The sharper edge to traveling in Asia

Archive for the 'Taiwan' Category

Thai crime scams: international crooks find a home in Thailand, authorities classify them by ethnicity and crime type

Thailand’s easy atmosphere has made it a home base for millions of tourists, but, according to Thai police, it’s also a haven for groups of international criminals. Amazingly, the police have mapped various ethnicities to certain types of crimes, according to an article appearing in the January 14, 2013 issue of the Bangkok Post. Here […]

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WoWasis product review: a wristwatch compass that’s efficient and inexpensive

Carry this great small compass with you whenever you’re in an unfamliar place

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WoWasis book review: ‘Sex at the Margins’ by Laura María Agustín

The author of this book on the prostitution “rescue industry” caught our eye here on a WoWasis blog post earlier this year, when we reported this comment in her own blog, quoted from a Thai women’s organization: We have now reached a point in history where there are more women in the Thai sex industry being […]

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How to avoid excessive phone charges when traveling in Asia

Avoiding excessive phone charges while traveling is easy. Here’s how…

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French silicone breast implant scandal thought not to include SE Asia

The scandal involving French implant company Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP)’s use of substandard, industrial silicone for breast implants concerns potentially tens of thousands of women in at least half a dozen European countries. So far, it appears that none of these implants, which reportedly are prone to rupturing, were distributed in Southeast Asia.  As reported […]

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WoWasis book review: Jay Taylor’s ‘The Generalissimo’s Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan’

In this book, The Generalissimo’s Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan (2000, ISBN 0-674-00287-3), Jay Taylor provides a fascinating history of the man who presided over much of the political modernization of Taiwan. Ching-kuo was, at one point, a communist student in the Soviet Union, and maintained ties there throughout his […]

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WoWasis book review: Jay Taylor’s ‘The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China’

As we here at WoWasis found when we visited Taiwan, English books on Chiang Kai-shek are damned hard to find. Chiang isn’t a very popular figure in many Taiwanese circles, which is why, as a bookstore clerk explained to us, books on Chiang would be found in the “China,” rather than the “Taiwan” section of […]

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WoWasis visits Taiwan’s Customs Museum in Taipei

One of Taipei’s more curiously odd museums is the Customs Museum. It sits in the highly secure Customs Building, so like we did here at WoWasis, you’ll need to call for an appointment. You’ll be given a tour of the museum by a uniformed customs official, and ours clearly enjoyed leaving the desk and pointing […]

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WoWasis book review: ‘A New History of Taiwan’ by Hung Chien-Chau

Noted Taiwan newspaperman Hung Chien-Chau (also known by his English name, Joe Hung) has admirably faced up to the daunting task of writing a history of his country in A New History of Taiwan (2011, ISBN 978-986-86637-3-2), an updated edition of his 368 page book of 2000. Hung is a veteran journalist who serves as […]

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WoWasis explores Taiwan’s rich indigenous aboriginal culture

Taiwan’s presence in the high technology world has given it an aura of modernity that somewhat masks the fact that it has an extraordinary richness and diversity of aboriginal peoples. These diverse tribes are all part of the Austronesian language group, which spans an incredible distance, from Madagascar to Easter Island, and Taiwan to New […]

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