorite bands, Pau-dull (陳建年, also known as Chen Jian-nian), Yan Yung-neng (嚴詠能) and Takaorun (打狗亂歌團) and Beautiful Haiyan (美麗心民謠). It was amazing and I found some new favorites for my music collection. For more information, read my review in today's Taipei Times.

Pau-dull, who opened the show, is known for mixing influences from his Puyuma Aboriginal background and American folk music. One of his biggest hits is Ho-Hai-Yan (海洋); when he announced that he was playing it as the last song of his set, a big cheer went up from the crowd.

Wonfu Jr recently added the "Jr" to their name to mark the release of their new album "Flying to You, Flying to Me" (飛向你飛向我), which is filled with "kid's rock and roll." They were inspired by a 2009 visit to the Rock ’n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland, Oregon. After seeing how the camp's instructors encouraged young girls to try out different types of music -- punk, reggae, country -- they decided to make a concept album that would introduce rock to children. One of my favorite tracks is Little Eyes (小眼睛), which samples soundtracks and noises from Eighties video games. The band's music videos are always fantastic and hilarious.

I am also in love with singer Mami's outfit to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

A lot of the audience members left after Wonfu Jr's set. One of the reasons is because they were most famous group performing and a lot of people probably showed up just to see them. Unfortunately, Smile Taiwan's organizers also had 5-10 minutes speeches between each set to honor sponsors and give out awards, which slowed down the event's pacing. It was a cold, cloudy day and I think they should have added those things to the press conference/opening ceremony before the concert.

The people who left missed out on two fantastic performances. Yan Yung-neng and Takaorun won last year's Golden Melody Award for Best Taiwanese-Language Album. Most of their tracks are written in Hoklo and are rousing calls for cultural pride. I can't understand Hoklo, but I love the way it sounds when sung.

During the performance, they had robot performers dressed as a farmer and a soldier join them up on stage. The robots then marched into the audience to hand out postcards. To be honest, they scared the bejeebus out of me.

Beautiful Haiyan's members represent several different Aboriginal tribes (Amis, Puyuma and Rukai). Their songs incorporate traditional melodies and Aboriginal language lyrics. I bought one of their 2006 self-titled release. The packaging is fantastic, with all explanatory notes and lyrics are translated into English. I also downloaded Song of the Shepherd Boy (牧童之歌) off iTunes. It features yodeling! I love yodeling. This YouTube video was shot at a performance last year:

As a bonus, here is Singaporean singer Sakura's (櫻花) 1960 recording of the song:

Taroko George: Now with extra Internet Celebrity Fame!

2011-01-21T14:04:00.008+08:00

This is my cat Taroko George. You probably know him as Famous Celebrity Internet Cat. Now he is even more famous on the Internet because his photo appears in several scenes of the latest Next Media Animation (better known in the US as "the Taiwanese animators")!

The video takes a look the owner of I Can Has Cheezburger and its sister sites, which recently got $30 million in venture capital funding. It also takes a satirical look at complaints about I Can Has Cheezburger head Ben Huh getting rich off of unpaid user-generated content, appropriating memes without giving proper credit and his attempt to purchase Reddit.

George himself is not a fan of the LOLcats meme. As he explains in his latest post, the LOLcats phenomenon is a construct created by humanoid privilege to objectify and belittle cats. I told George perhaps he should consider getting a sense of humor, but then he scratched the soft part of my hand, spilling blood everywhere.

Happy birthday to my Mom!

2011-01-20T00:21:00.006+08:00

My mother's birthday is on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This year I managed not to call her at 5:30am or a day late (I have some trouble with calculating time differences, especially since Taiwan doesn't participate in daylight saving time).

Isn't she gorgeous? My Mom has aged incredibly well and I hope I look as good when I am 35, too. Why, this photo was taken just last year!

All kidding aside, though, my Mom is a beautiful person inside and out. She had me when she was 24, which means I am now 11 years old. I'm kidding, I'm 29. I recently told my husband that I am now at the age my Mom was when I began to form solid memories of her.

When my brother and I were little, we had two pet fancy rats named Brandon and Jason. Brandon was a little scallawag and he got out of his cage one night. We looked everywhere: in the closets, under the sofa, around the curtains, behind the TV stand, in the kitchen. I spread bits of food around in an attempt to lure him out. Finally my bedtime rolled around and I went to sleep, still crying. In the middle of the night, my mother woke me up.

"He was under the bed," she said. Curled up in her hands, like a furry little croissant, was Brandon, sleeping peacefully. It was probably the happiest moment of my little 6-year-old life and I'm still touched that my Mom understood how attached I was to Brandon and Jason. I realized with a start the other day, my Mom was about my age back then. Wow!

My Mom and I have pretty different personalities (she's very methodical and efficient, I have no idea where any of my three sets of keys currently are), but I like to think I inherited her poise and graciousness (or at least the ability to fake her poise and graciousness!).

Thank for letting me grow into my own person, supporting me through the hard times and not getting angry that one time I set the oven on fire. I love you Mom!

In 2007 with my cousin Jessie

At my wedding, 2009

Tiger Mom? More like Bat Sh*t Crazy Mom!

2011-01-12T22:13:00.112+08:00

Disapproving Chinese mother disapproves of sensationalistic articles about her child-rearing methods (screen cap from Stardust (群星會), i.e. The Greatest Movie of Our Time).

So much has been written about Amy Chua's Wall Street Journal piece "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" in the Asian American blogosphere that I was reluctant to add my opinion. The article is an excerpt from her memoir and I don't want to give any more publicity to someone who seems to be feeding into a cultural stereotype -- and taking it to the extreme -- in order to sell books to a (presumably) mostly non-Asian audience. I find that kind of cynicism almost as offensive as I find some of the parenting methods Chua says are "Chinese." (Yes, I have read the book, not just the excerpt.)

But I want to say this: yes, "typical" Chinese mothers may be hard to please. Yes, painful cultural conflicts abound when you are a kid being raised by Asian parents in a Western society. But there is a difference between "tough love" and "bat shit crazy" -- and some of the so-called Chinese child husbandry techniques Chua describes are actually a huge brick of crazy wrapped up in a thick layer of bat shit by any cultural standards.

I find it problematic that Chua ascribes her most dubious examples to being of Chinese descent, rather than her own background or personal shortcomings. (I know this can lead us into a wider discussion about culture and its impact on individual identity and actions, and Chua's memoir goes into greater detail about her upbringing and eventual realization that her self-defeatingly authoritarian parenting style was the product of her own anxiety, but ultimately her narrative hook and the book's marketing center around the trope of "crazy hard-ass Chinese mother.") Anyone who believes traditional Chinese parenting is synonymous with breaking your child's will is operating from a very narrow and misinformed point of view. I hate it when people use cultural relativism as an excuse for bad decisions, especially when their understanding of the culture in question is specious and conveniently subjective. Just because Chua's book is a memoir and not a parenting guide does not absolve her from lazy generalizations, nor does Chua's sarcastic sense of humor.

