Rice Cooker

Meanwhile in Taiwan Roomba and Scooba wage the robot war, in Germany still rules the technology of the last millennium.

At Luo2 You1´s home the Tatung TAC 20 offers strong resistance against the German leading culture of Solanum Tuberosum:



In 2005 my wife brought the device from Taiwan. When she acquired it in Kaohsiung first the clerk of the household supply store presented her a big choice of excellent high tech rice cookers, well equipped and chip controlled. The wish of my wife to use the item in Germany and therefor the need to run it with 220 voltage shrinked the selection enormous and also the joy of the Taiwanese - my wife and the clerk - about finest and most advanced technology: Only the Tatung TAC 20 seemingly with the design and technique of the 1960s in the lowest corner of the shelves fulfilled those demands.

Anyway the cooker is robust and daily without any problems in use. Thanks to the internet and downlaodable manuals even Luo You could get the knowledge how to use it. „Wo de Tai Tai" (my wife) had the opinion before her last longer stay in Taiwan, that she didn´t need to give me detailled explanations because of it´s simplicity. Besides she supposed I won´t use it too. But, wrong!

The rice cooker is extremely useful for a fast dinner: 2 cups of rice into the inner pot, fill it up with water til the indication, some water according the measuring cup between the inner pot and the outer container of the heater, then switch it on. After 15 to 20 minutes the slackly-flaky rice is ready.

However, recently there was an expert´s dispute about the right use of the rice cooker: Do you have to cover also the inner pot - means double covered - or only the outer container? How much water has to befilled between the inner pot and the outer container? 2 lines of the measuring cup or half cup for two cups of rice?



The extremely old Taiwanese rice culture competes with the German engineer´s spirit. A human, formed by countless salty potatoes during his childhood and few cooking bags of rice, discusses with a person of a country, that nowadays only know computer controlled rice cookers. The design of the 1960 almost extinguished. Besides, in Taiwan only my mother-in-law cooks the rice. But better not to provocate further more ....

The result of the different preparation of rice - "a la Taiwanesa" and "a la Alemán" - is thoroughly comparable. Here with Kung Bao Qi, Broccoli and "Federweißer" (still fermenting young German wine):

Hot Pot

What Wendel´s Bakery represents for some Germans in Taiwan, is Ho´s Supermarket for many Asians in the area of Düsseldorf and Cologne in Germany.

Due to Ho we got a Chinese hot pot as dinner today:

In Taiwan it looks like this:

Seen in Hsi-tzu-wan (西子灣), eaten and never forgotten.

F-U-C-K YOU CHINA

The excitement about „F-U-C-K YOU CHINA" in the Chinese culture area was almost ignored by the German media. My wife, who is still staying in Taiwan, mentioned the news first and called my attention. There was an article in DW-World at July 9, 2007 and also at July 12, 2007 – in Chinese. In de.indymedia.org you could found a report about a demonstration of few Chinese students in front of a chain store of KULT, a German retailer of clothes, at July 12, 2007.

Picture by DW-World. Is this the KULT store at Obernstr. 82 or Sögestr. 46 in Bremen or somewhere else? It´s really time to learn better Chinese.

Some people, mostly Chinese students, protested against the sell of t-shirts with the imprint: „F-U-C-K YOU CHINA, Manufactured in Europa, Produced and designed by Philipp Plein". They felt, this is discriminating and racist. They demanded the responsible persons should apologize and withdraw the shirts.


49.50 Euro was the price of the shirt. According an article in Sueddeutsche Zeitung the retailer gave them back, although he liked to order more. Seemingly the demand was quite good.


Young people in Germany, Chinese as well as other Nationals, became the dogsbodies of China´s foreign policy.


The list of signatures published in a forum - now a broken link - “Against race discrimination - KULT and PLEIN must apologize!!! Please support us.”

Also the popular China-forums in internet are full of protests. The used terms start with the missing understanding and respect for the Chinese culture, xenophobia in Germany and end - as a reaction towards the criticism against the Chinese government - with the allegation of German behavior during the second world war and the holocaust of the European jews. Yes, the bad and ugly Germans came back. The company Philipp Plein International receives 1000 up to 1500 emails per day full of hate and countless phone calls from China and Hong Kong of „Fuck You“ crying people.

