Schedium

On May 29 Cui Shi'an (崔世安, Chui Sai On in Cantonese), the Chief Executive of Macau Special Administrative Region, announced his decision to scrap a controversial bill that would have allowed him to receive 70% of his salary until he found a new job and that would have granted him immunity from prosecution during his tenure. Furthermore, it would have granted high pensions to officials after leaving their posts. The bill had angered many Macau residents , who accused Cui of trying to " selfishly enrich himself " (私心自肥, literally " fatten himself ").  The bill proposal sparked an unprecedented wave of political protests among the population. Activist groups organised a demonstration in front of the Legislative Assembly, and around 20,000 people took part in the rally on May 26 . This was the biggest popular movement since Macau was handed over to the PRC in 1999. Members of Macau Conscience  (澳門良心) , one of the major activist organisations involved in th

Every time a crime is perpetrated, the media find themselves in a difficult position. On the one hand, they have the responsibility to spread knowledge, inform and analyse. On the other hand, they are a business that must make money out of the news they report on. They are easily tempted to speculate on the suffering and the misfortunes of people, to turn them into entertainment.  The Taipei Metro knife attack that happened a few days ago is such a tragic and sad event that I think everyone should be careful not to use this massacre as a pretext to speculate and fabricate theories that try to explain why Zheng Jie committed that crime. The most absurd of such theories is that the Sunflower Movement made society more violent and therefore encouraged individual acts of ferocity such as Zheng Jie's. These ideas can't be taken seriously, as they completely lack evidence and are nothing more than insinuations. The murder of four people should not be used as an instrument to fi

It's hard to write a blog post the day after the Taipei Metro knife attack. So I decided to just upload a few pictures I took one or two days before I left Taiwan in February.  These are the pictures of a building I've always been curious about. It has an old-style tile rooftop and it looks quite old. Since it's located inside a courtyard separated from the street by a wall I couldn't see much except for the roof.  The house is in Roosevelt Road in Taipei, and I've always wondered if it's really an old one or not. My dream is that it's a Japanese or Qing-dynasty house, and that we can save it from its decay. But I'm pretty sure it's just a dream, because the whole area is modern, with nearly no exception (but there are a few, which I hope to show in the future).  I would like to meet some local Taiwanese who know something about this building. But so far, that, too, has been a dream.

Some Taiwanese friends of mine make fun of me because I spend too much time in convenience stores. I have a favourite one near my home. Late at night, I am often the last customer sitting there. It is quiet, there is Wi-Fi, I can read books or surf the internet or do some work while drinking a beer, or coffee, or eating some snacks. Sometimes I also have dinner there. And yet I don't like convenience stores. They don't have the relaxed, individual atmosphere of coffee shops; their packaged food - which must be heated in the microwave - is full of preservatives; Wi-Fi isn't free; they are more expensive than supermarkets.  Nevertheless, there is hardly a day when I don't go to a convenience store to buy a drink, to top up my phone, to withdraw money from an ATM, etc. Inside a Family Mart store Taiwan is the country with the highest density of convenience stores in the world , and perhaps it is also the country where they have reached their highest sta

A few days ago norniTube released a video that shows how people react when a man falls down in a street in Paris, pretending to be sick. In the first part of the video, the man is dressed like a homeless person. People get by but no one helps him. In the second part of the video, the man is dressed in a suit, and immediately some people go to him and ask him if he's all right ( note ). The incident is supposed to show that people often ignore each other's suffering, and that the way someone looks determines how helpful and friendly others will be.  The same experiment was tried by Apple Chen in Taipei, in the wealthy Eastern District, near Sogo department store. However, the experiment was not about the different reaction of passers-by to a homeless and a rich-looking man.  A normally dressed man begins to cough and then falls down. After just a few seconds some people go to him and ask if he's all right. He says that he has pills in his pocket, and

Every now and then I receive messages from people who accuse me of being pro-KMT, pro-China, anti-Taiwan etc. etc. Well, I admit that I'm not a China-hater or KMT-hater, and that repeating over and over again that China and everything related to it is bad is not the purpose of my blog, and I wish - as a reader of blogs and newspapers myself - that the attitude of demonising others were less widespread.  I have explained in another post that I think the media coverage of China is often extremely biased ; it is either ideologically pro-China or ideologically anti-China. During my academic career I have learnt one important thing: when you write about something, distance yourself and try to be balanced. Being balanced doesn't mean you can't interpret things from your own perspective, but you must try to take into account all possible perspectives.  I therefore made clear that I think both pan-Chinese nationalism and Taiwanese nationalism are as legitimate as

" When you enter a village, follow the local customs " (入鄉隨俗), advises a Chinese idiom equivalent to our " In Rome, do as the Romans do ." This is the message that  Xinhua News Agency tried to convey through its "Six Guidelines, Six Taboos" (六指南”, “六禁忌”), a guide for mainland tourists visiting Hong Kong ( note ). The guide was issued a few days after the infamous " Peeing Infant Incident " (童尿事件) that caused a new wave of anti-mainland sentiment in Hong Kong. According to Xinhua, people who behave badly are just a small fraction of the over 30 million mainlanders who visit Hong Kong each year. However, the article acknowledges two problems: 1) the number of mainland tourists exceeds the number of Hong Kong residents, and therefore they are perceived like a huge tourist "army"; 2) mainlanders should adjust to Hong Kongers' customs and sensibility, as the aforementioned idiom urges travellers to do. The author o

