Alternative News Source

Although I sometimes find it quite amusing to read editorials and news in the China Post or the Taipei Times, I feel sometimes that we in Taiwan might be slightly underpriviledged in the limited quantity and quality of news we receive that is NOT related to Taiwan.
I rather miss witty editorials and news magazine articles (who can afford to buy news magazines regularly in Asia at US$10 a pop?)complete with forecasts for the future and maybe even some posed solutions.
Looking for such kind of information, I came across the World Press Review Directory of Think-Tanks and NGOs. It has a number of sites with interesting articles on current international topics of interest. You can read about the same issues on different country's think tanks' pages and see the problem from a variety of different viewpoints.
Feeling somewhat removed from Canada these days, I will likely start with the commentary section of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies.

Where's the Beef?

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of joining some other expats at Saint's and Sinners Pub for the going away party for one of our acquaintances. Saints and Sinner's is your typical American pub... so generic, it could be picked up and dropped into just about any airport in the world and it wouldn't be misplaced! You know the type - with those old-fashioned American ads that someone obviously produces just for pubs like this one!
Anyway, we all ordered. I must say that I must have been in Asia for too long, because I no longer notice if there is mayonnaise and asparagus on my pizza or hello kitty fishcakes floating in my soup. Peanut butter on a ham and egg sandwich? No problem!
This was not the case for some of the others. 3 people ordered cheeseburgers. Two of them ate half before decided the rest wasn't worthy of consumption. The third cheeseburger diner; however, decided this was NOT ACCEPTABLE. Being quite fluent in Chinese, she called over the waiter and ranted at him for about 15 minutes re: the poor quality of the stuff stuck between the two fluffy halves of the bun: What kind of filler was used? What kind of humiliation was inflicted on that ground beef? At first, I watched/listened in morbid fascination! Then a Wendy's commercial from the '80s came to mind and I had to laugh! "Where's the beef?"

Deferral Approved!

Deferral... Why when I hear that word do I feel guilty instead of relieved? Is it because of the close relationship between it's definition (the act of delaying)and that of procrastination?
Anyway, this is the second deferral of the first year of my MA. A word to the wise, do NOT start a distance MA from a University that actually expects you to study if you hold a "company" job anywhere in Taipei as you will likely NEVER find the time. If you are the type to procrastinate (synonym: see delay... Synonym: see defer), don't even think about it! Save your money, quit your job and enroll in an on-campus program. Not only will it be easier, you'll have more fun!

Anyway, my university has been most kind and understanding and I am grateful. Perhaps I will actually manage to complete the assigments this year and spend summer of 2005 in the UK!

The No Smoking Section

For the past few months, I have seen a number of dance performances, but NOTHING like what I witnessed tonight! At about 11:30 pm, about 12-15 young Taiwanese women wearing white mini-dresses, white boots, and white masks strutted into the salsa bar. They all moved to one corner, each pulled out a package of cigarettes and struck a pose. They stayed there for about 5 minutes, then strutted to another corner of the bar where they struck another pose. They continued like this until they had covered the whole room. Then the dance floor cleared... probably because the salsa stopped and a dance number came on... The girls filed onto the floor and began their "performance." They took turns doing runway-like struts with turns interspersed with awkward dancing which I think was supposed to look sexy. This continued for about another 5-10 minutes and then they all left the floor single-file and continued on out of the bar.

In Taipei, we are used to the occasional gold-lame Hennesy girl doing the rounds and encouraging people to buy Hennesy... or even the Budweiser girls in their tight tops emblazoned with Budweiser logos and ads. "Hi, care for some beer? Buy 3, get 1 free," etc... but I have NEVER seen anything like this! I doubt a single carton of cigarettes was sold. All the patrons were too busy staring incredulously or laughing. If I were one of those women, I'd be wearing a mask too.

Clickable links!

Well... It has been an interesting waste of time trying to figure out how other people manage to do the things they do on their weblogs. There was a former colleague who showed me how to post pictures... Then, a web-designer friend offered to show me how to make clickable picture thumbnails on a given webpage. Well, I started out trying to find cafes with free wireless internet for our first tutorial... (We went to one far away, but I now know that many cafes in the Shida area -incuding cafe Odeon - have wireless). We met and I discovered I was missing key software - a working version of Photoshop (mine was an expired trial version) and Fireworks. SO... I went to the mac shop to fix this and ended up buying more RAM, installing MORE software and updating my system to the newest spiffiest OS I have used yet! Mac OS 10.3.4

Now I have succeeded in inserting my first clickable thumbnail! Please click on the swimwear picture in the entry on shopping below... Then congratulate me!

