"Crammed School"

There are countless cram schools in Taiwan but this is the first 'crammed' school I've ever come across. At least 'Teacher Kung' is honest about wanting to squash as many students as possible into his school.




The images obtained from Lucas's scan "might be consistent with acute pyelonephritis associated with the upper lobe of the left kidney." It can be treated by a 10-day course of antibiotics. After the VCUG scan tomorrow he can come home. We can't wait. Lucas has lost his voice from crying. The nurses call him The Melancholy Prince (憂鬱王子), which is exactly the same nickname that the nurses at Dr. Ding's gave him!

Kidney scan

Lucas had a kidney scan yesterday morning.


Fortunately, he was asleep the whole time - about 20 minutes.

Some amusing things I came across today

Lucas is still in the hospital. He hasn't yet had the test that I mentioned earlier. He will have that on Monday. We have to be present for that test - don't know why that is. Tomorrow he will have a kidney scan (DMSA, I think.) Doc says he should be back home no later than the 4th of August.

Ran some errands today and came across some funny signs and things. I took a picture of this shop while waiting at the traffic lights. The Chinese says: Deep-fried Chicken Research Centre. Ha! I'm sure it's meant as a joke. That's a good way to promote your restaurant. Perhaps the director of the research centre is called Professor Yo (which sounds like 'grease' in Chinese).





More nappies for Lucas. You would think that the makers of this nappy would look up the word Goon in an English dictionary before naming their product.




This KMT city councillor really really wants your vote! Local election ads are usually a real 'eye-bore' but at least this one's eye-catching.

More tests, more milk

Lucas is actually gaining weight in the hospital by the looks of it. The nurse says he regularly puts away 120cc of milk. Go Lucas! Today he needs to have a Voiding Cysto-Urethrogram. Sorry Lucas - you're going to have to have an injection for that! I'm only glad I don't have to watch.

Lucas getting better

We showed up for the evening visiting time on Sunday but found out that actually we're only allowed to visit in the morning. At least we were able to give the nurse some bottles of K's breast milk.

The baby next to Lucas has meningitis! Despite the doctors’ repeated assurances that Lucas wouldn't catch meningitis from that baby, I still felt worried about them being so close to one another so they moved Lucas to the window spot. In this picture you can see K talking to the doctor in the background.

L's infection is 'quite bad’so he will have to stay in for a week for observation. His temperature rose slightly above normal yesterday but it soon came back down again. He's drinking plenty of milk which is good to know. We can't wait for him to get better and come home again. It's hard especially when we're always seeing his bottles, clothes, carrycot and other stuff around the house.

Poor Lucas has urinary tract infection

Lucas had a fever last night of 39.2 C. After trying to bring his temperature down ourselves we thought it best to take him to the emergency room of Jen-Ai hospital, which is just down the road. He had some overnight tests and was found to have UTI, urinary tract infection.
He'll have to stay in for a week, possibly two, depending on how bad it is. They want to do a further test to see if the cause of the infection is an abnormality of the urinary tract. I hope that is not the case because it would involve long-term complications and possibly an operation.
Poor Kelly was very distraught last night, and it was pretty upsetting for Jason as well. It feels so strange not to have him in the house with us. Visitors are only allowed in to the baby ward for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. Going to take a nap now - we didn't sleep well last night so we're exhausted.

The whole Taiwan crew (minus Ah-gong)

Actually, this was taken last weekend. The whole family converged on our house, except Ah-gong who had to work. It's quite rare for everyone to be in the same place, when it's not Chinese New Year, that is.



From left to right we have Kelly's youngest brother (Yi-der), J, K's mum, K+L, K's younger brother (Joe) and K's second-youngest brother (Yi-long). Yi-long is staying with us at the moment; he's preparing to take entrance exams for graduate school next month - electronic engineering, I think.

Cool typhoon pics

Taiwan blogger Mesheel has posted some great pics of the recent typhoon from Chinatimes dot com. I'll link to them later.
Click here to view more typhoon pictures.

Sweet dreams, Lucas

Lucas, asleep as usual.

