Blackout Korea scandal 2011 - A view from Taiwan

And a comparison of foreigners in Taiwan with foreigners in Korea

For quite a while I've been following English language blogs in Taiwan and Korea, because I'm very interested in both countries and I want to be up to date on what's going on in each country. Regarding Taiwan, my primary source of information is my girlfriend, who is born here and so I think I'm very well informed about stuff that goes on in the media, even if I'm not fluent in Chinese. In addition to that, I like to read other foreign blogs to get another perspective on things. As for Korea, my primary source are few popular foreign bloggers such as the Metropolitician, James Turnbull, Roboseyo and some others. I can't really be 100% sure that the reality they see in Korea would be my reality, but I know they back up their claims with solid arguments, they don't just write stuff without giving it some serious thought. But as much as I want to talk about foreign bloggers in South Korea and Taiwan, I would like to touch on the general idea of being a blogger in a foreign country. What has triggered this post was the recent "Blackout Korea blog scandal", that's upsetting local netizens as well as foreign bloggers in South Korea. Let me briefly explain what happened.

1 The Blackout Korea blog scandal 2011

A 20-something foreign English teacher started a blog in 2009, named it Blackout Korea,...

...where he and other foreigners submit photos of excessively drunk Koreans sleeping it off on the streets (later pics of foreign binge drinkers were posted, too). Most photos are accompanied with one or more silly foreigners posing alongside the drunk (read passed out) person. You can be sure that the very moment the first photo was published the blog became a ticking bomb waiting to explode. And that's exactly what happened in recent days. It was discovered by Korean netizens and some media and as Koreans are, they weren't happy about it. If you want to check the blog out, go to: blackoutkorea.blogspot.com. I fear it will soon disappear from the web, so be quick.

A Korean blogger started a counter-blog named Who Teaches English in Korea (englishteachersout.blogspot.com), where he's using the photos from Blackout Korea (even though there's no evidence that the people appearing in them were English teachers) and comparing them with the infamous Abu Ghraib photos of American soldiers humiliating Iraqi prisoners. Of course this was a ridiculous thing to do, but it shows how careful one has to be about what they put online. All that upset the Metropolitician, who wrote a post encouraging his followers to comment on that blog. And that's what they're doing and the dance continues.

2 The South Korean online community

This is how things look on the surface to someone like me, who does not know a lot about the Korean foreign and local online community: There's a small, but vocal group of expat bloggers, who constantly complain about the country and its people and don't care how it comes across. They vent, they rant and use offensive language, oftentimes purposely, because they want to provoke Koreans for whatever reason. On the other hand there's a vocal group of Korean netizens who reject every criticism of their nation from a foreigner, even if it's constructive and well-argued. Not only are they spewing threats to those who dare to say anything "bad" about Korea, some even go as far as to gather information of a particular foreigner and try to harm them in real life. And then there's a significant part of the South Korean media, that seems to be biased towards foreigners. These 3 fractions are usually the ones, that are the loudest. Many times they start nontroversies, fabricate the truth and reinforce stereotypes. They're the ones that operate with ideas like "English teachers are losers in their own country, dangerous sexual predators, troublemakers" and on the other hand "Koreans are stupid, rude, overly proud and aggressive". Apart from these three fringe groups, there's the silent majority of foreign and local blogs, websites and forums, who keep it decent and non-confrontational and seem to get along fairly well. Of course their stories of peace, love and harmony won't spark as much interest as a scandal involving inconsiderate foreigners, drunk Koreans and unflattering photos (these comments are telling). All this is of course not only typical for Korea, but can be observed in many other countries.

