Things & Stuff

Some of my rapidly multiplying STUFF.

I've been thinking recently about stuff.

Literal, physical, actual stuff. And how I have too much (or too little) of it.

This is all tied in with my thoughts on what happens next year, when (whether I like it or not) I pretty much have to go to grad school. For the record, I like it in that I am sure I'll learn a lot and it will be a new experience and career booster. I don't like it in that I feel like I could get the same thing out of shorter training programs and modules, but if I want to go anywhere in my career, it's basically MA or bust. The job I have now is about as good a job as I'll ever get without a graduate degree in my field.

So the question has become "do we stay in Taiwan, and I attend the program offered in my field and go part time at my secure job where I am in a senior and respected position and pay tuition that we can easily afford...or do I apply for a more prestigious program abroad hope against hope that I'll get the aid that I need to make it financially feasible?" Even with a husband working full time, which Brendan has said he'll do, it's not easy.

Back to Stuff then. With a capital Ess.

There is so much I'd like to do in terms of decorating that I can't bring myself to do now. So much Stuff it would require that we buy. I hate our floor (I think the builders stole it from the same dodgy insurance company office they stole our desk from) and would install tatami in a second - or just move into a nicer place with a better floor. I'd love a ceiling not made of plastic, and lantern lights whose cords are not clearly tacked to the ceiling with electrical tape. I'd like actual frames or dowel drapings for my textiles (with cement walls there's little I can do about this). I'd like quality furniture that doesn't look like it was rescued from a curbside.

In short, I'd like an apartment that looks more sophisticated, more adult, more polished. More like an apartment and less like something rented by students with no money and no taste. We're not students anymore (though I will be soon enough I guess), we have money (for now) and we have taste (which is sort of a curse, if you think about it, because if I had no taste I wouldn't notice how crummy our Stuff is, or wouldn't care, and this wouldn't be an issue).

Is this possible? Definitely. Is it feasible? Yeah, I suppose. Is it logical?

Well, no, because if we don't know if we'll even be in Taipei in a year, there is absolutely zero point in investing in nicer Stuff and a nicer place in which to put that Stuff. This is why we didn't register for our wedding or ask for (or want) Stuff (though whenever we move home the gift cards we got will be very useful as we rebuild our Stuff collection) - we knew we wouldn't be able to transport, store or keep much of it over the next few years.

Reading Offbeat Home regularly isn't helping (I've basically outgrown Offbeat Bride, which rocked, but I'm not planning a wedding anymore) - everyone has such cool Things, and Stuff - including Stuff going on in their lives - and as an expat that's so much harder to achieve.

So. I want nicer (as in higher-quality, not just to show off) Stuff, but the expat life (which I also want) makes it pointless to try to acquire that Stuff, so I'm left with Stuff that I don't particularly like, and now that I've had that Stuff for years, it makes little sense to replace it with nicer Stuff a year before we may or may not leave.

I say "I" because Brendan cares far less about Stuff - even stuff like pots with melted handles -t than I do.

Stuff - like where to move next, whether to study and what Things you need - is an issue that sort of wiggles around in the back of every expat's mind. How much to bring, what you need, what you can buy locally, what you shouldn't buy locally, what to have people mail you from home, and how to get rid of it if you ever leave. Stuff is the main driver of makes it more expensive to move overseas than to move in the USA - while large-scale cargo options are possible (I know someone who worked for the State Department and had the privilege of a paid-for shipping container to pack with stuff whenever she changed assignment), let's be honest. 99% of us arrive with a few suitcases or a backpack. At that point, we either have to settle in a pre-furnished place or slowly accumulate furniture.

Don't get me started on furnished apartments in Taipei's expat community. Some of them are not that bad, but mostly what you see are desks with uneven legs held up by magazines shoved under the pegs, dressers with blown-out drawers, tables with icky stains that never seem to come off and the ubiquitous "mattress and box spring on the floor without a frame".

