Some photos from Lion's Head Mountain

A few weeks ago we did the fairly quick and easy hike up Lion's head Mountain, which straddles Hsinchu and Miaoli counties.  

We got there by HSR, taking the bus (1 hour) from the HSR station that leaves, if not frequently, at least not that rarely - about twice an hour on weekends. Why HSR? Because we're lazy and didn't want to get up early, and I'm used to doing it for work. I sort of forget that when I'm traveling for fun that I won't get reimbursed the NT580 that the trip costs.

I wouldn't call it the best hike I've done in Taiwan, but it was certainly good, and certainly had a great temple at the end (some photos above).  You can start out from either side: Hsinchu or Miaoli. On the Hsinchu side the hike up is longer but is all road, few if any stairs. The Miaoli side hike is steeper, shorter, and all stairs. I prefer road to stairs and don't mind a longer hike if it means avoiding stairs, so I'm happy we went up from Hsinchu (a bus runs between the two).

On the either end you can pick up snacks, eat something and buy bottled drinks - on the Hsinchu side I recommend the street stall with the turnip cake (蘿蔔糕), the best I've had in Taiwan, very fresh. Locals kept coming by to buy huge chunks of it.

The trail is dotted with temples - none are spectacular in their own right except the last one as you descend, but all make nice rest stops and taken together they're lovely dots to connect on a not-too-difficult hiking day trip. Having been extremely busy lately, and generally in a bad mood (punctuated by good moods: it's not all gloom and doom), the adjective "easy" was important to me when choosing a hike that would get me out of Taipei.

Unfortunately, we left sunny Taipei thinking Hsinchu would be equally nice - it wasn't. Pure fog. No view whatsoever until we hit Miaoli.

Many of the temples along the way were actually monasteries - we encountered one full of monks and another full of nuns. At both, we were given tea and snacks and we sat down to chat with the monks, nuns and other visitors. I would call it the highlight of the trip.

At the first we got Pu'erh tea, and the second featured osmanthus tea.  The scent of osmanthus (a delicious flower, not the one below) wafts across Lion's Head Mountain at this time of year: the area is a major producer of the flower which is used in sauces, teas and desserts.  The shops aimed at sightseers all sell Oriental Beauty (東方美人) but if you really want something from this area, try and track down something made with osmanthus (good luck with that, though - what we encountered was fresh and served to us, not preserved and sold).

not osmanthus, just a nice photo

Recent rains, however, left the landscape lush, and turned spiderwebs into crystalline sculptures.

This cave temple in Japanese colonial baroque style was my favorite facade (I just love the style - the turn of the century through the 30s and 40s was a fine time for architecture in Taiwan), although inside wasn't that spectacular. 

Most of the painted murals on the inside did not photograph well in low light.

Brendan and Joseph on the Miaoli/Hsinchu county border.

Later on the view improved only slightly, but the temple at the end makes the whole hike worth it (as mentioned above, you can start from here, but I was happier to start from the other side and end up here). Watch out - the stone steps beyond this temple get mighty slippery.

Besides the extremely ornate multiple roofs, I liked that the roof decorations - the usual dragons, phoenixes, people, pagodas, tigers etc. - were of varying ages. Some were new, some were clearly very old. The temple seems to be undergoing piecemeal long-term renovation and upkeep, but still retains its older unique character.

This is one of the older parts, which I happen to like quite a bit.

If you leave early enough, which we did not, you can  even have lunch or dinner and take a walk around Beipu: the bus passes through in both directions whether you're going to Hsinchu or back to Zhubei, as we were.

Great hike if you want out of Taipei but don't want to go full-on up a mountain!

Taipei Building

         

After finding that my class at noon is postponed, I read a bit of the Washington Post and came across this article:

Tel Aviv's Abundance of Bauhaus Architecture

Bauhaus is not my favorite style - I'm a fan of Art Nouveau and that Japanese brick-and-cement colonial "baroque" style, especially when it's combined with Chinese and Japanese elements in its doorways, windows and flourishes - but  even I've noticed a few Bauhaus-inspired buildings dotting Taipei's landscape. That got me thinking.

Just as Tel Aviv should be renovating and rehabilitating its architectural motherlode, so should Taipei. This isn't the first time I've had this thought, or probably even the first time I've blogged about it, but I believe it sincerely. We shouldn't be tearing down everything in sight - the KMT idiots did that from the '50s onward,  destroying forever some of Taipei's greatest architecture, which could have been a major tourism draw now had it been allowed to stand (and the city expanded in different ways). Sure, in that time some other interesting stuff went up, but most of it was hideous. Instead, a government program to help property owners renovate buildings of architectural significance would be, if not a replacement for urban renewal projects, at least a complement to it, a program to run alongside it.

With the Shilin Wang family case still somewhat in the news (it's still going strong among my Taiwanese Facebook friends but seems to be dying down in the English media), urban renewal has been on everyone's mind. While I generally tend to side with people like the Wangs, some part of me does feel that if your building is not historically or architecturally significant, and a project is going through to improve a community, it might well be in that community's best interests to just make it happen - as long as compensation is fair and inconvenience and upheaval are kept to a minimum. Generally, I don't have a clear opinion on the topic, and I've heard differing reports on the age of the buildings razed (the newspapers are now saying decades-old. I heard one almost certainly false report that they were 134 years old).

I mean, there's a lot of ugliness in Taipei that could be improved. I'm mostly in favor of preserving vintage architecture, but I'm not against attractive modern buildings going up, and definitely not against some of the monstrosities of Taipei being torn down. Prague has done a remarkable job of melding modern with historically significant, as has New York.

Honestly, most of this can just be torn down for all I care. Build something nicer.

It's tough, though, to make a judgment call on what's worth saving. For example, I find old two-colored tile facades to be quirky and interesting, and worth preserving despite their often dingy appearance:

Keep it.

 But anything that's a bare expanse of cement, or has a tin roof, can go:

Raze it! I like the eye graffiti though.

All in all, I think two things:

1.) The Taipei City government has done a middling-to-bad job of architectural preservation (although they're improving - I have seen a visible rise in the number of interesting buildings being renovated and fewer are being torn down) and a terrible job of urban renewal: just ask the Wangs. What goes up in these projects is not likely to be much better than what's being torn down. There are so many architecturally interesting, but somewhat dilapidated, buildings in Taipei. A lot of people could be housed in those buildings were they to be renovated, which wouldn't solve the problem entirely, but it would make a dent in it.

