Hong Kong

Please see below for two posts on the conclusion of my trip to Taiwan.

I arrived in Hong Kong on Monday, and yesterday I did a whirlwind walking tour of the city that took many hours and left me totally exhausted. But of course it was worth it.

The past two nights I've been staying in a tiny room in a tiny apartment where Jon Atkinson '06 is living, it's about half an hour outside of downtown. Jon has been here all summer, he's working for a Taiwanese electronics company that has offices here.

The first night, I stayed up until 1 in the morning talking with Benny, Jon's Taiwanese roommate, who works for the same company as Jon. Unlike people in Hong Kong, who seem relatively apathetic, Taiwanese people everywhere seem to care a lot about their complicated political world. Benny, whose wife and children were all DPP supporters, had strong opinions about both the DPP and the KMT, as well as his experiences working for two years in China. Benny's parents immigrated to Taiwan after the Chinese civil war. He felt that the DPP harped on racial tensions to draw out votes, their platform was outdated, and their track record on business was poor (he cited the past scuffle with the German company Bayer). He also noted that there are now 200,000 Taiwanese living in Shanghai (I'm not sure if this number is right), among them many friends, and he said that among many of his friends and their families living in Shanghai there was a clear pattern: at first they would come back to Taiwan every month, then every six months, then every year, and then... suddenly they were really living in China. It was a fascinating conversation.

I guess it's typical to say so, but Hong Kong really does feel like the future -- a vast urban paradise of glass and cutting-edge technology where long walking paths have been converted into escalators (the longest in the world is here, it takes 20 minutes to walk to the whole thing). It's also peculiarly British, with colonial buildings inbetween skyscrapers here or there, and twisted, old world cobbled streets, double-decker buses, tons of pubs, and cars driving on the left side of the road.

I agree with Bryan, who pointed out to me that Hong Kong truly is an international city, much more so than Taipei. When I first arrived downtown the people and languages around me were all so different -- a businessman walked by on his cell phone talking in Danish, two well-dressed English investment bankers hustled past me, a brightly-colored American tourist family was looking at a big map. Later, I spent some time praying at St. John's, the beautiful Anglican church here, and when I walked outside listened as a Hong Kong family passed by speaking Cantonese and the English pastor, his wife, and two children, spoke with a visiting Irish woman.

Unlike the overwhelming hospitality I experienced in Taiwan, people in Hong Kong aren't nice, but they aren't not nice either. From what Jon tells me, they work very, very hard, they love to earn and spend money, and they don't have much time for anything else -- like being nice to foreigners or politics. Jon made a comment to me that I find very telling -- whenever he asks someone from Hong Kong what they do for fun, the answer is invariably "shopping at the mall."

I purchased my visa to enter the People's Republic yesterday, as well as my ticket for the 24-hour sleeper-train adventure to Beijing. Through my train window, I will see a long, thin slice of China that cuts all the way down the East coast of the country. I will meet up with five dudes in Beijing for a few hours, before all of us head out together for Western China.

I'll keep you posted.

hong kong photos

St. John's church, I stayed here for a while. Right outside here I listened to the English minister and his family talking.
Bad picture of me. But you get the idea.
Double decker style. On the left side, no less.

The old and the new: chinese junk floats by with skyscrapers in the background.

Taiwan, the conclusion

It was sad to leave Taiwan, it had really started to feel like home. People here are really nice, and it's so easy to get comfortable.

My last week (July 18-24) began with a typhoon that gave me school and work off on Monday. By Tuesday it was back to long days beginning at 6am when i would wake up to head to four hours of one-on-one instruction and class, and then seven hours of work (although work got more and more relaxed as the week drew to a close). My main project at work was researching the U.S. defense departments recent release of their annual white paper on China's military build-up. Because it is relatively explicit about China's ambitious military activities, the report generated a lot of press in Taiwan and in China (in Beijing, the U.S. ambassador was summoned to defend himself). If you haven't read it already, you can access the white paper here.

After work on Friday, the international department took me out for dinner, (see picture) and after dinner some of us went to KTV (Karaoke), along with a few members of the youth department (see pictures below). There's a specific kind of Chinese love song that they love to sing to over and over again, deep into the night and early time. It's a painful experience, but it would have been rude to turn them down or leave too early.