Salsa on 2

When dancing with someone who is smiling, singing along with the music, and leading gently, it can feel like flying. I love salsa! That said, I am a terrible dancer. My steps are too big. I can rarely spin more than once on the spot without losing balance. And although I don't feel shy to shake and roll my hips in a Latin bar, I feel silly whipping my head and flourishing my hands about in a roomful of serious salsa students.

While I am aware I should learn to follow better, dance with more style and technique- the problem comes with choosing a style and a teacher. I have not yet met a teacher here in Taipei that made me think, "Wow! I want to look like THAT when I dance!" Seeing as I am in Taiwan, I guess I would even settle for a teacher who was nice and focused on helping everyone enjoy themselves. Somehow, it seems so much of the FUN is sucked out by current locale's instructors' infighting and grappling to make money. It seems that even if you are not somebody's paying student, you should still feel welcome in the salsa clubs.

I also don't think people should close themselves to learning new things, trying new styles (especially instructors). Why not learn them all if you have the chance? It can only make you better. Last weekend I had a "salsa experience" that made me want to take lessons in LISTENING!

Listening to music is a whole brain activity. They say that melody is processed in the right hemisphere of the brain and the beat in the left; but that can be broken down even more to rhythm (left) and meter (right). Students who listen to/play music often score better in school. I dance to the melody, but it seems to me, percussion is strategic to understanding. After listening, I tried successfully (!!!) dancing on the 2 and it made such logic! It was fluid and gentle. Can't wait to try again.

EVICTION

For the first time since1986, I have lived in the same house for over three years! Ironically, Taipei is a place I anticipated only staying in for about 6 months… so I rented a furnished house as a temporary base. It came complete with all the former family’s trappings. As you enter the apartment, your eye is struck by a HUGE family shrine. It sits under a massive triptych of important Buddhist (?) figures… One that must be Guanyin, one that appears to be Damou (Daruma in Japanese) and another… all rendered in big black brushstrokes with finer detailing in read and gold. The effect is quite imposing… if I can get my digital camera fixed, I will attach a photo at some point. You MUST see this! It is no ordinary household shrine. The closets are also stuffed with various boxes, trophies, photos and other old things. The bookshelves contain old piano sheet music, an assortment of Chinese literature and, funnily enough, a small English collection: medical books, and a few erotic novels accompanied by some sensual massage/sex manuals. Actually, the initial attraction to the apartment was the piano sheet music and the piano (see October archives – soggy soundboards…), but about 6 months ago, the landlady’s youngest sister took the piano away.

 The rest of the apartment is very spacious and open: high ceilings, white walls, ceilings and ceramic floor tiles… big windows. The furnishings consist of a hodge podge of old style bamboo and wood varieties. I rent a room and the other rooms are rented out to other women (currently one woman from Southern Taiwan and one Japanese woman). The landlady feels it is still her home and enters unannounced when she feels like it…. Recently not so often, but more regularly when her parents visit (they live in LA) as her mother comes to pray at the shrine. Funnily enough, I don’t mind this, the mother is old enough that she has survived Japanese rule and we can communicate easily using Japanese. She is friendly and reasonable. Her daughters, on the other hand, are stingy and difficult. Maybe that is why the parents choose to live in LA.

 Anyway, the youngest daughter- the one who “stole” the piano- wants to save money by moving her family to her parents’ home. So that means we all have to vacate. I hate to move again with so little time left in Taiwan… as usual, I have the dilemma of whether to think of this as temporary or… Truth be told, I find I live more happily when I think of my residence as home rather than temporary dwelling place. But if work doesn’t slow down, I may have to use an agency to do my house hunting for me… or move to a business hotel. Not good!

Virtual Shopping

Click on thumbnail to view larger image.

Let me preface this by stating that I believe in shopping therapy. A new gadget for one's computer, a time-saving kitchen tool, a silly gift to mail an overseas friend, an item of clothing that makes you look years younger and pounds slimmer... whatever! It can take the edge off a bad week.

However, somehow shopping for swimwear seems to have the oposite effect! Nothing theraputic about it. Nothing fits, everything looks terrible under fluorescent lighting, and the horrifying part is you have to come out of the change room to really get a good look... Add to this that if you are a western woman living in Asia and happen to be larger than size 2, you might as well give up now! They probably don't have your size!

