Greetings from Asia - 1 September 2010

We have been seeing many members of Charlotte’s family, and have been taken out to so many great dinners that today we finally had to take a break and just eat a sandwich for lunch! Charlotte’s father took us out for a lavish dinner, as did her second brother. There are certainly many great places to eat here: there seems to be a restaurant or cafe or food stand every hundred feet or so along the street — seriously. Chinese are, as a Chinese-Canadian friend once pointed out to me, very id-oriented, and part of that is having food available wherever they might go. For the Chinese, eating is good, and that's that. Here are some views of the meals we've been treated to...










I read somewhere the other day that the people in Taiwan consider eating to be almost a hobby, in addition to being a necessity. That would explain why one finds food everywhere, and why people talk about eating all the time...

Greetings from Asia - 30 August 2010

So far — and, of course, this is based only on a week’s experience here — we have had a very positive impression of life here, in the sense that Taiwan still embodies the best of the new and the old. There are modern transportation and other facilities, along with the great night markets, vendors selling food from outdoor stalls, and a general relaxed pace of life in many respects. The efficiency of the immigration office was amazing, too, and even when service is not particularly friendly, it is well-organized.

We have also noted that even as Taiwan has modernized even more since we left in 1996, and even as the new generation differs so much from the old, the youth have also turned back to tradition in some ways. For example, there are many more museums and archaeological exhibits now, books on old architecture, clothing, and so on, and there are even shops that sell updated versions of traditional Chinese clothing. Moreover, of course, even as one sees young people with weird hairstyles and modern garb, one also sees that they behave with a certain modesty still. On the train, for example, you don’t encounter anyone talking loudly on cell phones, or yapping with their friends. As my friend Don Denton noted when we were travelling in Turkey, people here have some sense of reserve still.

It is also great to still see the school uniforms, the children cleaning their own schools, the continued importance of family and education, and other Confucian values alive and well here.

Naturally, the traffic is still a nightmare, with everyone driving at top speed and ignoring all the rules of the road. I guess this is where the Chinese take their (naturally human) aggressions!

We had to go the office here that handles immigration, both for my working papers, and for other processing. The service was amazingly efficient, and we were in there and out of there within a half an hour. Readers might be interested in the following document that I noticed there. See below...

Greetings from Asia - 28 August 2010

HinterNet is off to Asia... This album comprises photographs and notes from our journey to Asia, 2010-2011. The primary subject is Taiwan, our base, along with some excursions... Click here to read about Taiwan in the CIA World Factbook. Click here to read information about Taiwan from the Lonely Planet guidebook. Naturally, all information in external websites is beyond the responsibility of HinterNet. That information is just for background for you, the reader.

Some initial images from Taiwan... Street scene in 台北市 (Taipei): the covered sidewalks are a feature one finds all over the Pacific, from Tahiti to Taiwan, as well as in other tropical and semi-tropical climes... even in New Orleans.
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Another scene in Taipei... Note one of the many contrasts here between the old and the new: on the left, a traditional food stand next to an ultra-modern store selling Canon cameras. The contrast is highlighted by the fact that the vendor sells 豬血糕 (zhu xie gao), literally, "pig's blood cake". Although the term "cake is used", it's actually shaped like a popsicle (as it's served on a stick); it's sticky rice, cooked in blood, and then rolled in ground peanuts, with a touch of cilantro. For a further description, click here.
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Another contrast of old and new... This is in the town of 鶯歌 (Yingge), not far from Taipei. In the foreground are the remains of a traditional Chinese house, while just behind are modern apartments. I have only encountered one case in Taiwan where the owner of a traditional house modernized the interior rather than just sold the property and moved into an apartment. The person I met did a lovely job of fixing the house, and then air-conditioning the interior, putting in good plumbing, etc. If I had the money...
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Street scene in Yingge, the hometown of my wife... This street has become a tourist destination (primarily for Taiwanese tourists), and each shop sells teapots, teacups, and other ceramic items, both low-end and high-end. Yingge used to be the main ceramics center in Taiwan, and while it still is important in some sense in its original identity, it has some aspects of a simulacrum... See Jean Baudrillard. Regardless, as tourist destinations go, Yingge did a good job of preserving itself...
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Astrid and I in front of the 布政司衙門 (Bu-Cheng-Shih-Szyamen / Bu Zheng Si Yamen), an old government building and now a museum in the Taipei Botanical Gardens.
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Taiwan is still in many ways a very conservative place, in the real sense of that word. This sign is outside the girls' dormitory at the university where I work. Very clear...
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Some of the rooms in our apartment; it's actually a hotel, run by the university for their Travel & Tourism Program. So, we are living in a hotel suite... No complaints! Our kitchen and dining room...
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The view from our window, looking down on the campus and the town of 龜山 (Guishan), which means "Turtle Mountain". The entire area of northern Taiwan has these kinds of low mountains, which have some great hiking trails. Larger mountains are in the eastern portion of the island...
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A picture of myself (between Charlotte and Astrid, with arrow) with some of Charlotte's family members, at one of the several welcome banquets we were greeted with... From left to right: Charlotte's father and step-mother; Charlotte; me; Astrid; Charlotte's niece Juliet; Charlotte's second sister-in-law, and her two sons and her husband...

All images and text are the property of Benjamin B. Olshin, and are protected under United States and International copyright law. They may not be copied, reproduced, stored, or manipulated without written permission of the artist.