That said, I disagree with the general derision heaped upon public housing. I live in public housing, and it's fine. Then again it was built for veterans and is not "low income", at least not now. People here range from middle class to quite wealthy, with only a few working class families around. Not that I'm anti-working class: I loved living in working-class Jingmei even though I hated my apartment. I'm just stating a fact. My public housing building boasts good insulation, stays cooler on warm days and warmer on cool days, has had far fewer problems than our apartment in Jingmei did, and services in the area abound - including a very low management fee and an on-call plumber at low rates. The buildings are ugly but not the ugliest in Taipei, and residents have improved them with flowers and window casements. Our walls have a few issues - the brightly colored paint on our walls revealed several building flaws, including sweating pipes and weird seams - and we can hear our upstairs and downstairs neighbors, but generally I'm happy with the place.
and

2.) I hear a lot of bitching from the expat community on how ugly cities in Taiwan are. Yes, most of them are pretty horrible, especially the medium-sized cities in the counties, but I don't get all the whining about how ugly Taipei is. OK, fine, it's not Prague and it's not the best of New York, and it's got some really horrible buildings (from ones made of corrugated metal to hulking concrete monstrosities), but it's got a lot of gems, too, and a lot of quirky style. You just have to look. If anything, Taizhong is a much uglier city, albeit with better weather.

Maybe it's that recently I've been feeling more annoyed than usual at foreigners complaining incessantly about Taiwan: I feel some amount of blowing off steam is fine, even necessary, but when I hear someone just go on and on and freakin' on about what he doesn't like (it's usually a "he", but women certainly can do it too), I have to wonder. If it's so bad, why don't you leave? You don't have to move home. Find another country. If you don't like it so much, why are you still here? And if you have a good reason to be here (study, job opportunities unavailable elsewhere, family), wouldn't you be better off looking for the positives instead of harping on the negatives? There are negatives - even I, ever the Taiwan-loving optimist - know that, but there are some really great things that balance them out or at least make them something you don't need to focus on so much. For every hideous building there's a hidden gem. For every rude person there's a friendly one. For every difficult encounter there's a lovely surprise. And, most of the time, I find the positives outweigh the negatives. I can understand hating China - I spent a year there and left because I wasn't happy and was constantly sick - and to some extent I can see how extreme culture shock could render some to hate Korea, and the insular and overly polite nature of Japanese society could destroy someone's faith in Japan, but I don't see what's so bad about Taiwan that it deserves such kvetching. Even India, which I love, offers a lot of good material for the complainer to latch onto. But Taiwan?

Anyway, back to architecture. If you think Taipei is ugly, fine. I think the weather sucks, so we're even. If you think it's ugly enough that it warrants repeated comments - and not the kind where you laugh it off as I do the weather - why are you still here?

Sure, so many buildings in Taipei are so unrelentingly hideous that they should just be razed:

Seriously, this thing is horrible. You could make a case for painting it with funky murals
but it's probably best to just get rid of it.

Some have been lovingly restored (and others half-heartedly):

They could do better with this one. So much potential.

This set of buildings on Dihua Street is fairly well-known

This is one of my favorite window facade

And some are functional/restored, but seem to be noticed by nobody but me:

For example, this is my dream house (although I'd prefer it not be right on Yanping Road), but it seems to be largely ignored.

This funky old building and ones like it are easy to miss, but lovely when you're  looking for them and worthy of being kept in good condition.

Interestingly tiled buildings with curved or unusual facades abound - also worth saving

This one on Guiyang Street is a little more well-known but is still largely ignored

This one, too, on the north-central end of Yanping

This is on or near Hengyang Road, which has many gems

By 228 Park

Whereas still others have not only been restored but  have become art installations

These are not doing badly

And yet still others are barely hanging on, and in desperate need of renovation:

A few interesting shophouses in the area between Ximen and Longshan Temple

I'd love to see this Guiyang Street building renovated

I realize that I took most of these in the older parts of Taipei - Wanhua, Dadaocheng. They were just the most accessible photos, though. There are all sorts of buildings dotting Taipei that are not in those areas: Chang'an and Zhongshan boasts at least one true gem and a few other interesting tidbits. Heping E. Road just west of Guting has a few. Jingmei has one crumbling facade down by Shi Hsin University that deserves a renovation,  half a three-sided farmhouse attached to a building and a few alleys of old shophouses. There is some really funky, almost Bauhaus stuff you can still see around Raohe Night Market. There's a totally fascinating dark cement Gothic-looking building in the lanes near Jianguo N. Road, just north of Nanjing. I wish National Taiwan University would renovate its old Japanese buildings. In the far west of the city,  in the no-man's land by the river northwest of Ximen and southwest of Dihua Street, even farther west than the old warehouses that are being renovated, are some gems of Japanese wooden houses that deserve renovation, even if newer buildings that can house more people go up around them. Even my neighborhood - central Da'an - has a few two-color tile buildings that look vintage 50s and 60s that would be worth a good scrub and a renovation. Xinyi has a few still standing out behind the cabbage farm near Taipei 101 (is that still there? I haven't been out that way in awhile). Changchun Road has a few interesting buildings worth seeing, Minsheng Community on Sanmin Road has a cool curved brick building,  Qiyan has some interesting old warehouse spaces, Roosevelt has some lanes around Guting - mostly to the north but a few to the south - that have stuff worth looking at. Bade as you head east has some weird, cool stuff going on amidst the ugliness, and old temples and shrines from Taipei's farmland days dot the landscape.

These buildings dot the city, even if they're concentrated in the west.

So...why aren't we saving them? Why are they falling apart? Why are they often uninhabited? If the owners can't afford to fix them up, why is the government pouring money into monstrosities like the Yuanhuan Circle "food court" and not into helping the owners make their properties functional and beautiful again?

Lvsang (呂桑食堂): Delicious food from Yilan on Yongkang Street

Red Date Pork (紅糟肉) at 呂桑

Lv-Sang ("Mr.") Yi-lan Restaurant
呂桑食堂

# 12-5 Yongkang Street, Taipei
台北市大安區永康街12－5號
(02)2351-3323

(they also have a branch in Zhongshan: Zhongshan N. Road Section 2 Lane 59 #5-1)

What a fantastic restaurant! Along with my quest to find a suitable Japanese restaurant in which to SPEND ALL THE MONEY, I'm also on a mission to find a short list of restaurants to prove anyone who says "Taiwanese food isn't very good/flavorful/delicious/well-seasoned" wrong.