(Chua was also born, raised and schooled in the US, so I feel the need to point out that a lot of Chinese people -- i.e. those in China -- would think that she, like me, is about as Chinese as PF Chang's, as one Gawker commenter put it. I'm being cheeky here, but take a look at how her book is being marketed in China!)

The Northern California community where I grew up was “model minority” ground zero and the Asian parents I knew had dauntingly high standards for academic achievement and behavior. I know many of my Asian American peers also felt frustrated and hurt by their parents’ seeming inability to express affection or encouragement. Many of my friends had parents who refused to let them take more than one art elective per year, score less than a 95% on a test or enroll in any course that wasn't honors or AP level. I saw classmates in tears over getting an A- on a practice quiz.

But any mother (or father) who pulled the kind of bat shit crazy shenanigans that Chua describes would have been labeled by most other Asian parents as… bat shit crazy. Not Chinese. Not Asian. Not even traditional. Bat shit crazy. Every time their kids complained, they would have said, “At least I’m not like Chua aiyi. You know, the one who won't let her daughters go to your slumber party or pee until they master that one extreme complicated melodic passage in their piano recital piece? Yeah, you have it easy compared to them, so stop whining!” In fact, I bet there are thousands of Chinese-Americans parents e-mailing that article to their kids right now, with a note saying, "Hey, at least I wasn't that bad!"

Laura from Taiwan-Born American wrote an excellent response to Chua's piece. In it she says, "I think the space we negotiate as second-generation Asian-Americans, as products of our home cultures and our Western cultures, is enriched by our perspectives of both." That's very true and that is a privilege. Conversations about cultural differences in child-rearing often speak about a dichotomy between Chinese parenting and Western parenting, but most white people I know didn't have parents who let them play video games for hours on end and most Asian people didn't have moms who seemed grimly intent on destroying their will.

I think one thing missing from many narratives about Asian moms, especially those written for a mostly non-Asian audience, is examples of how they are just as doting and idiosyncratic (i.e. human) as any other mother. I read My Mom is a Fob and My Dad is a Fob regularly because, in addition to the LOLs, both are filled with sweetness. One positive thing that has come out of the response to the Chua article is the different anecdotes Asian-Americans have related about their own parents. They really make it clear that "Chinese parenting" doesn't follow one model. Two of my favorite posts include Laura's and Jenny Zhang's piece for Jezebel. On the flip side, there is also Christine Lu's devastating account of her sister's suicide and their mother's reaction on Quora.com.

Reading Chua's book made me more thankful than ever for my parents. We had plenty of drama, conflict and heartache when I was growing up, but ultimately they gave my brother and me the greatest gift parents can give their children: trust.

My parents didn't pride themselves on being "typical Chinese parents." They prided themselves on being Catherine and Michael's parents. They were dedicated to navigating the space between their culture and ours, no matter how difficult and painful the balancing act must have been sometimes. As a result, we didn't see things in terms of "Chinese" versus "Western"; my parents always understood that things are much more complicated than that. They didn't try to use culture as an excuse to shirk personal responsibility. The expectations they had of us and the standards they set were based on their understanding of us -- and of themselves -- as individuals.

That approach to child-rearing may not make for a provocative, easily marketable book, but it did result in happy, hard-working children who love their Mom and Dad. Both of us are grateful for our upbringing.

Heck, I even have a master's degree from an Ivy League university. My brother is only 28 and owns a thriving cinematography and production company. We didn't do those things because we're Asian or because our parents wanted us to... they are stepping stones to larger goals we have for ourselves. And you know what? Even if I didn't have that degree and even if my brother didn't have his company, my parents would still love us.

I trust my parents, too, and so I listen to them and value their opinion, even if we disagree. I want to please them not because I fear their Wrath of Asian Parenthood, but because if they are happy for me, then I know I must be on the right path. Isn't that what any parents, regardless of cultural background, wants for their child?

ETA: Jeff Yang interviewed Chua for the SF Gate about her response to the response to the WSJ article and Chua had this to say:

""I was very surprised," she says. "The Journal basically strung together the most controversial sections of the book. And I had no idea they'd put that kind of a title on it. But the worst thing was, they didn't even hint that the book is about a journey, and that the person at beginning of the book is different from the person at the end -- that I get my comeuppance and retreat from this very strict Chinese parenting model."

And she adds:

"I now believe there's a hybrid way of parenting that combines the two paradigms, but it took me making a lot of mistakes along the way to get there."

I think that it's disingenuous of Chua to act as if she -- a Yale Law School professor who had already authored two books -- didn't know that the WSJ editor would present excerpts from "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" to hook in as much readers as possible. It doesn't take a PhD in media studies to know that there is a certain amount of nuance, subtlety and narrative that is lost when you condense a 256 page volume into a newspaper-length article. But, having read the book, I would argue that the WSJ article is not that dramatically different in tone. And it's certainly helped sales.

Without flogging the Western/Chinese parenting dichotomy (one that is constructed out of facile stereotypes), all you would have is a short memoir about a overzealous mother who eventually backs down after her 13-year-old daughter rebels. Yes, it shows self-awareness, but that story would probably be too ordinary to market. On the plus side, she is actually quite self-deprecating and charming -- certainly not the soulless monster some commentators have made her out to be. She should probably stay away, however, from writing parenting memoirs.

Dog Day Afternoon: The 2011 Taipei Pet Carnival

2011-01-12T19:05:00.005+08:00

A few months ago, Ron and I saw dogs of all sizes and breeds pouring out of the Taipei World Trade Center (台北世界貿易中心). It was a pet expo and I could not believe I had missed it. It became my dream to attend a similar event armed with my camera and a bucket of flank steak.

Last Caturday, I got my chance when I went to the 2011 Taipei Pet Carnival (台北寵物跨年嘉年華). I didn't bring a bucket of steak, but I did bring my camera and my reporting notebook, which was eaten by a husky seconds after my final interview of the day. I'm kidding, it wasn't. Most of the animals there were dogs, but there were also some bunny rabbits and unusually well-behaved cats.

A third of the 90 organizations that attended the carnival were animal advocacy groups, including several fostering animals in need of new homes. For information about some of these organizations and more info about the festival, please see my article for the Taipei Times. I have a soft spot for rescue animals because we plucked Taroko George off the street. I hope you've been checking out his blog, I Am Famous Celebrity Internet Cat. His latest post is about how he does not sit like a human.

Skal is available for adoption from Animals Taiwan

The Facehunter at VVG Something (好樣本事)

2011-01-08T18:50:00.005+08:00

On Christmas Eve, I interviewed Yvan Rodic, the creator of Facehunter, one of the first and best-known street style blogs. Rodic was in Taipei as part of his book tour. For style photos he took during his visit, click here and here, or check out his travel photos.

The book signing took place in one of my favorite stores in Taipei City, VVG Something (好樣本事). It is run by the same group responsible for sugar palace VVG Bon Bon (好樣棒棒), restaurants VVG Table (好樣餐桌) and VVG Bistro (好樣餐廳) and bed and breakfast VVB BB&B.

