But yeah, I gave up after a couple of paragraphs.

I swore i wouldnt reply to any of these but how does you confirming these steroetypes are widely held (in your area- you aint everywhere at once)improve the article?

troll?

I couldve done a lot better with the material given dont you think ?

also Flikr album IS worth a look

…except for the whole year of the Rat thing right? Just because you can string together a few smart sounding words doesn’t mean you’re intelligent.

I agree with the majority of the Neatorama commentators. It’s obvious that the guy didn’t mean any harm but the tone of the article is way more suited for someone’s personal blog, like a “hey friends check out my blog to keep up with me while i’m out of town” or a bi-monthly e-mail update.

The first part seemed rude and condescending. Has this guy never been to a Chinatown or Little Taiwan before?

‘kinell mate!

Please rename article: “Boring middle class American visits ‘Exotic’ Orient”

The Taiwan name for the drink is no less absurd though, being a direct sylable translation into five Chinese characters bao-kwan-li-shui-de, meaning treasure-minerals-power-water-get.

BTW, Pocari Sweat is awesome and if the name really scares you that much, you are the type that is best suited to just staying home and eating the safe stuff like Coke and Doritos. Man, I could really go for some CoolPis right now…

Taichung, Taiwan is one place I would like to go back and see.

Despite being labeled a “white supremist(sic)” by tiny-minded thought police in college, I have a great friend in the guy in the cubicle next to me: My Chinese co-worker is 29 and grew up in Hong Kong, which is relevant to another point in this piece. He’s a great guy, highly intelligent to boot, and particularly charming for his candid emphasis of the widespread nature of dog/cat consumption in Greater China (incl. Taiwan). He loves to regale us with such tales. But more importantly, he emphasizes the essentially universal belief in CTM (Chinese Traditional Medicine)-based principles such as that meat is healthier and more delicious if the animal suffered more in life and especially in death. Despite ten years in the US, he still is frankly perplexed at the disconnection by which we don’t understand that an animal’s pain is not /our/ pain. The Chinese have long thought Europeans quite barbaric for their identification with animals and their worship of the wilds.

I suppose a Chinese street vendor nonchalantly skinning a cat alive while loudly arguing the weight of cabbage can be compared with American rural novelty game such as Alligator, but less so when we grasp that it is no hateful slur to state the reality that the Chinese basically eat anything that moves. It is a simple, unfortunate truth that greater China’s predilection for exotic flesh facilitates the release of potentially deadly viruses from one species’ “biomass” into another’s, and eventually ours (certain notorious marketplaces are where each and every new influenza virus is born, for example). This careless Pandora’s-box effect will be much more than a matter of cruelty or cultural novelty when the wrong critter’s cage sits atop the wrong critter’s cage, and the resulting viral concoction finds its way into us all.

And I can also attest that Pocari Sweat (despite the odd name), is pretty good as fitness hydration products go (certainly tastier than Heed).

The “do they all look alike” thing did catch me off guard. Cmon, give people a little credit. Other than that it was a great post and I want to see more

For one, we serve a lot of rice here – at home. When you eat out, you would generally prefer something that is not rice, hence the rarity of rice on the streets. The small bowl of rice served on the side is actually a Japanese tradition, the Chinese tradition would be a slightly larger bowl for everyone on the table, while the meat and vegetables dishes are shared in the middle.

The observation that Taiwan in run by 7-11s is spot on, but the lottery ticket / sales receipt isn’t. People were always enthusiastic about them, since prizes actually range from $5 to about $60000. The problem is, there weren’t a lot of numbers to begin with (8 in the old days, I think), and now it’s down to 5. So a lot of people pretty much give up sifting through the piles of receipts and just give them to charity.

The subject of burning fake paper money (called gold paper) is a rather complex one, and different locales have different traditions on the matter. I’ll just focus on the religion and ethics part, and say that in Taiwan, religion and ethics are very much interwined, especially in the buddist tradion. Confucious just happened to be an interesting exception, rather then the rule.