Or you can go the route we did - our apartment came partially furnished with some of the ugliest crap you've ever seen - orange plywood shelving, desks straight out of a 1950s insurance office, a plastic table meant to be lawn furniture, a press-board dresser and coffee table, mismatched chairs that are all broken now. One kitchy-cool wicker chair. We added to that my textile collection (India, China, Laos, Thailand, the Philippines, Egypt, Japan, Panama, Guatemala), a futon and a bunch of cheap stuff from IKEA and Nitori. An oven. A microwave, which broke. Another microwave, which broke. We need to buy a third but haven't quite figured out what to do with the first two in our kitchen. Piles of plates, dishes and glassware. Tchotchkes (including a children's lion dancer marionette). Some DPP flags. A dart board. More books than we have space for. A vase. A stuffed gorilla wearing a jersey that says #23 (that came with the apartment. Don't ask. I don't know either). A Christmas tree. A pressure cooker. A coffee maker. An idli maker (probably my most useless purchase - but I really love idli)! Not one but four sets of speakers - one that's actually decent, one low-end pair, and two mini-speakers which are great for use in class and small things like watching The Daily Show (no, the speakers on the Mac itself are not good enough for this).

Oh yes, and a Stupidface.

Zhao Cai next to our hideous desk, on our cheap desk chair, enjoying his space heater (he thinks it's his). Also, gotta love the floor. Ick.

It's amazing, while trying to live a comparatively scaled-down life abroad, how much crap one accumulates as an expat. It's amazing how much it cost, and how little of it we're going to get to keep...and how none of it comes even close to the nice furniture that I so admire in other houses.

This is something I hadn't thought about much until recently, when it became clear that next year we'll have to make some decisions about staying or going (at least for the time being), all depending on where it's the most feasible for me to go to grad school.

Most of this stuff presents no real challenge - junk the desk chair that's falling apart, sell most of the other stuff, and set up again in our next destination, whenever and wherever we go - but my mind keeps floating back to three things:

1.) I love the expat life and I love not having to worry about grown-up furniture - this allows us to spend more money on travel, which we agree is more important (and interesting) than furniture anyway.

But I do like good pieces, and my parents' house is full of quality furnishings (took awhile to get there, but it's great now). It would be really nice to have a couch that doesn't look like exactly what it is: an IKEA cheapie. It would be nice to have a desk that doesn't make me cringe. I'd love a set of pots and pans that wasn't kinda...sad. I do look around our apartment and think "it looks cute, comfy and colorful, but it also looks like we're still starving students, or perhaps artists, or schoolteachers after a few years of having no collective bargaining rights".

2.) We're going to have to get rid of far more than we keep, and I'm already thinking about how I really love our mismatched Japanese-style plateware (cheap, but awesome and hard to find/more expensive in the USA) and I don't want to have to sell that, or how our awesome thick foam bed thing from Nitori is totally worth keeping, or how I love my Indian pressure cooker and want to take it everywhere. And the books, oh the books. Won't someone think of the books?! We can't possibly keep them all, but I don't want to sell most of them! This is one area where Brendan feels about it as I do.

I already know we're not going to be filling up a shipping container, which means eventually we will have to resign ourselves to selling most of it.

3.) Ah, Stupidface.

We tried, and failed, to keep it simple when it came to material possessions in Taiwan. We're clearly keeping our cat, of course, but he presents so many logistical challenges. It'll be easy to get him out of Taiwan (no rabies here, so quarantine is not an issue - though it'll also cost us another ticket on an airplane, like a child would - we're NOT putting him in the cargo hold)...but what if we decide that I should study at the University of Melbourne next September? We'd need to find a cat-friendly apartment before going, or some other way to settle in with kitty in tow. After the program is up, we have to take him on yet another stressful plane trip, or what sort of certification/quarantine he'd need when leaving Australia.

I know, I know. We haven't even decided if we're leaving, let alone where we'd go. It's a bit early to get neurotic about this stuff. Or Stuff. Or Things.