VVG Something highlights a different theme each month. The current one is cookbooks from Japan, England and France.

The store also carrys items hand-selected from around the world. I like how quirky the VVG team's tastes are. You have everything from a tiny porcelain teapot sporting its own cherry red hand-knitted cozy to mailboxes from the US to Pelikan erasers from Germany. Even the paper cups they served mulled wine in at Rodic's book signing seemed special (then again, anything with mulled wine in it is special).

For more information about VVG Something, take a look at their blog or this article I wrote about the store when it opened last year. They are located at 13, Alley 40, Ln 181, Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市忠孝東路四段181巷40弄13號), tel: (02) 2773-1358. For pictures of VVG Bon Bon, see my post about them.

(By the way, we recently got a faster Internet connection and I am celebrating by posting bigger photos on my blog. If the images blow up your browser, though, please let me know).

Inside the Taipei 101 fireworks (literally)

2011-01-01T18:23:00.017+08:00

I got to ring in 2011 from the inside of a giant fireball -- the 85th floor of Taipei 101 (the home of the mass damper that changed my life), to be exact. Ron's friend reserved a table at Diamond Tony's for their first dinner slot at around 6PM. It wasn't too crowded and we hung around until the fireworks show at midnight. It was like being on the USS Enterprise when the Klingons start firing. In other words, all of my childhood fantasies were realized. The explosions, glitter and smoke were pretty amazing, to be honest. They would have been fun to look at even if I hadn't consumed several glasses of wine. As you can hear in the video, there was much excited screaming and hollering in the restaurant. The only thing missing was the ominous disembodied voice of Chancellor Gorkon's chief of staff General Chang taunting us ("I can see you... can you see me, Kirk?").

Here's what the fireworks looked like from the outside. If you look veeeeeery closely, you can see me waving from the 85th floor (just kidding, you can't):

This year's fireworks display were designed by Cai Guo-qiang (蔡國強) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Republic of China's founding and were the longest and most elaborate ever. Taiwan's government made a big to-do about the ROC's 100th birthday, but, fireworks aside, most people seemed indifferent to it. For example, I found when I was working on my newspaper's holiday events listings that very few hotels and restaurants had promotions related to the anniversary. Most just had their regular New Years Eve specials. (On a semi-related note, here is a video by The Lonely Island about how cool guys don't look at explosions. Do you think Cai Guo-qiang looked at the explosion?).

The scene at the top of Taipei 101 was fairly low key and relaxed, but the foot traffic at the bottom was insane. My friends and I got out of the building around 12:30AM or so and walked for an hour and a half before we found a taxi. Fortunately, I brought comfortable shoes to change into. I also like to think I burned all the calories from last night's dinner, which included:

The Continental's favorite drink

Norwegian smoked salmon with mozzarella and avocado

Crispy duck breast with arugula salad and wild berry sauce

Carpaccio with salad and grapefruit (this was Ron's appetizer)

Chargrilled steak

Chocolate mousse cake

Prosciutto, cantaloupe and olives

My resolutions for 2011 are practical ones. I want to...

...consume more greens and less meat (yes, I know my NYE dinner was a meatfest but I'd like to start eating more vegetarian meals).

...start running again or at least jogging (I stopped this summer because I had lower back pain, but I figure jogging around a track at an easy, relaxed pace won't kill me... right?).

...start reading more Chinese language books and actually writing down the unfamiliar characters and sentence structures I encounter, instead of just looking them up and then promptly forgetting them.

...become more familiar with my Rolleicord Vb camera.

...stop fretting about leaving our cat alone for more than one day and start traveling around Taiwan more (with my Rolleicord Vb camera).

...do something about my tetraphobia, which, admittedly, makes me more Asian than I ever thought I was.

Happy New Years! 新年快樂!

Press freedom in Taiwan

2010-12-29T00:54:00.011+08:00

OMG!!! Naked chicks! Quick, fine me NT$100,000 to NT$500,000!!!

I would like to take a break from my (semi-)regularly scheduled posts about furry things and food to talk about an extremely important issue in Taiwan – the erosion of press freedom.

Proposed amendments to the Children and Youth Welfare Act (兒童及少年福利法) – which passed their first legislative reading last month – are so broadly worded that almost any journalist working in Taiwan can be prosecuted under them if they pass into law. For more information, read this article that my colleague Noah Buchan published in Monday’s Taipei Times.

As the article states, “at the heart of the controversy is Article 44 of the proposed amendments, which would ban newspapers from publishing stories and pictures describing ‘crimes, the use of drugs, suicide … bloodshed, erotica, lewdness or forced sex in detail.’”

These are all things we'd like to shelter kids from, right? Well, Liu Ching-yi (劉靜怡), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of National Development at National Taiwan University interviewed by Noah, notes the very problematic use of weasel words in the amendment:

“What do they mean by details? To what extent are you going to make these kinds of descriptions illegal? There is no precedence for newspapers. In [Taiwan’s] law, pornography is not illegal per se. Obscenity is illegal — but erotica (色情) is used a lot in Article 44 … That is very difficult for judges to interpret.”

The definition of 色情 is so vague that anything could fall under its purview.

Take these Taipei Times articles I have written over the last couple of years: one about a fetish wear company, a profile of a Red Dot Design Award winning sex toy maker (they've since moved to a new address, a short piece on a Japanese burlesque performer, another one about a burlesque troupe and a feature on a kathoey (or ladyboy) troupe from Thailand.

Under the proposed amendments, any of these articles can potentially get me fined NT$100,000 to NT$500,000.

If lifestyle articles about saucy Valentine's Day gift ideas and tongue-in-cheek performances can be persecuted under the amendments, then can you imagine how difficult they will make reporting for an investigative journalist covering, say, a politician who repeatedly hires prostitute? Other examples I can think of off the top of my head: A first hand account by a victim of incest. An article about sex therapy for couples. An investigation into sex abuse by clergy members. Photos of revelers in sassy get-ups at a gay pride parade. An article about female circumcision that goes into detail about the "surgical" procedures used.

Noah’s article notes that the the backers of the amendments to the Children and Youth Welfare Act cite the 2007 publication of photos showing a zoo veterinarian’s severed arm in a crocodile’s mouth as an example of what they want to prevent. While the pics are gory and certainly something I would never show a child, I think this is also a very foolish and shortsighted excuse to give for radically limiting press freedom.

I try to keep my political beliefs off this blog as much as possible, but press freedom is a topic that I feel very strongly about. And this is not a partisan issue – every major newspaper across the political spectrum in Taiwan has come out against the amendment. When the United Daily (聯合報), the Liberty Times (自由時報) and the Apple Daily (蘋果日報), among others, all agree on an issue, you know something is up.

For more information, read the Taipei Times' article, which also puts the amendments into a wider historical context by noting its similarities to the Publishing Law (出版法), which was only repealed in 1999. Or check out this post and this post on The View From Taiwan.

