Christmas Cat

For your viewing pleasure - the best shots from a round of informal photos I took of our cat, Zhao Cai, lounging under our Christmas tree.

漁泊食堂 (Yu Bo Shi Tang)

漁泊食堂

台北市麗水街5號之5

Yu Bo Shi Tang

Lishui Street #5-5, Taipei

Just a little west of Yongkang Street, between Xinyi and Jinhua Roads

We tried this place out yesterday with Joseph and it was delicious - the setup was Japanese style, with wooden plaques hanging from a series of hooks on a wall indicating the menu (also a popular method in Taiwan), a high hutch between the serving area and the diners, and a long bar-like counter at which one eats.

Front to back - meaty rice, my husband's hands, our delicious fish, the bowl of snails next to the wine-stewed eel, more rice, someone's drink.

As you can guess, the specialty here is fish - when you ask about fish, a giant basket of the catches of the day appears, and you pick the one you want. You can ask for recommendations (for example, if you want a firm or soft-meat fish, with normal or few bones, etc) and get prices - most fish seem to cost approximately NT 500, give or take a hundred kuai.

Our fish, which was firmer-fleshed with fewer bones, came cooked with crispy, flaky skin that had no taste of bitterness, delicious seasoning and a fileting that left one side bone free. Digging into the remnants, Joseph said "I've done all I can to this fish without actually picking it up and chewing it" as he held up its spine and fins, picked clean.

Considering that when we sat down, the man next to me (who had left by the time the comment was made) was doing more or less just that, I'm not sure it would have been a big deal if he had.

With the delicious fish, we got some slightly overcooked but still good and well-seasoned green veggie topped with sesame seeds, a bowl each of something akin to lu rou fan (rice with a meaty stew) but served with pink pickled ginger and seasoned onion slices, red wine cooked eel which was spectacular (seriously - get it. 紅酒鰻魚) which was big and fat and meaty and not slimy with tiny chewy bones the way most sushi eel is. We also got spicy snails which were delicious.

Sake, Coke and water are available (the sake is tasty and a good deal) and the owners friendly.

All in all, a great option in the Yongkang area, which I'd previously found a bit disappointing despite its reputation as a culinary mecca.

My Personal Blog Roll

It's time for the Taiwan blog awards again - yes, that's a link to vote for me, but honestly I'm not too invested in the awards. I write this blog thing because I like doing it and am not terribly concerned with winning. So vote for me if you like, or not, whatevs!

But I figured I'd heed the rallying cry and list a few Taiwan-based blogs I like and regularly follow.

Craig Ferguson Images - Excellent photography from a professional based in Taiwan. Good stuff. If we hadn't had our professional wedding photos done in the USA we would have hired him to do them here.

Shu Flies - a great personal/travel blog about Taiwan written by a fellow female blogger - there aren't enough of us (there was Our Next Great Adventure and New Every Morning but neither seems to post much). There's also Kathmeista whom I've just started looking into.

Other female bloggers based in Taiwan that I haven't discovered yet - hey, tell me. Maybe we could have more of a presence on the Interwebs if we could find and communicate with each other.

David on Formosa - David doesn't really need my introduction or recommendation. He's a fine writer and blogger and far more well-known. :)

The View From Taiwan - You've all certainly heard of Michael Turton, so again this blog needs no introduction from me. I enjoy reading Michael's stuff; I'm somewhat interested in politics (both Taiwanese, American and international) but not to the extent that Michael is.

Bundaegi - This is my husband's blog. He doesn't update often but when he does, I love his insight and dry wit. Fortunately I get to enjoy that every day. You can't vote for him, though, because he's not registered on Taiwanderful.

The Daily Bubble Tea - Again, a well-known and well-liked blog that needs no introduction from me.

Anyway, there you go. Enjoy!

New Exhibit at MOCA Taipei: Finding India

I strongly recommend that everyone with even the most remote interest in India or in modern art head down to Taipei's Museum of Contemporary Art (Chang'an Road, just south of MRT Zhongshan Station in the old Japanese colonial City Hall building), also called MOCA.

MOCA has rotating full exhibits, so you'll see something different every month or so if you care to visit that often. Admission prices seem to remain at around NT 50 per person, though I swear I heard somewhere that it changed by exhibit. Tickets are provided by exhibit so you get cool different tickets if you visit different ones...which you can do if you go a few times a year to see what's showing, as I do.

