Category: Asia

Great article on history of Taiwan’s architecture

The Governor-General Hot Springs

During the onsen’s construction, Japan invaded China after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937. The Japanese authorities urged Taiwanese to use bricks in camouflage colors to hinder air raids. These colors–light green, beige, and brown–were often used from the late 1920s through the early 1940s. A kiln in Peitou specially produced bricks of these colors, known as “13-channel bricks” for their rippled surface, designed to reduce buildings’ visibility to enemy aircraft by reducing the bricks’ reflectiveness.

Representative buildings from that period include Taipei City Hall (now Zhongshan Hall), Taipei High School (now National Taiwan Normal University), and Taipei Imperial University (now National Taiwan University). Those buildings were all the work of Ide Kaoru, the influential chief architect of the Governor-General’s Office who advocated “localization” of Taiwan’s architecture. As the Governor-General Onsen was built with the same sort of green 13-channel bricks as the Taipei City Hall, which was completed in 1936 and was also a public building, it is assumed that Ide had a hand in its design.

This article is highly recommended, particularly for language students, as the text is presented in English, Japanese, and both simplified and traditional Chinese.

A perfectly good job offer

I just discovered the hilarious blog of Harry Hutton yesterday and I’ve been reading random bits of his archives. It seems that back in June of last year he received a job offer to teach English at Kim Jong Il university.

Conditions in North Korea are harsh and the successful candidate will need a high degree of resilience. The working and living conditions will be difficult and he/she should be prepared for this, e.g in winter the temperature can be as low as –30 degrees and classrooms are usually unheated. However, the postholder’s apartment does have heating.

£23,000 per annum; rent-free furnished apartment (bugged); 11% bonus if you can finish the contract without attempting to flee. A car and a driver are also provided, the driver being a member of the security apparatus.

How could he possibly have turned that down?

Taipei rescued from demons

Railway uses `feng shui’

The main entrance of Taipei Railway Station has been redesigned for better feng shui following a string of derailments and train delays, a railway official said over the weekend. Taiwan Railway Administration director Hsu Ta-wen (徐達文) said the administration had added a glass hallway to the station’s main entrance to ward off evil spirits.

The renovation was made at the suggestion of Master Hun Yuan (混元禪師), a well-known Buddhist master, Hsu said. The railway administration consulted Hun Yuan after several derailments, train delays and suicides on the tracks. Hun Yuan said the incidents had occurred because the station’s main entrance faces a “white tiger demon.” To avoid the demon, the main door had to be moved back 6m. The administration installed a glass hallway behind the main door, so that passengers now arriving at the station must enter two doors. Several lawmakers on Friday blasted the administration for squandering money on “superstition.”

All I have to say to those doubtful politicians is, wait until the demons start wreaking havoc in your home, then see how you feel about calling in the exorcists. Just look at this AP story from Cambodia.

HNOM PENH, Cambodia – Black magic may have driven a Cambodian couple to bite off their daughter’s thumb nails and suck her blood, officials said Sunday.

Chheng Chhorn, 46, and Srun Yoeung, 37, attacked their 12-year-old child before dawn on Thursday while she was still asleep, biting off her thumb nails and a small part of her nose to drink her blood, said Keo Norea Phy, a police official in Kampong Cham province where the incident occurred.

Neighbors rushed to the couple’s house and rescued the girl after hearing her screams, he said.

After treatment at a hospital in Kampong Cham, about 50 miles east of Phom Penh, the girl was placed in the custody of other villagers. Relatives had taken her parents to a black magic healer to chase away the evil spirit that was believed to have possessed them, the police official said.

“We, the police, just have no idea what offense to charge them with,” Keo Norea Phy said.

Preap Nhim, a local official, said the couple sold noodles in their village and had never before acted in a strange manner. He said they may have been driven by the spirit guarding the altar they kept inside their house.

Cambodia is a Buddhist country, but many people in the countryside are deeply superstitious. Some claim the ability to communicate with the dead and cure the sick by exorcising evil spirits from their bodies.