On a related topic: Do you live in NYC? Are you interested in education reporting? Then you might be interested in this article I wrote in graduate school about the ridiculous -- and often illegal -- restrictions placed on education reporters. Obviously, I no longer live in NYC and education is not my current beat, but I salute education reporters in NYC. They really have one of the hardest -- and most important -- journalism jobs out there. I wonder if things will change now that Joel Klein is being succeeded by a former media executive.

聖誕節快樂 from Disco Santa!

2010-12-24T23:42:00.003+08:00

Merry Christmas from Disco Santa!!! Disco Santa is attached to a miniature tree that I purchased from a 30 yuan store during my first Christmas in Taipei three years ago. I was living off a scholarship then and didn't have a lot of money for decorations, but the tree was only NT$150 or so. When I first laid eyes on it, I could not believe it. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I'm so happy that it will be a part of my children's holiday memories.

See the mound of hair in front of Disco Santa? He murdered some of my Blythes with his toxic petroleum-based product fumes. I documented the sordid saga on my other blog.

Thank you!

2010-12-22T19:54:00.003+08:00

I was selected as one of the best personal blogs in the Taiwan Best Blog Awards! A big thank you to everyone who voted for me and congratulations to the other winners! Also, a big thank you to David and Fili for running the Taiwanderful directory and awards.

I would also like to take this opportunity to let everyone know that my cat, Taroko George, has started his own blog. It is called I Am Famous Celebrity Internet Cat. In it, he discusses his booty routine, his rivalry with Doraemon and his safe place. Please visit!

Sweetfart

2010-12-17T00:09:00.007+08:00

'0416X1024 designers Robin Chen (陳榮彬) and Liao Chen-hung (廖振宏)

T-shirt and stationery brand '0416X1024 (usually known as just '0416) first caught my eye when I wondered into their boutique in Ximending's Shinjuku Plaza (西門新宿) nearly three years ago. I loved how the sweet, child-like marker illustrations contrasted with their subversive sense of humor and wacky characters. As you can see, many of their designs rely on the timeless power of fart iconography:

Back then, '0416 founders Liao Chen-hung and Robin Chen had one tiny shop in the mall, balancing their full-time advertising design careers with their fledgling brand. Their hard work paid off and last fall the business partners opened '0416X1024 Life Shop near the Zhongshan MRT (中山接運站). A lifestyle store, it sells clothing, accessories, stationery, handmade jewelry and home decor items. I think they should branch off into children's wear, too.

Both designers still take on freelance advertising work. One of Liao's creations is Okapi, the Books.com.tw mascot. The Web site did on a cool feature on Liao's seven favorite things, including his serger, ergonomic office chair and Muji markers.

For more about '0416X1025 and store information, please check out my article.

Please vote for me in the 2010 Taiwan Best Blog Awards! It just takes two clicks... one here, and then another under the plus sign. Thank you!

Taking kawaii to the maxi

2010-12-14T23:10:00.008+08:00

I've lived in Taiwan for three years and I still find the whole concept of cuteness (可愛) a little bit confusing at times. One the one hand, I'm a grown woman who collects Blythe dolls, Japanese miniatures and owns a doll house. I definitely understand the allure of little things with big heads and big eyes. On the other hand, the above ad (I've seen others from the same series on posters around Taipei) confuses the heck out of me. For one thing, those Pullip dolls look way too calm considering that they are running with a maxipad in hand, which means that they must have had an accident. I assume they live together in a dorm or something because their periods are in sync. And don't those pads look a little too big for them? It'd be the equivalent of a human jamming a pillow down her knickers!

This is probably the second most memorable feminine hygiene product ad I've seen in Taiwan. The first one was for some sort of spray or wash. It showed an uncomfortable-looking woman looking meaningfully at a stack of bamboo steamers. The caption said like "Feeling humid? Reach for a refreshing spritz!" or something stupid like that. It's amazing what corporations will do to convince women to slather their nether regions in fragrances and chemicals. I don't have a picture of that ad because I didn't have a camera on me. That is probably just as well.

Please vote for me in the 2010 Taiwan Best Blog Awards! It just takes two clicks... one here, and then another under the plus sign. Thank you!

Next Media Animation on China's "Confucius Peace Prize"

2010-12-13T19:40:00.007+08:00

Next Media Animation's PR office recently e-mailed me and asked me to share the above video about China's Confucius Peace Prize, which was created in response to the Nobel Peace Prize committee's decision to honor Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波). Here is another video NMA.tv made about Liu's story:

I think these videos are a fascinating development in new media (and I'm not just saying that because my husband works for NMA.tv). It's a novel way of disseminating news and opinions to a generation unaccustomed to reading print news (I think I'm part of the last generation who grew up huddled over a newspaper with my breakfast). But it is a fact that serious videos like the Liu Xiaobo one don't get as many casual YouTube browsers and blog links as the satirical work NMA.tv is famous for, so please watch it and share the link!

Please vote for me in the 2010 Taiwan Best Blog Awards! It just takes two clicks... one here, and then another under the plus sign. Thank you!

A few of my favorite English-language Taiwan blogs

2010-12-10T11:33:00.005+08:00

Voting in the Taiwan Best Blog Awards continues until Dec. 21, so you still have plenty of time to vote for my blog... and lend your support to the following cool sites. If I am one of your readers and you don't see your blog listed, please don't feel bad! I've only included blogs that are participating in the contest this time around and I apologize in advance if I've accidentally left anyone off my list!

Wandering Taiwan -- Whenever I see Micki and Kristen's travel blog pop up on my RSS feed, I know I am in for a treat. Everything about Wandering Taiwan is amazing, from the photography and writing (in English and Chinese) to the places the two of them visit. I enjoyed reading about their trips to see Yuanli grass weaving (苑裡藺草產業) in Miaoli and the "Gods' Garment Embroidery Factory" in Chiayi county. Vote for Wandering Taiwan here.

Lao Ren Cha -- Jenna is smart, opinionated and articulate. I enjoy reading her thoughts on feminism and women's issues in Taiwan versus China, where she has also lived. Jenna is also the author of the best essay ever on the wedding industry (and trust me, I read a lot during my own wedding planning a couple years ago). Vote for Lao Ren Cha here.

The Daily Bubble Tea -- Todd is a great photographer with an eye for little details that might seem too quotidian to take note of... but that really contribute to the flavor of a neighborhood. And he and his wife just had a baby! Vote for The Daily Bubble Tea here.

Jar of Buttons -- Jar of Buttons posts information about cool vintage stores and flea markets, cafes and shops in Taichung City. Vote for Jar of Buttons here.

Teeny Tiny Cupcakes -- I just discovered Teeny Tiny Cupcakes on the Taiwanderful blog directory. It's another great blog about life in Taichung City. Vote for Teeny Tiny Cupcakes here.

David on Formosa -- David has consistently thoughtful, informative posts on social justice and environmental issues. He's not eligible for the Taiwan Best Blog awards because he's one of its organizers. Thanks for all the hard work, David!

