Just a couple of days after posting about the Starbugs Beetle store I happened to run across this pet store specializing in various creepy-crawlies near the Shulin area in north Taipei. When I got there the proprietor was just starting the process of mounting one of our friends from the other day for presentation and was good enough to let me take some photos of his work.
Seeing this Boingboing post on international Starbucks knockoffs prompted me to post the photos I took at the famous Taiwanese Starbucks knockoff, ‘Starbugs.’
Up in riverside entertainment/boardwalk area in Danshui, a small city in Taipei County about 30 minutes north of Taipei City proper, you can find this unusually specialized pet shop.
Inside, they sell nothing but beatles, large spiders, and crabs.
If any reader happens to be an amatuer entomologist, feel free to let me know what these little monsters are properly called.
TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan police captured a heavily armed fugitive whom they had been tracking for more than a year Wednesday after he exposed his whereabouts by playing online computer games.
Taiwan evening newspapers said Chang Hsi-ming, wanted for murder, illegal possession of weapons and multiple kidnappings, was found via his Internet protocol address after police found out he often played games online.
The head of Taiwan’s Criminal Investigation Bureau personally led the siege against Chang’s hideout in central Taiwan, with more than 130 police and two armored vehicles as he was known to be armed with assault rifles and hand grenades.
Chang was shot in the chest and shoulder during a gun battle and taken to hospital.
Police had offered a T$10 million (US$312,500) reward for information leading to the capture of Chang, dubbed the “evil dragon” by local press.
Today’s Taipei Times has this brief news item.
Two people were caught last Wednesday at the CKS International Airport trying to bring in beef from Japan, despite a ban on its import, the Taipei Customs Offices said yesterday. Japan is the only Asian victim of mad cow disease and has reported 20 cases since September 2001. The government has banned the import of Japanese beef since 2001. Inspectors seized nearly 20kg of frozen beef from the luggage of the two passengers, including a Taiwanese and a Japanese, when they arrived from Tokyo aboard a China Airlines flight. The smuggled beef was shipped to a quarantine center in Hsinchu where it will be destroyed.
It’s almost funny that Japan, which has had 20 confirmed cases of mad cow disease, has banned beef from the US, which has had no cases of human transmission in that same time period.
The Taipei Times buried this rather significant news item in their ‘Taiwan Quick Takes’ section.
Japan’s ruling coalition has decided to propose that the parliament make a special law to allow Taiwanese to enter the country visa-free after the Aichi Expo ends in September. Japan currently offers visa-free treatment to Taiwanese tourists during the Expo, which ends Sept. 25. At a meeting Wednesday, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito resolved to ask their lawmakers to put forward a special bill making such treatment permanent. Taiwan is the second-largest source of foreign visitors to Japan after South Korea. In February, a special law was passed to allow Taiwanese people to enter for 90 days without a visa during the Aichi Expo. The law went into effect March 11. According to the Taiwan Visitors Association, almost 740,000 Taiwanese visited Japan last year and the new measure is expected to boost that number.
President praises Dalai Lama as the `world’s greatest’
By Huang Tai-lin
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Jul 07, 2005,Page 1Two Tibetan monks from Gyutod Tantric Monastery in Dharamsala create a sand mandala yesterday at an exhibition featuring photos of the Dalai Lama and other exhibits presenting Tibetan culture. The exhibition was sponsored by the Tibetan Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and is a part of events celebrating the 70th birthday of the 14th Dalai Lama.
PHOTO: LU CHUN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday joined dignitaries and celebrities from around the world in sending a birthday greeting to the Dalai Lama, who turned 70 yesterday.Chen praised the Tibetan spiritual leader as “the world’s greatest religious leader” and expressed hope that the Buddhist icon would make a third visit to Taiwan to “allow an opportunity for believers in Taiwan to be showered in his wisdom and cheerful presence.”
Noting Taiwan and Tibet’s similar predicaments, in which both have suffered due to Chinese military expansionism, the president said “Taiwan can identify with Tibet’s experience, and is willing to step up efforts enhancing exchanges and cooperation between Taiwan and Tibet.”
[Read the rest of the article on the original site]
For some reason this article neglects to mention the rather interesting fact that the aforementioned exhibition is actually taking place inside Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall! As chance has it, I had lunch after class yesterday with two friends, and we decided to try the Tibetan restaurant near campus, where a non-Chinese English speaking Tibetan fellow patron told me about this exhibition, which started yesterday and will run for about one month. I decided to stop by, but I got there a bit too early and it was really in the process of being set up. Still, there were several lamas (Tibetan Buddhist priests around) and I spent a few minutes chatting with a couple of them.
Of course, while all of the visiting priests are Tibetan, none of them are actually residents of Tibet, but of Tibet’s government in exile, located in the Indian city of Dharamsala. Of the two I spoke to, one had actually been born and raised in Tibet, and only left for India at the age of twenty five, whereas the other had actually been born outside of Tibet. There is no actual Tibetan community in Tibet, and no real Lama Buddhist temples, but there is a “Tibetan Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” where they are based for their stay in Taiwan. I asked if they expected the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan again soon, but they seemed to think that he would be keeping away for the time being to avoid political friction, although considering he has visited twice in the past, and even visited Mongolia quite recently over extreme objections from China, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him.
For those of you who don’t know, here is a picture of the hall, built in the style of the Ming Imperial Tombs, so that everybody knew exactly how humble Chiang was.
The poster advertising the exhibition.
The two lama priests.