Philipp Plein, who received death threats, eg by this - now shut down - webpage at a server of Chemnitz university, is born in Munich, Germany. The company Philipp Plein International is situated in Switzerland. The shirt is manufactured somewhere in Europe, they write. The Text is written in English. Where the cotton comes from is unknown. The young and ambitious company suffers a lot from unauthorized copies of their design. As a kind of copy protection they created the imprint „F-U-C-K YOU CHINA – Manufactured in Europe – Produced and designed by Philipp Plein".

Because of 80 shirts on sale the German and Swiss embassador in Beijing got a reprehension by the Chinese government. Philipp Plein was appointed to the Chinese embassy in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. Although he apologized, the Chinese diplomats demanded furthermore a public annoncements in German and Swiss media. They even ask for a list of his sub-supplier.

Defacement of Christian symbols? If „our“ pope Papst Benedictus gets it, maybe the fuss about Philipp Plein starts again.

The worst about this affair is the wired pseudo-partiotism of the demonstrators and commentators, the self-proclaimed guards of the Nation, that possess the idea to be better than the other, because by chance CHINA is imprint in their passport. Weidade Zhong Guo (= Great China)! There is only one step distance between this kind of thinking to Nazis and religious extremists.

Confucius´ temple in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in december 2004 - According the opinion of some people the teaches of Confucius lead to a firm unity of the individual personality and the country. Who writes „F-U-C-K YOU CHINA", insults all Chinese people.

Nationalistic are the attitudes of the demonstrators: They glorify „China“ as a mythic and superior creature, inaccessible and bare of all criticism. If I write „F-U-C-K YOU BERLIN" or „F-U-C-K YOU SHANGHAI", probably no inhabitant of Berlin or Shanghai will feel touched. But the Nation needs protection, because its endangered, and its more important than individual freedom. Thus even a small imprint on 80 shirts of a small fashion company can became a big problem.

The restriction of individual freedom in favour of a mythic glorified nation is extremely undemocratic and serves only for the particular interests of the small ruling class. This happened already once in German and no normal person wants to see this situation again: Limit a national group “gathered by their blood”, serve for a superior mythic and “natural” organization, that needs protection, discriminate and chase outsiders are their well known methods, that the Nazis used and use in the same way.

The search results in Google: 203.000 times „F-U-C-K YOU CHINA“. The entry in my former German blog for enlightement and liberty at the closed site of de.passado.com reached at least the 3rd place.

At the same time "F-U-C-K YOU CHINA" is not determined. Does the term mean the Peoples Republic of China or the Republik of China on Taiwan? Does it include Tibet or not? CHINA is a state. CHINA can be an culture area. CHINA are not the people. How can "F-U-C-K YOU CHINA" be racism? "F-U-C-K YOU CHINA" can be related with missing basic human right, the fate of the slave workers, with of the massacres at Tiananmen square in June 1989, with permanent war threat against 21.5 million peaceful people in Taiwan. There was fictitious answer of Philipp Plein in the web that disappeared already. Well, he printed "F-U-C-K YOU CHINA", because he and his company were tired of all those unauthorized copied products, that endanger the success of his small company and his own economic existence.

There is no racism, if a European company expresses its aversion against a system that doesn´t respect international agreements - a system and state that creates and doesn´t stop unrivaled conditions of work:



According my opinion the brain washers from kindergarten til university in PRC did a good job. Their cadres arrived and agitate already scrupulously in Germany, that the girls and boy toe the line: „F-U-C-K YOU CHINA".

Too simple calls an author of a webpage whose main enemy is the German imperialism. Only idiots can get those ideas, he writes. He insists there is a German racism and an agitation by popular German newspapers and magazines against China. The „simple“ Chinese students can feel it - and seemingly the „simple“ Chinese diplomats too! Philipp Pleins´s printing „F-U-C-K YOU CHINA“ is the trigger that they lose their patience, writes this authors. According the author it´s absolutely okay that citizens identify 100 % with your country and offend the assumed opponent: country = nation = all citizens. But he refuses to locate this credo close to the neo-nazi´s belief. Who is the idiot? Besides, there is no need of a conspiracy theory if a totalitarian controlled society implemented once successful the nationalistic thinking. It started in China in 1949.

When the memories come back about the incident at Tiananmen Square in 1989, I feel a little bit uneasy how good German salarymen and politicians can deal with the class of dictators that once ordered to slaughter CHINA´s unarmed and peaceful sons and daughters. On the other hand Germany ignores officially the democratic society of Taiwan.