I also have to say that the past few weeks have really reminded me of how well I eat in Taiwan for such little money. People say "it's cheap to eat out" and usually mean the night market or hole-in-the-wall restaurants, but even nicer food is generally cheaper than you'd pay at home, unless you're going out for Indian, German or some other non-Asian "foreign" cuisine (and even then, prices are not bad)...and better. Washington DC was a mecca of good foreign food, but didn't have a lot of good "American" or continental fare - and yet restaurants charged through the nose for what they did have - bilking politicians, networkers, social climbers and foreign dignitaries no doubt. In Taipei I can enjoy quite literally the best the city has to offer and not  end up in the poorhouse. Sure, there are NT$6,000 per person restaurants serving birds' nest soup, but come on, that's not really the best Taipei has to offer.

It's places like this that remind me that, as well as I can cook, I can't really cook. Not like this. I couldn't turn out a perfect red date sliced pork like the delicious dish above. I wouldn't dare put cheese on a baked papaya. I can't create the dishes we enjoyed here.

Recommended by our friend Joseph and well-known in its own right, Lvsang is one of the restaurants that gives Yongkang Street its reputation for good food. Serving Yilan Taiwanese food, including plenty of lesser-seen or less-known dishes, this is also one of those places that kicks to the curb any notion that Taiwanese food lacks flavor or that it's all just the light&sound of soy sauce, chili oil and deep fryers.

Fatty stewed intestine

For our meal, we got the "liver flowers" roll, the fatty stewed intestine (above), the red date pork, the cold chicken, the vegetable salad and a baked papaya, and have agreed to try the liver next time (it's supposed to be great).

Other than the papaya, which was interesting and unexpected but not exactly something I'd try to re-create, everything was amazing. I'm not a fan of intestines or innards normally, but the intestine used to make two of the dishes we tried was soft and tender, not chewy and weirdly-textured. It's really the texture, not the flavor, that bothers me. This stuff was melt-in-your-mouth soft and savory without being too salty, served with slivered ginger to give it a spicy, dry punch.

The restaurant itself has an Old Taiwan vibe going, as well.

The salad has a bit of a wasabi vibe to the dressing, but isn't spicy (Brendan called it "decaf wasabi"). I'd prefer if it had the wasabi punch, but the fresh vegetables and tangy sauce were still delicious (although I can't say I'm a fan of the white vegetable, which I believe is 山芋 - biting into it releases juices that have the texture of runny snot).

Quick warning: they don't seem to serve water or any alcohol here - the only beverage available is tea, and the tea seems to be a slightly savory kumquat potion which I liked, but I wouldn't say it sated my thirst. It was made from dried kumquats and so had a bit of the salty-ish stuff they use to preserve fruit and vegetables in it.

和風沙拉

The eggplant, mushroom and other vegetables are delectable, though. Fresh, well-seasoned, delicate in a tangy dressing. Definitely not your standard stewed or fried fare.

Cold chicken (白斬雞腿)

I'm a huge fan of plain cold chicken in sauce (and the sauce at Lvsang is a bit different from the usual flavored oil this dish is served in - the dipping sauce has a spicy punch to it, as well) and this not-very-sexy but standard and good dish is a fine addition to your order. It's simple but they do it well.

I don't have a good picture of the stuffed "liver flower" (宜蘭肝花）but, served with a very Taiwanese "pink sauce" (the kind you get on sticky rice and Taiwanese tempura), it's cooked beautifully and delicious. Above is the 烤木瓜, which is a slice of papaya baked with cheese, underneath which are chopped vegetables in a creamy sauce. Although it was interesting and new, I'm not sure I'd recommend it, an I've never actually seen this dish in Yilan. It's...something. I'm happy I tried it - it was a new experience. I didn't dislike it, but I am really not sure I see the point.

Overall, though, I was thoroughly pleased with Lvsang - especially that divine red date pork.  Thoroughly and highly recommended overall!  

Tanuki Koji / 狸小路

Delicious (and expensive) beef skewers at Tanuki Koji

Tanuki Koji狸小路#93  Sec 2 Anhe Road, Taipei台北市大安區安和路2段93號（02）873－28555

Today shall be a day of restaurant reviews. I might write something thoughtful later, we'll see.

Since Dako went from being a lovely little hole-in-the-wall that served fantastic Japanese snacks and sake to being a boring paigu place with no sake, just Choya, beer and Calpis, I've been in the market for a good Japanese restaurant to add to my repertoire of place to eat and to take friends. Taipei has tons of Japanese food, but a lot of it could generously be called "fusion" (Taiwanese versions of "Japanese food"), or it's all sushi, or it's just not that good, or it's pedestrian (like the fried pork cutlets in curry sauce or the weird rice omelets), or it's way too chi-chi. I don't love dramatic lighting and black granite. I do love places that actually remind me of Japan: wooden walls and tables, large windows, screens,  high-low counters, charcoal wood, plain white canvas curtains, benches or izakaya tables. And that's Tanuki Koji.

So last week we went out with my sister to Tanuki Koji, a delicious but expensive restaurant and sake bar on Anhe Road (very close to the popular bars we never go to, and also close to Zoca Pizza). Yes, I do think it's funny that we live within walking distance of many of Taipei's expat bars, and you'll basically never find us in one.

Expensive but not impossible, well-appointed without being chi-chi, this place hits the spot.

I apologize now for the terrible quality of these photos: I didn't think to bring my camera (which is a massive older pro camera, not a teeny tiny pocket digital) so I just snapped a few shots with Brendan's iPod Touch.

I thought at first that we'd found a place that nobody had reviewed before, but of course, I was wrong, it was reviewed in the Taipei Times just a few months before I first moved to Taiwan in 2006, so I never saw it.

Tanukikoji's famous sea urchin

The sea urchin is rightfully famous -  sweet, subtly flavored, delicate, with just a tiny punch of salt from the bit of caviar set atop the slices that come served in a small martini-like glass. I'm really the sea urchin fan - Brendan merely thinks it's OK and doesn't see the point in spending that much money on something he won't savor. My sister likes it but not as much as I do. The two of us split this serving, leaving Brendan with none. NONE. Hahaha!

The sake we got was also excellent - NT800 for a small bottle but worth every penny, and served in a carafe with room for ice, which I appreciate. The staff can recommend sake based on what you order as well as what temperature you prefer your sake: I prefer it cold, although some sakes are better at room temperature or warm. This stuff went down super smooth and had a rich and complex flowery flavor (which you can probably tell from the label).

Another delicious and well-known dish is the cold tomato cooked in wine. It's topped with a mustardy, sesame-like cream sauce and is simple but delicious.