3 The Taiwanese online community

I think, if you're generally not a trouble seeker, you won't find any in Taiwan. Things here are on much smaller scale compared to South Korea, because foreign (read Western) residents are still a very small minority. Hence the English speaking online community remains relatively small and is mostly overlooked by Taiwanese netizens and media. That has it's good and bad sides. If any, it's the political blogs that gained some recognition such as The View from Taiwan. All other domains are fully dominated by Taiwanese bloggers, who are probably one of the most passionate in the world. In comparison with Koreans, Taiwanese seem to be more forgiving to foreigners, who point the finger at some of the flaws of their country. That may partly lay in the fact, that the Taiwanese society is relatively young, greatly divided and still seeking its identity, while Koreans, who throughout history suffered attacks and invasions from China and Japan, had to stick together in order to preserve their language and culture and therefore formed a strong national identity and a strong sensibility to all "attacks" from the outside (or outsiders). With that said, there are always boundaries one should not overstep, when blogging about Taiwan and Taiwanese people. You will hardly find any drunk people sleeping on the streets in Taiwan, so that topic would not fill a blog. I guess the number one reason for Taiwanese to get upset are politics, which is common in many other countries, but I've never seen a democratic nation so greatly divided by political convictions as Taiwan is. Yet, despite all these divisions, the country functions better than many other so called "harmonious" countries out there. That's certainly fascinating and I would surely have a lot to say about it, but I won't. I won't touch Taiwanese politics on my blog other than what I said here in this post. If others do that, it's their choice. I rather stick to fun stuff like food and travel. I would only make an exception, if something really bad happens and I want to share my view from inside. Back to Taiwan's media. As a foreigner you need to be more careful outside the virtual world. Small irrelevant things tend to be reported and sensationalized and there's always someone with a camera at hand, who can take a photo of a "silly" laowai doing something funny or bad or just embarrassing. Not sure how often it happens, but I think my freckled face must have landed on a Taiwanese blog or two... I just hope they didn't write anything mischievous about me.

4 Taiwanese are tolerant, but...

...there are of course limits to everything. I just don't get people, who come to East Asian countries to live and work and behave like they are back home and even want to apply the same standards to the country they have moved to. Coming from a small less known country like Slovenia, I can relate to Taiwan's situation well. And the small yet unique Slovenian culture helps me understand Koreans and Korea. Well, to a certain extent. I feel that, if you're a blogger, you're putting yourself out there and people will judge you. It's impossible to please everybody, when writing a blog, of course, but there can be a difference in tone and manner. So many bloggers just keep on criticizing without even offering any ideas, how they could make it better. They don't take an effort to try and figure out why something is different than in their world and just bash and trash continuously. I usually unfollow these blogs instantly, I don't want to waste my time by reading someone's personal frustrations all the time. And there are a few blogs about Taiwan, who hate everything about the life here (I wonder, what keeps them here). I always tell my girlfriend, that foreigners see reality with different eyes. I can spot every dirty spot or every weird thing someone does, while walking to the MRT station, but my girlfriend would not see a thing. It was interesting to see the reversed situation last year, when she visited Slovenia and Europe for the first time. She saw so many things I haven't noticed before and caught every person staring at her. It was like seeing my own country with completely different eyes. That's of course great and very insightful, but it's totally lame, if you use it for ridiculing people, making fun of traditions or mocking the way of life, just because you have some personal issues with that. You're not doing anyone any favors by behaving this way. In relation to Taiwan, I've found this odd blog post from 2008, written by a female English teacher nicknamed imaniou:

Cranky Laowai... having an "I hate Taiwan" night (rated R version)

"As I mentioned before, I lost my cellphone in a taxi two weeks ago. I finally broke down and bought a new one tonight for $2500 NT (a little over $80 USD) at the Tong Hua St. Night Market after dinner. As I rounded to climb the pedestrian overpass, I saw two high school kids copping a smoke on the steps, completely blocking the path save a narrow space between them. When I got close, they started saying something about the "heiren" (black person, literally). As if those two shits had any room to talk. After a surreal night last night, bad service at dinner (I'm not even sure why I bother thinking the waiters will do their jobs despite smiling politely and looking into their eyes to say thank you every time they do what they are paid to do...which rarely happens) and only a few hours of sleep, I was in bitch mode and not to be trifled with. As I passed, I "accidentally" kicked the shit monster on the right's box of milk tea down the filthy stairs into a mucky puddle below and pai sei'd him (the untouchable word for absolving fault in Taiwanese). Gosh. If he hadn't been sitting there making it hard to maneuver around him, it probably would have never happened.

"Ni kan, hei ren" must have been the theme at the night market as every tai ke scumkin made it a point to turn, point, whisper, and stare as I walked by in search of a phone. I stopped into one store to be violently ignored before I muttered "fuck this" and walked out. I stepped into another store where the two dribbling xiao jies giggled and pointed. I waved the money I had planned to spend there, put it back in my pocket, and said that it was no wonder they had no customers. Then I cranked my MP4 player up and moved along. From the toothless hag selling polyester beaded clothes on the street to the betel-nut chomping creep in the stained wifebeater dribbling red betel nut saliva into the greasy sausages he was grilling, I was a source of entertainment. And then I realized why the street was so dead. Most of the decent people in this country wouldn't touch this place with a 20-foot pole and a gallon of disinfectant. Now Taiwan in general is a filthy, repulsive place to walk with dog shit, blood red betel nut spit and chewed up pulp, litter, human waste, and prolific cockroaches everywhere you look whether you are in the city, in a small town, or even in the national parks. The Japanese tried to civilize the originals (the ones that most of the taikes are comprised of) and CKS's people tried slaughtering them and both groups tried to get them to drop their culture and assimilate to their conquerors. And yet they still persisted to spread all over the country, bringing their ignorance and taike-ism with them even into the cities. The bid for the UN is laughable at best and pathetically oblivious at worst and voiced the loudest by those who would discard a half cup of milk tea into a bush, make their kid piss next to the slide at the playground, and not even blink when dumping the dog they bought because it's no longer tiny and its bad behavior is no longer cute. Even the Philippines does not treat every inch of its country as a public toilet/dump/temporary home the way the Taiwanese treat their land and still have the audacity to think not only are they better than the rest of the world, but that they deserve a place in deciding what happens to it when they can't even get people to stop dumping their domestic garbage into (or rather, on and around) street litter bins.