Some people I know here in Taiwan shop online, but aside from Amazon.com and Victoria Secrets (I like these ones because you can save money by not ordering, but saving everything in a wish list instead.), I have never really tried as I get frustrated by companies (like Nike) who let you complete the ordering process before telling you that they don't ship to addresses outside the US... nor do they accept foreign credit cards.

Well, this week I discovered virtual shopping. I went to the virtual Dressing Room and tried on several swimsuits before contacting Everything But Water and placing my order. Painless! There are only a few clothing shops doing this, but there should be more! One of my friends says this model looks a bit like me... and hers looks lots like her. I wonder if this will catch on... and what other activities we will be able to do next?

Not a "mama-chari"

Note: This silver mama-chari was not mine... just a random picture posted by some happy owner.

If you have lived in Japan, you probably know what a mama-chari is. It is one of those upright bikes designed so that you can ride it a skirt of any length with relative ease. They are primarily black... although in Taiwan, you can get them in pink and lavendar as well (see the Valentine's Day sale pages of any discount store)! They have a bell attached to the right handlebar and a big basket in front. They often also have spokes protruding from the centers of the back wheel for people to stand on when the owner wants to take on "passengers". If there are no spokes, that is probably because the bike is already equipt with a "rat trap" over the back wheel for other ladies in skirts to sit on. (If you have a choice, go for the rat trap... I once caught my skirt on the spokes and it ripped to shreds before I could stop the bike. It was a pretty embarrassing ride home.)

I used to enjoy passengering my dignified friend from Shanghai around Yokohama in this fashion. I went everywhere by mama chari: Yokohama station, work, home, to the bars, grocery shopping... etc.  Everyone use to warn me that bicycles in Japan are like umbrellas- interchangeable and pretty much the only item you own likely to be stolen (aside from underwear - DO not hang your pretty skivies out to dry). However, in all my 3 years, I never had my bike stolen. I guess I never left it outside a bar after last call.

Anyway, the title of this entry is "NOT a mama-chari". That is because the last FIVE bikes I owned have NOT been mama-charis and all of them were stolen: 3 from various places in Korea... and 2 from MY HOME in Taiwan... and YES they were locked!

I would like to take a little space on this page to apologize to those bikes for not being even MORE careful. Perhaps I should have carried them up to the warm dry haven of my apartment every day instead of leaving them outside to be rained on and rust. Two of five had titanium frames precisely to allow me to do that. The second to last one was a heavy steel job, but that one survived being repeatedly driven over by a motor-scooter (someone must have been having a bad day)... and one crash.

I love having a bike. And by the way, almost ALL BIKES COME FROM TAIWAN. Hence, you can buy almost any kind of mountain bike here and go cycling in the less polluted mountaineous outskirts of the smoggy basin that is Taipei on weekends. So maybe you can understand why I feel conflicted...  Is the trick to buy a mama-chari that no one else would want... or actually just to really carry a better, lighter bike up 4 flights of stairs every night? Or should I just give up on bicycles the way I have had to give up on watches? I won't even tell you how many of those I have lost in the past year.

The Language of Love

What is the language of love? Some say love needs no language... or that between two people who are meant to be together, no language beyond the language of love is needed. Are we to understand that this language is made up up entirely of glances, gestures, and other non-verbal kinds of communication? It all seems very romantic, but I wonder...

 

Recently I attended a birthday party for a Spanish-speaking student celebrating with 50 of his closest friends and his Japanese girlfriend. She sat leaning against him for most of the early part of the evening. She spent most on the evening just sitting, only occasionally punctuating her silence to chat with her girlfriends in Japanese, or to look at bf with big doe eyes and exchange a few kisses. I asked her if she was studying Spanish or English... but she said she wasn't - only Chinese... well, this is Taiwan after all... but neither is he studying Japanese (and she admits she can't understand his Chinese). Seeing as there really is no common spoken language they can share, that chemistry must be pretty strong and the language of love speaking volumes...  Certain he said volumes after a bottle of champagne when he stood up and declared his love for her to the whole room. Hmmm....

 

How important it is to share a language with your partner? Who should learn whose language... or should the couple both learn the other's language... or a third/neutral language? Or is it different for everyone? Are there people who really can communicate without language?

 

I remember my first year in Korea. I guess most people who have lived in a foreign country have had the experience of going on a few dates with someone who doesn't share their language. I remember the pleasure and pride of stringing together a sentence and having it be understood by the other party... drawing pictures, charts and diagrams to make communication... How flattering it feels when someone has made the effort to learn a few words/phrases in your language.