We also got the beef skewers (above) - which one rolls in the fried garlic provided - a grilled fish that has inedible skin (the skin, however, can be peeled off easily) but is meaty and delicious, and a plate of sushi that included an amazing tuna, a whitefish that was good but not memorable, a delicious cooked salmon, something else that was hard to identify (I think squid) and a few vegetable pieces with some egg pieces on the side. I appreciated that the wasabi was already added under the fish in the right amount for each serving - that shows attention to flavor and detail and is de rigueur in Japan. Finally, we tried the famous potato-cheese-roe dish, which I liked quite a bit but my sister merely thought was OK.

The restaurant itself is small - seating about 20 - and fills up quickly. We've walked by (we live in the area) and seen it packed, and they do take reservations. Even on a Sunday night we had to eat an clear out because they had a group coming. I love the atmosphere - this is the sort of place I'd expect to eat at in Japan itself, not a Taiwanese version of Japan. The sort of place I've been to with friends who live in Japan - where I've had more than one truly memorable culinary experience.

I'm not sure i'd call the food "fusion" as the review does - that kind of cheese/potato/roe dish is definitely the sort of thing I've come across in Japan (a place where I've had raw chicken sushi - yes you're reading that right - and chicken covered in caramelized onions and mayonnaise, and they cover all sorts of things in cheese and call it "foreign"). They serve food that might not fit someone's basic view of Japanese food, but that doesn't mean it's not the kind of food you can easily eat in Japan.

All in all a meal for 3 cost NT$3,250, so come prepared. That is a great price for eating out in Japan or the USA but is on the high end for Taiwan. Definitely in our budget (although we don't eat this expensively every week), but something that anyone looking to be economical should be aware of. I'm not surprised: good Japanese food does skew to the expensive side and it's not only in Da'an but on Anhe Road. You'll get a fantastic meal, but you'll pay for it.

Final word? Go here. It's amazing. If you're on a budget go for a special occasion. Take someone you want to impress there. If you're a little more free in your budget, just pop by.

Aphrodite Europe Flea Market

Aphrodite Antiques and Europe Flea Market
Monday-Sunday 11am-9pm
#16-1-3 Section 6 Minquan East Road, Neihu Dist.
Taipei 114 Taiwan
台北市內湖區民權東路6段16－1－3號

(02)2791-5008
Directions: Take a bus heading over Minquan Bridge (民權大橋) and get off at the first stop in Neihu (the stop is called "Minquan Bridge", in Chinese "Minquan Da Qiao").  You'll see Aphrodite on the right as you come off the bridge. After alighting, walk back to the bridge entrance and Aphrodite is on the left after the store selling chi-chi glass decorations and the expensive Chinese furniture store. 

Side note, across the street from that bus stop is Miro Furniture - expensive, but great if you want good-quality wooden furniture with a sort of Indian, Middle Eastern, Silk Road flair.

I teach once a week in this part of Neihu, between Minquan Bridge and the Costco and giant RT Mart. It's fantastic, because although the area has very little - I couldn't even find a pharmacy once when I had a headache, and it was impossible to find food anywhere other than the Barista Coffee when the 7-11 was under renovation - it's perfect if I need to stop at B&Q or RT Mart after class.

That's how I found Aphrodite. I'd passed it on the bus hundreds of times, and seen the sign for the "Europe Flea Market" [sic], and the interesting, thrift-store style stuff outside. One day, looking for apartment decoration, I decided to pop in after class. I've also explored the other furniture stores in the area - there's some good stuff for those who don't mind looking for hours on end and who have budgets that can stretch beyond IKEA.

This place is a secondhand store in the truest sense of the word: only the brightly colored crystal drink and wine glasses appeared to be "new", everything else is genuinely aged or used, some of it genuine antique or vintage, some of it thrift-store-tacular. It's not as cheap as an American Goodwill, but not as expensive as the Treasure Hunt Flea Market near MRT Guting, from where we also obtained some of the items decorating our home.

The main difference is that Aphrodite really does mostly import its treasures from abroad, mostly Europe. At Treasure Hunt, you'll find old Taiwanese and Chinese antiques and vintage items, including old boxes, baskets, wood carvings, teacups, sake sets and more "Asian" stuff. At Aphrodite, you'll find European glassware (much of it the kind of thing you'd find on Great Aunt Crappadocia's credenza, which you used to think was lame but now think is totally cool and retro), espresso sets, vases, copper and brass items, plateware and other random  stuff that comes more from the West than the East. This isn't the place to go if you want to make your apartment look like the Formosa Vintage Museum Cafe (which, come on, I not-so-secretly do want to do) - it's the place to go for the kind of cool secondhand stuff you'd decorate with back home.

The part of the store near the main entrance sells mostly small items at prices under NT$1000 - this is where I picked up my blue glass vase, liqueur glasses and wooden coasters, above. The vase was NT95, the glasses NT60 each and the coasters, genuinely antique and worth "something", were NT195 each.

There are copper vases and pots that run a few thousand kuai, furniture that is really expensive, and tons of funky, retro European inexpensive ceramicware that looks like the stuff at your grandma's place, which she got from her mother who was an immigrant from Germany. There are some true finds - old copper pitchers, real crystal - and lots of cheaper, funky stuff if you just want to pick up something fun.

Prices are a bit unpredictable - a seemingly modest little copper creamer pot can be several hundred kuai, whereas those adorable liqueur glasses I scored were really dirt cheap. You just never know.

When I first popped in to Aphrodite, it was nearly empty, and again the time after that. I thought I'd found a truly undiscovered gem. The past few times I've been here, however, there have been many more people - almost all of them locals (not expats). The best stuff is selling more quickly - I'd actually wanted far more ornate wooden coasters but by the time I returned, they were gone. On the "SOLD" shelf was an impossibly beautiful copper watering pitcher with a brass lion's head and decorated with red, blue and aqua-green stones or resin dots (I couldn't tell which from a distance). I would give my left nut for that pitcher, but it's gone. I'm in love with the colorful crystal chunky French wine glasses (I would get a set in hot pink, bright tangerine and lime) but can't justify spending NT$485 each on them when I already have plenty of wine glasses.

So get yourself over there, and if you see something you like, buy, don't dally.

Divorce and Family Dynamics in Taiwanese News

This has nothing to do with the post. I just like the photo.

I know this China-style forced-eviction-and-demolition in Shilin is the big news across Taiwan, or at least Taipei, this weekend (for the record, I'm all in favor of kicking out Hau Lung-bin, just as much because he's an idiot generally as because of this), but another article caught my eye.

