The NYT headline pretty much says it all: Doctoral Candidates Anticipate Hard Times. Of course, the economy has already run off a cliff and is currently plummeting and times are hard for everyone, but should prospective academics like myself and, I presume, many of our readers, be particularly worri...

I don’t know who had the insane idea to make a Japanese live-action version of Spiderman, but I’m just glad that it exists. And glad that Marvel has, for some reason, decided to stream episodes for free on their web site. There’s also a very odd Spiderman manga I’ve read a bi...

So I just missed my flight by a few minutes due to some dumbness, and after some messing around managed to get in touch with the booking office in Manila and reschedule for Sunday’s flight. There is a penalty/rebooking fee but only around $100, which basically cancels out the discount I’...

I had been vaguely aware that gays are more open in Taiwan than in Japan (more active gay pride festival, spotting a very cleary labeled gay bookstore near Taiwan University), but hadn’t consciously realized quite how different things are before reading this article from yesterday’s Taip...

The Taipei Times printed an interview the other day with Yu Bor-chuan of the Taiwan Pinyin League, and head of the team that designed Tongyong Pinyin. He is of course a heavy promoter of Tongyong Pinyin, saying that it is better suited to Taiwan than the internationally accepted but PRC originated H...

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve noticed three stories in the Taipei Times on the topic of preserving notable or historical architecture in Taiwan. Taipei County looks to rebuild site of weird UFO houses – I had actually written that I wanted to stop by this area and see the UFO houses...

The Japanese university model of education is in reality more like a European model in which most of the work is focused on seminars and final projects, and where most lectures and other courses are borderline optional. However, due to post-WW2 reforms the Japanese university system is institutional...

Jun Okumura, at his blog, has a long five-part series deconstructing NYT Japan correspondent Norimitsu Onishi’s recent article Japan’s Outcasts Still Wait for Acceptance. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 (Coda) Jun’s conclusions are, in short, that there were sufficient reasons o...

Get publically berated by a megaphone wielding uyoku member from the top of his black sound truck. Check. [Now updated with photos and explanation.] Having misplaced the mini-SD reader and lacking a data cable for my phone, I had to rely on email to move the photos a full 12 inches into my computer....

The mysterious death of former porn-star turned memoir author and TV celebrity IIjima Ai has been big news in Japan. I wouldn’t normally mention something like this due to lack of really caring much, but I was alerted to a rather interesting twist in a comment by Taiwanese TV Journalist Michel...