Evelyn is 23 and fluent in Portuguese, French, English, Mandarin, and native Taiwanese. I hung out with her a lot over the weekend.
After cleaning up my apartment for Dr. Rigger and her family, who will be living there in August, I left for Hong Kong on Monday morning, where I am now. I'll tell you about that in the next post.

See below for more pictures from Taiwan. There's a lot more I would like to write about Taiwan, and I hope I get the chance to share my experience with a lot of you (and hear about your summer experiences) when I get home.

last pictures from Taiwan

at KTV (Karaoke). They love this stuff. God help us all.

the stoic but enormous apartment where i lived, it's owned by the incredibly generous Dr. Kao and his family. Candi Kao is an awesome senior at Davidson who Henry is eternally grateful to.

Another pic of Evelyn and Hank, looking more serious this time.

handsome American explores Taiwan's coast

This past weekend I explored the East coast of Taiwan along a 5-hour highway that runs parallel to the island. The Pacific ocean splashes against a long stretch of giant green mountains, making it maybe the most beautiful drive in Taiwan, and probably among the most beautiful in the world. My pictures do not do justice to this place (most of them can be seen in the post below).

The Japanese (who ruled Taiwan from 1895 to 1945) built the road we drove on in the 1920s and 30s at great cost and effort; it winds its way up mountains and smashes through others -- all inches from the Pacific ocean, churning hundreds of feet below.

I was accompanied by two friends who know the area well. We rented a Toyota and in one very long day drove down the coast and right back up again. One of those friends, Evelyn, drove most of the way.

Evelyn's father is French, but she grew up in Brazil and Taiwan. Evelyn's driving, like her mixed roots, is an unlikely combination of European nonchalance and third-world frenzy. As we swept blindly around sudden corners -- teetering along massive cliffs with only a thin metal rail seperating us from a fall of hundreds of feet to the ocean below -- she would sometimes abruptly add a burst of gas and plunge into the oncoming lane, trying to outpace a slow-moving truck blocking our way. Indifferent, in a European way, to the wails of her worried passengers, Evelyn's strict enforcement of a self-imposed rule "never to use brakes" sounded a note more fitting to the frenetic boulevards of developing countries. As frightening as it sounds, her mixed-culture driving was impressive.

For those of you who know Taiwan, our trip included stops along Taroko gorge and terminated in Hualian. I drew our route in red on the map. See below for more pictures.

photos from exploring the coast

Jarred's wrong about the French EU vote, here's why

It turns out the typhoon here has given me a free day from class and work to catch up on other things.

On July 7th, Jarred posted a very thoughtful blog inspired by a recent Francis Fukuyama lecture given to Davidson students in Washington. Jarred's blog is a consideration of the motives behind the French rejection of the EU vote. Read the full text of his post here. In his post, Jarred concludes that "the French have decided, and probably not consciously, that they value the history and culture of France more than they value their ability to cross swords with the U.S." Although he makes many insightful comments that reflect his palpable understanding of French politics, this conclusion Jarred reaches is flawed: the no-vote does not reflect a conscious or unconscious cultural "decision."

As Jarred correctly explains, one bundle of reasons French voters rejected the EU constitution is concern about Muslim immigration and Turkey's admission into the EU. But Jarred himself notes that this is only one reason for the no-vote. There are more important reasons why so many French citizens voted "no."

I discussed the French no vote, and Jarred's thoughtful considerations, with a French graduate student here named Mathiew, (he's pictured napping in a post below). Mathiew listed two concerns for French voters that outweighed "unspoken" worries about Turkey and Muslims: the ailing Franco-German social model, and Chirac himself. I wrote down what Mathiew said after I explained Jarred's post:

"It might be true, but I don't think that's a good framework for analyzing the vote. I think the two main factors still are the kind of social-economic factors of the EU that French people still reject, and that Chirac implied himself too much in the campaign ... so it became a protest vote against Chirac."