Jason and Yi-der

Yi-der is Kelly's youngest brother. He is 4 months into his compulsory military training at the moment and popped down for the weekend. He used to be just a little bit tubby, but as you can see, the army has helped him trim down considerably.
Yi-der likes his cell phone.



And don't you just love Jason's wacky orange glasses?

Go Taiwan!

Just came across these remarkable stats. Taiwan is number 1 or number 2 in the following industries:

#1 Provider of chip foundry services, with 70% of the world market worth $8.9 billion

#1 Provider of notebook PCs, with 72% of the world market worth $22 billion

#1 Provider of LCD monitors, with 68% of the world market worth $14 billion

#2 Provider of servers, with 33% of the world market worth $1.8 billion

#2 Provider of digital still cameras, with 34% of the world market worth $2 billion

#1 Provider of PDAs, with 79% of the world market worth $1.8 billion

Pretty darned impressive, I'd say.

And here's an interesting table I found at businessweek.com which compares Taiwan's and the PRC's basic economic data.


I wonder what the U.K.'s per capita GDP is. It can't be much higher than Taiwan's - might even be lower! OK, I just checked. The CIA World Factbook says that UK per capita GDP (purchasing power parity, whatever that means) in 2004 was $29,600. But hang on a minute - it says that per capita GDP for Taiwan was $25,300 in 2004. Not that far behind the UK. But when it comes to reserves of foreign exchange and gold, Taiwan blows the UK out of the water: $246.5 billion compared to $48.73 billion.

Interesting to note that 17% of Britons are below the poverty line compared to only 1% in Taiwan. A huge difference. Unemployment is almost the same at just under 5%.

Kitchen lizard

This beautiful creature came to visit us in our kitchen this morning and was kind enough to stay still while I took some photos. I suspect he came in to hide from the typhoon which gave our backyard a good bashing. An old, 2m tall tree fell down but it didn't cause any damage.

Alice and Ebay-itis

Everyone in England is selling stuff on ebay at the moment. Unwanted crapola that has been accumulating in bedroom cupboards and attics over the past god-knows-how-many decades are being dusted off, photographed and posted up on the UKebay site. Basically, ebayUK has become one giant car boot sale. In fact, people are even going to car boot sales and buying in bulk just so they can resell it on ebay.

Which brings me to Alice, a full-blown case of ebayitis if ever there was one! Check out her stuff here.

Proctological ventriloquist talks about Chinese chess

[I wrote this at the weekend after reading a cheesbase article which kind of irritated me, so this is just me getting it off my chest! Read on...]

I like Western chess and I like Chinese chess, but I what I don't much like is when people start saying that one is somehow better than the other. This is a futile exercise, like arguing that apples are superior to oranges or vice versa.

A recent article at chessbase.com, probably the best and most influential chess site on the net, was an interview conducted with a real stick-in-the-mud Chinese professor who, for the most part, talked a whole load of crap.

Here are some choice nuggets from parts I and II of the interview.
Professor Li believes that:

1. Chinese chess is harder than Western chess.
2. Western chess should be renamed 'Queen-qi'. He's serious about that.
3. The main reason that most Western and Indian scholars dispute his claim that chess originated in China, not India, is 'Western arrogance'.
4. There is a lack of action in Western chess.
5. The use of figurine pieces in Western chess has focused attention on the artistry of the pieces and diverted attention away from the artistry of playing the game.

Reading the interview, it really makes me wonder to which end of Professor Li the interviewer, Dr. Rene Gralla, was holding the microphone.

Prof Li is dead against using figurine pieces in Chinese chess. It's not clear if he means in all games or only in international games. I can understand his resistance to the idea when the game is played at grandmaster levels, but what better way to promote the game outside of Chinese-speaking nations? He says he feels it his duty to promote Chinese culture but he definitely has a chip in his shoulder about 'Western cultural imperialism'.

Photo by Christoph Harder

Jason's Hello Kitty magnet obsession

It's getting out of hand. Really. What started out as a harmless amusement has turned into something that's almost pathological!

