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Wandering Guandu

I’m very slowly joining up dots between hiking trails around Beitou (北投) and further afield. To be honest, I’m still not completely sure of the boundaries of the Qinshan Hiking Trail (親山步道), a network of trails that appears to extend from Shipai (石牌) at it’s most easterly point, to Xinbeitou’s Zhongzhengshan (中正山) peak in the [...]
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Strait is the Gate

If you’re looking to have monuments in your honour erected all over the gaff, seizing power and attempting to establish a personality cult is the standard way to proceed. Sure, you could actually try to discover something, attempt a scientific breakthrough, an artistic achievement or undertake some other action in altruistic service of your fellow man, [...]
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Puji For Show, Shanguang For Dough, Though

Things have been turning Japanese of late. I really think so. Not on purpose, I promise – it’s just the way it’s panned out. However I play it, it hasn’t been going all that well for the poor, much-maligned Writing Baronessa. If I’m not being slapped upside the head by architectural buffs, armed with ingenious [...]
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Alphabet of the Gods

When I was but a minor pain in Mummy Writing Baron’s derriere, I couldn’t walk down the street to the newsagent’s to find out the Beano hadn’t arrived without meeting a nutter. When you meet a nutter on the streets of London, you acknowledge the nutter as just that. Round my way we had plenty. [...]
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Kukutsu: The Jungle Camp

Half an hour later, the old locomotive shuddered to a halt at a terminus. We found ourselves at a small village of Shinten, situated at the foot of some thickly wooded, mountainous terrain. The guards were back to their repetitive screaming and we were hurriedly ejected from the carriages. The last one out got the [...]
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Huazhai(花宅)/Zhongshe (中社) Village: A Vision of Early Han Life on Penghu

One can’t help but be taken with Huazhai (花宅). I was hit with one of those whatchamacallit shudders, somewhere between frisson and ASMR, as I crept through the ruins on the south side of the village just after dawn last month. Everything I’ve ever read (Jared Diamond, John Hemming’s Conquest of the Incas) on how [...]
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How to drink Kaoliang

Even if you are rock (or mental) enough to swill Kinmen’s 58 percent Kaoliang on a regular basis, you might not be aware that there is an etiquette to imbibing the firewater. Here’s the definitive guide from the experts in the field. The last step is by far the most important. Cheers to Ian Lin [...]
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Taipei Guesthouse (臺北賓館)

As I was walking out of the southern portals of 228 Memorial Park onto Ketagalan Boulevard on Saturday afternoon, accompanied by the Russian philologist Professor Viktor Gisin, whom I had bumped into as I made my way through the park, the sight of the ostentatious building on the corner with Zhongshan North jogged my memory. The Taipei [...]
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Flag fiasco shameful but respect begins at home

Let’s leave aside the issues I have with the “Taiwanese” flag in the first place and start by saying this: I think the removal of the flag from Regent Street yesterday was a poor show. I’m well aware of the rules of the game(s). I’ve had to endure my copy being changed to fit the International [...]
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Penghu: Friendly Faces at Every Turn

Taiwan is not short of friendly and accommodating people. But living and working in Taipei, you sometimes lose sight of this. Our recent trip to Penghu was literally and figuratively a breath of fresh air. Bar a couple of sullen sods in Wangan Islet, everyone we met on was incredibly hospitable and kind. On our [...]
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