After not making it in time yesterday, I had to make another trip from Hanover, NH to Boston today. It was an adventure to say the least.
Heading out
Since I had such a hard time finding the Taipei Economic Office yesterday, I made sure to get a print-out of an online map of the relevant [...]

Last night, Sonia and I went to Holly’s birthday party. First we met up at TGIF for dinner. A couple of guys I knew from Modawei showed up. After dinner, we hit the KTV, where we were wowed by Holly’s singing skills. I particularly enjoyed the song 朋友, by 周華健 (Zhōu [...]

This web site may be near its end. My US bank was recently bought out by ING Direct, they closed the accounts of all their customers living abroad. That leaves me without a debit card. Unfortunately, even after living in Taiwan for five years, I still haven’t found a local bank willing to [...]

Yesterday, Morris Chang, the CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., spoke to the American Chamber of Commerce on Taiwan’s international competitiveness. For the most part he had good things to say, ranging from education to work ethic to democracy:
“Taiwan benefits from a highly educated population, a healthy ecosystem and industrious, diligent workers,” said [...]

The gloom in the air is almost palatable. For years now, most Taiwanese people I’ve known have not just been glum, but been down right pessimistic about the economy.
In one sense, it seems irrational. While Taiwan’s GDP growth since 2000 has been very poor, much of that can be attributed to currency fluxuations. [...]

I’ve long been a fan of Richard Dawkins’ books. I read the Selfish Gene as a teenager and found it absolutely fascinating. Not only was that book the foundation of sociobiology, but it also coined the term “meme”. Little did I know that a few years later, millions of people would be [...]

Recently, Michael and Karl have expressed some surprise and doubt at the claim that the Taiwan dollar has fallen over the past several years. Here are some graphs that should show it quite clearly.
This first graph is based on the Euro, and the TWD is compared to the Korean Won, the US Dollar, the [...]

I wasn’t joking yesterday when I wrote that Taiwan fabless semiconductor company Silicon Motion Technology Corp. was on my watch list. I’ve had my eye on the company for a while, and as of this writing, it’s taken a fortuitous 5% plunge today. What can I say? The price was right.
The Business
Silicon [...]

Stupid in America is a 20/20 investigation into the failures of K-12 schooling in the US. John Stossel interviews a variety of teachers, students, parents and administrators in the US and in Belgium. It’s particularly interesting for me because I’ve experienced it from so many sides. I’ve been at all kinds of [...]

Mark S. made a great find over at pinyin.info:

Imagine some white guys in a fairly large U.S. city open a restaurant named “Mr. Taiwan Slant-Eyes Asian Cuisine.” And imagine that this restaurant specializes in distinctly Americanized dishes such as egg foo yong, fortune cookies, and California wraps. Now imagine the response. Isn’t this fun?
OK, now [...]