In Taipei, March 2005, probably a member of the "Chinese race" (Could he be an aborigine, hakka, hoklo or vietnamnese?), misleaded by the secessionist Taiwan authorities – in the language of CHINA - has a similar opinion like Philipp Plein: „FUCK YOU CHINA COMMUNIST“.

"Racist" Foreigners protest together with Taiwanese against the anti-secession law of CHINA and hundreds of Chinese missiles directed to their Chinese compatriots in Taiwan

Luo You shows his copy protection to CHINA.

How Luo2 You1 (羅優) was born ...

... or the image of Germans abroad.

What are those gentlemen doing in the bath tub? -Click here-

Maybe some people have the idea Luo2 You1 is a strange pseudonym. But, actually it´s a real name - a real Chinese name, just written in the phonetic transcription of Han Yu Pinyin.

Luo2 You1 written with traditonal Chinese characters

In the 94. year of the Chinese Republic, at the 6th day of the 5th month, Luo2 You1 was born. The place of his birth was the Yanchao Township Household Registration Office. The office is situated in No.585-1, Jhongmin Rd., Yanchao Township, Kaohsiung County 824, Taiwan.

How could this happen? Somewhere in Canada several years ago a Taiwanese girl met a German guy. They fell in love and decided to share their future. The eternal promise was sealed by the wedding.

Although the government of the Republic of China avoids to restrict the freedom of its citizens – with all advantages and partly also disadvantages – at least it´s necessary to register the marriage. In Taiwan a marriage is almost a full private case, an agreement between two families shown to the public. By contrast the German government still acts in the role of an old lord of the manor, who could decide who marries to whom and always felt care for his bondslaves. The Medieval system existed til Napoleon blow out the Holy Roman Empire and all those German principalities. Still nowaday the effects of the pre-Napaleon era lasts.

In China the emperor was seemingly not very interested in the affairs of his subjects as long as they payed obidient their taxes. At least he had to know the number of the inferiors and their formal relations. In the modern society of Taiwan the household registration offices fulfill this task for the rulers.

So marrying in Taiwan needs four basic steps: 1. asking for the blessing of deities in front of the ancestor´s shrine, 2. public notary at the District court (to get an official document with international recognition), 3. household registration office to indicate the event to the government, 4. public wedding party. Don´t ask me how many steps it needs in Germany to marry in Taiwan - or much worse - to marry a Taiwanese in Germany!

Step No. 3 was the less spectacular one: no guests, no special dress, no ceremony. However, a new person was born: Luo2 You1.

Place of the Household Registration Office in the center of Yanchao.

If a Taiwanese marries, he or she has to change the ID card, because the name of the spouse is also imprinted. At this moment people with a Latin name are asked to get a Chinese one. One reason is the missing space on the Taiwanese ID-Card. Usually people in Taiwan have full names of 2 or 3 characters. My full western family name has 23 character. Although Taiwan likes to create an international environment and is quite open to foreign influences, there are some cultural limits. As well as Chinese have to romanize their names in the western countries, Westerners can also respect the Chinese culture.

The demand of the friendly clerk in the household registration office met an unprepared couple. My first proposal "Yu Lung Shan" refused harshly my wife. "Lung" means dragon, the sign of the zodiac in which I was born. "Lung Shan" can be also interpreted as a translation of my German family name. There is some association with "Zhong Shan", Dr. Sun Yat-Tsen, the founder of modern China, too. "Yu" is similar to the beginning of my German first name. Besides, "Lung Shan" is a famous temple in Taipei. This was the reason, why my wife disliked this name.


Which girl wants to marry a temple? Lung Shan Temple in Taipei, still unmarried in April, 2004

Very soon „Yu Lung Shan“ appeared as Ford Prefect in Douglas Adam´s „Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy“. So better to look for an alternative name.

Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent – Don´t be misleaded by the dominant life species in Taiwan, if you have to choose your name!

After some consideration my wife decided to name me „Luo2 You1“. Luo2 is actually a normal Chinese family name. In Taiwan and China nobody will think about it. Well, Germans are usually quite curious and will ask the meaning. In combination with other characters „Luo2“ means to be busy, looking for a reason, end a task ... „You1“ means excellent, outstanding and reflect the wish of my wife to get the husband :-) My wife had also the idea the sound of Luo You follows the frist sillabs of my family and my first name. Well, for me its only a prove that Asian and Western ears are different, at least my wife´s and mine.