Here's an example from a conversation I had with Jason about a week ago. Jason often asks me difficult questions which I try my best to answer in terms that I think he might understand. He's asked about all sorts and last week it was about why some countries have a King or Queen as opposed to a President.

Daddy:......France used to have a King and Queen a long time ago but then some people said 'hey let's have a President instead'. Then there was a big war between the people who wanted to have a King and Queen and the people who wanted a President.
Jason::......Did they use jet fighters? [OK, I made that bit up.]
Daddy::......No, they caught the King and Queen and cut off their heads.
Jason::......Did it hurt?
Daddy::......I don't think so.
Jason::......Did they give them an injection? [J often talks about injections.]
Daddy::......Nope. Just cut 'em off. Then they had a Pres...
Jason::......Can we go to 7-Eleven to get a Kitty magnet?



Oh, and if anyone out there has either of the two that he's missing, the special '30-year' ones (he did have one of them, the round white one, but lost it!), then please let us know.
Maybe then we'll find some sort of 'closure' - ack, I hate that expression - for this whole damn Kitty thing.

[Update, 21 July, 2005. He's got them all now. He found the one he'd lost and the nice man at the fried rice store on the corner donated the elusive last 'special' one.]

The Wilds brothers!

Xiao-jen suggested I post a picture of Jason and Lucas together. Not a bad idea.
Here's the 'before' picture (with a Picasa-induced tint.)



And the 'after' picture (tried a focal B+W for this one):



Kelly thinks they look creepy. Do you think so? This is ART, you hear? ART!

My letter to the Taipei Times

[Update: Yaaay!!! They printed it!]

A couple of days ago, the notorious gangster Chang Hsi-ming was captured after a shoot-out with police in Taichung county. He was shot four times in all and rushed to hospital. Television viewers were then treated to a farcical scene in which a colossal crush of cameramen and reporters jostled alongside Chang's trolley as doctors tried to move him through the hospital to receive treatment.

I rattled off a quick letter to the Taipei Times pointing out that this situation has to change. Call me naive but it just isn't right. Incidentally, this is the first time I've ever written to a paper.

Dear Sir/Madam

Watching fugitive Chang Hsi-ming being admitted to an emergency department in Taichung county on the TV news last night, it was readily apparent that doctors were being severely hampered in their attempts to move their critically-injured* patient through the hospital. The wildly chaotic jumble of cameramen, photographers and news reporters thronging around Chang's hospital trolley was a sight to behold.

The media have no place in hospitals. Apart from privacy issues, the media are all too often getting in the way of doctors who are trying to give life-saving treatment to their patients. Hospital security staff have little chance against the frenzied hordes of media persons who regularly force their way into hospitals to harass patients and medical staff.

Therefore, the Department of Health should send a warning to TV stations and newspapers that this behaviour will not be tolerated. In the interests of health, safety and privacy, the media should be kept out of all hospitals and clinics, with no exceptions. Sincerely,

[*Actually, he wasn't critically injured but that isn't the point.]

So what are the chances of it being printed? None whatsoever.
Look at this picture which wasn't up at the time I sent the letter: Taipei Times photographer, Liao, Yao-tung, right slap bang in the middle of the media scrum!

Tang Shan noodle shop

One of my favourite restaurants in the neighbourhood. It's very popular with the university students. The boss can 'shave' the noodles for you any way you like: thick, thin, wavy. Me, I like 'em chunky.

New title, and hopefully a new banner

'The Wilds of Taiwan' is a vast improvement on 'Daddy's photos' don't you think?
This is the banner image I was trying to put in the template earlier, but I can't for the life of me remember how I did it. I'll see if I can fix it over the weekend.

Arrgghh! I've messed up the Template!

I've been trying to replace the banner image in the template which I thought would be a simple process, but I've succeeded in screwing up the whole thing. Please bear with me!

Jason Gretzky

At one point we were going skating almost every day but we've cut back of late to several times a week. Usually we are the only people there. Great fun, great exercise.

Rollerblading

Here Jason's saying, "Enough pictures, Daddy. Let's play hockey!"