Howard French has reposted a very good article on China’s military buildup and the corresponsing politics written by Ian Bremmer for The National Interest. Still, can we finally stop using such cliched titles? Let’s just all accept that ‘the dragon’ is already awake and stop beating a dead horse.
The whole thing is good reading, but this quote really jumped out at me.
The “Taiwan lobby” in the U.S. Congress is also sounding an alarm. On February 16, Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate proposed a joint resolution to resume diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The proposal would have proven political dynamite if it had any chance of passing. It did not. While the Bush Administration resolutely opposed the move as a dangerous encouragement of Taiwan’s independence movement, China treated the resolution as a grave insult.
Does anybody have more info on this? In particular, the resolution in question and its voting record. I’m a little surprised that this didn’t make the news when it hit the senate floor.
Another question:
Nor was Washington able to dissuade Beijing from going ahead with a March “anti-secession law”, which provides a quasi-legal basis for invasion should Taiwan declare formal independence.
Now, Taiwan’s international status is at best ambigious. Were it universally considered an independent, sovereign nation than any invasion by China would be a clear violation of international law, but is their any actual standard for acceptable behavior regarding breakaway territories? Clearly nobody seems to be bothering Russia about their campaign against the separatist Chechnyans, but on the other hand East Timor had fairly broad international support in their independence movement. Are there any other noteworthy cases in the past 30 or so years?
More in our continuing coverage of mad cow disease panic.
Taipei Times reporting that some retailers are voluntarily removing American beef from their shelves following the recent announcement of a second confirmed case of BSE (mad cow disease) in an American animal.
Some local supermarkets and those in Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store (新光三越), Breeze Center (微風廣場) and Pacific Sogo Department Store (太平洋崇光百貨) have echoed the Consumers’ Foundation’s (消基會) call to halt the sale of US beef.
However, other major retailers, including Carrefour, RT-Mart (大潤發), Tesco and Costco, have claimed they will abide by the government regulations and continue to sell their stock of US beef. Removing beef products will lead to immense financial losses given US beef’s dominance in the market.
Costco, the nation’s largest importer of US beef, has sold an average of 22.5 tonnes of US beef, or NT$10 million (US$320,000), per week since the import ban as lifted on April 16.
No word yet on whether Yoshinoya Taiwan will be continuing to use imported American beef. I just found an actual 24 hour open Yoshinoya only a few minutes bike ride from my apartment (and next door to a Mos Burger!), so as long as they serve gyudon I’ll be eating there, regardless of this irrational fear resulting from isolated cases. BSE is certainly worth being scared of-a terrifying disease where your brain basically rots in your skill-but so far there’s no evidence that anyone has actually eaten meat from an infected US animal, in contrast to the genuine outbreak in Britain several years ago in which dozens of people died.
Hello Kitty talk starts brawl
A scuffle broke out late Thursday night between a group of Japanese tourists and locals at a restaurant in Wanhua (萬華), Taipei as result of language barriers and miscommunication. The group of seven Japanese were giggling and talking about the “Hello Kitty” magnets which have recently a stirred frenzy among fans and collectors in Taiwan. Thinking that the Japanese were laughing at them, a table of Taiwanese patrons next to them — about 10 in all — approached the group and somehow a fight started.
The magnets in question are part of a promotion by 7-11 (which some readers may not know is now actually a Japanese company) here in Taiwan. This year is the 30th anniversary of Hello Kitty, and I believe that there are 30 unique magnets to collect. One random Hello Kitty magnet is given away free with every purchase at the convenience store, encouraging quite a lot of repeat business from obsessive collectors. Naturally under these conditions it is virtually impossible to avoid accumulating a couple of these things and I managed to find two in my desk, one still in the wrapper and one opened, so I present them to you here so you can see that they were clearly worth fighting over.
On the package they call the effect where ridges in the plastic reveal a second image when you change the viewing angle ‘3D.’ I remember it well from a plastic He-man ruler I had when I was about 7 years old. Just by slowly rotating the ruler you could watch an epic battle for the future of Eternia unfold. In this case the effect is used for nothing nearly so cool, but in an extra-crappy way doesn’t even show two different pictures but only makes Helly Kitty’s parents or whatever disappear and reveal a 7-11 logo.
Students in suit, tie need not apply
Environment Minister Yuriko Koike said Friday students applying for jobs had better not wear jackets and ties to the interview.
Students who passed the civil service’s written examination must next visit specific ministries and agencies for interviews.
Those applying to enter the Environment Ministry, however, have been showing up in suits despite the government’s “Cool Biz” summer dress campaign, which shuns suits and ties.
“It is regrettable that young people go for the ‘safe’ ways,” Koike said at a news conference.
The “Cool Biz” campaign, which started June 3, has been pushed as a way to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by curbing the use of air conditioning and promoting sales of cooler apparel.
Men urged to doff suits
A group of women’s rights and environmental activists called yesterday for men to discard business suits in the summer in favor of casual shirts to reduce reliance on air conditioning. The activists, led by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Shu-ying (黃淑英) urged the men to get stop wearing suits during summer to help save energy. Noting that air conditioning is the prime reason for surging power consumption in summer, Huang said that one degree higher on air conditioner thermostats nationwide in summer means the country could save 300 million kwhs — the amount that Penghu residents use in an entire year. Wearing suits requires a temperature of between 22?C to 23?C to make an office or room comfortable in summer, Huang said, claiming that room temperatures could be raised if men wore less clothing.