The current exhibit is called "Finding India", and it features works of modern art by contemporary Indian artists (not always from India - the bar seems to be set at being ethnically Indian with some cultural connection to India).

The exhibit allows non-flash photography.

The art on display is not necessarily Indian-themed or influenced, though much of it is (huge photographs - the one at the top of this post is a newspaper photograph blown up to the exact dimensions of Picasso's Guernica and decorated - and of Mysore dolls ringed with garlands of world monuments, below...various short films and moving artwork to name a few). Some of it, like "Grow More Food" above has Indian thematic components but is not Indian in and of itself.

Others, like "Dead Smile" below, have no connection to Indian culture but are presented because they are by artists of Indian descent.

Another interesting point is that a huge number of the artists exhibiting as part of the greater exhibit are female: possibly a majority of them, in fact. This is heartening, considering how much the fine art scene is dominated by men (in that way in which women do most of the world's decorating, but men get accolades for 'high art', and women do most of the cooking but men become 'famous chefs'. Grr).

I highly recommend spending the NT 30 on the English-Chinese guide for the exhibit - some of the works (like various interspecies copulating animal pairs, below), are utterly mystifying without a guide prompt. Others, you can muse on yourself.

Do excuse the bad photos - I wasn't prepared for the museum to allow non-flash photography so all I had was my iTouch.

For China's Women, Part II

Last week, or maybe the week before that, I linked to this article, with a promise to revisit it. I've had a lot going on recently (a family illness, other things) but here I am, finally doing so.

For me, this article stands out with examples of how Asian women, and to a lesser extent all women in Asia (who, hey, are not always Asian) are at a disadvantage not just legally, but culturally.

What I don’t like about this article, though, is that it jumps around between women in the Asian workforce and expectations of women in order to be marriageable. I feel as though those could be two separate articles – one focusing on how difficult it is for women to find purchase on a career track that’s going somewhere, and another on what is expected of women in order to be desireable. They’re two entirely different topics.

Taiwan is not quite as bad as China when it comes to seeking out work if you are female: while classified ads will still, occasionally, go over expectations of height, weight, appearance and age (with other not-lovely add-ons including specifying “with a sweet voice”), those tend to be relegated to hostess, wait staff, masseuse, “assistant” and “secretarial” positions. Nobody at a Big Four accounting firm is going to specify what new auditors need to look like. Nobody at a major bank is going to specify the appearance required for applicants to its management training program.

Of course, you’ll also remember that while hiring requirements for flight attendants in the West have become far less sexist, those in Asia are throwbacks to an earlier, more discriminatory, downright “Mad Men” era. I guess for male airline passengers, the upside shows through with adorable flight attendants. The downside? Looks valued over qualifications. Cuteness over experience. Lingering notions that a woman’s greatest asset is her beauty (ever seen a male flight attendant on an Asian airline?). In fact, many advertising campaigns for airlines put their flight attendants front and center – as if to say, “hey, our girls are sexier than the competition”. That’s demeaning for everyone, but you don’t exactly hear people complaining – except for the very occasional women’s rights group. The fact that they don’t complain is a sign of a deeper problem in Asian society.

I should note that I don’t feel bad using the sweeping moniker of “Asian society”. Yes, Asia is huge, but I’ve visited and lived in quite a few places in it and the same themes keep replaying themselves. I am sure at the individual level there are exceptional stories (I could tell a few – especially from India) but on a broader scale, I don’t doubt that what I say is true.

In short, I’ve noticed that at the lower-paid, assistant/service end of the economy there is still quite a bit of blatant sexism.

One advantage China has over Taiwan is regarding childbirth/maternity leave. While in some sectors of the workforce, and among some Neolithic bosses, I am sure there is still discrimination associated with plans for childbirth, in general I have not observed this to be a problem. Taiwanese women are guaranteed 50 some-odd days of maternity leave (it usually works out to be just about 2 months) – one month of which is usually spent in “坐月子” – the traditional month of total rest for new mothers. I can’t speak for China, but Taiwan even has “hotels” where new mothers go to rest for the duration of this month, with nurses who care for the children except when the mother requests to see her newborn. Alongside this is the still-extant tradition of mother-in-laws swooping in to take care of everything at home.