"English is an inferior language"

Pinyin news » “Crazy English” and Chinese nationalism:
' "English is merely a tool for earning money. It’s an inferior language that relies on an alphabet with just 26 letters. How can it even compare to our language, with a sea of Chinese characters?”
So cackled a loudspeaker recently on the grounds of a junior high school in a tiny town in China’s southern Hebei province.'

Scary stuff. Incidentally, this is a great blog about Chinese languages and related issues.

Stretched babies

The first line of this Telegraph article made me laugh:

"Seven in 10 special care baby units have been forced to turn away babies at least once in the past six months because they are so stretched, a report claimed yesterday."

Stretched babies

Another nice Taiwan photoblog

Came across another nice set of photos by Leslie, a Canadian English teacher who lives in Yuanlin, central Taiwan.
(Click here to see her photo archives.)

She also has a nice photo blog (Click here.)
In my opinion, Leslie isn't such a whizz when it comes to using Photoshop to create what I think she is intending to be a natural effect. At best this makes some photos look 'over-processed', at worst, it makes them look like they were taken by a cheap digital camera.
She uses a Nikon D70, which is a very nice 'prosumer' camera. My own point-and-shoot camera, Canon Powershot SD400(the 4 megapixel version), takes great pics but sometimes produces shots in which the oranges are a little too bright. I thought this was because it's not a pro camera but if you look at Leslie's shots you can see the same 'too brightly orange' effect as well. I've also noticed it in a Reuters photo so it must be a feature common to all levels of current digital photography.

Here's one of her best pictures.



Below is a recent photo from her photoblog. It shows great plumes of highly toxic smoke from the recent fire at a chemical production plant in Taichung. Click here to read about it in the Taipei Times. I'm glad I don't live anywhere near Taichung industrial park! Cough, cough.

Wednesday weirdness

Got a great question:
"What is the answer to this question?"

[More weird questions at Wednesday Weird Ones].

Lucas in his carrycot

The little snoozemeister grabbing a quick nap right before his bathtime. Sleeping for most of the day must be very tiring work.








And this is where lil' Lucas spends much of his time when he's not guzzling milk or peeing on his parents. He's recently discovered though that it's much nicer to be held by either Mummy or Daddy than hang around in the carrycot all day, and will let you know about that in no uncertain terms!

Google Earth

If you surf the Net regularly you'll surely have come across Google Earth by now. If you haven't then you're in for a treat because Google Earth is, in a word, cool. Very cool in fact. It's easy to download and install, and great fun to play around with.

Have a look at the online version of Google Earth which is available at Google Maps. Here is a section of Taichung-Kang Rd (Taichung Harbour Rd. 台中港路) just outside the city. If you follow it along to the right it becomes blurred when you reach Taichung city so you can't see my house. You can see the Metropolitan park and Dong-hai university if you follow the road scrolling to the left (okay, that would be westward if you want to get all geo-technical on me).

When you visit the Google Maps site you may need to zoom out before you can zoom in on another area. For some reason when I go to the Google Maps site I am presented with a map of the U.S. First, you have to click 'satellite' then zoom out to see the whole world. Next, double click on the area you're interested and zoom in agaiu.

Here are the Bermuda Isles where I was born. You can really zoom in close to see a lot of detail.

Weird!

Check out these two screen shots:




I was in the middle of composing an email to a friend explaining how to insert embedded links by clicking the green button, the one third from the left when it occurred to me that it may look different using Internet Explorer or using the Chinese langauge version of the Blogger site. I was right.

Look - you can't post bold, italics, links, block quotes, spell check or direct uploads of images. At the moment I am not sure if this is a Blogger issue or an Internet Explorer issue. Anyway, I recommend Taiwan bloggers use the English version of the Blogger site. You can still post using Chinese characters and, as you can see from the screen shots, the English version is more useful.

Taiwanese boy wins World 9-ball Championship

I am not a big sports fan by any means but when it comes to snooker I can stay glued to the TV for hours on end. As for pool, I tend to only watch when the really famous players like Earl Strickland are playing.