But, there is also another meaning: Luo2 You1 sound almost like „Loriot“. This refers to the cartoonist and comedian Loriot who holds the mirror to his fellows Germans. Too often I tried to explain my wife West German humor in a kind of private integration class. Now came the revenge: Who cites and repeats countless times Loriot´s jokes and sketches, will finally become a „Loriot“ too.

Kaohsiung (高雄) - 2nd part

The former mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, described during the Holcim Forum 2007, what a good city characterizes in his opinion. Some of the themes, that he mentions, were also noticed by the temporary resident of a big city in Taiwan. Therefor I decided to compare the thesis of Peñalosa with the current situation in Kaohsiung to get a better understanding of the live and development in Taiwan´s big cities. The first part will be continued:

This time "Maiden´s Prayer", composed by Tekla Badarzewska-Baranowska, is performed by a real musician and not by a Taiwanese garbage truck.

"Dammed cars! Of course, except mine ..." works only in the frame, that the government offers. When I went as a student from Dortmund (a university with incredible big and free parking lots, but regularly overcrowded, and with missing suitable urban transport connection til 1983) to ETH Hönngerberg in Zurich in the mid 1980s, I was surprised: high parking fees even for the students and no warranty to get a free place. So, it´s better to leave the car at home.

Since 1984 the H-Train with a length of 1 km connects the two campus of Dortmund university. Before there were many cars and few buses on the former village roads between the two places.

Peñalosa: “If car use is to be restricted, there must be good public transport. Transport is a social status game: From fancy cars, to trams instead of buses. Zurich is Europe’s richest city. Yet 60% of its population takes public transport every day and 20% walk or bicycle. Yet many upper middle class citizens of developing cities would not go near a bus or a subway.”

Siemens delivers Kaohsiung´s new metro trains, seen by Steve Schönemann in Hasloch, October 2, 2006 (Source: ostman82.com).

Not really inviting looks the current urban transport in Kaohsiung 2007.

“Bicycles tend to integrate people in a more democratic manner. Bicycles are not a minor issue. They are central to the good city of the future. Bicycles are not for the poor: Denmark and the Netherlands have a higher income per capita than the United States. And nearly 40 % of their population use the bicycle daily. A protected bicycle way is a symbol of democracy. It shows that a citizen on a $ 20 bicycle is equally important as one on a $ 20,000 car. Quality sidewalks and protected bicycle paths are not cute architectural features: they are a right. Unless we believe that only those with access to a car have a right to safe individual mobility.”

A little couple rides bicycle in Gushan Road. If you don´t have the right to get a driver´s license and you lack of money this is the best manner of transport in Kaohsiung. If you have a driver´s license or enough money, don´t do it. It´s probably too dangerous.

“Sidewalks are the most important element of a civilized city’s infrastructure. Cars parked on sidewalks, or parking bays where there should be sidewalk, are symbols of inequality and lack of democracy. Quality sidewalks are a symbol that shows that citizens who walk are as important as those who have a car. A city that is safe and friendly to pedestrians and bicycles almost certainly is a good city.”

Even a short walk in Kaohsiung - like in almost all Taiwanese towns and cities - is a hurdle race: parked cars and scooters block the way, storepresent their goods on the sidewalk. You have to cross the kitchen of restaurants and wokshop. The construction of the new metro offers the chance to give roads a new design with wide sidewalks.

“Is public pedestrian space a frivolity in a developing country city facing many difficult challenges? Tourism is a pedestrian activity. Most of what provides joy and is memorable in a city are its pedestrian spaces. Most of what government at the national or local level do are MEANS to eventual wellbeing. Public pedestrian space is an END in itself. IT IS QUALITY OF LIFE ITSELF.”

Public pedestrian zones like in Germany are unknown in Kaohsiung and other Taiwanese cities. Although the café at the “Urban Spot Light” is still closed, people like to sit here and enjoy the space in a central area free of cars and scooters.

“Lack of access to green spaces may become the main factor of exclusion. A good city provides many free pleasures. No child should grow farther than 3 blocks from a park.”

The Central Park of Kaohsiung was a former sports ground and got recently a new design. The artificial pound with a big bridge looks very expansive. Lees expansive design elements and more parks could be a better solution for the city.