24°09′N 120°40′E -- Another blog I discovered while browsing the Taiwanderful directory. It is written by a Taichung-based couple and has really gorgeous photos. Check out pics from their visit to Rainbow Village! Vote for 24°09′N 120°40′E here.

My Several Worlds -- Carrie posts inspiring interviews with expats who are doing really cool things and her photography articles are extremely helpful. Vote for My Several Worlds here.

A Hungry Girl's Guide to Taipei -- Oh Hungry Girl... if only I had thought of checking your blog before eating the worst chicken tikka ever (seriously, it was so salty my throat was parched for a day afterward). Joan's blog is very popular for a reason: its list of restaurants is encyclopedic and she always gives an honest opinion. Vote for Hungry Girl here.

Craig Ferguson Images -- I have learned a lot about photography from Craig's site. His series of articles on lighting is especially helpful. Vote for Craig Ferguson Images here.

Meat Free Monday

2010-12-06T20:45:00.005+08:00

Picture taken at Olife

I was looking around the Meat Free Monday Web site when I came upon this press release highlighting the results of a survey by Taiwan's Ministry of Education (教育部):

Approximately 86 per cent of the east Asian island nation's primary and secondary schools now provide vegetarian options for pupils, according to a survey by the Ministry of Education carried out in October.
Of Taiwan’s 3,517 schools, 2,328 have offered meat-free dishes, with almost 700 doing so once every fortnight or month. Compare this with February, when the last survey was conducted, when only 1,201 schools were found to be offering vegetarian meals.

The country began promoting healthier eating in schools back in 2009, and education ministry officials have now said that all schools should provide one meat-free meal a week in order to promote healthier eating and help reduce global warming.

I'm participating in Meat Free Monday for environmental and health reasons and because I am also trying to switch to a mostly pescetarian diet. One thing that struck me when I first moved to Taipei was how few vegetarian options there are on most restaurant menus (unless you want to eat nothing by side dishes and rice, that is). There are plenty of vegetarian restaurants, but if you want to go to a "regular" restaurant and not consume meat or seafood, you are often stuck with only one option. Has anyone else noticed this? I was surprised because I thought that in country where Buddhism is a majority religion, restaurants would try to attract a vegetarian clientele. Anyway, I'm glad to see that the MOE is making an effort to give kids meat free options.

Please vote for me in the 2010 Taiwan Best Blog Awards! It just takes two clicks... one here, and then another under the plus sign. Thank you!

"Stop trying to be an American!"

2010-12-03T11:59:00.025+08:00

My husband recently started working for Next Media Animation, AKA the Taiwanese animators who brought you such classics as the Tiger Woods and Don't Touch My Junk videos. While Next Media Animation is known for taking a satirical look at headline news, they also do more serious animations. The one above shows how the new full-body scanners might not be as effective as the Transportation Security Administration insists that they are.

Ron did the voiceover -- and some of the YouTube comments had us cracking up. Like this one: "Sounds like some stoner with a head cold dubbed this one." Has this person ever heard a stoner with a head cold? I spent plenty of time around sick stoners during college and I know what they sound (and smell) like. Definitely not like my husband. He enunciates more.

Or how about this one: "stop pretending to be an american, just speak chinese already!!!" I assume this person hears a "Chinese" accent (I used quotation marks because there so many dialects that it's silly to assume there is one Chinese accent) in Ron's voice. Ha! Oh, the irony, the bitter irony. Both of us wish we had Chinese accents -- especially when we are speaking Mandarin!

I think this is all very interesting because I've had a few people, including a college professor, say they could detect an "Asian" accent in my voice (I posted about that experience here). In hindsight, I think my professor had a hard time seeing past my Asian-ness in general (when we talked about writing personal essays, he told me I should write about being Asian American... when we talked about my introversion, he said it's because I'm Asian... when we talked about my anxiety over school, it was because I'm Asian).

I did have a slight lisp that I went to speech therapy for during grade school (it was because my tongue was either too small for my jaw or my jaw was too big for my tongue, I forget), so I don't deny that I might have something going on with my speech. But if someone pegs me with an "Asian" accent (because all people in Asia sound alike, you know...), I automatically assume that they are hearing things because of my race and goodness knows what other things they might make up about me. Seeing this comment only backs up my hypothesis. If that Youtube commenter knew that Ron is Czech-American, I wonder if she/he would have written "start speaking Czech instead!"

I don't mean to sound like I think there is anything wrong with having an accent. I only get defensive because I dislike it when people use me as a tool to back up whatever stereotypes they have about an entire culture, ethnicity or race instead of, you know, seeing me as a human being. Sheesh! Feel like indulging your prejudice? Then keep it to yourself or get a YouTube account.

Please vote for me in the 2010 Taiwan Best Blog Awards! It just takes two clicks... one here, and then another under the plus sign. Thank you!

Please vote for me in the Taiwan Best Blog Awards!

2010-12-02T22:08:00.007+08:00

If you have read one of my posts and found yourself thinking "that was useful," "how interesting" or even just "well, at least that wasn't a complete waste of three minutes," please vote for me in the 2010 Taiwan Best Blog Awards! It just takes two clicks... one here, and then another under the plus sign.

I won in the awards last year (here is my interview with Taiwanderful), but there are more and more great English-language Taiwan blogs every year (I'll post about a few of my favorites soon) and I don't expect to win again this year. But I am Asian, after all, and need to save face. A new latex face mask would cost about NT$30,000 or so from this place. So please vote for my blog and help me save my current mug (you can vote once per day per ISP). Thank you!

Indie you glad it's Made In Taiwan?

2010-12-01T19:03:00.006+08:00

Papier-mache owl from Lovely Taiwan

Here's my second annual MIT (Made In Taiwan, not the university) gift guide! I love compiling these and I hope that you will use some of your holiday budget to support these great indie designers and labels.

If you are pressed for time but want to find gifts that are truly unique to Taiwanese culture, visit Lovely Taiwan (台灣好) near the Zhongshan MRT (中山) station (I wrote about them last year), which sells items handmade by artisans, including these cute wooden ducks from Miaoli (苗栗) and accessories woven with traditional Taiya aboriginal motifs.

Another quick shopping stop is 16 Workshops (16工房) in Ximending's Red House Theater (西門紅樓). It's a tiny mall with boutiques all staffed by emerging designers. One of my favorite stores there is Dou Dou Xiang (朵朵香, which shares a space with Younga). They make jewelry from seeds harvested around Taiwan.

On weekends, check out the Red House Market for Artists & Designers (西門紅樓創意市集) -- everything there is very reasonably priced.

I think lead type from Rixing Typography (日星鑄字行, check out my previous post about them here) makes a good stocking stuffer or lightweight gift for packages you are planning to mail overseas.

Books.com.tw (博客來) is an awesome Web site. You can pay for and pick up items at your nearest 7-Eleven and if you order by noon, you get next day delivery on most things. They have pieces from several independent jewelry designers including...

Photo courtesy of Serena Chen

...Serena Chen...

Photo courtesy of Moorigin

and Moorigin.