This one on a woman in Banqiao whose request for a divorce on the grounds that her mother-in-law egregiously violated her privacy was denied is the one that I've been mulling over.

This is a perfect example of why no-fault divorce should be legal everywhere in the world. I'm not entirely familiar with Taiwan's divorce laws. I know they used to be ridiculously sexist (a man could leave his wife if she refused to move with him for his work, but a wife couldn't leave her husband over his refusal to move for her work, the idea being that a wife should move for her husband's career but not the other way around) and have since been somewhat reformed, but I'm not sure to what extent. Clearly no-fault divorce with only one spouse consenting to divorce is not permissible, or else this woman would have gotten one.

What bothers me is that the court didn't think that the mother-in-law unlocking the couple's bedroom door at all hours of the night to "check on them" was sufficiently emotionally distressing or a violation of privacy. That says a lot about the power of mothers-in-law (especially the husband's mother) in Taiwan, and yes, while a case could be made that a court might have said the same to a man whose wife's mother was doing the same thing, it's hard not to see this ruling as a sexist one. It makes it quite clear that in the court's eyes, a wife needs to just deal with nosy mothers-in-law, and not listening to objections and having a spouse who does nothing to stop his own mother is not enough reason to terminate a marriage.   

I feel that, well, how could any court possibly be the final decision maker regarding what is and is not intolerable stress or privacy violation? What court has the right to tell you that you must or must not stick it out in a bad marriage based on your circumstances? No court - that's a very personal decision and I don't believe it's something a third party can rule on.   

That said, the wife sort of made her own bed: her husband did offer to send his mother back down south to live, and the wife apparently refused, thinking that others would judge her poorly.

I just wonder why they didn't change the bedroom door lock and not give the mother-in-law a key. I also wonder what the mother-in-law hoped to accomplish. If it was the propagation of grandchildren, barging in on them at random times was obviously not the way to go about it!

It's surprisingly common not just for couples to live with one set of parents (usually the husband's) or near them, or to feel pressured into visiting them every single weekend, or to even give in to in-law pressure to procreate - which, from a cultural standpoint, horrifies me, but it's not my culture. Plenty of Taiwanese people I know seem horrified that my sister lives in Taiwan, I have a spare room, and yet she does not live with me and my husband. Of course, to us, it's perfectly natural that a 25-year-old single woman living abroad with her own set of friends and her own life would want the independence of her own place or roommates her age - to them, it's how can you make your sister live alone like that, all by herself like she's in prison, and paying so much for rent?! Ha. Haha. Well.         

It's also fairly common for the in-laws to have a set of keys to your apartment and to visit unannounced whenever they please, and objecting is not allowed or socially condoned. I love my parents and in-laws, but no. Just no.

And all this ruling says is that:

 a.) A woman's unhappiness in her marriage is not her own decision. She can basically be told that her feelings are "wrong". (A man could be told this too, but somehow I suspect that a lack of initiated-by-one-spouse no-fault divorce means the law is in favor of men, and that husbands would be more likely to be granted the divorce;

b.) A woman has no right to the final decision of what is unbearable in a marriage if it can't be proven to be abuse, adultery or something else that could instigate divorce with fault;

c.) Mothers-in-law have the right to make their childrens' spouses miserable (especially wives);

d.) Taiwanese society doesn't seem to expect the husband to stand up against his mother for his wife.

All of these point to a sore spot of continued sexism in Taiwan that could be easily fixed with single-spouse initiated no-fault divorce. No need to prove anything, no need to obtain consent, if you want out, you can get out. I would trust those who exercise that option to do it wisely and with much forethought and attempted reconciliation, but in the end I'd respect their decision based on their experience in that marriage. I don't feel anyone has the right to rule on that for them. Male or female, but women are especially hurt by a lack of such a divorce provision.

But, ah, the power of mothers-in-law...

I'm reminded of an incident a few weeks ago when we were running to catch a train to Ruifang to take my in-laws to Jiufen - the next train wasn't for another hour and, due to an issue with my EasyCard, we were about to miss this one. It was far down on the track from where we entered - local trains don't take up the entire platform - and my mother-in-law couldn't possibly have run that far that quickly due to health issues. I went flying up the platform to the attendant, who tried to usher me on-board, and with fake tears in my eyes (I'm a very good actress, apparently) I bawled that we needed to be on this train because I was taking care of my mother-in-law who was visiting Taiwan, oh please sir, would you please help me make sure we get on this train?! *sniff*.

And you know what? He held the train. He kept it on the platform for at least 1-2 minutes longer than it should have been just so we could all make it onboard and not have to wait for the next one. 

I highly doubt he would have done that for two young people (although two whippersnappers such as Brendan and myself could have just made it at a sprint). But for a (foreign) mother-in-law, hold that train!!

Similarly, while they were here our water heater crapped out. I called a plumber on Saturday morning. He said he'd be there "in an hour or so".
"Oh no, but my mother-in-law is here!"
"Oh. In that case, I'll come immediately!"

Updated Post: The Best Coffee in Taipei

I've updated my post on the best coffee in Taipei to include a better review of Rufous (get their espresso or cold brew coffee, not the siphon brew) and include Cafe Booday and a gem of a find in the middle of Nowhere Street, Random Part of Zhonghe called Gold Diamond which has surprisingly good stuff.

Enjoy!

Of Facebook, Loneliness and Suicide

Still contemplating a blogging break, but this is news I feel I should link to:

31-year old Taiwanese woman kills herself while chatting on Facebook

This is really just awful. The whole thing: the suicide, the "friends" who didn't call the police, the fact that they might not have even been good enough friends to know her phone number or where she lived, the fact that the catalyst seemed to be an inattentive boyfriend on her birthday, the fact that the problems she must have had surely went far beyond not only one bad episode with the boyfriend, or even one bad relationship. The fact that she got no help for whatever personal demons led her to do this. 

It highlights a lot of issues that deserve thought and discussion: how Facebook can be isolating, the nature of friendship in Taiwan, a lack of awareness about depression or other similar issues that could lead to suicide*, questions about the suicide rate among women in Taiwan (I know that in China it's higher for women than men, which is the opposite of the rest of the world - I don't know about Taiwan). There's also the nature of relationships in Taiwan and how living with parents before marriage, working late and a culture that discourages men from expressing themselves and seems to drive a wedge rather than build a bridge between men and women, families who don't know what's going on with each other, despite much touted "closer family ties" in Taiwan.