Like Mathiew, I think that both of these explicitly important considerations dominated thinking for French voters. Turkey, Muslim immigrants, and French identity were no doubt a part of the EU vote for some French people, but seeing a cultural "decision" about these concerns is too much, and drawing such a conclusion deemphasizes these two other important reasons why French voters voted "no."

Another flaw in Jarred's conclusion is the assumption that many French voters have a shared concern about Turkey's EU admission and immigrants from the Middle East. I agree with Mathiew, who noted that "even people who voted no, who had very clear economic and political reasons why they voted, even members of the far-left... if you asked all them to let Turkey in, many of them might say yes, why not?" There's no doubt that these issues worry a lot of French people, but there is not unity of opinion in France about issues like Turkey or Muslim immigration, and therefore it is inappropriate to conclude from the "no" vote that decisions have been made about preserving French culture in the face of a European or Muslim cultural onslaught.

It's important not to "read too much" in a vote. That's not to say that votes don't tell us a lot about how voters are thinking -- of course they do -- but voting "no" in a constitution referendum that is important and controversial for many reasons does not necessarily amount to a single, big cultural decision. In his post, Jarred writes: "their choice is the France of old, but weaker, or a new France, and stronger. They have chosen the former, and the full implications of that decision have yet to reveal themselves." Consciously or unconsciously, I think very few French voters had such a grand decision in mind when they voted "no" in the referendum.

Jarred's post is very thoughtful, and it's unfair for me to attack his conclusion when, as he noted, his post was an off-the-cusp reflection on Fukuyama's speech. I agree with a lot of what he wrote. Ultimately even if I disagree with his conclusion, Jarred's right that Turkey's admission to the EU and Muslim immigration are important issues that the French need to come to terms with, whether or not they were trying to make a decision about it during the EU vote.

good news and bad news

Good News
In the next few weeks, the postings on this blog are going to get more interesting. This week I will finish up my time in Taipei and head out to visit friends in Hong Kong, take the 28-hour train across China to Beijing and visit friends there, travel with four great Davidson people to see the desert of Xinjiang province, live in yurts, maybe get close to the Pakistan-China border, and more.
Bad News
In the next few weeks, the postings on this blog are going to get a lot less frequent for the same reason that they're going to get more interesting -- I'll be traveling a lot. Hopefully at least twice a week I'll still write a post and upload pictures.

In other bad news, even though I just got back from a beautiful day driving through the mountains along the coast of Taiwan with two friends from work, I can't write about it today, because a typhoon is pummelling Taiwan, and I need to go home (in fact, classes and work might be canceled tomorrow).

I know I owe some people e-mails, I promise I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

French cheese eaten, moped driver clobbered, and Emily leaves forever

To celebrate Bastille Day, the French "trade and culture office" in Taiwan (i.e. embassy) threw a great lunch-party in a hotel near Taipei 101. I've always felt that there were a lot of French people in Taipei, and the overwhelming attendance at the event today only added to that impression. They don't eat cheese very much in Taiwan, so the chance to gobble up slices of French cheeses was especially memorable. At the party I had a chance to talk briefly with the "security coordinator" of the Israeli bodyguard that protects their representatives here in Taipei; he said he had also noticed my attendance at the Randy Schriver speech on Tuesday. He's returning to Israel in August -- he's one dude here I don't plan on pissing off.

However I did piss off someone else today -- namely an irresponsible, unfortunate moped driver. I'm always careful about opening taxi doors onto busy streets, and today was no exception. I had been waiting for about 20 seconds to open my door as cars and mopeds passed by, when I finally saw that traffic had cleared up, and I opened the door. Unfortunately, this driver had been idling out of view behind our taxi, waiting for the same free moment to dart past us, and he collided with the door. Thank God, he seemed alright, and only sat their dazed for a few seconds before resuming his trip without a word to us. The taxi driver received a small two cm dent that I may have to pay for at a future date.

Most importantly, though, today, tragically, was Emily Drew's last day in Taiwan. It all happened so quickly: just last week, after a year spent in Taipei, she left her job at the Taipei Times and decided to seek new adventures in New York. Although we tried to figure out a time to have lunch or dinner, her packing schedule was so tight that it didn't work out, (she only had about a week to get her affairs in order and get out of the country) so it may be some time before I ever see her again. Since she's fearless and real smart, I bet there will be new adventures to come for her soon.

