Taiwan's Top 5 Listicles: #8 in Listicle #3 will BLOW your MIND

Blah blah blah Taiwan blah blah blah blah. Blah blah China blah blah the Republic of China blah bla blah island blah blah Chinese culture hot springs blah. Blah blah blah oh yeah Japan too blah blah beef noodles blah blah blah blah blah blah blah semiconductors and milk tea. Milk tea with Semiconductor balls. Blah blah blah Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall blah blah blah food "vibrant" blah blah blah. Alishan Chinese food night markets temples toilet restaurant bubble milk tea toilet restaurant.

1.) Taiwan has steaks and cover songs

Blah blah blah I noticed a lot of cover songs blah blah blah steak is popular blah blah blah did you know about milk tea blah blah blah blah blah but our listicle is better than the other listicles because we point out overtly that there is more to Taiwan than "beef noodles". Now read our listicle.


2.) Something something Ralph Jennings something something

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah forbes will literally publish any fucking garbage blah blah blah

3.) "It has a green and lush valley"

Just that one valley though but it's really lush and also food we had to make food the focus of #3, #4, and #6 and some of these are really random things to include in a listicle blah blah blah blah Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Balls brand bubble milk tea blah blah blah yes i just made that up blah blah blah but you can visit that one monastery and that one valley maybe on the high speed rail and it kinda mentions the history which is cool but doesn't even remotely do it justice blah blah blah blah here's a picture of food blah blah blah.

Also toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant toilet restaurant

4.) This one says the weather is good?

Blah blah blah blah food weather night markets hiking (okay the hiking really is good) blah blah blah "the weather is perfect"? Seriously what are you talking about. It's better in the south when you're not trying to make sure your intestines don't boil in your body (so like 4 months out of the year) but it's also so polluted that it hardly matters, and the weather kinda blows in the north especially in winter. But blah blah blah FOOD! And also instead of talking about Taiwan's actual interesting architectural heritage let's mention the glass shoe or something blah blah blah.

5.) Blah blah blah food blah blah blah blah

Blah blah blah blah blah blah the only thing westerners need to know about taiwan is about the food and also that maybe it's china but maybe not but they definitely don't need to read in-depth reporting on current taiwanese issues that point to the way taiwan's post-industrial democratic society is threatened by china which is kind of a bellwether for the way right-wing authoritarianism and post-industrial recession is threatening the world and maybe china is even trying to interfere in taiwanese democracy in a way that is mirroring the west so we really need to pay attention because the entire world order could change and taiwan is literally the canary in the coal mine and also labor disputes which show what happens when a nation continuously ignores wage stagnation as a rising problem seriously guys if you care about the future liberal progressivism you should be watching taiwan closely but you're not in fact really just read about the food that's all that fucking matters just the food because we have to present it as a place for backpackers to go rather than a country with a culture and history and people of its own trying to determine its future in a world that cares more about pragmatism than doing what is right and has made no space for it despite it being a friendly democratic ally of the west in an increasingly turbulent world but like whatever haha china lol right blah blah blah.

6.) THIS one isn't a LISTICLE but it's just as STUPID

Did you KNOW about CHINA'S SECRET PLAN to invade TAIWAN or maybe it's THAILAND by 2020!!!!!!! According to this BOOK I, someone who claims to be a JOURNALIST, really just SKIMMED, China has a SECRET plan to INVADE. You should BELIEVE me BECAUSE THIS IS PROBABLY THE ONLY THING ABOUT TAIWAN THAT YOU HAVE READ OR HAS APPEARED IN A HEADLINE YOU'VE SEEN IN AT LEAST A YEAR SO YOU HAVE NO OTHER NEWS TO COMPARE IT TO and anyway you don't know anything about TAIWAN because the international press has decided they don't CARE unless it's about FOOD or it can be linked to CHINA.

My latest for Ketagalan Media: an interview with artist Lin Ching Che

Moving in the Space Between Light and Rain
Lin Ching Che, 2017
(used with permission of the artist for this piece)

I know it seems like I'm writing more for other people than for Lao Ren Cha, but rest assured, that's because I'm balancing writing with grad school, and I only have time for some writing. When my papers are done, you'll see more content here again. I'm not someone who'd start a blog, run it for awhile and then use it only as a vehicle to link my work elsewhere.

With that said, I am super excited about this interview with talented watercolorist Lin Ching Che, who paints beautiful rainy night scenes of Taipei - the soft and the gritty alike. I tell a personal story (which I've touched on before), we learn what Taipei looks like from someone who grew up there and loved it enough to paint it, we talk about neglected alleys, the meaning of the rain, 7-11 and "cha bu duo".

I tried purposefully to weave together ideas concerning light and dark, inner and outer life, smoothness and imperfection, detail and abstractness, being at home and being a foreigner, belonging and loneliness, city and country and beauty and ugliness, all through the back-and-forth of a conversation about painting that focuses on the comparison and contrast of two different personal experiences: one of the local painter, and the other of the foreign viewer. But, I have no idea if any or all of those ideas came through.

In any case, don't miss it.

My first for MyTaiwanTour: traveling in Taiwan as a woman and a person

A piece of mine is featured in the MyTaiwanTour blog this week - hopefully the first of many - on traveling the world as a woman (it's not possible to unhook gender from experience especially when traveling abroad, among different cultures and people) and also as a person, pointing to the (mostly) good and (some) bad of being a foreign woman in Taiwan.

I hope you'll check it out!

I have to say, I wouldn't be here, in Taiwan, nor would I have stayed so long if I didn't feel comfortable as a person here - not just as a gendered person, but as a whole one. It's not perfect - no place is - but I do not feel nearly as constrained by my gender here as I have in other parts of the world.