Taiwanese women who wear a veil

I've noticed recently that more and more women are wearing sun visors in this position like a welder's mask or a veil. I once saw an attractively-attired woman with her visor down so that you couldn't see any part of her face. She looked like some kind of ridiculous she-cyborg. There are the mask-wearers too. Ostensibly, they are worn to keep away germies and other airborne nasties, but I'm not so sure that's the only reason. Some women seem to wear a mask (plus sunglasses) pretty much the whole time they are outside. I realize that many of these veiled women have spent a fortune on SKII and other expensive skin-whitening products and want to protect their investment - god forbid they should ever turn brown - but I'm convinced there's more to it than that. They are hiding behind a veil, an Asian Niqab, if you like. The reason I think they are hiding is based on my observation that attractive Taiwanese women, especially those dressed sexily, usually have a look of irritation on their face and appear to be in a hurry to get somewhere, or just away from "here". (Maybe it's just me that has this effect on women! ) So masks and visors provide the perfect way to hide, with the pretense that it's for "cosmetic" (irony alert) reasons. So what's the big deal? I don't know. It bugs me. Why are they shutting themselves off from the world in this way? I have no problem with people wearing sunglasses, but to cover the whole face,... it's odd, and I hope it's just a passing fad.

Ghost money. Rat's ass.

I never really gave a rat's ass about people burning ghost money until a new neighbor moved in a few months ago. The husband and wife run a fortune-telling service which requires them to burn ghost money... every... single... day. Not just one burner either; they have three and boy do they load 'em up. They have a folding table outside their store front piled high with wads of ghost money for the day's offerings. How fortunate for our neighborhood is that?

Fili wrote a post about ghost money burning back in March. He concludes that Taiwanese "will figure out their own way of balancing traditions with environmental issues ." Or, more likely, they won't. Fili may call his way of thinking optimism: I call it wishful thinking.

And isn't it interesting how burning ghost money is always framed as a Tradition vs. Environment debate? No, it's not interesting, not even to the tiniest degree . This tradition is getting up my nose, into my lungs, and very probably trying its damndest to give me cancer. I also have a wife and two sons whose noses, lungs and general wellbeing I happen to consider more important than a "cultural activity" as well.

Maybe Taiwanese really will figure out a way, but what I want to know is when? I'm holding my breath here! In fact, we should all be holding our collective breath. The correlation between high particulate air pollution and mortality and respiratory diseases has been well established. So please stop giving me this ludicrous false duality of Tradition vs. Environment. Just stop burning that shit already!

How TCM may actually be saving Taiwan's NHS a bundle

The most recent Skepdic newsletter contains mention of a report by the BBC on an intriguing scheme being undertaken by Northern Ireland's NHS involving referral of some patients to practitioners of complementary and alternative medicine with the NHS picking up the tab. While it may sound like a load of bollocks on the surface, the scheme promises to drastically reduce the amount of money spent needlessly on people who are not really all that sick, or who may benefit just as well from the placebo effect as from a costly drug.

Scott Sommers recently lamented on Kerim's blog that "no one who is truly ill uses [Taiwan's NHS]" and in another comment suggested that folk remedies available on the NHS represent additional costs. After reading about the scheme in Northern Ireland it struck me that the availability of traditional Chinese medicine on the NHS in Taiwan may actually be saving the government a bundle. Rather than over-prescribing prozac and other expensive pharmaceuticals of dubious efficacy, how's about a packet of dried fungus or a harmless session with an acupuncturist at a fraction of the cost? The patient feels better, the government saves money and the NHS remains in less debt than it would have been otherwise. Many Taiwanese use TCM almost exclusively for minor illnesses and non-illnesses. This is a good thing. The last thing we want is for them to be over at the real hospital being pointlessly prescribed pricey drugs. I never thought I'd hear myself say this but let's hear it for TCM on the National Health Service !

Update (2 March, 2009): This article describes some of the findings from the experiment in Northern Ireland. Eight-one percent of patients reported improvements in physical health after the treatments. So what if it's the good ol' placebo effect? It's saving money and people are happy! "The researchers concluded: 'Not only has this project documented significant health gains, but also the potential economic savings likely to accrue from a reduction in patient use of primary and other health care services, a reduction in prescribing levels and reduced absenteeism from work."