But if we ever do get nicer Things and Stuff, clearly we'll be living the sort of more-settled life in which one owns nicer things because one intends to keep them long-term. Which means less travel and less adventure and more Stuff, which is exactly what we don't want (even though I'd like nicer Stuff - does that make sense?)

In our situation, it's going to come down to the decision next year. If I decide on the program in Taipei, we'll probably invest some more time and money into making our living space more polished. We'll buy pots and pans that don't make me sad. We'll do something about the floor and ceiling. We'll trade up for a few nicer items before tuition costs make that impossible. If we leave, we won't be doing any of that, and wherever we end up for my schooling, we're not going to have the money to buy much of anything, let alone quality items.

So, my question to the masses, if the masses deign to answer, is:

How does one live as an expat and still manage to have nice things...and Stuff?

Honeymoon Redux IV: Costa Rica

A toucan spotted on our hike near the Rio Piru

Of all our destinations, I'd say that Costa Rica was the most rewarding in terms of wildlife. We spent the majority of our time on the Osa Peninsula, near Corcovado National Park. Being the wet season, it was too hard to hike into Corcovado itself, but the hike we did do came close to the park boundaries and involved lots of wildlife sightings. Even in the wet season, Osa is a great place to see the birds, monkeys, insects and other animals of Central America.

Arriving in Costa Rica from David, Panama fairly early in the day (we made good time from Boquete and got to the border at around 11am), we got a bit lost at the lax border control, where it was clear how to exit Panama but absolutely not clear how to enter Costa Rica. We followed a crowd of people, only to find ourselves in the middle of a junior high school marching band competition. It was an international meet with teams from both countries, so it made the most sense to avoid border hassles on both sides and hold it in the border zone. Leaving that, I asked a security officer how to get into Costa Rica.

"You're in Costa Rica," he said.

Uh oh. How'd we do that? Was it really that easy to just not go through border control?

Sensing that it was a very bad idea indeed not to enter properly, I explained in broken Spanish that nos pasaportes no hay STAMP para entrar Costa Rica while making a stamping motion with my hand. He laughed and directed us to the border, where we found out that Brendan's passport had not been correctly stamped upon leaving Panama. He had to go back to the Panamanian office, get the stamp and return as I watched our bags and sucked on coconut juice from the shell, opened with a machete by a weathered old vendor.

We finally got through and boarded a bus to Golfito, stopping in a few towns along the way where I picked up some platanitos (fried plantain chips) and jugo de tamarindo (tamarind juice) to sate us. I'm a huge fan of both. It was great to be able to call out to vendors on and near the bus and get provisions handed over for a few coins - it reminded me of India and SE Asia (even Laos, where one enterprising bus stop vendor stuck an entire kebab stick of giant fried roaches in my face, thinking I might buy the ungodly thing).

In Golfito, we caught a tiny launch headed for Puerto Jimenez across the gulf. It was easily the most uncomfortable boat ride of my life, with the top and windows closed to keep out drizzly weather and wave splashes, making it unbearably stuffy inside. My insides roiling and legs nearly disfigured under the too-small seat, I was thankful mostly that it was a short ride. It was about a third as long and yet twice as uncomfortable as the dodgy ferry from Danao to the Camotes in the Philippines.

We stayed at Iguana Lodge, which I highly recommend (it's high-end/expensive, though, not for backpackers on a budget). Iguana Lodge is eco-friendly, with buildings that mesh with the oceanside jungle rather than cutting into it, and with eco-friendly policies about energy usage and waste. They hire locals and pay them a living wage to not only work at the resort but also as guides for the various activities on offer.

Iguana Lodge is an eco-friendly alternative if you want to enjoy a high-end vacation in Costa Rica.

What I loved about the place was that we could sit on the balcony of our cabin and watch squirrel monkeys playing in the trees (at one point while showering I looked out the window that opened onto the jungle canopy to see a tiny squirrel monkey peering in...errr...that was unsettling!). You can watch vultures, toucans and pairs of macaws flying overhead and see all manner of things while hiking and kayaking.