Last night was the final of the World 9-ball Championship. It was especially interesting this year as it was being held in Kaohsiung, the 'capital' of southern Taiwan, and the two finalists were Taiwanese. I caught the game at 11 games each and it was a very exciting game as both players edged towards 17 racks.

It seemed to be all over when Kuo reached 16. He only needed one more rack with Wu trailing by three (or was it four?), then - disaster - Kuo blundered a safety shot and the Taiwan Kid (!) came back to win the next four racks and win the title. Yeah!! He had some good breaks but also had to pull off some difficult shots to stay in the game.
In the final rack, three balls away from winning, he sat down to have a drink of water provoking a ripple of laughter in the audience. Then on the final nine, which was relatively easy, he asked for the rest! I don't blame him; he must have incredibly nervous.

I thought it was clever how the camera kept cutting to Wu's grandma and Kuo's girlfriend in the audience to gauge their reaction. I really thought Wu grandma was going to have a heart attack in the final rack. It was great too watching him run over to his grandma afterwards and having a good old cry. Awww! The Kaohsiung mayor even shed a tear. [Article and a couple of nice pictures here.]

One thing that did spoil the occasion a little was the lousy commentary. Steve Davis was okay but some of the others were unbelievably crass. One particularly asinine comment went something like: "He's only a boy, but if he wins here tonight he's going to be a giant among men." I'm not making this up.

So there we have it. The youngest World 9-ball Champion ever. Hooray for Taiwan!

Here's another article about Wu's victory.

"This little piggy went to market..."

Bath time

He usually has a little cry at first but then he seems to quite enjoy his bath. Yesterday he even briefly nodded off to sleep as I was bathing him.
Like Jason when he was this age, Lucas has perfected the art of peeing just when I've got him all nicely washed and dried. I swear he can aim as well.

Wanna hear an 'Incredibly' cute story?

Before I tell this nice little anecdote, I'd like to thank Xiao-jen's mother-in-law for bringing round a delicious broth of pig's feet and peanuts that she had made for Kelly. She was worried that it might taste bland because she didn't add any salt or MSG but it tasted wonderful - I know because I tried some!

OK, the story. Dash is a character in the computer-animated movie, The Incredibles. He can run super fast, so fast, in fact, that when he's participating in sports events at school he has to slow down so as not to reveal his 'Incredible' power.

Xiao-jen's 6-year-old nephew, Chuan-chuan, pictured here, likes to pretend he is Dash and spends much of his time running around at great speed. His P.E. teacher was therefore quite surprised when he didn't do very well in a race at school. He asked him why he didn't run faster. Chuan-chuan replied that, like Dash, he couldn't reveal his super speed to others!
Now isn't that the cutest story you've ever heard?

How about the odd cartoon once in a while?

Made me smile.

A fantastic Taiwan-based photoblogger

I was browsing through some 'Taiwan' tagged Flickr photos (there are 55,000 !) this evening and I came across a wonderful set of photos by a Flickr member called alidarbac. I heartily recommend having a browse through his photos. In his profile he links to his photo blog ('A better tomorrow'). This guy obviously has quite a talent for taking pictures (and is a skilled photoshopper as well it would appear!)
Most of the pictures seem to have been taken in Taiwan. Makes me want to go out and get myself a nice big ultrazoom camera or a digital SLR even.
Click here to view photos from 'A better tomorrow.'
p.s. It's also well worth checking out his pbase photo collection. Many of them are 'repeats' of photos shown in the collections mentioned above but there are plenty of new ones as well. Click here to view Wayne Cabradilla's pbase photos.

[ photoblog ] [ taiwan ]

Lucas vs. Jason

{I've had to go back and airbrush out the time of birth. Kelly says it's bad luck to show both the date and time of birth together. Nice one, Daddy.)

Dr. Ding, Hong-chr

Here's Dr. Ding in his office. I'd been trying to find the right moment to ask for his picture but one never came until K went back a few days ago for a post-natal check up.

Oh!

Here's a larger version of the only picture that's actually in focus. You can see he has dry skin, especially his forehead, but that's normal for newborns according to doc Ding. I'll post a pic of him in a minute.