Lifestyle brand Booday's (蘑菇) store near the Zhongshan MRT stop (next to Lovely Taiwan) is also a good bet. I love the Meat Free Monday T-shirt in their current collection.

Photo courtesy of Booday

This red purse is part of Booday's selection of canvas totes and carryalls. I bought one of their bags last year and it's held up very well despite my near daily abuse.

Photo courtesy of Booday

One of my favorite jewelry brands is Bomb Fry and Metal Jewelry (爆炸毛頭與油炸朱利). Their quirky designs are crafted with creative metalworking and enameling techniques. One of my favorite pieces is the "失語" necklace below. The characters mean "lost words," which kind of describes how I feel sometimes when I'm speaking Mandarin.

Find yourself in a gift-giving jam (har har)? Buy a few jars of Red On Tree (在欉紅) fruit or chocolate spreads and keep them on hand for holiday emergencies. They are made from Taiwanese fruits and honey and are really, really good. If you've only ever had mass-produced jams like Smuckers, your taste buds will jump for glory.

For more gift ideas, as well as store information, please read my article. And please vote for my blog in the 2010 Taiwan Best Blog Awards! Thanks to everyone who voted for me last year and helped me win the popular vote for overall best blog in the 2009 Taiwan Blog Awards and the popular vote and peer-judged award for best personal blog. I hope I do well again this year, too.

The act of thanksgiving

2010-11-25T22:42:00.016+08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Or as I like to say, "Happy Misgivings!" Seriously, though, I have a lot to be grateful for. I am thankful for my gorgeous cat, the lovely Taroko George. He's so sweet and affectionate when he's not trying to disembowel us. I think Ron and I really got lucky, considering that we picked him off the street and all. He could have turned out to be a vampire cat! You know, you have to let the right one in. As it turns out, Taroko George doesn't drink our blood. He just likes spilling it. No, really, I adore him. He brings so much joy into my life.

I'm thankful for my wonderful parents and the opportunities I've had in Taiwan to learn about my family's history and cultural heritage. It's interesting -- the more I learn about how different my parents' lives were from mine growing up, the closer we become. In looking back at what they have accomplished, and seeing the tragedies and setbacks that members of my family have overcome, I learn how to appreciate my own privilege and face up to the challenges in my life. My parents are the kindest, wisest, most humanistic people I know and their faith in me is both gratifying and humbling. I'm grateful for that, and the fact that they both have awesome hair genes. Thanks Mom and Dad!

My husband is my best friend and he loves cats as much as I do. What more can I ask for? Actually, I do have more that I can ask for. When gay people are no longer prevented from marrying, then my marriage will become more meaningful. When a loving couple is denied the right to marry for completely arbitrary reasons, it trivializes the very concept of marriage. I look forward to the day when that is no longer the case.

I'm grateful that my last trip home was before the Great Junk Touching Fiasco launched and my various parts are safe (for now) from the overzealous attentions of TSA policies. I'm grateful for my friends, my job, the neighborhood I live in (I'm within walking distance of five handmade chocolate shops and three yarn stores!) and all the opportunities I've had, especially during the last decade. I'm grateful for my health, both physical and emotional. Things haven't always been this smooth and I never take a moment of happiness or peace for granted. My life has been divided among three places -- the south Bay Area, New York City and Taiwan -- and while that means I constantly miss one place or another (and my loved ones there), I'm glad I have little pieces of my heart spread out all over the globe like satellites.

And a big thanks to everyone who reads my blog! Thanks for letting me share a bit of my life with you (along with a gazillion photos of Taroko George)!

ETA: I should add that even though I like joining together with many of my friends and family for a day of thanksgiving (the verb), I feel that as an American I should be mindful of how Thanksgiving (the holiday) originated. Jenny at Fashion for Writers has an excellent post on the subject.

Flagged for removal

2010-11-25T20:05:00.006+08:00

I took this Polaroid four years ago when I visited Ron in Taipei. This was a day or so after the 2006 municipal elections and two women were collecting campaign flags off a sky bridge near Taida. I wonder where all those flags go? I think someone should make them into a bunch of wacky quilts for fans of gradient backgrounds, Photoshopped head shots and gratuitous drop shadows (all design signatures of Taiwan election posters). [[[ETA: David from David on Formosa left a comment to let me know that some posters do get recycled... into scarecrows!]]]

I kept planning to take lots of photos of election posters, but I only managed to snap a few. David on Formosa and Lao Ren Cha both have awesome galleries.

The municipal elections are on Saturday and the campaigning is heating up as candidates head out in an effort to rack up more votes. One popular campaigning tactic is hanging onto the back of a SUV or small truck and driving up and down streets, waving to pedestrians or cars like a pageant queen. I saw a couple of these campaign vehicles this afternoon while I was out and about. I didn't catch who was hanging onto their backs, however, because the trucks zipped by too quickly. Clearly those candidates aren't worried about potholes.

Another tactic is driving around in a truck outfitted with loudspeakers blaring out your campaign message. Usually this is a pre-recorded message, but since there are only a couple days left, candidates are actually getting behind the microphone. One truck just passed by my window with one of the candidates for our neighborhood chief (里長) in it. It was very loud. Taroko George actually growled. It was odd -- we live in a relatively noisy neighborhood and Taroko George isn't easily scared. Maybe that lizhang candidate is actually the devil in disguise? You know cats can tell those things.

Speaking of lizhangs, our current neighborhood chief (who is running for re-election) showed up at our apartment door last Sunday. I told him we are foreigners and can't vote, but what I actually wanted to say was "Who the hell let you in the building?" I saw him again on Monday, handing out his cards near the 7PM garbage/recycling collection trucks. Now that's smart. He knows where people congregate!

You can call me Chew Flies!!!

2010-11-19T23:25:00.006+08:00

Cinnamon tea at Zeni's

Before I flew back to California this time, I made a very complete list of stuff I wanted to buy (like cotton full-size quilt batting, which I can't find in Taipei... everything is polyester) and what I wanted to eat. That list included Ethiopian food. Oooh man, I love Ethiopian food. There's nothing like it in Taipei and I can't really recreate it at home.

My favorite Ethiopian restaurant in the South Bay Area is Zeni in San Jose. They are really generous with their injera bread.

Zeni's vegetarian platter

On our way down to Los Angeles, my parents and I stopped at a Carl's Jr, where I ordered fried zucchini and house sauce, which is basically just watered down ranch sauce. I do like fried zucchini, though. Does anyone else? I mean, I'm the only person I know besides my Dad who voluntarily eats at Arby's.

In Santa Monica, my family and I eschewed the original Hot Dog On a Stick for lunch at The Lobster. It was such a wonderful lunch... the sun was out, we had a table with a gorgeous ocean view and my brother doesn't like raw oysters so I got an extra one.

Later that evening we went to Sushi Gen, where I only managed to get a (semi-)clear photo of my Mom's chirashi.

While in San Francisco, I met up with my friend Priya and her husband at Gracia Madre, a vegetarian Mexican restaurant. Check out my enchiladas!

