Taiwan Blog Feed

If you are expecting a rant on the social photo site that is owned by Yahoo, sorry to disappoint you. I was intrigued by the Destroy Flickr name myself when I read about this AdobeAir powered Flickr browser on this blog post.  I love it. It allows you to view all of the Flickr photos against black background with very little other information around them to distract from viewing the images. It is also very flexible in viewing them allowing you to choose the sizes you view them including beyond full-screen even. I used to love CoolIris plugin when I was using FireFox as my main browser(using Chrome now) but Destroy Flickr goes beyond what the CoolIris plugin enabled.

So if you’re a shutterbug like me or just a regular viewer of Flickr-hosted images this is the way to go-give it a try.

Well, I finally got around to watching the hit movie "Cape No. 7" in its complete form, with English subtitles, and all hype outside, I found it to be a very enjoyable, touching film. For reasons I'd rather not delve into, the story was very moving on a personal level, but I would've enjoyed it in any event. You don't have to be Taiwanese to understand the story, and there were no political undertones that I could detect, which makes it all the more mystifying why the government of China has decided that "Cape No. 7" is somehow too dangerous to be seen by its people. Why? Is it because the movie is too "local"? OK, it's set in the south of Taiwan, much of the dialog is in Taiwanese 台湾語 (along with Mandarin 中国官話, Japanese and even a little English) - though I liked the part where Tomoko (Chie Tanaka 田中千絵) complained to the Town Council Representative, that his dialect was "too thick" - Olalan and Rauma (the father and son police officers) are aborigines 台湾原住民 and Malasun is Hakka 客家. There must be movies made in China that are set in one region of that country. If Taiwan truly is a Chinese province, what's the big deal? Or is it because "Cape No. 7" wallows in nostalgia for the Japanese colonial period? Yes, the subplot of the Japanese teacher leaving Taiwan at the end of the war and writing letters to the love he left behind on Taiwan doesn't touch on any aspects of the Japanese rule over Taiwan, but that isn't the point of the movie (and it hardly yearns for the colonial past). Or is it the case that presenting Japanese people as ordinary human beings (as opposed to raping, pillaging, looting Imperial Army monsters) is unacceptable to the regime in Beijing?

Whatever the reason(s), it only reinforces the bad taste I get in my mouth whenever I start thinking of the Chinese government. My wife, alas, is almost ashamed of her Taiwanese roots and yearns to be Chinese, occasionally bringing up the idea that we should move to Shanghai 上海, which is presumably more sophisticated a place than the country bumpkin-filled island of Taiwan. She sometimes accuses me of feeling jealously at the thought of China's emergence as a major power. The truth is that what I am feeling is fear - fear that a government like the one guiding the lives of 1.3 billion people in China is terrified by a wonderful little movie like "Cape No. 7".

However, I can't go without aiming some criticism at the film. The Taiwan that is presented in "Cape No. 7" is nothing like the ugly, featureless and characterless part of the country that I'm stuck in. Having been to Hengchun (Hengch'un/Kōshun) 恒春, I know it's not like the way it is portrayed in "Cape No. 7", but still it makes me wonder. If I can't break free of Taiwan this year, perhaps a move to the south might make resignation to my fate a little easier to accept.

ABC - Anywhere but China!

Food and other photos by MJ Klein

The Daily Bubble Tea - For Two!

We had the pleasure of attending the wedding of Cathy and Todd, of The Daily Bubble Tea fame, on Saturday, in quaint Nantou.  It was like a blogger meetup!  I didn’t take so many photos of the events as I chose to sit back and enjoy them.  But, I did take photos of the dishes so you could enjoy them!

We were among the first to arrive, and the setting was just lovely.

But not as lovely as the Bride, Cathy!  She looks stunning in her gown, doesn’t she?

The happy couple making their entrance

Let’s see what was on the menu!  I didn’t photograph every single dish, but I did photograph the major ones.

First out was a lovely appetizer platter featuring mostly duck meat.

The next dish was rather strange at first.  It wasn’t until Mark cut into it that we realized it was a stuff cabbage leaf.  The stuff inside was great too.

This lamb dish looked fantastic, and almost good enough to me to try.  Almost, but I don’t eat lamb!   The presentation was excellent and the sauce looked delicious.

Next out was this crab plate.  Notice how the legs have the shells cut off so you can eat them easily.  I love the flavor of crab but not the work involved in getting small pieces of meat out of the shell!  Many crab dishes feature crab leg knuckles but this dish featured entire leg portions.  This dish was excellent!

Mark Forman agrees with me on that!

Cathy and Todd toasting the guests

The last dish was sauteed tiger prawns.  These prawns were huge!  I ate 2 and I was done!

Next we’re going to have lunch in a Korean restaurant with a very unusual decor.

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