I hear that last one a lot: "family is so much more important in Asia". Yes, but I get the distinct impression that for all the family obligations, the length of time adult children often live at home, the more frequent family socializing and everyone-up-in-yo'-business family culture, relatives aren't generally close. Siblings and cousins in the same generation might be, but children - especially adult children - don't seem to be as close to their parents as I am to my parents or Brendan is to his. I feel that for all the time they spend together, they actually communicate less.

As for the boyfriend - I am reminded of that old "不要走！不要走！殺很大！" computer game commercial. I have to wonder how common that sort of "silently ignoring each other but not breaking up" thing happens among Taiwanese couples. In the end, though, to go so far as to kill herself, I would say that one can't blame the boyfriend: she clearly had problems of her own well beyond his inattentiveness. Blame a lack of adequate awareness, intervention at warning signs when someone is troubled to the point of suicidal, though. That's a huge problem.

*I'm only conjecturing here, but it seems fair to speculate that she was suffering from some issues deserving of mental health treatment

Can't even think of a title, something about women or something

Here's where I honestly say that I'm thinking of taking a blogging break of a few weeks - not sure if I'll do it yet, we'll see. I've been working so hard that I got sick, even though the hours I work are still far less insane than - well, than most Taiwanese with office jobs. Blogging has fallen by the wayside, which you might have noticed as I've been opening almost every post with "sorry" or "need to blog more often" or "so much to say, no time" or "I'm really tired / have a headache".

And then this comes along, including an editorial here and some stats here in the China Post which I normally never read (can't stand the thing), complete with comments on "leftover women" and the resulting hate from both sides, and I know I should be blogging on it, but all I can summon over the whole thing is a resounding "WTF". And while occasionally "WTF" makes a perfectly acceptable blog post, I would normally want to do more with this story than leave it there.

That's when I realize I'm dropping a ball that, maybe, I have no business for the time being of carrying. I've got, to put it in the filthiest terms possible, enough balls it seems.

So, we'll see. I may or may not blog again for the rest of this week and next and see how I feel, and if I need more time off.

For what it's worth, I'll do my halfhearted best here.

As for the person who originally made the "leftover women" comments, Zhang Xiaofeng (張曉風, or Chang Show-foong or however you want to spell it) - she just makes me sad. We hear enough of this bullshit from men - it's really not OK for a woman to be attacking other women in this way. I'm used to hearing sexist crap from guys. I mean, I'm from the USA after all, and while we may seem to lead the world in progressivism, the vicious bile spewed by so many American men - hate speech really - and the recent contraception debate have really put that into question. It's sad when an American woman, who ostensibly comes from one of the most egalitarian countries on Earth, feels that she hears more of this crap from her own country than from less progressive and egalitarian places.

But when a woman makes comments that make it clear that being married is the only measure of value for adult women...that's just insane. Aren't we supposed to be in this together? Married or not? Rich or poor? Whatever our race or background? Can't we women all just please get together and agree that being married is not only not the sole measure of value of a woman, but not any measure of value whatsoever? Please, can all of womankind - and preferably all of humankind - please agree on this one simple thing, that it's OK to be female and not to marry?

What's sad in Taiwan is that I hear the opposite - that a woman's only worth is as a wife and mother - from women more than I do from men (although I am sure plenty of men secretly believe it). I hear it from this idiot Chang lady, from grandmas obasans and moms and aunties and frenemies. I don't hear it from men, although maybe they're just quiet around me. Back home, I hear it from men (and I tune them out as best I can).

As for the rest of it, I generally agree with the editorial linked above. First, she's just wrong about "leftover women" - the stats prove it. Second, the writer is absolutely right: even if some of the Taiwanese men who've married foreign women (and by "foreign" I mean "Chinese, Southeast Asian", not "white" - that still seems to be not very common) hadn't done so, that doesn't mean Taiwanese women would choose to marry them.

Of course, my problem is not with interracial marriage. I have no issue with that, and obviously this is regardless of where the two people come from. I am sure plenty of Taiwanese guy/SE Asian woman matches are actually marriages based on love and partnership.

I *do* have an issue with mail-order marriage: the problem isn't marrying foreigners per se. It's more the idea of picking a woman out of a catalogue and having her shipped over. It's sad to say that these marriages are almost always Taiwanese man/SE Asian or Chinese woman, but there you have it.

Since I, at a glance, can't necessarily tell the two apart, I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I have my views, but in the end someone else's marriage is not my business.

And with those men - the ones who think "a wife is a cleaner and bed-warmer that I can pay to have sent here" - yeah, no, who would want to marry someone like that? The problem isn't foreigners, interracial marriage or whatever: it's sexism. It's the mail order bride industry, but more than that, it's the attitudes of the men who obtain such wives that make the mail-order bride industry viable. "I need a wife so I'm going to pay an agent to ship a woman over from Vietnam" is very, very different from "I love and want to marry this person who happens to be a foreigner". It is sexism, and it is an attitude problem, and I daresay it's with the men.

"Leftover women" remarks aside, Taiwan is still a place where, if you can avoid the occasional barb, you can choose not to marry (in that regard, it's not all that different from the USA) without too much of a problem. My impression, gained from observations from friends and students, is that Taiwanese women who don't marry either:

a.) Have actively chosen not to, because they prefer being single; or
b.) Would like to marry, but really do want to meet someone they can love and be a partner with and haven't met that person yet.
c.) Would like to marry, but, something like (b), have been disappointed time and time again by what prospective marriage partners would expect out of a marriage (doing the bulk of the housework if not all of it, kowtowing to mom-in-law, doing most if not all of the child-rearing) and have decided that being single is better than that.

Because as much as I like to say that Taiwan is pretty good in terms of women's status when compared to the rest of Asia, it's still got some serious problems.

I have never met a woman in Taiwan who is old enough to marry but is single because:

c.) The good, available guys don't want her; or
d.) Her standards are impossibly high, including demands on income and home ownership

...of course, women who do have these issues or standards aren't likely to admit to them, or even necessarily be conscious of them. I am sure there are women out there who feel this way, and I've just done a good job of avoiding them.

I know my friends pretty well, though, and they're super cool people (not the type to have insane standards and insist on diamonds or owning a nice apartment before marriage) and lovely ladies, and my students seem similarly down-to-earth. I think if (c) or (d) were issues, I'd be able to intuit that.