 

I also remember how frustrating it was not to be able to learn fast enough... repeatedly try to explain something and the frustrations mounting to a point where one just has to giggle and give up... And the profound disappointment on having the achievement of having sucessfully reached a certain proficiency in the target language marred by the realization that not only do you have absolutely nothing in common with your sweetheart... he stands for everything you are against! Hmmm... ok, maybe it is not always so extreme, but for me... communication is extremely important. 

 

I have more to say about this, but I will hold off until I can update you on the saga of the above birthday boy... Perhaps I will be able to report that she has learned fluent Spanish from his friends, that his Japanese is coming right along, and they have already started teaching their unborn baby Chinese, Japanese, Spanish AND English.

 

Well, this is too long so I will stop here, but perhaps one day we can also share ideas on love and language exchanges.

 

 

Wait! More Personality Tests, Games and Quizzes

The personality tests, games and quizzes at I am bored are more interesting than those on the Quizilla site! I read through a few more quizzes on Q and thought... Hmmm, that site NEEDs an administrator! However, if you'd like to make your OWN quiz, do sign up! On another note, I should remind myself to try out tblog. Seems you don't have to put up with ad banners and photo posting is free.

Keeping Updated

Computer troubles! I had to to visit the mac shop last night. Please don't ask me why I use a mac... I KNOW they are more expensive (but the industrial design is so... appealing) and I also know that there is less software, less hardware, less everything designed for this kind of machine... I also know that I don't fit the mac user profile... (someone who spends long hours getting to know their machine intimately, who cares enough to completely personalize their machine and who can speak several kinds of computer languages... ).

    Forget the computer languages... for me, I am too  busy trying to learn other languages... namely enough Chinese to get me to my favorite mac shop (on Jin Hua road between Jinshan and ShingSheng); the one where the customers take in food and sit around at the counters chatting, using the wireless internet and getting the staff to teach them a variety of useful things. When I burned a hole in my motherboard, the staff here managed to scrape the burned bits off and soder on new ones!

    Anyway, this time my problem is that Dreamweaver (what a great name!), Fireworks and well, all of the Macromedia package just WON'T install! Last night, we managed to update my system, update and get Photoshop working again... and consume several green tea cream puffs and some passion fruit ice cream... but we DIDN'T get the Macromedia package to install.

    Appears I may have to go back again tonight and leave the laptop there (after creating more space by burning and deleting all of my photos/music. So annoying... The guy there kept complaining about how SLOW my machine is... It is only about 3 years old, but of course all the lastest software is made for all the latest hardware... and hence that means... It will soon be time to update! This is the worst part of living in Asia - you pretty much HAVE to keep updated or you are not compatible! However, this only applied to techno-toys... In terms of educational philosophies (among other philosophies), it seems many feel it is much better to stick to the old ways!

Quizilla

Always in search of new sites to get ideas for work... I LOVE books, sites with quizzes. Ok... so I may use them for a boring purpose... to make teaching materials, but some are fun in their own right. A few years ago, I started using E-mode to get ideas... I think everyone REALLY needs to know which breed of dog they are (Can it really be possible that I am a chihuahua?) And as for me, I am glad to know that if I were an umbrella drink, I would be a daquairi! I also found out that I am right brained, my true color is green (but the color of my aura is orange). My strongest Chakra is the 5th one (that governing truth and honesty). In my past life, I was a dog named Scooter living in Iowa.My best quality is my independence... and the INKBLOT test reveals my subconscious mind is driven by curiosity.

 

However, E-mode has CHANGED! This is very sad because now it's focus appears not to be on providing quizzes for the Egoist looking for ways to waste time, but on running an on-line match-making service and on making money. A couple years ago, all these tests were free... even the more rigorous ones (like the Briggs Myers inspired ones etc). Now you only get the initial result free and have to pay for the details... Paying for the results might seem to indicate that one takes the results a little too seriously! So  now I am on the lookout for new quiz sites.

 

Quizilla is the one I checked out today! I tried a test to find out which movie I belong in... The surprise is that it is a movie I have never even seen. But glad to know Jack's creative world fits my curiosity and imagination.

 

Nightmare Before Christmas!


What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla
This site is okay, but I am going to keep looking as I would like to find one that is a little slicker and has fewer typos. I realize this reveals insidious things about my personality, but I don't care. Anyway, if anyone can reccommend a god quiz site, please post a comment. Thanks.

