Prangster in Chicago

Inconvenient truth

I have two tall stacks of glorious magazines on my shelf here in Taipei. I am proud of them. They are special to me. But as someone living in a very small room with limited space for dust-collecting objects, I need to get rid of them. Yes, so I have space for more magazines in the future.

I should just throw them into the recycling box, I know. But what a waste. There's still a lot that's readable and entertaining in these magazines. I want to pass them to others. So what if the issues are from last year, or maybe even last last year? They can still be enjoyed. The writing is still good. The articles still interesting. The humor still in tact. But you know how some people can be...

"Ew, this magazine is from 2005! Information from the past! I'm going to vomit!"

When I was in studying in Paris, I lugged a ridiculously heavy canvas bag filled with issues of GQ and Details from my dorm to Amsterdam so I wouldn't have to throw them out. (I was visiting a friend there. I'm not completely insane.) I gave the magazines to that friend. I don't know if he ever read them, but I felt better knowing they were being passed to someone else. Or at the very least, someone who was a guy and could read. The rest was out of my hands.

On my last trip to the States, I brought back just over 20 magazines. I've lent them to friends, old co-workers and my dad. (Dad read the Fortune and the 2007 issue of People's Sexiest Men Alive.) Next, these magazines will travel with me back to Sydney so I can lend them to other friends. So yes, Simone, you'll have the People in your hands soon.

Considering the amount of paper used to print them, I think magazines deserve a longer lifespan than just one week or one month. And each issue should be read by more people instead of most buying their own copies. Maybe there could be a concept like magazine carpooling, so if two people co-sign one magazine subscription, they get a discounted rate. That said, however, subscriptions prices in the States are dirt cheap as it is.

I understand the point of magazine publishing from a business perspective is to have high circulations, but that's in conflict with the environmental obligations of media corporations. I recently came across an article about the magazine publishing industry that was pretty sad. I can't find it right now, so I found another article on the same topic that's even more scary.

Here's an excerpt:

The amount of paper wasted each year by the magazine industry is truly astounding. Of the 4.7 billion magazines sent to newsstands every year, only 35 percent of them are actually purchased.  That means 2.9 billion magazines are thrown out without having been touched by a reader.

"Most of the magazines are printed on virgin wood paper," explained John Anner, Executive Director of the Independent Press Association.  "The trees are cut down, turned into magazines, immediately sent to the newsstands, and then go directly into the waste stream.  Whether they are recycled or not doesn’t matter that much if all this waste is for no other purpose than cutting down forests," he added.

The study offered other sobering figures.  Of the approximately 12 billion magazines printed annually in the U.S., over 95 percent are printed on 100 percent virgin paper. That results in more than 35 million trees being cut down each year. 

Approximately 90 percent of those magazines are discarded within a year of publication, and only about 20 percent of these are recycled.  That results in over 9 billion magazines being incinerated or landfilled yearly.

Knowing all this, the right thing to do would be to only buy magazines that are made from recycled or partially recycled paper. And I guess, to just read everything else at the newsagent or bookstore. 

I was just thinking a few days ago that if I move to the States, the first thing I'd do is subscribe to a dozen magazines. Now I guess I better rethink that. Maybe I'll start or join a magazine co-op instead. A group of people who share magazine subscriptions. Or I'll live with people who like the same ones as I do.

There must be a better, guilt-free and environmentally responsible way to read print magazines. Someone's got to think of something sooner or later.

The Peacemaker

Came across this "graffiti" in an alley off Zhong Xiao E. Rd. The panda seems to have some kind of patchy skin condition.

Mum is...54!

Dad and I have decided to make it a tradition to celebrate our birthdays at the unreal and fancy Mitsui japanese restaurant. Actually we've done it for a few years already, but now we are setting it in stone. Or actually, I'm setting it in stone myself and Dad supports my decision to do so. Oh, I just thought of something: if one of our birthdays is accidentally spent out of Taipei, the three of us must have a make-up meal at Mitsui. I'm going to bring this up tomorrow.

Here are photos taken when we ate there on Wednesday night for Mum's 54th birthday. Sitting behind Dad was this couple who ordered two servings of gorgeous uni nigiri. But when the girl put the uni into her mouth, she had this expression on her face like she'd just bitten into a sweat-soaked sports sock. That made me really want to kick her in the face.