This is not the Peeping Tom monkey, but it gives you a good idea of what I saw when I looked over at him (you can see the monkey, right? He's rather small).

I also liked that as one walked between the main house, the cabin, the beach and the restaurant/bar that it really was in the jungle. There were tea lights set out at night and the paths were mostly clear (land crabs came out at night though, and threatened to pinch your toes), but surrounded by connected patches of uncut jungle. Because of this, we could see all sorts of insects, butterflies and tropical plants just walking to and from different parts of the resort.

Our first activity was a day of kayaking. Crocodiles (alligators? The guide told us and I forgot, and Wikipedia seems to think they both live in Central America) swam in the mangrove estuary, and we could occasionally see their eyes popping above the water before they made a hasty retreat. They're very dangerous if provoked, but generally shy otherwise and will give kayaks a wide berth.

We could see babies clamoring around the river edge (look on the log, halfway between land and water).

...and found a nest (the guide said that nest was full of dead eggs and therefore abandoned. After checking, she confirmed that this egg was not viable, which is why we could pick it up).

We then stopped at the shore for some pineapple, stuck on this piece of driftwood for cutting, as the afternoon rains began to drizzle their way in.

While boating we also learned about mangroves and how they are formed, and saw capuchin monkeys playing in the trees above:

The next day we took a hike around the Rio Piru (about 2 hours by car from Iguana Lodge) with the understanding that the river was quite high, so if it started to rain we'd have to head back before it became unfordable, even in the Jeep.

We saw howler monkeys:

A three-toed sloth, sleeping as usual:

Spider monkeys (with baby)!

...unlike these guys (surfers who live locally, we think), our Jeep made it across the river. We did help them by pulling their car out of the mud with the Jeep, or rather, our guide Sidnor did. Thanks to these guys, who apparently think that a family sedan can ford a river in the jungle (???!!), we had to wait an hour or so before we could ford it ourselves. They were still there trying to get the stuff under the hood to dry out when we returned.

As you can see, hiking, even on a hill above the river, does not provide a respite from mud. Surprisingly, these shoes are still (kind of) useable, though I now have much nicer LL Bean hiking boots. I *heart* LL Bean.

We also saw lots of bugs. Some evidence of leafcutter ant activity:

...and this little guy, who is quite poisonous. Don't pick him up; he can kill you.

The bus from Puerto Jimenez in Osa to San Jose leaves at 5am and takes 9 hours on horrendous roads, made worse in the rainy season.

We flew!

...although that sign did not imbue me with a great deal of confidence. The plane was terrifyingly small, easily the smallest I've ever been in - you can see it above. Fortunately, the flight only took about a half hour. How's that for value for money?

We didn't linger in the bad-reputation city of San Jose, and instead boarded a bus for Liberia in the north, up around Guanacaste.

Liberia is not a beautiful town (I don't have any pictures), and there's little to see beyond a small town square and neglected, tiny historical corner. It did, however, boast some advantages. First was that everyone we met was friendly, hospitable and honest. No fighting with the taxi drivers, no bargaining down crazy prices, no attempted scams or feelings of danger. It was a quiet, relaxed town to spend an evening in, which is something of a rarity in tourist-overrun Costa Rica. Being more touristed and developed, Costa Rica is relatively safe for foreigners in terms of major crime (you probably won't get murdered or held for ransom, for example, or get your hand chopped off if you end up in the wrong place during a drug lord shootout), but scams, phony tours, price gouging, touts and pickpockets - some of the most masterful in the world - ply the tourist towns and bus routes, especially around San Jose, parts of the Caribbean coast, Arenal and Monteverde.

It was nice to be able to avoid that, and to be able to easily catch a bus to the Nicaraguan border (what happened once we reached Nicaragua and couldn't figure out how to get the bus to Rivas is another story).

Updated Post - Teahouses in Taipei

I've gone ahead and updated this post on where to buy and drink tea in Taipei - enjoy!

