Ever since I visited the Chinese Pod office last summer, I’d been meaning to really put in some time listening to their podcasts. Unfortunately, one thing came up after another- I changed jobs, I moved twice, Martin and I got really into watching DS9, etc… It wasn’t until this last couple of weeks that [...]

Writing online for the past year and a half or so has introduced me to a lot of new friends. But beyond that, it’s also had a certain way of dredging up the past.

A while back, I noticed that Forumosa, the largest community site for foreigners in Taiwan, had a new guide for Taiwan. It’s called Taiwanease: The Knowledge, and it’s a wiki, which means that anybody can add articles to it and edit it. This sort of site usually takes a lot of work to [...]

Longtime readers of this blog will know well that I’ve never really suggested coming to Taiwan and teaching EFL purely for financial reasons. In fact, I’ve always found it a little hard to believe very many westerners, especially Americans would be able to earn anything like what they could at home. Now that [...]

Does the ability to write with a pen and paper matter? Apparently not, to quite a few Chinese as a second language learners. “Nobody really writes by hand anymore,” says one.
“Writing by hand is useless; I can just type everything at my computer,” explains another.
I disagree both arguments. While it is possible [...]

Last week John B. wrote about his thoughts concerning the simplification of Chinese characters.
Then, in the course of my varied and meaningless reading, I stumbled upon a character that reaffirmed my belief that, for all its faults, simplification was the way to go. The new word I encountered was 抓阄, meaning “to draw lots.” I [...]

There are some times when the whole 差不多 attitude here drives me nuts. Now is not one of them.

Back when I lived in Guīshān, I used to go to McDonald’s fairly often. Barring convenience stores, it was the only place close enough and quick enough that I could get dinner between classes. Thankfully, in Táibĕi, there are many many more options. Right after moving back here, I made it a [...]

Tonight, I decided to get a pre-run snack at Sogo. I headed out around 7:30, and stumbled into a sea of protesters wearing red shirts as soon as I stepped out the door. So, I ran back in and grabbed my camera and followed them towards their congregation point at Zhōngxiào Dūnhuà.

They were [...]

Back when I first got to Taiwan, I had some pretty amusing experiences going to the gym. They were nothing like back home. In fact, the first twelve I visited, didn’t even have free weights! None! Just row after row after row of machines, treadmills and stair-steppers. The first gym [...]