Philip Chang

Why is Learning Chinese So Hard? Have I mentioned Chinese is hard to learn? Tens of thousands of words made up from thousands of characters. In fact, "one of the first signs of senility in a China scholar is the compulsion to come up...

Why is learning Chinese so hard? For one, it's tens of thousands of words made up from thousands of characters. A few other struggles from learning the language in Taiwan.

outerventions.substack.com/p/why-is-lea...

Looking for "A Sense of Quality" in Dating “Quality” is a confusing term and to our demise, we try to be exact. The Single and Looking pray for a wish list of traits, and in Taiwan, quite literally - we have a god for that, Yue Lao. Here’s why...

"A sense of quality," reads my friend's dating profile. I love it. My opinion on how that relates to us in Taiwan, and why wish lists and praying to the Chinese love god is less important than understanding who we are. After all, a list of traits can't predict compatibility (Finkel et al, 2012).

Long story short on Starlink and Taiwan, Elon wanted a kill switch on the Taiwanese internet. So signing with Starlink wasn't a good option.

Fantastic angle. Taiwanese resilience is much more than arming citizens. When it comes to cooling down... I figure it'd be just like it was a century ago. Haha.

Interesting point about how some Taipei neighborhoods use their civil defense budget; not sure how necessary the bonding exercises are. The quote I hung onto was, "if Taiwan cannot maintain external trade or understand how war will change our food life"

True. Good to hear The Hammer is still around… I need to check out more of the coffee shops in the area.

Oh no! The old neighborhood feel is why I love the Dingxi Yonghe neighborhood. There's enough high rises by the river.

Twenty Lessons for Fighting Tyranny | Carnegie Reporter Winter 2022 | Carnegie Corporation of New York Historian and Andrew Carnegie Fellow Timothy Snyder suggests ways to defend democracy with individual actions

"Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do." www.carnegie.org/our-work/art...

Appreciate this Taiwan list! Also, great to see Bluesky finally open up. Spending less time on X is a good thing.

Welcome Bluesky newcomers! If you'd like to add more Taiwanese and Taiwan-based content to your feed, subscribe to this list: bsky.app/profile/did:...

Population-Based Evaluation of Vaccine Effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 Infection, Severe Illness, a... Vaccine Effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2, Taiwan

Taiwan's CDC is publishing a huge retrospective study of vaccine effectiveness with their American counterparts. The homegrown protein subunit vaccine from Medigen proved to be just as effective as the high-tech mRNA imports. Taiwan truly could have helped!
wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/...

Photo of a dumpling with a trembling smile and two small black eyes caused by the sauce poured over. The eyes are positioned in such a way that the wrinkles in the dumpling look like worried eyebrows

tried to google trauma dumping but autocorrect changed it to trauma dumpling, the results however did not disappoint

I've been checking out Note.com. Like YouTube for Japanese blogs (you can use English). Character spacing is amazing if you appreciate that sort of thing (or write in Chinese / Japanese).

Also still working on my Notion, just to warehouse some professional basics.

Thanks, Will! I'll track it down. Or look for the chain smoking priests in Taipei. Haha.

Amazing... Haha. Is there an online version? Presently learning tâi-gí 台語, myself.

"Picking breakfast is not like picking a husband. Don't think too much about it." 選早餐不是選老公 不用想太久. Funny Taiwan breakfast menu.

"Picking breakfast is not like picking a husband. Don't think too much about it." 選早餐不是選老公 不用想太久.