And... that's it. Shucks, I thought I had more photos than that. We also met up with family friends at Foreign Cinema in the Mission District, but I forgot to take photos of my food. Oops! I also forgot to take photos of my Mom's cooking. My Mom is such a good cook. Everything she makes comes out picture perfect. And when she cooks veggies in a wok, nothing bursts into flame. Wow! I wish I could do that.

I hope you've enjoyed my California posts! I'll recommence my regular yappage about life in Taipei shortly. Thanks for reading!

I'll make it my Mission

2010-11-18T17:33:00.013+08:00

When I was back in California, I made a couple trips to San Francisco's Mission District, home of Imagiknit, the coolest yarn store ever. My goodness, they had all of my favorite yarns and even the priciest skeins are out there in the open, free for you to molest! In Taipei, most yarn stores keep their merchandise bundled away in plastic bags. It's so mean. If you want to touch anything, you have to haul the bag up to the cashier and ask them to open it. I love feeling up yarn, but having someone stare at you, silently wondering if you are going to leak your nasty finger oils all over their wares, is kind of a buzzkill.

When I wasn't picking up skeins of merino and lovingly rubbing them against my cheek or burying my nose into knitted cashmere samples and inhaling deeply (hmmm... I'm kind of seeing now what Taiwanese yarn store owners are trying to protect their stuff from...), I was enjoying the gorgeous murals that are a Mission District trademark. All of these pictures were taken in or around Clarion Alley:

Aren't they gorgeous? Street art is one of the things I miss most about living in New York City. There were some wonderful examples in Long Island City and I enjoyed a breathtaking view of Five Pointz every time I took the 7 train into Manhattan.

You know what I don't miss about living in NYC, though? Freakin' apartment hunting! Out of curiosity, I looked up Craigslist apartment listings for the Mission District and, oh my goodness, it is just as bad as it was in NYC. A typical listing asked potential renters to fill out an application and supply a credit report, their last two paycheck stubs, two letters of recommendation, a deposit equal to two month's rent, their most recent pap smear result and a sample of brain tissue for analysis. I'm kidding about the last two things, but just looking at that ad gave me harrowing flashbacks of my NYC apartment searches. I'd spend entire weekends trekking through several neighborhoods, seeing hellhole after hellhole, talking to one dicey roommate or landlord after another, freaking out that I wouldn't be able to find a place within a month and be forced to put my stuff in storage and crash with friends. It was extremely stressful. NYTimes.com recently asked readers to submit their own apartment stories and I was tempted to roll my eyes at some of the comments ("I pay $5,000/month to sleep in a bathtub in Chelsea. It's claw-footed bathtub. I keep all of my worldly possessions on a vintage Bauhaus soap rack I rescued from the curbside of some Philistine who clearly does not have an eye for beauty. Their loss was my gain. My laptop doubles as a sandwich press, when I can afford to eat. I'M A REAL NEW YORKER DAMMIT!!!") but I can remember when groveling and submitting a pile of paperwork for a chance to live in a mold-infested "semi-basement" (and by semi they mean only half of it is technically a dugout) dump for half my income each month seemed like a perfectly rational thing to do.

I do have to say that my last apartment was pretty awesome, though. It was a studio with a separate kitchen and dining area just a two-minute walk from the Broadway stop in Astoria. I had these amazing landlords who brought me delicious Greek home cooking from their family gatherings on Easter and Christmas and gave me a huge bouquet of flowers when they heard I'd gotten engaged.

Anyway, I have one more post about California coming up... with photos of food! Heeyay!

The Mothership: What I Saw, part one

2010-11-13T22:28:00.013+08:00

The longer I am away from California, the more I understand people who see it as this magical place filled with sunshine and promise. Can you believe I hated all that sun when I was growing up? It's not just because I am very pale and burn easily. Gray skies and rain seemed like a better reflection of how I felt on the inside. I was a really moody teenager. I swear, I read my old diaries and want to travel back in time to slap a smile into my adolescent self. Then again, one of the reasons I'm ranting is that we are now well into autumn in Taiwan and I can count on not seeing the sun, except in intermittent patches (and only when I'm stuck inside working!), until late spring. Boohoohoohoohoowahwahhooboohoo...

My vacation started when I got to the airport an hour and a half early. Taoyuan Airport is the boringest airport in the world, let me tell you. Instead of having useful shops like newsstands, the international terminals are crowded with duty-free and gift stores that sell bric-a-brac like liquor in pineapple-shaped ceramic bottles -- the kind of item that just screams "desperate last-minute gift." Oh, and there are a gazillion Hsin Tung Yangs for all your beef-jerky-in-a-fancy-gold-box buying needs. I don't want beef jerky in a fancy gold box! I want a magazine and hand lotion! But I did enjoy looking at these awesome parasols before I finally boarded my plane.

Four hours later, I fulfilled my lifelong dream of visiting Japan. Yes, I only saw the inside of Narita International Airport, but for the first time in my life I was surrounded by real Japanese people speaking Japanese in Japan! It was so amazing. My head got all swirly -- just like this origami ball. I'm a bit of a Japanophile, in case you can't tell.

Look at who greeted me when my parents and I arrived home! My Mom and Dad put Deedee on a diet, but I don't think it's taking. He's still quite a handsome cat.

On my second day in California, my Dad and I drove past HP's garage in Palo Alto. Even though I grew up in Silicon Valley and the HP story is a huge part of local lore, I'd never seen the house before. Afterward, I went to Border's, where I took a peek in a Postsecret book to see if there had been any secrets left inside...

... and there was! I was tempted to leave my own secret, but, alas, I don't have any. Secrets are for interesting people, like this guy:

I met him at the Santa Monica Pier. My parents and I went down for a couple of days to see my brother. Here is Mike photobombing a picture I was trying to take of the sunlight dancing across the ocean.

You know Mike, I don't think it still counts as photobombing if the bomber screams at the bombee, "Hey, take a photo of me photobombing your photo!"

Santa Monica was gorgeous:

OHMIGOD, they killed and bronzed Flipper!!!

Here is my Mom coming up from behind me as I embrace the big noodle to give me some support... or push me into it??? Hmmm!!!

After Santa Monica, my family drove up to Griffiths Observatory to watch the sunset. We were oohing and aahing over the gorgeous orange ombre hues and the Los Angeles skyline when my brother informed us that those rich, lovely, glowing colors are actually the result of a buttload of rich, glowing pollution.

We went to the Huntington Gardens the next morning, where my Mom danced with a cactus, I stalked a duck couple, we witnessed a desert plant uprising and saw some defaced bamboo.

In the Huntington mansion/art gallery, I discovered my resemblance to Samuel Johnson. I was thrilled to see this portrait by Joshua Reynolds because I am a fan of Johnson and his very fine cat, indeed, Hodge. He makes me proud to be pasty and nearsighted!

I loved this little desk in a study that was set up to look as if someone had just gotten up for a break. It made me feel like I was walking back in time. I wonder what Henry E. Huntington would say if he had seen me wandering around his property. "Dear me, Arabella, there is an Oriental loose in the house. Do tell the housekeeper to show her to the kitchen."