(Actually it's the girl in the far left of the above photo. Her face totally looks kickable, doesn't it?)

New year catch-up

This past weekend, Mum, Dad and I brought in the Year of the Pig with a round-robin marathon of family dinners, alcohol and gambling in Taipei.

The meal of note was dinner on New Years Day hosted by my great-aunt and uncle on my mum's side. They booked 5 round tables seating 10 each at their favourite Chinese restaurant, Shanghai Shanghai on Min Sheng E. Rd. Then they allocated each table its own bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. This meant our meal was continuously intercepted by table-hopping relatives as they made the rounds to wish each and every extended family member a prosperous new year. And how else do you wish someone happy new year but with a shot of pure whiskey?

In a twisted interpretation of the concept "respecting your elders", younger generations at dinner had to "gan bei" or take the full shot when toasting their elders, who can sip as much or as little as they like. But in the spirit of the new year, everyone drank happily and ridiculously, egging on those who hadn't drunk their share yet, until all that was left on the tables were empty bottles and stinky puke. (Just kidding, those who puked made it in time to the bathrooms.)

For my part, I must have had 10 shots during the first half of dinner (such is the deep respect I have). I spent the latter part of the dinner sitting quietly and red-faced, sipping soup and eating dumplings, watching the drunks get drunker and their gibberish grow ever more gibberish-y.

After the whiskey-fest, everyone loaded into taxis and headed to my great-uncle's apartment for gambling and tea. There was the prerequisite mahjong table, another table with the card game called "13 cards" for the older folk and a game of Texas hold'em poker upstairs for the younger set. I started off well at poker, winning NT$800, but once more people joined in, I lost it all and then a further NT$500. Oh well. In the last game before I went home, I saw a pair of aces lose out to a two and three, so it was definitely time to call it a night.

I'm not big on family reunions because I rarely see my extended family in Taipei, but it was nice to join in the celebrations and see the colours of Chinese New Year here.  I think even if I settle overseas in the future, I'd still like to make it back to Taipei once in a while for the New Year family gathering. One thing is for sure though, any boyfriend or husband who comes along has got to like whiskey.

An oink oink new year

I realize we're celebrating Year of the Pig and all, but are these two really the most appropriate New Year mascots The Body Shop could come up with?

Arigato, Mr. Miyagi

How cute is this? She bows her head like gentle waves lapping at the shore as she offers freshly packaged cracker treats to passing shoppers. I like her shiny hair and eye makeup.

I'm not gloating, I promise

I have photos from my primary school days in Sydney, maybe around when I was nine. In those photos, I would say I look tanned. Not tanned like I spent every weekend at the beach, but tanned like I'd been marinated overnight in a blanket soaked in light soy sauce. I looked normal and mixed in well with all the other kids. It was nice. Then when was about 15 or 16, I started to Michael Jackson. My ability to tan was gone and I became ghostly pale.

To my critics (i.e. my friends), this was unattractive, unhealthy-looking and very un-Sydney. Everyone else in those days was roasted to a nice Jessica Alba color, while my limbs were nicknamed "Plastic Legs" and people pretended they required visors and protective eye gear on the days I wore shorts out of the house. It was a bad situation. I still recall some of my first experiences with fake tan. One morning I slapped tanning lotion up and down my arms before running out the door, only to roll up my sleeves hours later and expose what looked like elbow-length gloves in a crazy, avant-garde orange and white design. I had to sandpaper those gloves off with a loofah when I got home. Another time I fake-tanned my legs, but not high enough to reach the hem of my school uniform. That was a really bad look, but because everyone avoided looking at my legs I think it slipped by unnoticed.

In Taipei however, it's always been a parallel dermatological universe. Women aspire to look pasty. When I used to come back during summer vacations, I heard stuff like, "Wah! Your skin is so white!" and "You're really from Sydney? But you're so white!" on a daily basis. I thought these people were being cruel, so I usually scrunched my face up and looked embarrassed about it. Sometimes when I was grumpy, I shot back, "I know already!" in an angry, sarcastic tone of voice that probably made me sound like an arrogant little shit.   