In other news, Bryan returned from his adventures in Thailand and Japan today, and we had dinner tonight.

The pictures are all from the Bastille Day celebration; the younger women is Evelyn from the DPP office, and the older women on the left in the last picture is the French "ambassador" to Taiwan (technically trade and culture "representative", since France, like most countries, does not recognize Taiwan).

photos added

Photos have been added to the last five posts.

Baltimoreans descend on Taipei

After work today, I had dinner with Jen Lally, a Baltimore native who went to Roland Park and Washington & Lee, and now works as a teacher at Westminster school in Atlanta. After dinner we strolled around the presidential palace and peace garden area for a while. Jen is staying for three weeks at Christ College outside of Taipei, where she is teaching English.

Although she doesn't get back to Baltimore all too often, it was still good to hang out with someone from home. I had never met Jen before, but for those of you who don't know, even though the greater Baltimore area has more people than the greater Boston area, it is a ridiculously small town, and so of course we knew about a hundred people in common.

my dad's magazine article

Before I left for Taiwan, my dad gave me the March 2005 edition of Forbes magazine, which contained an article entitled "the best advice I ever got." I've been flipping through the magazine occasionally when I'm sitting down for dinner, and I've been meaning to post some of the best advice.

"You're right not because others agree with you, but because your facts are right."
- Warren Buffett, CEO Berkshire Hathaway
"Make a fool of yourself."
- Richard Branson, Virgin Airways, Virgin Group
"Be nice, do your best -- and most important, keep it in perspective."
- Meg Whitman, eBay
"Don't listen to the naysayers."
Sallie Krawcheck, Citigroup
"When 'everyone knows' something to be true, nobody knows nothin'."
Andy Grove, Intel
"Let others take the credit."
Brian Roberts, Comcast
"Keenly visualize the future."
Klaus Kleinfeld, CEO Siemens (a University of Wuerzburg graduate)
"If you love something, the money will come."
Donny Deutsch, Deutsche Inc.
"All you really own are ideas and the confidence to write them down."
Brian Grazer, Film writer
So far as the last one is concerned, I hope that's what I'm doing now.

two canadians, one frenchman, and an american

The Canadians
I met two interesting Canadians in the last 24 hours. Louis, from Quebec, I met last night. His first trip to Asia was to Mongolia at the age of sixteen. He told a great story about being lost in the Gobi desert for two days on a horse that was supposed to know where it was going, but didn't. The other Canadian, Mei Su Wee, is a Ph.D. student at the University of Toronto, her mentor in the graduate school program there is Joseph Wang, who gave a great lecture at Davidson this past spring. Her thesis involves a comparison between democratic reform in South Korea and Taiwan.
The Frenchman
That same night I also had a great conversation with Mathiew, a very articulate and thoughtful French graduate student studying cross-strait politics here on a fellowship from a political university in Paris. Although part of our conversation centered on the recent political game we both participated in, discussed below, a lot of what we talked about regarded Jarred's thoughtful blog regarding Francis Fukuyama and the French rejection of the EU, accessible here. Mathiew explained his belief that "the two main factors still are the kind of social/economic factors of the EU that French people still reject... [and that] Chirac implied himself too much in the campaign, so it became a protest vote against Chirac."
The American
Tonight I attended a talk at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy given by Randy Schriver, the former assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs. Mr. Schriver, a Democrat who served under both Clinton and (until recently) Bush, spoke about Taiwan's importance as a democracy and the opportunities and challenges of China's increasing importance. He noted that "democracy is Taiwan's greatest asset, and it's what binds Taiwan together with the United States... there was a little poking fun at President Bush after his inaugural; people counted how many times he said 'freedom' or 'democracy.' But I think for places like Taiwan the memory is still more fresh -- how hard it is to get these things."