The sidewalks are another interesting topic. If you would look carefully at the pictures, the sidewalks are divided into two parts, one UNDER the structure, and the other OUTSIDE the structure. The land under the structure belongs to the owner of the building — he is just required by law to recess the first floor of his building so there is more room for pedestrians to manuver around in Taiwan’s tight alleys. The part outside the building is public land, and should be nice and uniform like sidewalks anywhere. However, they are also normally choked full of parked motorcycles…

It is always nice though, to see people really taking the time to enjoy Taiwan in depth, not just skimming through Shilin market and Taipei 101, believing that’s everything there is to see.

Don’t know if you’ve been to Alishan (via train), Taroko gorge or Lanyu. These are MUST sees.

Some thoughts:
-As pointed out, your opening attacked your readers, which isn’t the strongest way to capture interest (some commenters even said they stopped reading right there). I felt it could have been moved to a different section, and more importantly, presented in a way that didn’t assume everyone reading was ignorant.

-The descriptions go on for too long at points, almost getting repetitive. Details are great, but concise readability is also important in blogging.

-By the end of the piece, the “what ever shall i write about next” part, actually felt mildly irritating instead of exciting. It slightly came off as “I’m so very well-traveled, cosmopolitan, and culturally aware- let me share my amazingness with you ordinary, ignorant folk.” I’m sure that wasn’t your intention, but the structure of the post, with the antagonistic intro and overall tone, set up your closing in this unfortunate manner.

In general, there was just this intangible feel to it that didn’t win me over. Most Neatorama posts feel like a comfortable conversation between the blogger and the audience: it’s a “Yeah, isn’t this neat/cool/ extraordinary? I knew you’d find it fascinating too!” Your writing style created a distance instead between yourself and the reader, like you were talking ‘at’ me, not with me.

That being said, there was some great content to the post that I found super interesting. I just thought I’d offer some humble constructive criticism on structure & style, especially since it seems you have more posts planned. (And the upcoming topics do sound fascinating). Thanks for bloggin’.

Those goofy asians! what will they do next? It’s like another world here! It’s crazy.

Of course I don’t generalize my opinion that ppl are ignorant. Obviously I met many more interesting and incredibly intelligent folks that I did ignorant ones.

And yes… stating a conversation by saying I wasn’t Hannibal Lechter would be a terrible way to make friends, but if I by chance were talking to one of those who believed in that, it surely would ease things up!

What I meant to point out is that we cannot generalize that everyone is as knowledgeable as some in this discussion who took offense in the tone of the article.

There are dumb people out there, for sure, but did you assume anyone you talked to was ignorant and start conversations by saying you weren’t a cannibal? I would hope not, because it’s a pretty terrible way to make friends.

I won’t speak for everyone who got annoyed here, but starting off the post by pointing out the falsity of an attitude held by only very very stupid and ignorant people really annoyed me.

As someone who has traveled extensively and lived overseas, I’ll chip in on two other topics. First, eating dog is not unheard of in mainland China, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were restaurants in Taiwan that will serve it up. It is a “delicacy”, and known to “increase your strength” (euphemism alert). The Chinese specifically raise the chow breed (no joke) for eating, like discriminating North Carolinians raise Berkshire hogs.

Second, rice is indeed a overwhelmingly common staple in Asia, more widely eaten than Bojangles on a Sunday in Raleigh. The Japanese words for breakfast, lunch and dinner are derived from the word for rice.

And yes, the tone of the article is a bit off-putting and assumes a lot of bigotry that may or may not be present.

And besides, who gives a crap, it’s food. It tastes good.

I was an exchange student in the US back in 1992-1993. Part of the program was giving speaches in schools about my country, culture, etc (I am from Brazil).

It was amazing to see how much knowledge students from 11th grade and above lack about other cultures. I had a senior ask me if in Brazil we rode vines to school, if there were alligators in the streets, if I was a cannibal. About cannibals, I once was asked if there were too many cannibals around here. I answered: “no, I ate the last one before coming here!”

I had adults too ask me the dumbest questions, which really show ignorance – and I am talking about people who were in positions were they should be more knowledgeable about foreign cultures. For instance, a teacher in high school asked me if Brazil was that tiny little country near Australia, whose capital is – are you ready? – Argentina!

Since then, I never overestimated what people know about other cultures, thus I belive the article was very well written. I believe the author’s intention was to leverage knowledge, because most people ARE ignorant about other cultures.

It’s a shame, it’s an interesting article, but you come off like an ass.