And yet, so many people seem to point to those reasons, and blame the women, for not marrying. Not long ago I was at a gathering of expats where the general consensus was that Taiwanese women were impossible, clingy and materialistic. I had to ask myself - do they actually know any Taiwanese women that they didn't pick up in a bar or in English class? Because that certainly doesn't describe my female friends.

I've even heard them blamed for men marrying foreign brides ("if you weren't so opinionated and didn't  overachieve so much, you'd get a man but instead they're marrying Chinese girls because the Chinese girl will let him be the head of the household! Shame on you!") - to which I'd say, if the prize is a guy who'd marry a woman he barely knows because he wants a warm body that happens to include a vagina, then that's not a competition worth entering (sort of like when a Western guy says "well if Western women want to compete with Asian women, they'd better..." - compete? For what prize again? No thanks). (Just making clear again that my issue isn't with marrying foreigners: it's with the mail-order bride industry).

I've heard them blamed for insisting on men who earn as much as or more than they do (which I admit is a problematic social belief, and I have met women who have admitted to this) or otherwise being their professional and social equals. Other than the whole income thing - because money shouldn't really matter that much when it comes to love - I don't see why wanting to marry someone who is on roughly equal footing with you in those areas is deserving of such scorn.

I also don't think it's really all that true: my observation has been that many Taiwanese women are holding out for an egalitarian partnership, not a relationship with a guy who always feels he has to be "in charge". They're holding out for love, for a guy who isn't as likely to cheat or see cheating as his birthright, for a guy who won't try to order them around and who will do his share at home and not always prioritize work. I think that's a good thing, and honestly, if there were a dearth of men who fit that description, even if the country was full of single men, I'd stay single too. Better single than hitched to someone I don't respect, love or trust or who tries to exert control based on sexist values.

But then I've covered all this before. More than once. 

I'm not going to cover the Westerner angle too much - it's been done, and anyway, as a foreign woman married to another foreign guy, I have very little to say on the subject. The best I can come up with are that plenty of Taiwanese woman/foreign guy couples are legit: they genuinely like each other, they're a good match, and it's not skeezy or weird.

Then there are also plenty that, well, do carry a whiff of "undesireable white guy picking up anything Asian in a skirt at a bar that'll have him" ickiness. Since I don't hang around the latter, all I'll say on that is that a.) if you get to know a person or a couple, you can usually tell which it is and b.) even if you can tell which it is, it's generally speaking not your business who a person chooses to couple up with and why, so does it really matter if it's a bit creepy? I mean, it's not like you'd want that guy (I know I wouldn't), and the girl must know what she's getting into - her choice, after all - so whatever.

And I have to admit, I find guys anywhere who'll hook up with any ol' warm body - including a Taiwanese (or Western) man marrying one that's just arrived from Southeast Asia whom he barely knows - to be icky. They're free to do what they like, but that's not who I want to spend my time with.

Phew.

So, how was that for halfhearted?

Now I'm going to go curl up somewhere.

463 People Like This

Look at this picture of a flower I took! Like like like like like like like like

I don't have time for a full-on post tonight, even though I have more to say on the last post's defense of Taiwanese men.

So, a quick observation.

I have quite a few Taiwanese friends on Facebook, as can be expected after five years, and I've noticed that as Facebook has gotten less popular with my friends back home, it's gotten far more popular in Taiwan. Most, but not all, of my friends in the US have Facebook profiles, but not that many actually use it. Of all of my Washington, DC friends, maybe three use it regularly: two if you don't count the friend who always "Likes" the status updates of people, groups and pages she's subscribed to but never comments on what her friends say or posts her own updates. Other American friends use it more, but I've noticed a gaping chasm between how much content they generate vs. my Taiwanese friends.

I mean, if I post a picture of a pretty flower, even a picture that isn't as good as this one ("here is a pedestrian, plain photo of a very common flower!") or a picture of something extremely common, like a Taiwanese onion pancake or an update like "I'm at Eslite!", my Taiwanese friends will like it and my American friends will ignore it. Posts I make in Chinese, in both languages or in "accessible" English always, regardless of how interesting even I think they are, will always get more action than posts in more complex English, and most (but not all) of it comes from my Taiwanese friends.

If my Taiwanese friends, with their 90-99% Taiwanese networks, post a picture of a boring flower, an onion pancake or say "I'm at Eslite!!", I swear within a half hour "28 people like this" and "18 comments" will already be up.  I think some of them have friends who like just about everything (and all of my friends who like basically everything I post are Taiwanese, although not all do this).

I guess I just feel that overall they're much more active - I'd probably have to post "hey, I just got a raise" or "I just got published" to get that many "Likes". It feels like how Facebook must have felt five years ago in the USA*, when people were more gung-ho and not as "over it". I wouldn't say the USA is totally over Facebook, just that we use it in more moderation, which is probably saner. I think the "I'm sitting in a chair!" "87 people like this" phenomenon will also die down in Taiwan as people start treating it more as a normal, more passive part of life rather than something one does to be 'cool'. Of course, since I believe about  80% of all Facebook updates in Taiwan are made during work hours, quite possibly as a form of rebellion-by-dawdling against the insane hours people are asked to work** in this country, it may not die down quite as much.

Being in the middle is interesting - I post a lot less than many of my Taiwanese friends, but a lot more than most of my American friends, who probably think I'm crazy, like I've got Facebook microchips in my blood or something. I don't - I'm just posting at a rate more in line with my local friends - in fact, even less than that. My Taiwanese friends are generally not that young (32-45 or so), so I can't say it's youth, either.

*I wasn't on Facebook quite 5 years ago, although I'm nearing that anniversary

**Seriously, my Taiwanese coworker said that she's "on call 24/7", seriously, they can call her anytime, and she HAS to pick up or give a good reason why she didn't do so. She'll get flak for not calling back quickly (no allowances for being, say, in the shower or at the gym or uncomfortable on the toilet). I told her, "OK, what I'd do, honestly, is tell them the truth regarding why I didn't pick up. 'Why didn't you answer that call? You didn't call back for a half hour!' 'Yeah, sorry, I was having sex.' or 'I was taking a dump and it took awhile, sorry.' They will NEVER ask you again."

In Defense of Taiwanese Men, Part I: or, Did I Really Move to Taiwan to Escape Sexism?

Tonight a perfect storm of headache and a long seminar for a third straight week (at least this one doesn't carry over to Saturday) has made it hard to make good on my promise to myself to blog at least three times this week. My job is not quite the work-and-stress factory that most jobs in Taiwan are - you might think I'm killing myself, but actually I only taught for 2 hours on Tuesday and 3.5 on Wednesday: I was just still recovering from all the seminars so I didn't do much (and on Wednesday I got locked out of my apartment for a few hours).