In my next entry, I'll post photos of some fabulous murals I saw in San Francisco's Mission District.

Back from the mothership

2010-11-10T21:14:00.005+08:00

I just returned from a trip to my home state of California. I had a great time and took tons of photos that I can't wait to bore you with, but I'm so exhausted from jet lag right now that I feel like scratching my eyeballs out, so I will just post a couple pictures of a giant noodle I met in Santa Monica...

... and my parents' rec room.

I'm kidding. That's not my parents' rec room. That's the Huntington Library.

A piece of meow heart

2010-10-17T20:48:00.009+08:00

Every time I look at my cat, I think about how quickly life can change.

Taroko George clawed his furry little way into our hearts in a very serendi-paw-tious manner one year ago. We celebrated our anniversary of togetherness on Octopurr 15. And now the time has come to release him back into the wild. I'll miss him, but if you really love something, you have to let it go.

I'm kidding! Obviously, I'm never letting George go. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that Ron and I witnessed George being dumped by two rapscallions outside of the cat café, but it wasn’t until the next morning that we realized he was a foundling and not one of the café’s foster kittens. We were going to meet my uncle for coffee and Ron was walking down the street to get his pre-coffee coffee. He turned down a different corner than he usually does, bumped into George and, assuming that George had escaped from the cat café, scooped him up and brought him back to our apartment for safekeeping.

Of course, we found out later that George was unspoken for. We’ve been covered in ginger and white fur ever since.

I often think about how Taroko George might not be part of our family today if Ron hadn’t been out earlier than usual that morning and hadn’t taken a detour. We’d probably have another cat now (maybe a Maine Coon), but he or she wouldn’t be George, in all his George-iness. I can’t even think about that awful parallel universe without dry heaving.

George shows me he loves me in so many ways. Once he jumped on the soft part of my tummy while I was sleeping, nearly causing an internal hemorrhage.

“Hey!” I screamed.

“Herro,” he said, and licked my nose.

Another time George was miffed because I threw him out of the bedroom for chewing on my hand. From the other side of the door, I heard him meowing desperately and then…

“Waka waka waka!”

Just like a murderous version of Fozzie the Bear! (“Why do elephants have trunks? Because they don’t have glove compartments! Waka waka waka!”)

I am currently reading “Making the Rounds With Oscar.” Oscar reminds me of George, because I am pretty sure George will be able to predict my death, in that he is planning to kill me by either gnawing through one of my veins or drowning me in his saliva during a nose licking marathon.

When he is not trying to destroy Ron and me, George brings us much joy. It’s a bit lonely working from home, but George is a wonderful assistant when he is not ripping pages out of my reporting notebooks one by one.

While re-reading this entry, I realize I make it sound like my cat hates me. That’s not true. We’re secretly in love. Actually, it’s not even that big a secret.

When I write my own bestselling memoir about Taroko George, it’s going to be called “Taroko George: I Named My Cat After a Gorge… the Gorge in my Heart.” I’m a big fan of Temple Grandin’s books, especially “Animals Make Us Human.” Animals do indeed make us human. We enrich our humanity by the bonds we form with them and the way we treat them.

Taroko George makes my life richer. Taroko George Makes Me Catherine.

shu flies :: 舒飛

Happy Year of the Dragon... er... George!

A little birdy told me! Fortune telling at Longshan Temple Underground Mall (龍山寺地下街)

I can't believe I didn't eat that! (or the Dihua St Lunar New Year market)

Papercuts by Tim Budden at Suho Memorial Paper Museum

生日快樂, Mom!

No, you shouldn't have. You really shouldn't have. You really, REALLY shouldn't...

Dealing With Depression and Living Abroad, part 2

Depression and Living Abroad, part 1: Sometimes the easiest path is the hardest one to take

Taiwan Best Blog Awards: Thank you!

The Year of the Rabbit in photos

Reading time

Merry Christmas, ho ho ho *burrrp*

Take it slow: Hsiao Man (小慢)

Oysters, will you walk with us?

Toy chest: Fun Fun Town (放放堂)

Made In Taiwan Holiday Gifts (now with 100% more map!)

Doll's well that ends well: Story of Dolls at Taipei Story House

The most magical pharmacy in the world

Dear Photograph, Dear California

Happy Halloween! 萬聖節快樂!

As you can see, I had a really wild night...

Occupy Taipei (佔領台北)

T. Loafer (閑隅): Got sit in a corner and drink about it

Busy, busy, busy

Daniel Pearl Music Day (丹尼的音樂節)

Where's the Cat?

My fourth Taiwanniversary

As old as my age and a little older than my teeth...

Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood hit Ximending

Weel-heeled: Liebe Hsing shoes and Juisheng Shoemaking Center

A Canny Craft: Transforming soda cans in Tainan

Borrowed memories, random families, fleeting glimpses

Okra a beautiful day: Herbs and vegetables at Suho Memorial Paper Museum

We Are Plastic One of a Kind: Taipei Toy Festival 2011

Chewing the dining scenery at Suho Memorial Paper Museum

Welcome Design Sponge readers!

Found Objects: Mooi Trouve

The little people: Changyifang studio

Something to chew over regarding freedom of speech in Taiwan

The original Shu Flies

Exhibit: 101 Shots of Taipei

Of snow princesses, bronze goddesses and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Girl

Did someone say... food? A few Tainan treats.

Past in the present

Asian parents and the art of the humblebrag

Walk With Pride

We two, we three

The food of my peoples: Chiachia Hakka Seafood Restaurant

"And that's why you never run with chopsticks," or 母親節快樂！

Rooting around the Anping Tree House (安平樹屋)

Join Taroko George and me on Facebook!

That Taiwanese Cushion

Tainan vignettes

My doggy lumps

Note to RSS feed subscribers

(Re-post) Tea and history: The Formosa Vintage Museum Cafe

Accio Chopsticks!

A few of my tendons seized

Right into his left mind: New media artist Huang Hsin-chien (黃心健)

Put a Taiwanese Crested Myna on it

Help support disaster relief in Japan and New Zealand

Happy International Women's Day!

Pinkoi: Taiwan's indie designers online

228 Memorial Peace Park

Tape mixes: Le Magasin du Ciel (現在夢中 ● 雜貨商行)

A-wristed development

Presenting 愛 Taiwan Design

Body image: Kiss my curvy yellow butt

Get booked: The Taipei International Book Exhibition 2011

The Renegade Bean is now A Rainbow Too Far

Spin a yarn, weave a web

Ke'ai Gone Wrong: "Life says goodbye"

Happy New Year 兔 You!

The Year of the Tiger in clips

Music: Smile Taiwan (微笑台灣）

Taroko George: Now with extra Internet Celebrity Fame!

Happy birthday to my Mom!

Tiger Mom? More like Bat Sh*t Crazy Mom!

Dog Day Afternoon: The 2011 Taipei Pet Carnival

Merry Christmas, ho ho ho burrrp