Over the years I became familiar with the fact that some people depict Taiwan as a prude and conservative country, while others think it is a place for easy girls and crazy nightlife. I have wrote about my thoughts on the subject in another post . Certainly I don't have the impression that Taiwan is as prude as some people have told me before I came here (which I am not criticising), and the following news seems to confirm this.   National Taiwan University (Taida) will be the sixth university in Taipei to install condom machines on its campus.  A girl posing next to a condom machine at Shixin University ( source ) According to Apple Daily , last semester Taida's administrative council decided to adopt a motion submitted by the students union to install two condom machines on the campus. Other Taipei universities have already done so in the past: Shixin University (世新大學), Taipei College of Maritime Technology (台北海洋技術學院), National Taipei University of Nursing and

Zhongshan Hall is probably one of those buildings in Taipei that most tourists won't even notice. Despite being located in the heart of Taipei, just a few minutes walk from Ximending, and around 10-15 minutes from Taipei North Gate, Zhongshan Hall is not a major tourist attraction. The square in front of the building is – surprisingly enough in the bustling city - one of those relaxing and quiet areas that have preserved their clean, calm Japanese-era atmosphere.  Zhongshan Hall (中山堂); the name on the facade must be read from right to left. Contrary to what one may expect, however, Zhongshan Hall is a very important place in the history of Taipei, and thus I think it's worth dedicating a separate post to it. Zhongshan Hall (中山堂) is located on Yanping South Road (延平南路), which during the Qing Dynasty was called North Gate Road (北門街). This long street ran from North Gate down to the Qing government district. In fact, from North Gate one could walk directly to Taiwan

For over a year blogging has been part of my daily life. Before going to Taiwan I had never thought about blogging. When I was still in Berlin and planning my first trip to Taipei, a Chinese friend of mine told me that I should start a blog so I could keep my friends in Germany and Italy updated about my new adventure. But I had no idea how to write a blog, and at that time I had no interest in it, either.  Perhaps I should have started to write a blog in those days of euphoria, when Taiwan was an entirely new and exotic place to me, when I had so many emotions and felt so much enthusiasm. I used to update my private Facebook page, instead. I had never used Facebook so much before, and I turned my life in Taiwan into a sort of show. In hindsight, I think that show was a technique of self-persuasion.  While at the beginning I felt as if Taiwan would be my new home and I was passionate about it, after a few months I became much more sober and disenchanted. I began to see many as

Recently I have been criticised by some people because I used the term "Taiwanese nationalism", which to some apparently sounds too negative.  In this post, I will briefly explain what I mean by nationalism and why I am in principle sceptical about it. I am not arguing that nationalism is not a legitimate ideal. But I view nationalism as very problematic; first, because it presupposes a collective identity and the subordination of the individual to the community; second, because the "nation" itself can hardly be defined rationally and objectively. I won't be using any academic material as reference this time; since I want to respond to recent critical comments, I didn't have time to write down any quotations. This post will just be a blueprint, perhaps to use in the future for a more detailed analysis.  The Problem of the Nation On April 2, 2014, the Italian police arrested a group of Venetian separatists who allegedly were plotting to commi

Popular protests in the digital age are made half on the streets and half online. Whether a political movement is successful or not, whether it is supported by a large number of people or not, depends on how the media depict it, and on how skillfully the protesters use the most formidable peaceful weapon of our time, the internet.  While I was following the events around Taiwan's Sunflower Movement, I felt like a man who goes out to take a nice walk in th park, but ends up in the middle of an unbearably noisy and smoggy highway full of cars. There's just too much information around, there are too many different interpretations, and, above all, too many people shouting and screaming, arguing that they - and they alone - are right, and those who disagree are the absolute evil and do not represent anybody.  The protesters claim that they represent Taiwan, that they love Taiwan, and that they want to save Taiwan. Therefore, whoever agrees with the trade pact, or whoever di

In the light of the recent protests by Taiwanese students and activists against a planned trade deal with China, I have found myself in the uncomfortable position of criticising the demonstrations and, in some respects, defending the KMT administration led by Ma Yingjiu.  As I am not a citizen of the PRC or the ROC, I am not involved in party politics and I have no interest in changing the situation in these countries. I am a EU citizen, and that's the place where I want to be politically active. Therefore, when I talk about the politics of East Asia, I try to see things from different perspectives and not to side with one or the other party. Shortly, I am one of those who criticise or praise according to the concrete situation, and not out of ideological affiliation. As I have said in my last post , I think that the widespread support the current protests have received by international media, the expat community, and a part of Taiwan's media, are not only excessive, b

The recent student protests in Taiwan have become a highly debated topic on the island's as well as international media. The movement, which calls itself 'Sunflower Movement', was formed on March 19, when students occupied Taiwan's Legislative Yuan. The reason for this act of protest was a trade agreement with China which the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was pushing through parliament in a way that the opposition party DPP and a part of the population regarded as non-democratic ( note 1 , note 2 ). While Taiwan's press was divided on whether the movement was legitimate or not, with the pro-KMT and the anti-KMT camps offering their own respective interpretation, Western media have universally celebrated the movement as a proof of Taiwan's democratic maturity. As I have explained in my previous post, I am quite sceptical about the Sunflower Movement, mainly for three reasons: 1) the protesters are trying to delegitimise an elected - though unpopula