Schedium

Chinese New Year can be a pretty boring time for a foreigner. All of my friends were celebrating with their families, and since I have no family here, nor have I a girlfriend whose family I could join, I had nothing special to do. Shops and cafes were closed - apart from big chains like McDonald's or Starbucks, which were overcrowded anyway. So I had a lot of time to think. On Saturday evening I went out to buy my dinner. While I was walking around, I heard the voices of the people inside their homes, the sounds of their New Year celebrations. Then I suddenly asked myself: "What on earth are you doing here? Why are you still in Taiwan?"  Before I came to Taiwan, some Taiwanese friends of mine had recommended me their country, highly prasing it and going so far as to say that Taiwan is a "paradise for foreigners" (bear in mind that when I say foreigners I mean 'Westerners').  "It's easy for foreigners to find a job," t

A few days ago The New York Times reported that Chinese hackers attacked their computer systems and stole the passwords of some of their staff members. According to The New York Times , the timing of the attacks suggests that the purpose of such attacks was related to the investigation by the newspaper of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao's and his family's wealth. The Wall Street Journal also reported that it fell victim to cyber-attacks originating from China. The evidence gathered by the newspaper allegedly shows that the China-coverage was the target of the infiltration. However, as CNN reports , the security experts hired by the newspaper could not find proves that files concerning Wen and his family were accessed. On February 1st, Twitter announced in a blog post that an attack on its system was detected and that " the attackers may have had access to limited user information – usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passw

Thanks to the economic growth of East Asia and China's opening up in the Deng Xiaoping era, from the 1980's onward the relationship between the Western world and East Asia has fundamentally changed. As a consequence, the contact between Western and Asian people has been steadily intensifying. Business people, students, professionals, tourists are among the protagonists of this new era of exchange, which is more and more 'democratic', in the sense that while in the past the movement was mostly from East to West, now the opposite case is not a rarity any more . The 2008 financial crisis even prompted a new wave of expatriation of Westerners towards Asia, in search for jobs that the troubled Western economies seem unable to offer to their young population.  Traditionally, economic power has attracted the interest of Westerners more than culture. When Japan was growing at a pace the West had never dreamt of, media were obsessed with Japan. When the Japanese economy c

Snow looks poetic. White, quiet landscapes, Christmas feeling and children playing on it - that's what we associate with the idea of snow. Some people love snow. Others - like me - love it only when they see it through the closed window of their home. A few weeks ago, a heavy snowstorm raged in large parts of Europe. One morning, I opened the door of my house and there I saw the whole street covered in white. My feet sank into the snow up to my knees, so deeply that I could not walk. Except for the cold, which may or may not bother you as much as it bothers me, snow can cause a range of problems. Even after the snow was removed, salt and sand had been strewn on the pavement, iced spots remained, which were extremely slippery. And in the morning electricity went out, so that I couldn't heat my room. At least, I didn't need to get worried about the food in my fridge; I could simply put it on the balcony. Now that I've come back to Taiwan I

“I hate my job”, “I want to be my own boss” - these are sentences you're likely to hear often in Taiwan. Though I met several people who liked their job, I think that the great majority were extremely dissatisfied with their current occupation. Long working hours, despotic bosses, low wages or unfavourable working conditions are among the main reasons.  One of the things that shocked me during my first stay in Taiwan was that people don't have nearly as much spare time as Europeans. When I was in Europe, I used to meet my friends on different days of the week or on the weekends. In Taiwan, I became acquainted with a completely different concept of time. People are simply too busy. As I explained in a previous post , life in Taiwan revolves around social circles. For most adult people, these circles are represented by family, friends and work. Taiwanese usually have longer working hours than Europeans, but they also have a more strict social hierarchy, with family and wor

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism was a must-read for me. As a European who during the last few years has been compelled to hear bad news about the economy of my continent, I wanted to know more about capitalism in order to understand what's going on. And what's going wrong. I never believed the myths neoliberal economists have been telling us for decades now. One thing is the theory, and another thing is the reality. My generation has witnessed the failure of the promise that neoliberals made in the 1980s and 1990s. When Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan turned neoliberal thinking into a mainstream ideology that has been dominating the West for decades, they told us that their economic policy would create more wealth by fostering entrepreneurial spirit. They told us that free market and free trade were the only way to more prosperity, and that government interference, bureaucracy, and 'leftism' were the shackles from which we had to fre

“ What would you choose? Love or Bread ?” This is the question which parents in East Asia often ask their children when trying to convince them to marry the “right person”. It is a question that reveals some key elements of East Asian culture and mentality. It is well known to Western observers of East Asian matters that in the countries of the Orient family planning plays a much more important role than in the West. When I was in Europe I seldom met people who began thinking about marriage when they were in their early twenties, let alone before they had found a suitable partner. In Asia, the way people think about their future is completely different, and I believe that if we really want to have a deep cultural exchange, we need understand these peculiarities. As I have already explained in one of my earlier posts , in order to talk about and understand a culture, it is necessary to observe it. Observations are based on subjective experiences and therefore limited to partic

Beijing at night If you step over at Beijing Capital Airport and you have to wait long for your next flight, you might be wondering if you can leave the airport and take a walk around the city. This is the same question I asked myself a few days ago. I arrived in Beijing from Taipei at 4:00 p.m., and my next flight was at 1:30 p.m. of the following day. I really disliked the idea of idling around at the airport for so many hours, so I decided to try and find out if it was possible to go out without having a visa. The answer is yes. And it is extremely easy. We often hear in the news that China has severe human rights issues, and we imagine that there must be strict control of personal freedom, police everywhere etc. I do not doubt that when you challenge the authorities you will sooner or later get into trouble. And, of course, websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Blogger are blocked (but, strangely enough, newspapers like Time or Der Spiegel can be accessed without any pr