He made an interesting comment about Chinese diplomats, explaining, "their diplomatic corp has grown extremely effective, extremely skilled... it wasn't so long ago that if you bumped into a Chinese diplomat at a state function, you could excect a response that stuck pretty close to the script... but they've become very creative, very clever." In response to a question about America's attempt to "contain" China, he said "if we were trying to contain China, why would we be the largest source for China's direct investment, the ones who are training many of China's elite scientists and engineers?... some analysts say that even if they become democratic, confrontation between the United States and China is inevitable, but a powerful, democratic China is something in the future we would welcome."

But in response to a question I asked him about a nytimes article discussing tiny democratic reform efforts taking place in China, he explained that "I see little indication that the central government, the authorities in Beijing, are ready to launch on an experiment towards greater political participation, I think if anything, there's been a crackdown on things like use of the internet, there's been a crackdown on house churches... i read the same article, and i've seen the same reports, but i think on the whole i'm skeptical."
To read more about his visit and speech, go to: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/07/12/2003263183

2005 Taiwan-Strait Political-Military Game

It started on Friday and continued through the weekend -- about 100 young DPP staffers and future leaders attended a "political-military" game designed to help them learn about the thought-process of policy makers in the United States and China, and maybe more importantly to teach them how to prevent conflict in the Taiwan-strait.

Probably because I'm American, I was assigned to be one of the advisors to the U.S. president. It was enormously challenging since my mandarin is pretty bad and I'm not nearly proficient enough to understand what was going on, but I was able to pick out some sentences by myself, and two girls sitting next to me helped translate a lot. Today (Sunday) the DPP chairman arrived back from the U.S. to deliver a short speech at the conference and to congratulate us.

It was very interesting to see how these young Taiwanese handled the crises the "control room" staff would throw at them. One of the other advisors to the U.S. was a young woman who recently attended a model U.N. conference in Geneva -- she really knew what she was doing, as attested (at least partially) by her willingness to abandon Taiwan in circumstances where it was no longer in the U.S. interest to support it -- she understood clearly that the U.S. has it's own interests in mind, and that those interests might not always be the same as those of Taiwan.

It was the first time the DPP had hosted a conference like this, and although they did a really good job organizing and coordinating all the events, their inexperience in manipulating the delicate mock-crises eventually took a toll; in the span of forty minutes Saturday night, ( it was a pretty long day, from 8:00am til midnight) we learned that China was threatening Taiwan unless they immediately accepted the one-China policy, a Taiwanese dissident had assassinated the Chinese premier, Muslim extremists had captured and blocked the Singapore strait, and Pakistan had inexplicably seized the opportunity to invade India. Perhaps more restraint on the part of the control staff would have been more appropriate.

Even in the U.S., unhindered by language differences, I've always performed poorly at these kinds of mock-crisis conferences. I've thought a lot about why this might be, because it worries me that I can't respond quickly and effectively to crises. Certainly I'm not very comfortable with having to respond to something too rapidly -- I like to carefully and slowly think about what's going on. Moreover, there is very little information available, which can make it hard to see the outcomes that your decisions will produce. I'm also bewildered by the impersonal nature of the situation; events unfold and the control room tells us that the leader of a faraway country has declared war on his neighbor, but we can't personally confront that leader and communicate with him or her personally. This kind of ambiguity is very frustrating for me, (and ultimately, I think, relatively unrealistic), and combined with the expectation of a rapid response and the lack of important information, I become paralyzed and can't offer any useful suggestions. Although I enjoyed this conference and I learned a lot, my dismal performance echoed my failures at model U.N. conferences throughout high school. oh well.

Anyway, it was very interesting.

jarred and erika go to DPP chairman's speech in D.C.!

It's a little late news, but Jarred and Erika attended the speech given by our fearless and mighty DPP chairman in D.C. last week at CSIS, the same think-tank where Jarred works. In an e-mail, Jarred described the experience as "really cool" and unique because he "had never been to a speech with an interpreter before, so that was also interesting." Today the chairman arrived in Taiwan back from his speeches in the U.S. and came to visit the conference I was at, reminding me once again just how small the world is becoming. In the first picture, you can see on the right the back of the heads of Jarred and Erika attending his speech. In the second picture, the woman standing behind the chairman in this picture is my boss, or more like my boss's boss, Bi-khim Hsiao.