I think the truth is clear. Obviously there is a pro-demon faction in the Taipei Municipal government, trying to sabotage the geomantic wards that are the only thing keeping their dark masters at bay. Luckily, they’ve been thwarted, and Taipei is once again safe from the bloodthirsty tiger demon…for now.

The story behind the famous Tiananmen photo

The BBC has a wonderful first person account of the story behind this iconic photograph.

I looked around for cover but there was none – the only areas that offered any protection were back up Changan Avenue near the Beijing Hotel. About the time I reached some trees along the avenue the soldiers opened up on the crowd at the top of the square. There was panic as people were being hit.

It was impossible for me to shoot pictures as it was too dark and using a flash was out of the question. I looked around and decided that about the only shot left was from the roof of a building with a long exposure of the square and the mayhem.

I went into the Beijing Hotel, which had a commanding view of the top of the square, but when I went in, I was tackled by members of the Public Security Bureau (PSB), China’s secret police.

One of the PSB ran up to me with a electric cattle prod and hit me in the side with it. Others punched and kicked at me. They ripped my photo vest off me and took all the film I had shot that evening. They were going to keep the cameras but I convinced them they were useless without film, so they returned them and I told them I was going to my room.

The PSB had missed three rolls of unexposed film in an inside pocket of the photo vest.

For comparison, here’s a photo I took that shows you the same piece of street on a better day.

McSalothsar’s – I’m not luvin’ it

Ran across a crazy story in today’s Asahi(print edition, so sorry there’s no link) about a restaurant in Phnom Penh that was recently shut down by local authorities for it’s Pol Pot era themed decor and cuisine!

I ran a Google search in English and managed to find a Reuters report from last week that wasn’t quite as good as the Asahi story, but good enough to suffice for the purposes of this post. From Reuters:

Faithful to the Khmer Rouge era… the waitresses are barefoot and clad in the black pyjamas and red-white scarves of the guerrillas.

Speakers blare out tunes celebrating the 1975 toppling of U.S.-backed president General Lon Nol and the walls are adorned with the baskets, hoes and spades Pol Pot hoped would power his jungle-clad south-east Asian homeland to communist prosperity.

PPC

And it gets worse… Having adapted a move that sounds like it came straight out of Robert Mugabe’s playbook (hat tip to Curzon for that one), the owners are actually plugging their cafe’s appetizing menu of “rice water and leaves” as a way to lose weight!

Recognising that many tourists might not be able to stomach such a close brush with the Killing Fields, the “Khmer Rouge Experience Cafe” is also promoting itself to those wishing to shed a few pounds.

“It’s good for me to slim down,” said Tan, a 40-year-old Malaysian visitor.

Taiwan, Amtrak and the ISO

I just mentioned that the editor of the CIA world factbook seems to consider Taiwan an oddly stateless territory. This makes a little more sense if you read about why Amtrak recently changed Taiwan’s entry in their website’s country selection form from “Taiwan, province of China” to merely “Taiwan.”

In the letter, the FAPA pointed out that in a 1996 memorandum, the US State Department stated that since the US has no diplomatic relations with the Republic of China, US officials need to refer to Taiwan as “Taiwan.”

Amtrak was established by the US Congress and receives funding from the government, therefore, what they do should be in accordance with the rules set by the government, the letter said.

According to the article, Amtrak changed their website in response to a letter of complaint written by Wu Ming-chi (吳明基), president of Formosan Association for Public Affairs.

“I was informed that Amtrak takes no position regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan and simply lists all countries around the world according to ISO 3166-1 provided by the International Organization for Standardization, which does not list Taiwan as a province of China”, said Wu Ming-chi (吳明基), president of FAPA in the letter.

The funny thing is, he has his facts completely wrong. If you actually look at ISO 3166-1 on the ISO web site, you’ll see that they DO list Taiwan as “TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA!” Whatever the US government policy on Taiwan’s name is, it’s a little funny that Amtrak responded to a complaint that didn’t even correctly cite the International Standard Organization’s name for the country. In fact, the FAPA website even contains a letter of complaint written to the ISO about this very issue, written by the same man who had claimed in a different complaint that the ISO has NOT referred to Taiwan as a province of China! And I just noticed that both letters were written ON THE SAME DAY! I think my head is spinning.