Buildings are filthy, covered in dirt when they are covered with tiles that are easy to clean off if someone actually cared enough to clean them. Wires hang all over them, off them, across rooftops weaving in and out of windows and air conditioner holes. The little bit of green on the ground is crabgrass and weeds, but mostly algae growing on congealing puddles of dead land where people couldn't be arsed with walking on the actual sidewalk. Or couldn't walk thanks to the thousands of parked scooters and illegal carts of clothes, food, and cheap plastic shit clogging the already narrow walkways.

Most days, I can look beyond the filth of both the landscape and see the beauty of many things here. Sitting in the classroom with my students and having a rare glimpse into the fact that the kids I am having engaging conversations with are all Taiwanese non-native speakers who, for some, have only been learning English for four years. I know how badly I sounded like after four years of French and I had a lot more class time than they do.

But for tonight, I feel that Taiwan is making itself easier to not miss when I leave this fall."

Post: Source

I'm not saying, that bad things don't happen in Taiwan (or Korea) and I'm not saying one should not vent, but some things are better not to be published, after you write them down. I rather vent to my girlfriend or send emails to family back in Slovenia. It's not like the cyberspace needs to store every thought that pops up in your head. Just know that words and photos have consequences and it's better to be overly sensitive than overly insensitive. I try to walk a fine line between being funny, entertaining and informational and now and then critical and analytical. Sometimes I go too far, but I have no problem to correct myself, if necessary. The important thing is, how you do it, not if you do it. If you write controversial stuff, be man (or woman) enough to sign your real name below.

In regards to the above topics, my questions are:

• Are those photos of drunk Koreans going too far?
• Is that blog attacking English teachers in Korea going too far?
• Which topics do you personally avoid to write about on your blog?
• How should a Westerner in East Asia blog about the things he sees?
• How did you find that rant of the "cranky laowai" about Taiwan?

Very interested to read your opinion on these issues. More about Taiwan here>>

Popular Taiwanese blogger HoneyQueen exposed

Blogging is huge in Taiwan! As I wrote already in one of my previous posts, almost every young Taiwanese has a blog or a Wretch account, where they post photos (and usually a lot of photos). So a nation of bloggers naturally produces few very popular bloggers, so called "blogger celebrities". Currently the most popular blogger in Taiwan is Benshee (aka flowermonkey 花猴), a twenty-something girl that writes about her life, makeup, clothes, travel and restaurants and has around 100.000 visitors a day! Yes! That's right: Hundred thousand a day. At this point I'd need about 6 months to reach that number and some bloggers would need years to have such traffic. And in Taiwan there's an unofficial rule, that a blogger earns the same amount of money per post as the number of their daily hits. For example, it's rumored that Benshee would currently get 100.000 NTD per post, if a company asked her to promote a product on her blog. That's around 2500 Euro per post (or around 3400USD). Imagine, she writes 5 posts and she can buy a new car with cash. This shows that blogging can be a big business in Taiwan and few are making some big bucks just by becoming popular.

But this post is not meant to write about Benshee, I want to tell you what has recently happened to one of her friends, who is also a popular blogger. Her nickname is HoneyQueen (林哈妮) and her blog has around 30.000 hits a day. That's of course a lot of traffic as well and gives her the chance to advertise various products by reviewing them and recommending them. And as the unwritten rule goes, she could well charge up to 30.000 NTD (which is around 750 Euro or 1000 USD) for a post. From what I heard, the things she recommended on her blog really sold well and some of her readers are (or were) real fans of her and would flood the shop or store she would write about on her blog. So it was a win-win situation for her and the company. But then something happened. She wrote a product review about a skin care product that supposedly removes pimples and she posted before and after photos. But one of her readers found out that she used a makeup foundation in her after photo to cover the pimple for the (nonexistent) effect.

