Formosa Neijia

I had my first judo class in a long time tonight and it was taught by one of the old Taiwanese guys — one of the few left. Chances are some of you may know a guy or two like him: strong as an ox, nothing the least artificial about them, good-hearted, perhaps not too […]

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The temple on my street celebrated Mazu’s birthday a couple of weeks ago and I forgot to post the pics. Mazu is a very popular deity in Taiwan and south China. As you can see, life on my little street can be very interesting.

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Below is a great quote that sums up how I feel about the continual erosion of Chinese culture. Yes it’s brittle and certainly not perfect, but it was successful, has produced a lot of beauty, and was perhaps a real alternative to the West. Source here. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.
“The fate […]

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As the Chinese supposedly say — may you live in interesting times. (BTW, I’ve never heard that said here.) And oh boy are things going to get interesting now. Ma Ying-jeou won yesterday’s presidential election by a landslide. This means that all branches of government are firmly back under KMT control. The DPP has […]

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Gongxi facai everyone! Tonight is lunar new year’s eve.
It being the year of the rat and all, you can guess who’s popular right now (look below). Here’s some new year’s graphics for you. Xinnian kuaile! (Happy New Year!)

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KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou called a press conference this week to show how he uses the taichi technique of wardoff to keep his political opponents at bay. However, pundits warned Ma that he should consider dropping his elbow, lest rival DPP candidate Frank Hsieh slip in a punch to Ma’s exposed ribs. 

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I never thought much about this kind of stuff until I moved to Taiwan and started working at the newspapers. But Taiwanese pay a lot of attention to things like where their beef and other food products come from. And that increased awareness is very, very bad for U.S. beef.
Every time a new case of […]

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So on the night that I didn’t go because my camera sucks, this happens:

This was way beyond the pale. As you can see, the Taiwanese fighter Wu Dong-xing was a complete jerk. He punched the foreign guy and knocked him down. Then while his opponent was down, Wu soccer-kicked him in the mouth. To […]

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So I just got back from seeing I Am Legend. Great movie, even though the last twenty minutes or so were totally different from the novel. It’s rare that I see movie of a book that I’ve read and yet I’m happy with the flick even though it diverges a little. If you’ve read […]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7NJ9_8FACg
Here’s a guy that goes flying and skidding for about a hundred yards. I guess sidewalks make for great ramps late at night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjV3vLvbkxw
This is what I was so afraid of when I drove a scooter. Notice that the guy in the car runs the light, and afterwards he isn’t too concerned about the […]

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