July 18, 2005

Masami Tanaka, President
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
1, rue de Varembé, Case postale 56
CH-1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland

Dear Mr. Tanaka:

I write to you today to express my serious concern about the ISO 3166-1standard which lists Taiwan as a province of China. This issue has caused strong feelings on the part of Taiwanese around the world. I therefore urge you strongly to correct this factual error.

I understand that ISO seeks to stay politically neutral and uses UN sources when developing the ISO standard 3166-1. As stated in the FAQ section on your ISO website, “the printed edition of the [U.N.] publication Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use gives the name we use in ISO 3166-1.” However, I would like to point out that the UN Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use does not list Taiwan at all – let alone lists Taiwan as a “province of China.” (See: the on-line version of the Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use on the UN website. http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49alpha.htm) Moreover, the FAQ section from your website adds that, “since Taiwan is not a UN member it does not figure in the UN bulletin on country names.” Thus, there is no source for the use of such misinformed
labeling as “Taiwan, Province of China.”

In addition to the validity of the source the ISO uses when referring to Taiwan, we would also like to point out that it is incontestable reality that Taiwan is not a part of China. All this, despite China’s political claims to the contrary. Taiwan is a de facto sovereign nation
that democratically elects its own president and government officials. The Communist government in China has never exercised any jurisdiction over Taiwan since it was established in 1949. If the ISO intends to stay politically neutral, as it prides itself of, labeling Taiwan as a province of China, simply because China says so, would constitute a double standard.

I urge the ISO to revise the 3166-1 standard and eliminate the term “Province of China” from its listing of Taiwan.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Cordially yours,

Dr. Ming-chi Wu, Ph.D., President
Formosan Association for Public Affairs

I think that if Dr Ming-chi Wu wants his complaints to be taken seriously in the future, he should start by keeping his own facts straight.

(Thanks to Michael Turton’s blog for pointing out the Amtrak article.)

Taiwan in the CIA World Factbook

Since everybody has been talking about Google’s classification of Taiwan, it’s kind of fun to see how the CIA World Factbook contorts a little bit to list them properly.


Yes, under their dropdown menu of “Select country or region,” Taiwan gets the odd distinction of being placed at the end of the other-wise alphabetized list, along with the European Union.

Look familiar?

Is this the fate of all political parties when they hold power for any length of time?

Oct 6, 2005 Taipei Times Editorial

After almost six years in power, the performance of the DPP administration has disappointed a number of pan-green diehards, with some gloomily wondering whether the DPP is losing its ideals and ability to improve itself. It has also alienated a large segment of the party’s grassroots supporters, the very people who had helped to elect the then 14-year-old DPP in 2000.

Some supporters are beginning to wonder whether the DPP has turned into the equivalent of the old Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime it used to fight against — a corrupt party leading a corrupt government. This kind of sentiment was especially prominent in the wake of the recent spate of scandals plaguing the DPP administration — one of them being Kaohsiung’s problematic MRT project. An Aug. 21 riot, ignited by Thai laborers protesting against their poor living conditions, unexpectedly brought to light a complex influence-peddling scheme in which ranking government officials apparently exploited Thai workers while pocketing money from the project’s construction funds.

January 9 2005 Washington Post article:

Democrats and some Republicans, troubled by the moves, cite parallels between today’s Republicans and the Democrats who lost their 40-year hold on the House in 1994 after Gingrich and other conservatives campaigned against them as autocratic and corrupt, and gained 52 seats.

“It took Democrats 40 years to get as arrogant as we have become in 10,” one Republican leadership aide said.

Julian E. Zelizer, a Boston University history professor who edited the 2004 anthology “The American Congress,” said Republicans used the past week to “accelerate the trend toward strong, centralized parties.”

“This is a move toward empowering the leadership even beyond what you saw in the 1970s and 1980s,” Zelizer said. “They have been going for broke.”

Now you know why I registered to vote as an independent.