"der spiegel" reporter interviewed

At work today I interviewed by phone Stefan Simons, the Asia editor at the foreign desk of Der Spiegel, the German newsmagazine. Their website can be accessed at www.spiegel.de. (On an unrelated note, the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the recent London bombings took credit for the attacks by writing to Der Spiegel).

I interviewed Mr. Simons for an article about German attitudes towards Taiwan that will be published in the DPP's small English-language newsletter. Tragically, as a result of my chronic ridiculiousness, I neglected to turn on the tape recorder I was using to record the interview until the last few questions. Unfortunately I think a lot of the best questions were at the beginning of the interview, and now they're lost forever. But I think the questions I did take down answers to are pretty interesting. I copied the transcript of what I did record below.
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INTERVIEW: HENRY VAN WAGENBERG (TAIPEI), STEFAN SIMONS, (HAMBURG)

H: Do you think that they [Germans] would see the military aid the U.S. gives to Taiwan as being dangerous or unwise in the sense that it could potentially upset the status quo? How do Germans, those who do know about it, how do they react to the U.S. military aid to Taiwan?

Mr. Simons: ... I think the political and military threat of Beijing to Taiwan, i think that's quite obvious even if people in Germany don't know exactly about the numbers or figures attached to it. On the other hand, where people are more reluctant to support Taiwan's cause is when the independence claim is used a political gimmick in election campaigns as was the case in the last few years, I think that -- Chen Shui-bian's very obvious, well rumors, in terms of political independence, I think very much in the United States was viewed as a gimmick, and I think that was seen [by Germans] as rocking the boat in the Taiwan straits.

H: Do you personally think that Europe should be more supportive of Taiwan as a young democracy? What's your personal opinion about Europe's relationship to Taiwan? Should it be closer to Taiwan, or is it good the way it is?

Mr. Simons: Well personally, I would think that the Europeans as a whole could be a lot more outspoken in their support of Taiwan, because it's one of the few countries in Southeast Asia which already have a quite brilliant historical example of military dictactorship to full-fledged democracy, that alone I think deserves more support, more outspoken position-taking on the side of the Europeans, but i think everything is overshadowed by the economic bermuda triangle that kind of sucks in the political good will. Personally as I say it would be much better if there was more of an equidistance, but sure enough Beijing cannot be left aside, it certainly has to be treated with the due respect it can demand as an upcoming superpower. On the other I don't think that should go to the detriment of Taiwan.

H: Do you personally think that the U.S.'s military support of Taiwan is dangerous or unwise, or should be rethought?

Mr. Simons: No. I think that the US under the current administration, Bush 2, has not changed its political stance, in a way it's going back to the equidistance. Politically it has reiterated the Shanghai comminique position, and all it does now is underline the committment with military hardware. The military balance was certainly tilting towards Beijing; I think what the Americans do is a reaction to the perceived threat, rather than venturing into dangerous territory by itself.

H: Ok. Just one last question. As a journalist, do you think that when articles are published about Taiwan, vs. articles about China, do you think that an article about Taiwan attracts a lot less attention than China? Is Taiwan sort of less on the radar screen for Germans?

Mr. Simons: Yes of course. We're talking about two different countries, with two different economies -- 1.3 billion people on the move to become the second superpower, in 20-25 years, of course will command much more public, journalistic attention. absolutely, there's no doubt about it. And that Taiwan compared to China will see its light in the public eye be diminished. I think that's only normal.

H: O.k., alright, well thank you very much.

Mr. Simons: If there's anything else, just let me know.

air conditioner fixed, visa rejected

Last night, the old Taiwanese couple that lives below me knocked on my door and begged me to turn off my air conditioner.

I bought a new air conditioner with my friends on Sunday; it seems since the day it was installed, the water from the back had been noisily dripping onto the tin roof of their porch, and from what i gathered, they hadn't really slept since. I didn't want to torture them for another night, so I slept without air conditioning one more time, and then at 7 am, before class and work, the building super and i installed a rubber pipe to drain the water to less troublesome places. Hopefully my neighbors will catch up on their sleep soon.

