A woman teaches little children

Happy new year everyone, and sorry to people who’ve read this one before. I’ll blog something new next weekend.
A woman teaches little children
In her house on the fifth floor
In a nice part of Taipei.
Cute neat kids,
Who pay her every four weekends
With money inside white envelopes.
It’s a little extra she saves up,
Keeping all the envelopes
In a [...]

She’s so stupid

A very popular subject for male Westerners in Taiwan is “My Taiwanese wife / girlfriend is so stupid!” Reasons given for this include the woman having bizarre concerns about cleanliness, being unable to adapt to modern ideas, or just not able to drive a car. I’m always bemused by these anecdotes, as I wonder if [...]

Books and food

Merry Christmas everyone, and have fun with the last days of the year. Christmas eve, I had the strange experience of playing Father Christmas, the first time in my life doing it for someone else. It made Christmas both more grown up and more amusing – the comedy of seeing it as a responsible adult. [...]

A Western reading list

I intended this piece for Taiwanease magazine, but it was rejected as being not focussed on Taiwan enough, and so I can give it to you. It bears the snobbish condescension that many of my articles for that magazine are infected with, but hopefully the book recommendations will still be interesting.
A Western Reading List
If you [...]

Waiting to go up a mountain

This “thinking” face was a pose.