The professor of my Government and Politics in South East Asia course came up to me a few weeks back and told me it was her impression that I’ve very opinionated regarding the issue of democratization in East-Asia, especially that of Taiwan’s, and asked me whether I would be willing to review and critic a recent paper published in Foreign Affairs with the title “The Democratic Rollback - The Resurgence of the Predatory State” by Larry Diamond. First, it should be said that I usually am one of the few to speak out in class and …

This is the 4th 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 is something slightly different. An Aboriginal Taiwanese gifted with a great voice and unique charm, she’s made her way up to become one of Taiwan’s best known Mando-Pop super-stars. …

This, I wasn’t expecting. Big Buddha up on the mountains I’ve seen before in Thailand and HK, and since the Taiwanese I asked didn’t seem to think much of it, I didn’t think it would be anything special. Fo-Guang-Shan with the tall Buddha, surrounded by thousands of tiny golden Buddhas and just next to what I believe is the biggest temple I’ve seen anywhere, is just absolutely magnificent. Fo Guang Shan (佛光山 literally “Buddha’s Light Mountain”) is an international Chinese Mahayana Buddhist monastic order that has gained a worldwide presence, and has chapters around the world. The …

Even after living here in Tainan for a few months I keep discovering great new parts of Tainan in a way that makes me wonder how come I’ve never been there before. I sometimes just ride around with a friend or two, some Taiwanese locals, insisting to take a new road I don’t know till I see something interesting and ask “Hey, what’s this?”. Then, I usually get the odd response of “Oh, yeah, this could be fun, let’s go see”. Why, I keep complaining,  didn’t you think about taking me to this place before I asked. The almost automated response, no matter who’s asked, is “I didn’t think it’s special”. Eh, you should know me by now, it’s special …

It took a while to finish all the posts about India, but now it’s finally concluded. Here’s the course of my trip plotted on a Lonely Planet map. Following are the India posts about my 24 days around India: India - day 1 - landing in Mumbai - Colaba and Fort Area India - Day 1 and 2 - Pune India - Day 3 morning - A weird encounter at Panaji India - Day 3 - Panaji and Old Goa India - day 4-5 : Goa - Candolim beach India - day 5 - Anjuna …

India was an adventure, and I had some good times, but I think that looking back the one thing that I really appreciate about this trip is having the opportunity to spend some quality time with my father. We didn’t really have a chance to do it this often, and now that we don’t see each other alot, it made the India visit special. I think that the fact we made it in good moods through the rough Indian challenges makes us pretty good travel partners. Anyways, here are all the close-up photos we took together during the trip.   …