The main difference here is that Taiwanese employers don’t seem to mind this, while Chinese employers clearly do.

I attribute this to two factors: first, that Taiwan is generally more progressive than China regarding women’s rights, respect for feminine power, and women’s equality. In Taiwan it’s common to take your month off (“坐月子”) as well as any more maternity leave or saved leave a new mother can cobble together – the difference is that employers generally don’t balk at this – they accept it as necessary. I am sure there are some exceptions, but from my extensive experience working on contract at various offices around Taipei, Xinzhu and Tainan, I say with confidence that it’s usually not a problem.

For those unfamiliar with the idea of “sitting for a month” (zuo yue zi or 坐月子), it stems from a traditional belief that childbirth is a stressful and draining experience, and that new mothers need a month of complete rest before they can be expected to resume even nominal daily duties (whether that’s in the home or the workplace). Traditionally, the woman’s mother would swoop in and take care of everything – the cleaning, the cooking, the baby care – and the new mother would…well, rest. Play with her baby. But mostly rest. Some old beliefs include a rule against ingesting anything cold, drinking water (which is why soup and meat cooked for new mothers used to be made with alcohol and/or oil), washing their hair or doing anything that carried even the slightest risk of illness. Back in the old days when hot water baths were uncommon and water itself wasn’t necessarily safe, this made sense. Now, the new mother’s mother may still come to visit, but often those duties are hired out, or are taken care of in a specialized “hotel” for new mothers, which I mentioned above. Note how new fathers are still not expected to do much heavy lifting for their wives or newborn children, other than bringing home the bacon! Ah, I love the smell of sexism in the morning! I will grant the fathers this: they work hard. Too hard, in fact. All Taiwanese do. A topic for another post, that. But let it be known that I think Taiwanese people work too hard!

Second, National Health Insurance (hey America, listen up!). Employers usually contribute to monthly premiums for individual and family health coverage, but that coverage includes maternity benefits – doctors, tests, hospital stays. The employer may need to provide leave for a new mother, but this is not avoided by not hiring women. The same employer does not need to chip in to cover the costs of prenatal and post-natal care – much of it is covered by National Health Insurance (of course, some of the new, natural-birth or progressive birthing centers are not covered, but necessary hospital tests usually are, and child delivery is, as well as pediatric care).

In many ways, Taiwanese women have it better than American women when it comes to childbirth and natal care. American women are not guaranteed insurance coverage for the extraordinarily high costs of prenatal, delivery and postnatal care. There is no government-stipulated maternity leave (forget paternity leave – Taiwanese men may get a mere few days of paternity leave but that’s more than American men are granted by the US government). Most offices do offer maternity leave as a benefit, but it’s at the discretion of the employer.

It is absolutely true that many American companies quietly, surreptitiously discriminate against married women of childbearing age – there are many articles out there covering this issue. In that way, we Americans are really not that different from China. Doesn’t that just give you a great feeling? I love reading about my home country and getting a pit in my stomach for how sickening it can be.

I am sure it is also an issue at some companies for some women in Taiwan. I don’t mean to say that my experience in offices that generally respect women is the absolute – surely there are exceptions. They seem to be, however, exceptions rather than rules. One of the many ways in which China (and America) can learn from Taiwan.

I don’t mean to say that sexism doesn’t exist here – it certainly does. I’m merely trying to point out a few ways in which Taiwan gets it right.

In a future blog post, I want to address the prevalence of women in accounting and finance positions, and the lack of general belief here that women are bad with money (which is related, in my opinion, to the belief that women are just as capable and qualified to enter politics as men, and Taiwanese female politicians will generally not have sexist hate-speech lobbed at them the same way that American female politicians – Hello Hillary! – will). For now, however, this will do.

Taipei and Xinbei Elections

I have only one word to describe how I feel about the results of these two elections:

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :(

噓噓噓!

For China's Women...

An interesting article on problems facing Chinese women who seek to have careers in the new China.

For China's Women, More Opportunities, More Pitfalls

I have a lot of thoughts on this but will save them for Sunday, as I don't really have time to type it all up now. So expect a longer post from me on Sunday afternoon or thereabouts.

I will say that as I read this, what kept running through my mind was "that's (one of the reasons) why Taiwan is better than China!"