A recent discussion with some Taiwan bloggers about the state of the Taiwan expat blogosphere resulted in an idea to try and build a comprehensive Taiwan blogger directory that would allow bloggers to get to know each other and potentially bring in new readership. Sure, we got the “Bloggers in Taiwan”, “Taiwanfeed” and Michael Turton’s list, but when I show those to some of the potential readers as the best resource I can think of for Taiwan they …

Visiting the Israeli city of Ra’anana today I was surprised to see a sign on the entrance to the city with “Tainan, Taiwan”. Seems Ra’anana, one of Israel’s youngest most livable cities is Tainan’s sister city.     I think it’s kind of strange since I’m quite sure that only a few in Raanana would be able to point out Taiwan on the map. Interestingly enough, my brother told me last week that his Israeli IT …

This is the 6th post on the topic of Taiwanese music and musicians. Previous posts include : Mandarin Chinese music - More great singers I listen to in Taiwan - Wong Faye, 陳綺貞 Pop Chinese music in Taiwan continued : Joi Chua (蔡淳佳) and Jay Chou (周杰倫) Taiwanese music - Recommended Mandarin Chinese artists from Taiwan - 張惠妹, 張懸, 楊乃文 A-Mei Zhang Hui 張惠妹 : Aboriginal Taiwanese Mando-Pop music Male Taiwanese singers …

Comparisons between Israel and Taiwan seem to get a very wide variety of comments and I’m well aware this is a controversial issue. Still, I’ll mention an article I came across the other day titled  “The Three Nos–What do Israel and Taiwan have in common?” by one John G. Adams. This article makes what I’m sure is an even more controversial comparison between Israel and Taiwan’s political status: […] Israel and Taiwan are small democracies facing serious threats from totalitarian ideologies. …

Before the previous elections - when I asked Taiwanese I know down at Tainan DPP land what they were going to vote, most of them were saying “The Taiwanese economy is doing so bad, we need to change to a KMT president”.  It is ? this usually made me wonder  “What’s so bad about the Taiwanese economy?”. This is where things became a bit more blurry. In courses I’m taking in NCKU we are sometimes asked to pick our …

It was a while ago that I attended a speech at NCKU given by an American diplomat in Taiwan. The speech title was “An American Diplomat: A Life of Service in the Global Village” as part of an EAGLE lecture series “Envision the World”. It was a very interesting speech, and I was quite impressed with the speaker – his clarity, flow, experience and perspective. As he studied in Taiwan during the KMT rule and now serves as a diplomat in Kaohsiung he’s made a strong point about the impressive change Taiwanese society has gone through from being under martial law to a full democracy. I’ll quote the “Impressions of Taiwan” part from his slide show …