Distance tests a horse's strength, time reveals a person's character.

This is an ancient Chinese Proverb! I have nothing to say about this proverb, but I would like to save it here until it is needed.

Welcome Hezachan!

Hezachan,I see you have joined this weblog, but I have yet to see you post! How is Korea these days? Taiwan is getting hotter and more humid every day! Summer is upon us and me still with no summer vacation in sight.

Anyway, what are you up to this weekend? Any exciting plans? I am off to the office soon, so am unlikely to do anything too terribly exciting beyond keeping my office chair rooted to the floor. (Wouldn't want it to float away). Tonight, however, (if not too tired) I may try to get a little exercise - either at the gym or on the dance floor.

Tomorrow, I am looking forward to a wonderful day of grocery shopping and laundry! I still have a package of kimchi, some genip, one tub of walnut and anchovy side-dish (don’t be disgusted), and a container of samjang from when I was in Korea last... So I was thinking about actually eating dinner at home! Novetly of novelties!

Why do I never cook? It’s not that I don’t have a kitchen here - it’s just that I can never find the right utensils, I don’t have a properly working rice cooker, of course there is no oven –like Korea, only 2 gas burners... and most importantly, I have NO time. I wonder if I can even remember how to cook. I think the last time was December 2000 in Vancouver! I even made fruitcake that year to celebrate having an oven during the holidays!

Too bad my sojourn back in North America was only 6 months...  Do you think the culture shock of being in a place where I could understand what everyone was saying might have been too great? Do you think I will ever truly be able to leave Asia?

Well, hope to hear from you soon...

The Oracle of Starbucks

Note: Logo copied here without permission.

Do you remember the Oracle of Starbucks? Did you know that the woman who appears to have developed the Oracle also has a personal weblog? You may also remember that all of the possible outcomes of drinking ANYTHING at Starbucks is BAD! The sad thing is the Oracle of Starbucks states that I drink sparkling water and shop in designer grocery stores... and both of these are true! However, as I don't always drink the same thing at Starbucks, in addition to my heinous habits, I am also lame and an asshat (whatever that means). Well, you have to be all those things to waste $90+ (local currency) every time you drink coffee. For only $50, you can purchase coffee AND breakfast at the other places. Luckily, I can drink things not recognized by the Oracle to avoid categorization: tall double low-fat no-foam half-sweet caramel ice latte; shaken, no ice! An accountant I know adviced me that rather than DRINK Starbucks, I should purchase it! Her stock has doubled! If only I knew how to do that! Anyway, the point of this blog was not to remind you of the shame you felt the first time you visited the Oracle, but to point out that the developer's (if I have miscredited... please correct me) personal weblog is as interesting as the website. The entry a guide to understanding writers sounds like me the first time I tried writing something here in current place of employment!

Patio Party Review

Wednesday Nite, May 12 - Salsa Party at Patio - 9:00pm!

 

A friend and I arranged to meet at Patio (in the Neo 19 building near Warner Village) at 8:00 for dinner followed by a night of dancing. Patio is across the city from my office, so I left 30 minutes before the meeting time... One taxi ride later, I arrived to find out that I had caught my shirt on something and unravelled the bottom hem. Having come straight from work, I was already looking considerably less than salsa-sexy!  I ran to the nearest shop (Mango) to find a quick replacement. As Taiwan stocks only smaller sizes... and being as a few years in Taiwan (everything tastes better with a little pork fat, you know?) has increased my dress size, my options are limited. 5 minutes later and with my wallet considerably lighter, I run to Patio to see if G is there yet. She isn't. The host leads me to my table. We descend into a sunken retro pit! She shows me to my circular gray fuzzy chair with a view of the geometric white balastrades and the light patterns being projected on the ceiling. She also informs me that the live salsa band won't start until 10:00- an hour later than advertised! (On weeknights, every hour is precious)

 

G arrives and we order. The food was only mediocre, the prices were what I have come to expect in Taipei, but the service... Well I would really like to know what the service charge was for! Not only did the waiter repeatedly give the wrong dish to the wrong person and forget to bring us various necessary items, he dropped food in my friend's lap when clearing the table. Hmmm...

 

Anyway, 10:00 arrived (as did many of our "salsa friends") and we moved into the red lounge area to hear the "live salsa band". Hmmm... (again). In the first set, the band did not play a single salsa song! They started with a love balad, then a cumbia number, followed by cha cha cha and a Ricky Martin cover! We were actually looking forward to the band taking a break so we could have some salsa.... but it turns out the DJ didn't have even 1 salsa CD! Salsa Party indeed! We moved the party to Barrio before the second set started! And for all you Barrio fans, Barrio has started charging cover on Wednesday nights! ($300 NT)

 

Next Wednesday, I think I'll stay home and dance in front of the mirror to my iTunes collection.