Fast forward to today and I'm still not good at reacting to positive comments about my whiteness. (Critics in Sydney probably just scoffed at the oxymoronic phrase "positive comments about my whiteness".) I tried denial once -- saying "Oh no, I'm not that white" -- but then the accuser replied with, "What, you don't think you're white enough? You want to be even whiter?!" No, I don't want to be whiter, you fool. I was just trying to be gracious about your weird compliment. In the future, I might try looking to some imaginary mountains in the distance, or I'll pull out a small mandarin and begin to slowly peel away the skin until the awkward moment passes.

On a more serious note, I found a really well-written and lovely article from the Washington Post magazine tonight. It's written by a blind English professor at Ohio State University and it describes how the blind see beauty. It's called "The Beauty Myth". You might need to create an account to access this article, but I can assure you that it's worth it.

I absolutely love what he wrote about his wife:

I get turned on by your accent, your fragrance, your laugh, your enthusiasm for almost anything. Strictly speaking, I don't even know what my wife looks like. Instead, I live for the thrill of the touch of her lips, and my hands are privileged to see her. My wife lives in a luminous blue corona of light, and that is good enough for me.

The non-resolution

I decided not to set new year resolutions for myself this year. Not because there aren't any areas that can be improved upon (like eating habits, magazine consumption, sloppiness of appearance, laundry rotation), but because I set very achievable resolutions last year and I didn't follow through. In 2006, I didn't go to the gym more and I didn't dress professionally to work every second day.  It was disappointing. I was disappointed. I was also lazy. It was sad. (But not sad enough to go to the gym for.) So no resolutions in 2007.

Moving on, I've been watching a lot of Iron Chef America lately. The creativity and discipline of those chefs is amazing! I read that they film all 24 episodes of the season over 20 days so the Iron Chefs are constantly under pressure to come up with original and mouth-watering dishes with very little time to refuel.  I just wish the judging panel was as impressive as the chefs themselves. In one of the episodes I watched last night, Jewel was on the panel. Yeah, Jewel. I'm sure she eats well, but did she win her awards for eating? No, she won them for music! There's also this extremely unfunny "comedian" called Mo Rocca who's appeared a couple times. His jokes are what Taiwanese people would describe as "very cold". It's such a waste he gets to eat the food. I'd be so pissed if I was a challenger chef and Mo Rocca was there. I think I'd try to poison him.

Speaking of poison, I've got an appointment to get a wisdom tooth taken out on Thursday. With the government insurance, it'll cost me NT$100 (or about A$4.50) a tooth. What a bargain! I hope it'll be healed in time so I can eat lots of raw fish at Mitsui for Mum's birthday dinner. Then a week later, I'll get the last one taken out, and I hope that'll heal in time for some crazy Chinese New Year meals. Are you wondering what wisdom teeth has to do with poison? Well nothing really, but they both have something to do with pain. Unfunny pain. (I hate you Mo Rocca!)

Article: How "Iron Chef America" makes its magic

Dinner tonight

Dad called home this afternoon and asked Mum to put me on the phone. It sounded urgent. Hi, Dad. What's up? "Go to the new Sogo and buy some sashimi. Also get the uni and salmon roe. We can do the thing with the rice." But Dad, I just got home. "Catch a taxi. It's fast." But we're already eating hotpot for dinner. "We can eat the sashimi before the hotpot. It will work." But new Sogo is so far away. "Then go to CitySuper. But get the good kind. I want tuna and the white fish." Okay, okay. I'm leaving now.

Yes, we like to eat raw fish at our house.

Good meals enjoyed recently

The Dean & Deluca "Business Lunch" set with roast beef, three vegie side dishes and clam chowder with bread. Also had a great hot chocolate.

Din Tai Fung inside the new Fuxing Sogo. Dumpling baskets are smaller there to cater for the shopping crowd (6 per serving). The interior at this store is old-school Chinese with lots of wood.

All-you-can-eat sukiyaki at Momo Paradise. Everything was fresh, clean and delicious. Only NT$299 per person for lunch (more for dinner). There are branches at Zhong Xiao (in Bistro 98) and also in Xinyi (in Neo 19). Will definitely go back soon.