“Waterfronts are so unique, they should never be private and exclusive. Waterfronts should have pedestrian infrastructure, preferably without motor-vehicles alongside. This are most memorable places of a city, not its highways.”

The love river is an example of the urban transformation in Kaohsiung. Once the rivers drained the fields and the plains. Then it became a cloaca of the industrialized city. After many improvements the promenades and cafes along the river invite now visitors in the evening and at the weekend.

A new big project is the development of the abandoned harbour area between pier 1 and 22. When the harbour administration gave up the usage, it became the biggest pedestrian area of Kaohsiung. Here is the place where the city can change from an Asian boomtown to a real ocean capital.

“The challenge for a good city is to improve public transport and spaces for pedestrians an cyclists. Wherever people use public transport, it is rarely out of love for the environment. In a truly advanced city, rich and poor are integrated as equals in many locations and activities: transport, sidewalks, bicycle-ways, libraries, parks, cultural activities.”

Bicyclist rides on a former industrial railway line along the recently opened harbour area. Though the weather condition with heat, typhoons and heavy rainfalls are sometimes harsh, at least people are sometimes willing to leave their air conditioned cars, if they see useful alternatives.

View from the former British Consulate to the harbor side of Kaohsiung, that is full of chances.

Kaohsiung (高雄) – A city advances! – Eine Stadt steigt auf!

When I wrote my remarks about the communism in China Lu Er Fu and my wife complained: Why you show Kaohsiung (高雄) in this way as an ugly result of capitalism? Do you ignore the changes and all those recent improvements the second biggest city of Taiwan? Okay, I regret.

The German Ruhr Area in the 1960s: Wanne-Eickel´s Röhlinghausen district

Even pictures, on the one hand of my old home town Wanne-Eickel, located in the coal mining area of the Ruhr (I still remember the impressing big black mountains of stored coal that covered big parts of the city during my childhood.) and on the other hand of the tropical paradise Kenting, that shows the real beauty of Taiwan, could not calm „wo de Tai Tai" (my wife). So here is an article about the „real" situation in Kaohsiung – of course from my point of view.

Kenting in April, 2007, a love harbour for Taiwanese-German couples

Recently I read an article about the Holcim Forum 2007, that discussed about "Urban_Trans_Formation". One of their speakers was Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá, Columbia. During his three year term (1998-2001) as Mayor he led massive efforts related to transportation, land use and housing for the poor, pollution abatement, and the critical need for public spaces.

Of course, you can´t compare the situation of Bogotá and Kaohsiung. The conditions are too different. Bogotá is the capital of a developing county. Kaohsiung reached almost the level of an advanced city, although its history is quite short. However, Peñalosa describes what is a good and sustainable city. This counts in South America as well as in Asia or Europe. Here are some of Peñalosa´s thesis summarized and combined with the situation in Kaohsiung:

View from "Kaohsiung shrine" or also called "Martyr´s shrine" to the city of Kaohsiung. The first guide book that I first purchased about Taiwan, written by Werner Lips, described the women of Taiwan as the most sad women of the world. But, can men be happy in this environment?

Peñalosa: "The 20th Century will be remembered as a disastrous one in urban history. The question is: Do we dare create a different, better city? How do we want to live? The measure of a civilization’s success is not its gross domestic product or its technology, but its citizens’ happiness. A quality city can provide much joy. And it is a magical good, because its capacity to provide joy does not wear out."

The children in a kindergarten of Kaohsiung enjoy the program of their volunteer assistant English teacher with German accent. How will be their situation, if they leave the class? Can they play later in a garden or do they have to face the terror of traffic?

"Beyond survival, happiness we need 1) to walk, 2) to be with people and 3) to not feel inferior. A city that is good for children, the elderly, the handicapped, the poor is good for everybody else. In every detail a good city must show respect for human dignity. In terms of transport, a good city is not one with great highways but rather one where a child in a bicycle could go safely everywhere. A transport system tends to produce a kind of city and a city is a means to a way of life. Therefore the urban design and transport issue is the same."

