Dear Client,
Thank you for working with us during this past year. We will continue to be at your service in 2009. May this holiday season and the upcoming New Year be filled with joy, peace, and love.
Best wishes,
Debby
Tomorrow will be the Chinese New Year. Since I am going to celebrate it with all citizens in Taiwan, I think it is perfect time to talk about it.
There are various stories about Chinese New Year available online such as this (the design of the website is awful, BTW), and what I will blog about in this post is the real conditions in Taiwan.
The Lunar Calendar
As most people knows, the Chinese New Year is based on the dates on the lunar calendar, which illustrates the weather conditions throughout the year for farmers to take in mind. However, it is too hot for the advice on the lunar calendar to be valid. Still, people consult the lunar calendar to see if it is auspicious to get married, move to a new house, have a baby, etc. on a certain date.
This is what a lunar calendar usually looks like. —>
Traditionally, the Chinese New Year celebration lasts for 16 days (from New Year’s Eve to the Lantern Festival on the 15th of the first lunar month), yet workers here will only take six to seven days off. The holidays are already satisfying, and people often use the time to enjoy gurmate food, go sightseeing, or gamble.
Money
In addition to their monthly salary, employees here would also receive “year-end bonuses” for the New Year celebration. Companies working on high-tech products often compare the amount of bonus money given with one another, as if partaking in a competition.
Children also look forward to the Chinese New Year since adults are responsible for giving the former “lucky money,” wrapped in red envelopes.
Food
All family members must reunite and have a wonderful dinner together on New Year’s Eve. In order to purchase the materials for cooking the big meal, a lot of people jostle to supermarkets or shopping centers.
The meal must include fish. Other traditional dishes are “year-cake,” “long-year vegetables,” “prospering cake” (usually for worshipping ancesters), and so on.
Condemnation
Why
Because my duty
Was always to beauty
And that was my crime
–Depeche Mode “Condemnation”
How much does a person’s apperance count? Or, how much does a girl’s appearance count?
I attended a presentation by a local fashion magazine this evening. I was not really interested in its content and only went there for a free copy of the magazine and some testers of cosmetics. However, since I went there and there was nothing else that I could do, I watched the models (the students in our university) being put on sultry make-up. Then I realized that I still have a lot more to learn in ‘painting’ my face.
My feelings for cosmetics are still dubious, though. I’ve always admired natural beauties (sadly I’m not one of them) and found their appearances the most genuine and pleasant. People using too much make-up always gives me the impression that they are sort of wearing untruthful masks. Eventually people need to show their real faces to the world, and if their real appearances are a far cry from their make-up looks, what would their close friends think?
Yet, people need to work on improving their looks. Scientific studies also show that beautiful people have much more advantages than people who are not. Thus, wearing make-up is a necessary evil for unpretty people.
Cosmestics, however, cost a fortune if all the equipment, lotions, whatever, are needed. I can only choose a few to apply. Gee, the hypocricy! :p
Breaking down your will
To move in for the kill
–Depeche Mode “Sister of Night”
The election for mayors, magistrates, and MPs is held today. Every time an election is over the horizon, the Taiwanese society is extremely clamorous. All kinds of rumors, scandals would be going on, and talk shows would be excited to welcome such a chaotic time period since they will have a lot to talk about.
Half (perhaps less) of the Taiwanese citizens are tired of this unreasonable craze, while the other half are very passionate and intent on their political stance.
I am probably one of the people who are disillusioned. However, I am going to cast my first vote today. Who will be the next Taichung City thus should matter to me. Or perhaps not.
A new tragedy seems to be awaiting me as I log on to the “International News” section on Yam News every morning. During the past few days, accidents, atrocities, and chaos have suffused the international headlines. My heart bursts with pity and fear whenever I read about people perished from a plane crash, killed by an earthquake, or choked in a hideous forest fire. What is going to happen to the world? What is going to happen to me?
Conversely, people in Taiwan, my homeland, is miserably oblivious of what is going on in the world. Rarely do events taking place beyond the scope of the Taiwan district have their place in the TV news. People here are so caught up in the local personal drama, such as competitions between two politicians, or the identity of a celebrity’s new lover, that they take little heed of world events.
It is out of the question that people can live on without knowing world events in modern times. For one thing, the oil price has been rising at an unbelieve speed. Taiwan’s oild supply is dependent on the Arabic countries, similar to quite a few other places in the world, and therefore, people here has been suffering from the biggest inflation in decades. However, the media barely inform viewers of the reasons for this nuisance. leaving the common people only bitching and flickering, never sorting out a possible solution. Thus, the Taiwanese society is far from a blissful “plum flower paradise,” and things cannot be worse if we step out of the cage.
Moreover, apart from the economic achievements, which Taiwan is seemingly losing ground in recent years, the rest of the world would easily jump to the conclusion that Taiwan is merely a renegade provice of China, a small island with over-aggressive citizens. The only way for Taiwanese to ractify the misconception is to make contact with people from different country and to profess our rights. If we are unaware of anything out of the local sphere, the problem of our isolation would by no means improve.
As a result, here are the prominents events, or tragedies, that have happened from last week to today.
* North Korea decides to give up developing nuclear weapons in the six-party talk.
* Severe forest fire has been plaguing people in Portuguese.
* May people were killed or hurt amid the discords between gangsters in Guatemalan prison.
* Isrealian citizens are disatisfied with the forced evacuation of the Gaza Strip by the government.
* A powerful earthquake, measured 7.2 on the Richard’s scale, struck Japan on August 16.
* A Cyprus airliner crashed in the mountains in Greece, all 120 passengers perished.
* A Columbia airliner crashed in Venezuela, killing all 160 passengers.
* Three car explosion took place in Bagdad, killing at least 31 people.
* Tens of bombs exploded at once in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on August 17, wounded more than 100 people.