Anyway, personal asides aside, here is where I humbly present the first part of my defense of Taiwanese men (more to follow), along with another observation on why living in Taiwan is probably the best a woman could hope for in Asia.

Unless you, to quote the great Ani DiFranco, have "put a bucket over [your] head, and a marshmallow in each ear", you've been following (or heard about and blocked out by sticking your ears in your fingers and going 'LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOOOOO!!!!!') the "contraception debate" (as though there's anything to debate) and resulting slut shaming by not only undifferentiated meat sacks* who were, for some reason, given their own radio show but also, scarily, by a lot of people who, despite the generally negative reaction of much of the nation, actually agreed with him. You've heard the slightly less inflammatory but still sexist rhetoric ("those weren't the words I would have used", birth control is "not OK", and a lovely quote about how hogs have to carry stillborn fetuses to term so why not women) from other public figures. You've heard about how birth control somehow doesn't count, in people's minds, as a facet of health care important to women (regardless of their sex lives: I'm not going to hide behind the "it's also used for other therapeutic purposes, too!" argument because I do not believe that sex, premarital or just for fun, not for makin' babies, is bad or wrong and won't kowtow to anyone else's morality) and therefore doesn't deserve the same coverage as other medications that are to some degree elective*.

And you've known, deep in your heart of hearts, that this isn't some big scary new thing that's happened. You've known that this sick virus has lived in America's almost-but-not-quite mainstream culture for, well, for as long as we've had true women's rights, and even before that.

It manifests itself in its most virulent form on the Internet: I can't even scroll the comment sections in The Washington Post or Slate, both of which I read near daily, on any article having to do with women without coming across comments that range from "thar be a whiff of sexism" to "seriously? The Washington Post allows this sort of hate speech?". I hear denigrations of curvy or fat women, I hear denigrations of average-looking women, average-intelligence women, unattractive women, as well as slender, pretty women who, because they aren't interested in whatever guy is posting his bilious tripe, are, well, b-bombs, or some equivalent. I hear ridiculous defenses of why it's OK for men not to help with housework, why whatever thing is bothering women or plaguing women's rights progress is either a figment of our imaginations, the result of our constant whining or not being attractive or trying hard enough to get a man (or liking the men who post this crap), denigrations of jobs mostly held by women (teachers, nurses, secretaries), and hilarious caterwauling that we "won the fight for equal rights!" - which, of course, we haven't. Not while accessible and affordable contraception and abortion are still being discussed, not while the vast majority of our political representation is male, not while a female presidential candidate is subject to the insults that Hillary and Sarah Palin endured (to be clear: I can't stand Sarah Palin, but I will admit she was on the receiving end of a lot of sexism, too), not while we don't earn equal pay for equal work (and no, it's not because we generally work jobs that offer lower salaries, and even if it were, how is it fair that typically female industries offer such low salaries in the first place?).  

And not while our society is still one that allows, even condones, such hate speech directed at women. To be clear, I'm not saying we should restrict freedom of speech, more that I'd like for the US to be a society that condemns the attitudes and hate spewed out against women - and others, but my focus here is women - to such a degree that it's just not thought of, let alone said. I'd like us to be a society that better educates people in a way that discourages such thinking.

You could say "yes, but most of that stuff is being said on the Internet, and there are CRAZIES on the Internet." Yes, yes there are. But those crazies aren't bots, and they aren't aliens, and only a few are trolls. Many of these posters are real live humans, humans that other people presumably interact with, and actually believe this crap. And they're people who exist, in your country, probably around you. You almost certainly personally know one or two of these crazies. You might not know it, though, because generally speaking it only comes out online, in some degree of anonymity. Plus, you know what? I do see it subtly and not so subtly acted upon in every day life: from politicians who think we're livestock to some douchebags sitting around making "fat jokes" in a bar to quietly being treated as though you're invisible if you don't meet some unspoken criteria of female attractiveness (and I'm not talking about  being invisible romantically, I mean literally, people don't look at you, smile at you or extend courtesies to you that you've seen them extend to attractive women).

Of course there are good guys out there - it's not all a wasteland of these jokers - I'm just pointing to one particularly vicious undercurrent that I see in American society.

And to all of that I'd say, well, I haven't seen it in Taiwan. Maybe it's because I don't read enough blogs or comment on enough forums, or haven't seen enough examples - but for now, my impression of how Taiwanese men view women is that, however imperfect, at least they're not so hateful. They're not full of vicious remarks and spitting out of sexist, unfounded "facts". They're just not so goddamned mean. As far as I can tell, they don't sit around on online forums saying the terrible things I see on American forums. They don't sit around with their buddies and denigrate women for sport. They don't subtly or openly act out their prejudices. I don't see the open ogling of attractive women and the complete ignoring - including basic courtesy - of average or unattractive women. I don't hear the crass jokes. I don't hear the "friend zone" comments. I've never come across the Taiwanese version of the "ladder theory", because, honestly, I doubt it exists. I don't hear the backlash, the "quit yer whinin', you won the fight for equality!" or "you have nobody to blame but yourselves, you dumb cows", or the other comments from men that certainly stem from a lifetime of pretty girls not liking them.

I just. don't. hear. it.

And then I venture into online American life - because that's the only way I really participate in it beyond yearly visits home - and I'm saddened and more deeply affected, because I don't have to live with it every day. Imperfect as gender relations are in Taiwan - and trust me, they are imperfect - I have never felt as disrespected as a woman in Taiwan than I did in the USA.

I have to conclude that, while there's a lot of progress that needs to be made in terms of women's rights and equality acceptance in Taiwan, that Taiwanese men just don't have the anger, the bile, the vitriol, lurking in them, just waiting to hurl it at the women who so threaten them.

In that way, the American boors (not all men, to be sure) could really learn from Taiwanese men.

So, when I hear some doofus online going on about how America's such a great place for women, and we should feel lucky that we're in America with our equal rights and the respect we get, these days, I can't help but laugh. Because we don't really get respect at all.

Not to say that Taiwan is some women's equality utopia: it's not. It's just that in this one area, I have to say that it's the American men who come up short.




*totally stole this from someone's comment on Jezebel

*to which I'd say, if we're not arguing about allergy pills, Viagra or Imigran: all important medicines that are the result of the modern health care we'd like to enjoy, but JUST contraception, then it clearly is about controlling women's bodies, as much as people would like to pretend it isn't.