 

 

 

Unit 2 - Wisdom from Charlie Chan

Above photo from:filmographie des serials

Theories like fingerprints... everybody has them.
Money talks. When money talk, few are deaf.
One enemy one too many.
Suspicion is only toy of fools.
To describe bitter medicine will not improve its flavor.
Too soon to count chickens until eggs are in nest.
To speak without thinking is to shoot without aiming.
Wheel of fate has many spokes.
Truth like oil, will in time rise to surface.
Small things sometimes tell big stories.
Problems rarely wait for clearing weather.
Praise in any language very sweet.
Make haste only when withdrawing hand from mouth of tiger.

These are some of Charlie's aphorisms. Actually, I don't know much about Charlie Chan and neither do my Taiwanese teacher friends. Yesterday evening was spend in a meeting in the office with our teacher friends reviewing unit 2. It startes off with a detective story. In every unit, we try to include some interesting fact about something related the the story before we move into more boring grammar exercises. In this unit, we chose a quote from Charlie Chan... but judging from the reactions, perhaps the teachers and students in Taiwan either have never hear of Charlie Chan... or are getting sick of overseas Chinese appearances: Henry C. Lee, Bruce Lee, etc... Is Sherlock Holmes more interesting? Or some fictional teen character: Hardy boys? Nancy Drew? Or the fact that there was no Caroline Keene (author of Nancy Drew) - the books were written by ghost writers? NO ideas what detectives are known to teenagers in Taiwan? Scooby Doo? How difficult might it be to obtain copyright to have a cameo appearance by Scooby Doo? Ideas anyone?

Great Big Sea - SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

Well, I am home now listening to Great Big Sea... furthering my education on Maritime music culture! Wow! Very local. The picture above was taken at the Nanaimo Ferry Terminal... but I haven't been to the Atlantic for awhile, so the Pacific will have to do. I can feel the salt water around my ankles as I listen to this. The sounds of Great Big Sea are sounds of skipping stones, but also of running through fields of Goldenrod, maybe throw in some thistles and a few dragonflies... there might also be a twilight whiskey party thrown in for good measure - simple, optimistic, and slightly colonial (can I say that?) Imagine acoustic guitars and concertinas... Together!

Canadian Content

Don't you hate those quizzes entitled, "You know you're ____ when..."? I especially hate it when I read them and find that I am obviously NOT what someone somewhere thought I might be. (Does that make any sense?) After 10 years of living abroad, this often happens. I mean, I only discovered that 24-7 wasn't the name of new convenience store about a year ago! And I don't know the names of any sitcoms that started after 1993 (aside from Sex in the City - HBO airs in Taiwan).

However, just today a repatriated expat (and true Canadian) now living in Vancouver sent me a CD by Great Big Sea. Item 27 on the "You know you're Canadian when..." list runs thusly: You think Great Big Sea isn't maritime-centric enough. Have you ever heard of a band from Newfoundland called Great Big Sea? I can't wait to get home and listen to it! I will review it on tomorrow's posting!

the Blood Queen

Well, truth be told, I think weblogging is a little hokey! I thought I would try this in order to have a means of keeping a journal... a task I am supposed to do for my Master's degree... and a pursuit I have had on hold now for nearing 2 years. Now over half a year has passed since I made my last entry and NONE of the entries have been about what I am studying! I was excited by blogging only when I found out that html coding was easy enough even for me - self-proclaimed technophobe.

Well, anyway, here I am again. The problem is that I have absolutely nothing profound to offer. I can only offer recent thoughts. Although I am no longer trying to learn Serbian online, I was searching for information on history and the arts in Eastern Europe (after having lengthy conversations re: such with the Russian wife of an American diplomat). Instead I came upon a story of Elizabeth Bathory, the Blood Queen of (what was then) Transylvania - a woman who believed the blood of young maidens was the secret to youth. This was a timely discovery as the movie Van Helsing just opened in Taipei. Normally, I dislike violent movies, but I am always interested to see in which new direction they will take the story each time. I am given pause to wonder what Romanians and Hungarians and all those living near the Carpathians think about what stories Irish Author Bram Stoker and the American film industry have saddled them with.