In other news, today I skipped my lunchtime to go to the consular office and switch my visa to student status so that I can stay in Taiwan (my 60-day visa expires in one week.)

My application was rejected.

I had all the paperwork and authentification certificates from my school, but it just didn't work. Although everyone I'd spoken with had told me that it was possible to change my visa to a student status (since i'm a student), apparently there is no way to change it while in Taiwan; I need to go to there Hong Kong office to do that. Theoretically I'm supposed to leave the country about a week from now. I'm not sure if my Taiwan trip may be coming to a premature end, or rather, if my trip to China is enjoying an early start. We'll see soon.

africa and molly langer

This afternoon I e-mailed Molly Langer with a controversial nytimes op-ed by Nicholas Kristof (it's a few days old now). She offered a very thoughtful response and included an op-ed of her own. I copied the articles and our conversation below. Molly is working at the Brookings institute this summer.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM: HENRY VAN WAGENBERG July 6, 2:42 PM
Molly, I imagine you read this op-ed already, but just in case you didn't, I copied it below. I'm not sending this to you to say "I told you so" or even to defend Bush -- the op-ed itself is ultimately critical of him. But I think it makes the point very well that things aren't black and white; Bush and republicans are not "bad" for developing countries, liberals are not "good" for them. I also find Kristof's skepticism of financial aid both appropriate and healthy.
link to article I sent: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/opinion/05kristof.html?ex=1120795200&en=b1e9fb1ad01d25bc&ei=5070
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FROM MOLLY LANGER July 6, 10:27 PM
Henry,
thanks for the article, i thought it was pretty interesting and partially accurate. Kristof, as im sure you know, has been closely following Bush's response to the genocide in Sudan and has been highly critical of the administration. He knows that the G8 summit represents a rare opporunity in that Africa is at the top of the agenda, and my opinion of the article is that he is kissing some bush administration ass in a last-ditch effort to get Bush to make real commitments. That said, "conservative" has a lot of meanings, and the part of conservative that equates with morally conscious and, in most cases, religious, I have no problems with. In fact, by that definition, I come from an extremely conservative, catholic family. And i agree that the religious right does a TON of good social work, more than most liberals who go blabbering about doing good work but never actually get around to doing any. However, as I said, when it comes to Bush's actual commitment to African aid and development, I am highly skeptical. Mostly because I am working here at Brookings with a couple of scholars who specialize on U.S. policy toward Africa, and when you actually look at the numbers versus what Bush says he is commiting, there is a huge discrepancy. Similar to the Iraq issue....more than anything I just wish this administration would have an honest discussion. I've attached a Washington Post op-ed from yesterday, written by a woman who works here at Brookings. Remember the difference between the individual conservative and this conservative administration in terms of which is effective and which follows through on big talk.

link to article Molly sent: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/04/AR2005070400863_pf.html

americans came to work today

A delegation of almost a dozen professors and researchers from the U.S. dropped by our office today. My boss, Huai Hui, held a meeting with them for about an hour; she let me sit in and listen as they questioned her about legislative elections and rejected-weapons packages.

Most of them were from the Cato institute, GW, the Naval War College, and the Center for National Policy, but two of them were from closer to home -- professors at UMaryland and Towson.

It goes without saying that I love people in Taiwan, but after so many weeks here, seeing twelve American faces was a refreshing moment for me. Having spent so much time in a foreign country, it also made me appreciate something: Americans might have a reputation for being loud sometimes, but most of us really are friendly people. I mean that.

I added two more pictures to the account at http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrowse.asp?folder_id=1385542. They are pictures of me standing with this girl Evelyn who is another intern at the DPP office. She's French-Brazilian, but her family has lived in Taiwan for several years. She graduated from college here in Taiwan this June.

new pictures

Johann (Swedish), Anya, Ellen, (both Taiwanese) and Lionel (French), having dinner sunday night. Ellen works in the DPP youth office.
at dinner with people from the office and visiting professors from France
Me, Dave, and Emily
Bryan, his friend Dave, and Emily at "the Brass Monkey," a restaurant where all the australians and americans hang out

The black and white picture with the mopeds shows the apartment where I live