My Life as Adoga

Free Press Not So Free in Taiwan From the Taipei Times Thursday, May 7, 2009 (page 8) By Leon Chuang 莊豐嘉 A few days ago, US-based Freedom House released a global survey entitled Freedom of the Press 2009 in which Taiwan’s press freedom ranking fell by 11 places from last year’s list. It was no surprise that Taiwan’s ranking dropped, but the size of the fall is much greater than expected and very worrying. More worrying still is the fact that Hong Kong has been relegated from the “free” category to “partly free.” The lesson is that if Taiwan’s media cannot resist penetration by China, Taiwan will before long go the same way as Hong Kong. Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his government should bear full responsibility for this black mark on the record of their first year in office. Unfortunately, all of them — from Ma to the Government Information Office — have brushed it off, saying rather unconvincingly that they would look into the matter. Their reaction is evidence of a gui...

Some years ago I was talking with my friend Linda about the common assumption that economic growth is a prerequisite for the establishment of a democratic system, and democracy is vital to the health of human rights within a large society. Linda rebuffed my “common sense” argument, noting that there is very little in the history books to support the assumption that capitalism is a prerequisite for democratic action, and that democracies naturally encourage human rights throughout society. These are issues I’ve been thinking quite a bit of, lately. My contemplation began a couple of months ago when I had a friendly chat with another customer in a bookstore. As a businessman (born and raised in Taiwan, but now an American citizen living part-time in Shanghai, Taipei and Los Angeles) he was naturally dismayed by the poor economic performance of The Ineptitude’s government. He made a comment to the effect of (and I’m badly paraphrasing from a faulty memory) . . . “With the economy the w...

The Wikipedia reference for the Tree Sparrow, which is apparently what my Siao Meinung is: a rarity in Europe and America (albeit present), but an abundance in Southeast Asia and China. And all this time I'd been confusing Meinung with the "House Sparrow" of my American childhood. Two big differences between the species: the Tree Sparrow is smaller, and there are no markings that distinguish male from female.

It probably didn't do any good, and it may even have hurt me, but on Saturday afternoon I had to speak out against stupidity. You see, that afternoon on my way home I had stopped by a pet shop to pick up dog food. Unfortunately, my choices of where to buy grub for my ravenous beast are pretty much limited to one "conveniently located" shop called Gu Gu Ji, in Neihu (Taipei City). This shop, part of a chain store outfit, drove their competition out of business by putting "purebred" puppies and kittens in their front window for sale. The cuteness of the animals brought people into the shop, making the competitor -- which was already at a disadvantage by being in a basement location -- less attractive because they were not a front for an animal breeder. As I waited to pay for my purchases I heard a man, in the company of his two daughters (seemed to be ages 4 and 7), tell the shop owner that he wanted to purchase a puppy for his children to play with...

On a recent Saturday field trip I joined friends in visiting an aboriginal village, inhabited mostly by Bunun tribal people in the Nantou area. A kindly elder couple joined us in the evening and shared a traditional song. Video of the song is at the bottom of this posting. With us as "special guest" and "host" for the weekend were, respectively, American author Linda Hogan and Taiwan Bunun writer Nequo. The Sunday morning view of the Yushan range was refreshing, to say the least. The day before it had snowed on Yushan's highest peak, but that was invisible to us as the mountain was shrouded in thick clouds. Yushan's highest peak, still in the embrace of some lingering clouds.

Source: Taipei Times