Some interesting facts:

• A number of my ABC friends' parents are in town this week to VOTE. I probably shouldn't mention names, but it's freakin' interesting, no?

• From the Taipei Times: "The publisher Time Inc on Thursday shut down its magazine Asiaweek, eliminating 80 jobs and one of the region's two big English-language newsweeklies." WOAH!

• I can't get used to this new "mature" haircut of mine. First of all, I hate layers and am wondering why I ever let the stylist do what he did. Both Sandin and Flora have taken a stab at "fixing it" for me. Ugh.

  

• Everyone is in motion. I won't start listing names here, but in the next 3-6 months, I'll be noting them here on my website as people's plans begin to solidify. It's crazy.

• The Internet was so slow today that I almost had a cow. So dependent are we on that one underground cable to access U.S. websites. Scary.

• Been going to the gym regularly but apparently the same PAIN in my stomach that I experienced two years ago has returned. Same problem, not drinking enough water. I've been trying to correct that but still.

  OUCH.

• The good news is, the weather in Taipei this week has been absolutely gorgeous. And, I'll be seeing my girl Cindy and friends in less than two weeks when I'm back in the bay area. YAY!

Everyone is talking about it. Just in the ABC crowd alone, so many who used to work or study here in Taiwan are now there, lots of the old CAPT members are there, and now many of the people I hung out with when I first got to Taiwan in 1995, they're all heading that way. It's so crazy!

And it's so tempting.

But I'm going only if I can do so with ORIENTED. However... a part of me kinda, sorta, wants to go there as a "writer" with this personal website of mine, to document the "experience" from the point-of-view of the whacky person that I am -- a half-Taiwanese, half-Mainland mutt of an American from the Deep South who speaks Mandarin as well as she codes html (half ass) with a totally retarded though occasionally comical view on life.

Anyone care to sponsor me?

Sure there are tons of people already there...
... but how many know how to SHAKE IT BABY?!

Toot toot!

But on a more serious note... I am personally very, very curious to know what the demand for bilingual Western professionals is in China -- versus the supply -- and how that is reflected by the increase of ABC returnees to the region, of non-ethnic Chinese professionals moving into the region, as well as the growth in enrollment figures at language training institutions across the board.

Non-ethnic Chinese professionals, unless in senior management positions, have their own set of advantages and challenges in trying to break into the Chinese workforce. Sociologists are going to have a FIELD DAY studying the dynamics of this and in comparing it with the integration of Asians into Western societies.

But for ABCs, CBCs, ABTs and CBTs (ack!) coming out to Greater China to take part in this this... THIS, I hear a different and yet familiar ring.

Reading, writing, and speaking abilities vary tremendously (and everyone has their own fair share of insecurities about all of the above), salaries suck in China compared to Taiwan, U.S., and elsewhere and yet it's the only place in the world with a growing economy (to go or not to go?), those with family ties here have it good in some ways but also carry varying levels of family BAGGAGE, and being "Taiwanese" -- or of Taiwanese origin -- poses yet another set of mixed blessings.

RIGHT?

Right!

One thing's for sure...

Having an R.O.C. passport makes life so much easier when traveling to and from China. We get what's called a TAI BAO-ZEN -- a special Chinese passport that allows us easier access to travel to and reside in China compared with any other "foreigner", because from the P.R.C.'s viewpoint --> "we" are a part of "them".

And yet what's so AMAZING to me are those FEW of us who weren't actually born in Taiwan but have managed to acquire an R.O.C. passport for whatever reason, and how these unexpected turn of events happening around us are now allowing us certain advantages that we would have never thought about before.

Words of wisdom, thoughts to ponder... by Christine Hsu.

I really need to stop pontificating as much as I do.

LOL!


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