the reason for taiwan brain drain

today i had a conversation with my friend, a taiwanese who had been living in the US for about 5 years.
upon his return to taiwan he found a job with a company.
the boss of this company had been having a problem with a service supplier from the US for 3 months and asked him to fix this problem.
my friend called the US office, and voila- the problem was solved! it seems the manager on the taiwan end had been writing emails and nobody understood exactly what he was talking about. my friend, having graduated in the US, spoke excellent english and fixed the problem smoothly.
and what did he get for his good work? put on the boss's shit list! because in taiwan, watch how you shine- you might overshadow somebody else, namely the boss!
this part of taiwan culture is the reason why so many taiwanese only realize their potential overseas, because taiwan culture WONT LET THEM BE GREAT!
my friend also solved a big problem with the assembly line of the company. his fix for the problem was so swift, so simple, it's a wonder how nobody ever thought of it.
after that, my friend found himself out of the loop on so many things, it became impossible to do his job. he eventually had to quit.
anybody who thinks all cultures are equal needs to take a hard look at this example, because it repeats itself time and again in taiwan and elswhere in asia.
there's a REASON why the West is STILL ahead- because they don't waste time on crap like who was in the sandbox first. you're either the best or you're not. you are paid to SOLVE PROBLEMS, not be status quo. if you don't shine, somebody else will.
and that's the way it should be.

the golden melody awards: taiwan's "big club"

the taiwan golden melody award reeks of the cronyism and insider privledges that the whole "music" industry here as whole does. it's basically a club where " i win this year, you win next year".
what is equally ridiculous are the "categories" of music: taiwanese songs, mandarin songs, hakkanese songs.
i've got news for you- those are LANGUAGES NOT MUSICAL STYLES! but since taiwan has YET to establish a true musical style of it's own, the only distinctions they can make are linguistics.
the fact is, taiwan threw away its musical heritage a long time ago, back in the 90s, in favor of more western sounding music, in an attempt to show they were on an equal footing with the west.
now taiwan music sounds no different than any other western music, except the language used. there is no definitive style to taiwan music (save tai yu song, which is a hair's difference from japanese enka).
this year they are sure to have a foriegn artist as a guest. thing is, if that foriegn artist lived in taiwan, they'd be doing EVERYTHING IN THEIR POWER TO KEEP HIM FROM EVER MAKING A RECORD! because taiwan artists aren't ready to have competition on their own soil.
simple as that.
will i watch the GMAs this year? maybe. or maybe not. i doubt very seriously if it will be anything but the same shit, different year.
i'm sure jay chou and tchai yi ling will win most of the awards, with a few concessions to the little guys to keep people hoping. and i'll bet little fat (ass) gets "best new artist" of the year.
no, i probably have better things to do that night. like writing some songs that'll never be heard anyway because i'm too white to be marketable here, or maybe just a little too taiwanese for the record industry's comfort.

will the real wing chun please stand up?

since the movie Yip Man and it's sequel, it's been very easy to find a wing chun practice group/school. thing is, where were they before this?
having lived here for 13 years,the only teachers that i knew of were Lu Wen Jing and maybe one or two others. my own teacher is the only disciple of one particular line of wing chun in taiwan, that i know of at least. this handful are the only teachers that i'm not questioning.
i think there are a LOT of the so called wing chun teachers here that are actually from other styles, and happened to learn enough WC to fool beginners. otherwise, why were they not teaching before this? secrecy? if so, why let the cat out now?
these guys are simply capitalizing on the recent craze.
and i for one hope the craze will all be over soon.