(I welcome more suggestions of your favorite places to buy/drink tea in the comments, as I can't possibly visit every teahouse).

Keelung: Heping Island Day Trip

Brendan, Joseph and I went to Heping Island on Sunday, when all three of us felt a bit under the weather (Joseph got sick later that day, I came down with it yesterday and am off work today, and Brendan is still fine).

I'll probably blog a lot today because I have no voice, can't work if I can't talk, but am fine on energy!

Joseph has already covered the basics on how to get there and what to see, so I'll focus this post mostly on photos. Heping Island has two main things to see: a seaside area with cliffs and odd rock formations reminiscent of Yehliu.

Our initial impression was disappointing - the main entrance to the park is under construction and you have to walk through it to get to the seafront, which was cool and grey, and not particularly attractive. The walk to the construction site entrance is lined with murals which are spattered with graffiti:

Clearly this guy doesn't have much experience with 奶奶.

There were some snorkelers about. They were clearly insane.

Wandering a little farther along, being careful not to slip on increasingly treacherous rock, we came upon the Yehliu-esque area.

It was nice, and had some cool stuff going on, including lots of fishermen and snorkelers playing about the edges, but other than being quieter and less built-up than Yehliu, it was basically a smaller version of...well...Yehliu.

We then hopped on an old cannister to scale the fence to the "closed off" trail around the cliff that everyone was still using. The view got better from here, looking down over an odd old cement pagoda and an expanse of striated rock.

Across the way we could see two caves - one of which was an actual cave and the other just a dark crevice. The cave had a man-made entrance plopped down in front:

...and is called the "Cave of Foreign Words" - inside is dated graffiti in a number of languages. Apparently there are old Dutch and Portuguese carvings in the rock, but the oldest dates we could see were from the 1870s.

Don't worry about the "Military Activity Site" warning - it's old and no longer enforced. You can go in. Bring a good flashlight.

Back across the rock are two shrines underneath the pagoda, one appreciably larger than the other. Both are built of and around natural rock formations for 石頭公 - rock spirits. One was decorated with Buddhist and folk Daoist icons with a red-painted rock, and plastic and paper cartoon rabbits adorned the sides, presumably in celebration of Year of the Rabbit.

A rock spirit.

The smaller of the two shrines.

The incense urn, cemented to the rock, of the larger shrine (the first rock spirit is above it).

The red rock in the shrine.

Outside the shrine we came across these faded words once painted in gold. "Xin" was the only one we could decipher.

We also discovered what appears to be coral - please correct me if I'm wrong on that. It sure looks like coral and is the right color, but aren't we too far north for that? Wouldn't the water be too cold? Maybe the snorkelers knew a thing or two after all...?

After exiting the park back through the construction and past a random karaoke bar, we stopped for lunch, which was good despite the fish-mash rabbit in my soup:

We passed one of the oldest preserved structures in northern Taiwan. Not far from the bridge to Heping Island is a well used by the Dutch in the 1600s that is still in use today:

...as you can see, despite its age and impressive history it's not that exciting to look at.

We then walked to a fort (I forget the name) built at the turn of the 20th century by the Japanese. To get there, you walk back towards Heping Bridge then hang a left at the seafood market. Keep going until you reach a little fallow area and then turn up the hill. Keep going and turn up another, steeper hill to the right, which leads through a very poor aboriginal area (I hesitate to say "slum" but that's what it is). Yes, there's a lot of poverty here and it shows a side of life in Taiwan that most foreigners never see, and don't care to see, but it is safe. People sitting outside chatting (not sure of the tribe and therefore the language, but my best guess would be Amis) greeted us warmly.

The first part of the fort is at the top of the village hill, and is not very impressive (really, it's just an old house structure without a roof). If you go a little further up, you reach some more stone fortifications, which are mildly more interesting and you can poke around inside.

Keep heading up, and it gets more interesting still: old brick and stone fortifications in a distinctively early 20th-century style with more extensive poking around (it's muddy and full of bugs, so if you, like a certain infamous Canadian woman, freak out about insects, you may not want to go inside).