Motor scooters and cars dominate the traffic in Kaohsiung. The German city walker feels very often like poor rabbit. Local people are seemingly used to this, like the lady on the left who collects potential recycables to supplement her scarce pension. The driver of the car on the right doesn´t respect the traffic rules and ignores a one-way-road. Inbetween the garbage truck plays "Für Elise" composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, wrongly in the clip labelled as "A Maiden´s Prayer" by Tekla Badarzewska-Baranowska:



"Most of what destroys quality of life in modern cities results from trying to make more room for cars. Polluting or clean, cars represent problems to urban quality of life. There is a competition for space and money between cars and people. Government funds for roads in big cities compete with funds for schools, nurseries, parks, housing, libraries in those cities and rural areas. Is a city friendly to cars, or a city friendly to people sustainable?"

20 lanes of concrete occupy the space around the toll station at highway 10 northbound. The loss of orchards and fields in the surrounding of Kaohsiung was during the last decades enormous. New road and industrial zones cover the ground where the parents of today still could play as children.

"Cars are extremely recent in human history. They are a means of social differentiation. There is not a "natural" level of car use in a city. It is Government which determines, explicitly or implicitly, how much will the car be used. Political pressures from car owners and other car related interests are so massive, that often it is forgotten that cities are for people, not for cars. If there was more space for cars, there would be more cars. If there was less space for cars, there would be less cars."

In Kaohsiung is free space for parking scarce and fees are high. If you don´t respect the rules easily your car can be towed away. At least they write the number of the license plate and a telephone number on the pavement, to get the information, where you can pick the car.

"Solving traffic jams with more or bigger highways is like putting out a fire with gasoline. Despite giant highways, eg Atlanta has more traffic jams every year. A long time ago advanced cities such as Manhattan or Zurich decided they would NOT build more road infrastructure in order to alleviate traffic jams. There are frequent traffic jams in Manhattan and nobody thinks that is a problem. If you are in a hurry, you take public transport. Traffic jams are effective means to achieve public transport use and Density. For traffic it is the same to double the number of cars, as to have the same cars do twice the distance. Be careful with the demands of the higher income groups: They rarely use the city. They only care for its roads, in order to drive from one private space to another."

This is a Picture of the picture of the construction site at the main station placed by Kaohsiung´s city government. The Zhong Shan Road crosses elevated the station area. However, what will be the future? The project provides an improved public transport and reduces the cut caused by the railway in the centre of Kaohsiung - or will the railway tunnel only offer more space for cars?

According this model of Kaohsiung´s future we can call the city "little Germania". The historic station building looks like a fly´s shit.

"When shopping malls replace public space as the meeting place for people, it is a symptom that a city is ill. Great cities do not have shopping malls. Their best shops always face public space."

The "Dream Mall" in Kaohsiung is the biggest shopping mall in Taiwan. Does it mean the city is ill?

"With good design, a modern city should still have communities. Density is the most important element of good transport, regardless of whether we use trains, buses, taxis, bicycles or walk."

A new residential area with high density is under construction at Nei-Wei-Pi Cultural Park in Kaohsiung. I worry if high density, a museum and a park are enough to form a good community.

"Can we design a transport system without knowing what kind of city we want? Transport is a peculiar problem: It gets worse as a society gets richer, clearly a not sustainable model. Which is the objective of our transport policy? a) Provide efficient mobility for all or b) Minimize traffic jams for the higher income groups? Transport cannot be solved simply with money: It takes changes in our way. In developing country cities transport is clearly not a technical, but a political issue. Who benefits from the policies adopted?"

The central park of Kaohsiung was in spring 2003 the place a light rail exhibition. A Siemens tramway connected two station on a former sports ground. It was a big event for the kids and their grandpas. The project is postponed, although its much cheaper than the metro construction. Because it seizes the oversized car roads of Kaohsiung its also a social and democratic concept according Peñalosa.

A virtual trip of 6 minutes with the tramway in Kaohsiung. The second part of the post will show the really beautyful places.

Urban Transformation - Städtischer Wandel

The "Urban Transformation" will the main theme of my next big and long article. Of course, I will report again about Taiwan. After the capitalism-communism-post I got some trouble because of the picture, that I published about Kaohsiung. It´s time to give a more realistic view on this big city. As a little appetizer you can see here three pictures that I took in Tungmeng 1st Rd. last December. "Urban Transformation" in Taiwanese:

Out of the primal chaos ...

... a new structure appears, that ....

... leads into a sustainable and socially fair world order.

Instead of pompous SUVs and aggressive chat-ups on the highway, people will ride bicycle and clink their glasses of cool Taiwan Beer shouting "Gan Bei" together.