Taoyuan Nights

Let’s first take a look at the Taiwanese Government’s website about investing in Taiwan.
“Taiwan’s housing prices will rise 5-10% annually through 2010 at least, according to construction company and real estate brokerage executives speaking at a “real estate summit meeting” sponsored by the Taiwanese real estate magazine Zhu Zhan in early November. Some even […]

The Taipei Times refers to housing troubles in the north of Taiwan…
Finally, it seems like we’re there. The number of house sales is continuing to collapse (minus 15% taipei, minus 30% taichung in just one month) at what should be one of the best times of year for sales in most cultures. In other words, […]

My mum came to Taiwan for 2 weeks recently to visit me and see a little of the island.
She had a great time - all my friends were really nice to her, and helped me to show her some cool places. I saw a few new places myself, too..

Mum, Leila, Ethan, and their children, shopping […]

I wrote last October that I thought Shanghai’s stockmarket had reached truly epic levels of silliness, with price to earnings ratios being many times higher than that of developed countries, but with considerably higher risks and not obviously higher rewards.
Since that post, the Shanghai stockmarket has fallen almost 50%.
The FT article (linked above) is quite […]

I wrote a post about how it seems that the desire for friendship, purely for the sake of friendship itself, sometimes seems to be considered shameful in Taiwanese society. Instead, it feels like you must have some ‘justification’ for seeking contact with other people - research, language exchange, employment or whatever. Dating seems to be […]

Don’t worry, this blog is still alive, and so am I.
However, I have an illness that has meant I’ve been spending a little time in hospital, and getting plenty of rest. I’ll post more as the doctors find out more about the illness. I can say though that the preliminary results are reasonably encouraging, […]

Presently, the Red House in Ximen district is hosting a digital art exhibition, “Openplay“, which is free for the public to visit. The artwork includes graphical, audio, video, physical and interactive exhibits. The exhibition is open until Sunday, from 2pm in the afternoon till 10pm in the evening (Saturday) or 9pm (Sunday). You can play […]

The Taipei times has an interesting article today about franchising in Taiwan. For those of you who don’t live in Taiwan, it might be useful to know that the country is nuts for franchising. Every street seems to have the same set of shops. I didn’t realised that these tiny franchised breakfast shops I see […]

Michael Turton recently visited Ming Chuan University’s Taoyuan campus, to give a special lecture about his views on Internet Journalism and Social Activism. Scott Sommers was there too, to join in the fun.
Read more about his experience (and see some wonderful photos) here!
Thanks Michael!

Michael, Scott, Graeme (thanks to Eva Wai).

You may remember that I blogged a few times about how crazy the Shanghai stockmarket had become, back in March. Well…. it’s not been sitting around twiddling its thumbs. It’s now a full 70% more crazy. The profits being reported are now largely fictitious. Companies are reporting increases in shareprices of companies they hold, as […]