Climbing the stairs to the top of this set of fortifications, you reach the top of the hill and get a gorgeous view. On one side, a stretch of ocean.

Ahead of you, Keelung Island.

To the right, a view of Jiufen, Jinguashi and Keelung Mountain and beyond that, the Bitou cliff peninsula.

We wrapped up as twilight was setting in and headed down to get coffee before going to the Miaokou Street night market - we weren't hungry enough to tackle it yet. As we chilled out in Cat's Cafe (right at the base of the road that heads up to the giant Guanyin and Ghost Month temple), which used to be a straight-up coffeeshop but is now turns into something of a small lounge bar at night.

Of course, the night market is always a blast. We got cream crabs:

...and among other things, tried some of these babies ("zhu ha", apparently) cooked up so they were a little more solid and a little less...err....snotty. (They were good).

Some links for you...

In observance of Women's Day, here are a few articles, links and videos from around the Internet that I've read and liked, that have helped shape my own feminist philosophy:

Sheryl Sandberg on TED: Why we have too few women leaders

A Practical Wedding on Shame Blasting, "If Women Like It, It Must Be Stupid" and "We have more choices, but they're all sh*tty choices".

Target Women

Brene Brown on TED: The power of vulnerability

SITA Sings the Blues

There are more, and I'm sure I'll come back and update - but I'm still not feeling well and have to head to work...so these should do for now.

Women in Finance

Happy International Women's Day!

I wanted to mark today with a more upbeat post (even if I skulk back to my brooding, cynical Cave of Many Opinions later in the day), partly because involvement with women's rights entails not only fighting for equality, but also being optimistic about the future.

That, and I'm sick. Like sore throat and heavy head sick. I know who gave it to me, and I'm looking at you, J. >:(

Watching this TED Talk, I was reminded of previous posts discussing the greater acceptance of femininity in the business and political worlds, (that's not the topic of the linked post but it is mentioned) and how not hiding femininity won't hold you back in Taiwan the way it might in the USA.

What it also brought to mind is how much more respected women are in financial fields in Taiwan. There is absolutely none of the usual "women aren't as good with money" or an expectation that a woman who works in finance or banking has to shed expressions of femininity. If anything, I'd say there might be a slight social bias in favor of women handling money, viewing them as more responsible with it than men.

In the USA, I can say that many women in this field absolutely do "act male" - I would know, I used to work in finance. Female bankers, traders, hedge fund managers, accountants, CFOs and financial planners all hide behind corporate-colored suits and sharply tailored clothes (which can be a certain kind of feminine) but know, often only subconsciously, that they would have neither gotten where they are nor would they be as respected as they are if they were to wear, say, lavender sweaters or soft colors or do anything to draw attention to their femaleness.

Of course there are women in finance who are respected in the USA - I'm pointing not to individuals but to general trends here, and the general trend I've noticed is that to earn respect and equivalent position and pay, you do have to tamp down femininity and go corporate-gray, black or navy.

Back to notions of respect and not of dress, and just on how women in finance are viewed in Taiwan, I think it has to do with the cultures that forms the bases of attitudes in Taiwan and the West (this idea was hatched by a student, mind you, an opinion from the inside rather than observation).

The idea being that traditionally in Taiwan and Japan, the men worked and brought home the money, but on pay day they'd give it to their wives, who would in turn create the household budget and give their husbands an "allowance". According to my friend in Japan, this is still quite common there, even in ultramodern Tokyo: salarymen on allowances. It does still happen in Taiwan - I had a student, the head of a department in a major electronics parts manufacturer, who had a stay-at-home wife who took his entire paycheck and told him how much of it he could keep as she ran the household. While this arrangement isn't quite as common anymore, it is still quite common for the wife to handle more household budget issues than the husband, and not a source of embarrassment for the men - the attitude is more "Why wouldn't she handle finances?" possibly with a "...my mother and grandmother did!" at the end.