The person who found that out, made an anonymous blog just to expose her and highlighted all the mistakes she made, you can see that here. For example: HoneyQueen claimed the before and after photos were 4 days apart, but the data proves that she first put make up on and took a photo and later used it as the after photo. Then she gradually removed the make up from the pimple and took more photos, which she used for the before photos. All photos were taken within few minutes, if the data is accurate. Also on both photos she's wearing the same clothes, her eyes look similarly red and her eye lashes also look the same way (if you zoom in the photos). After this was leaked, people started to check her older reviews and found out that she's done similar things in the past: Her credibility was instantly tarnished. Not only that, the Taiwanese mass media started to report the incident which lead to HoneyQueen's apology on her blog. However she only apologized for this latest incident and not for all the reviews she has faked in the past. From what I've heard, she's going on a hiatus until further notice. So far, no companies have claimed their money back, but at this point nobody is willing to promote their product on her blog, which is of course not surprising. What will happen with her blog in the future, we don't know, but these days, her traffic and popularity is constantly in decline (here's a Taiwanese blog rank). For now she's definitely lost her face and hopes that the media will quickly divert their attention to someone else.

And here's an irony: HoneyQueen herself once exposed a blogger, who did exactly the same thing by faking the effect of some diet medicine. I guess what goes around comes around.

What do you think about all this? Did you ever notice a blogger faked or exaggerated the effect of a product? How do you review products?

Update: Now even Benshee a.k.a. FlowerMonkey has apologized for not clearly explaining a photo of a product's effect and vowed to abide by much higher standards, when it comes to advertizing products on her blog. (We can only hope that will be the case...)

[A TV report on the incident][Photo: Source]

I was Top Tweet on Twitter!

When your tweet gets retweeted several hundred times you feel like a celebrity

Look, my tweet appeared on Twitter's homepage!

Twitter never ceases to amaze me. Today I sign in and see that HATE MALAYSIA is on trending topics. Since I have a connection with the country, I was curious about it and found out that at a soccer match Malaysian fans blinded the Indonesian goal keeper with lasers (source). Seriously, that was pretty lame. Whoever did that, does not understand the spirit of fair play. However the incident, incited by one or few people, started an online war between Malaysians and Indonesians on Twitter and other social networks. I read some tweets, became angry and wrote this:

It was a simple tweet written out of an impulse. I didn't expect much. But then suddenly people started to retweet it, Malaysians, Indonesians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Indians... first 3, then 20, then 62... then over 100. Suddenly I got tons of new followers, people reposted my words few hundred times. I could not believe what was happening. Not only that, so many gave me feedback, most was positive, but some accused me of being racist, a white supremacist or that I don't understand the situation in Asia. Some also asked, if in the West there was no hate. Those were the ones, that would also add something derogatory about USA.

I was RTed by @toptweets. Felt great to see my face up there. Didn't I look cool? :-P

So let me explain my epic tweet. The things I mentioned of course were generalizations, simplifications and a bit exaggerated. But what do you expect from a tweet? What else can I say in 140 signs other than something with a point, something that hits you right in the face?

Those who know me, know how hard I try to understand the reality from multiple sides and how I want to be a bridge between the East and the West, between Asia and Europe. I always try to see things for two sides in every issue. And accusing me of being a racist or white supremacist based on this tweet is hilarious, albeit baseless. My point was to highlight the silly conflicts in Asia, that always make netizens go haywire and attack each other.

Just recently there was an incident in taekwondo, where a Taiwanese athlete was disqualified unfairly by a Korean referee (source) and Taiwanese netizens went berserk, created numerous I hate Koreans groups on Facebook, some even burned Korean flags. How can you hate all people of a country because of one single incident that only involved few people? I understand the anger, but sometimes things go too far. And that was part of the reason I wrote that tweet. If you ask me, there are too many conflicts in Asia (like the one in Korea recently). And we saw how real and deadly it can become. It always starts with words, words of hate. Then incidents follow, the hate grows and suddenly there's no way back and something really bad happens. Be it in Europe or Asia, I'm against all hate. I was always against hating certain groups, just because few people from that group have done something bad.

Luckily most Asian people, who have read my tweet, got the point, that's why it became top. The most important part of my tweet is the question at the end: How about love? My point was to make you think. It's so easy to be angry and say stupid things, because you can switch off your brain and just follow what everybody does. It's harder to pause for a while and ask yourself, if it's really right to hate someone for something very trivial. And that exceeds race and culture, it's sadly a very human flaw.