As such, women were more traditionally trusted with money here, and that's carried over into modern jobs in banking, accounting and finance. There is an intrinsic trust of women in these fields, as supported by traditional cultural attitudes, and as such they seem to have far fewer barriers to success and far less pressure to masculinize their attitudes. You do occasionally come across women who adopt the Wall Street Swagger in the USA (when those jobs are held by women, which is relatively rarely), but rarely in Taiwan. They don't have to.

Back in the USA (and I gather much of the rest of the West), before women started to work in significant numbers, and even afterwards, husbands generally retained control of household budgets as "heads of the household" (a term which chafes me to no end). This was of course not always true, but it was more likely that while a woman might control a shopping and decorating/renovating or childrearing budget, her husband would plan retirement, investments, large purchases and vacations and decide when they would happen, how the money would be spent and how much would be spent on such things.

All I can say about that is that it is absolutely not the arrangement I have with my husband! We're much more equal in how we plan our finances and while I take something of a leading role, I'm hardly solely in charge.

Anyway, I can see how this could lead to a culture of not trusting women with money - and that does seem to be true at home. Women have an undeserved reputation for being spendthrifts and shopaholics who can't handle the idea of a budget or clamp down when austerity is necessary. What purchases they do make, despite being seen as driving the economy or necessary for the household or to keep up a professional appearance, are often seen as "frivolous" - nevermind what the purchases are. Women shop more, and therefore they can't save money - nevermind as well that women still control the majority of everyday household purchases and have greater expenses when it comes to grooming.

And nevermind that our great grandmothers and grandmothers got us through the Depression and World War II by being frugal and we're getting through the Great Recession by cutting household budgets - we're still not trusted with money in the West - and I think it has a lot to do with the roots of our cultural attitudes. Of course women would be trusted with money here if traditionally they ran the household budgets, and that trust wouldn't be there in a country where men generally ran the roost.

Looking at the finance industry in Taiwan, I do see a world noticeably more open to women than back home. Take a look at Prudential Taiwan: the General Manager is female and plenty of department heads and other occupiers of high-level positions are women, too. Look at Invesco Taiwan - several female department heads. The Big Four accounting firms - accounting is a popular choice for young women looking for careers in Taiwan, and the staff, especially auditors, tends to be female. The students I've worked with at various securities companies and banks have either been predominantly female or with fairly equal male-to-female ratios (I can say all of this because it's not like the information is a secret).

And you know what? Not one of these women would fear wearing a lavender sweater of feminine skirt and blouse to work.

...and I can not say that about the USA. I'd like to see the distribution back home be more equal - "oh, we have so many more women now than we did twenty years ago" isn't good enough if women are still in the noticeable minority. If women can be a driving force in Asian finance (which, by the way, might be a reason why attitudes towards money in Asia tend to be more savings-oriented and less crazy-risk-taking), then I don't see why they can't hold approximately 50% of the positions in finance back home. Same for government: if so many other countries can elect female leaders, why can't we? If the Rwandan legislative body can be roughly equal between men and women, why are our Senate and Congress dominated by men?

And on Women's Day, I do think it is important to meditate on these differences - not just how far we've come but how much we are respected as women (and not women getting respect by acting like men) and how much farther we have to go.

More Pod Houses!

Most of you are probably familiar with the erstwhile Pod Houses of Sanzhi, chronicled here and in other places.

I was, like maybe people, sad to see them go. They were not only world-famous (in a somewhat ironic sense, but still famous - famous enough to get on Wikipedia anyway) but quirky and fun and an example of the unexpected things one finds on this beautiful island.

Well, good news! There are more pod houses, brought to you by photographer Craig Ferguson. Craig doesn't give the address (presumably as people still live in some of them, so it isn't such a great idea to send the hipster foreign hordes looking for neat pictures there) but looking at the environment, I can take a fair guess at where they are and might go looking for them someday.

But really, it just warms my cynical little heart to know that the old pod houses might be gone, but the pod house legacy remains.