Let me share some of the interesting responses to my tweet:

It was fun to be celebrity for few hours. Now I know a little what it means to be when people attack celebs or want to be their friend. It's not easy. So many asked me to follow back, but I'm very selective and don't just follow anyone. So hope you guys understand that. But I will always try to reply to someone, if I get @ed.

UPDATE: @Favstar50 has just notified me, that my tweet was favorited 51 times and retweeted 623 times. That's plain crazy :P

Racist tirades against Obama

It looked so promising in 2008

Those who followed my blog in 2008, knew how excited I was about Obama's victory at the 2008 Presidential election. I remember how closely I followed the whole campaign since 2007. Obama particularly caught my attention by that time, I had the feeling that he may go really far. And man, he really went further than my wildest expectations. His speeches gave me goosebumps and sometimes they still do. I won't ever forget that night and his speech in Chicago. in front of thousands of people, knowing that he will be the next president of the United States. It was about 4am in the morning, when I watched that speech live on CNN and I won't ever forget that moment, when Jesse Jackson cried. I guess I was moved a little, too, even though I'm not American. I think there probably wasn't a single African American, who wasn't somehow touched that night. But this was beyond America, the whole world was amazed by what just happened in that moment.

And then 2 years later at the midterm elections, Obama and the Democrats lose their majority in the Congress and the general mood in the country seems anti-Obama. And there seems to be a small but loud group of people, who think it's OK to voice racist comments. I read this article on Yahoo! News (this is just a snippet):

Since the expectations were so high in 2008, Obama couldn't possibly meet them. 2 years are too short for a decade of wrong decisions and failed policies. But well, everyone expects super things from Superman, right? Even though I admire Obama and support most of his policies, I can understand that some Americans are disappointed. But what I don't understand is the disgusting racism against Obama, that seems to be OK now, almost mainstream (I'm talking about online). I remember, when everyone ridiculed the birthers and the tea party a year ago, but now they're getting elected! Now they're mainstream. Same was with the racists: They seemed to be totally nonexistent in 2008 (with few exceptions), now it seems they can spew out their hate against Obama and even get applause from a lot of people (especially online). If you read any article about Obama on Yahoo! News these days, I guarantee you, that you'll come across a lot of flat out racist comments (accompanied with many "likes"). Let me show you some comments on the article above (published a day after Obama lost the midterm elections. I highlighted the worst parts):

Since I'm not American and my impressions about the current situation in America base on what I see on TV or read online, I wonder: Is it really so bad? Judging by the comments on Yahoo! News, America is ruled by an "African born Muslim who is an anti American racist, that can't run the country and needs to be imprisoned, if not executed". That's scary. How can someone in their mind really believe such things? Or am I making too much of it?

What I'm reading these days is a total opposite of what I was reading in 2008. America, what happened? Hope my American followers can enlighten me on this. But please, explain to me why are there more and more racist comments online on Obama. Or is my impression completely wrong?

[Read the COMMENTS by thorswitch][Screen caps: Yahoo! News]

Lady Gaga was waving the Slovenian flag!

Croats were baffled, while Slovenians cheered

Lady Gaga loves Slovenia! Well, she probably does not. But that's what Slovenian netizens think today. She had a concert yesterday in Zagreb, in the capital city of our neighboring country Croatia. Since Zagreb is so close to Slovenia, a lot of our people also went to the concert. But the crowd was not only full of Croats and Slovenians, there were many Italians, Austrians and Hungarians, she attracted people from all over the region. Well, the concert would not be so noteworthy, if there wasn't an incident, that left the Croatian fans baffled and the Slovenian fans stunned. A Slovenian female fan, who wrote on the flag "Italian girl from New York, my only love" for her (see here), threw it on stage and Gaga picked it up. She wrapped herself in the flag and continued dancing and singing, but dropped it few seconds later (so it was like nothing...) But those photos are now all over the web. You can imagine that many Croats weren't amused, especially because the relations between our countries have been strained for the past 20 years, but especially in the recent years, when a border dispute (read here) heated up like never before. Slovenian and Croatian netizens constantly provoke each other online, they come to our forums, we come to theirs. Our languages are pretty similar and it's not hard to learn few phrases and go to the opposite forum and be a jerk. And today the provocations continued. Croats were bitter, some angry at Lady Gaga and wondering, if she did that on purpose, while our Slovenians were overly proud and full of silly remarks.

Can't we all just take a chill pill and relax? She probably had no clue which country's flag that was, nor did she care, if she'll upset anyone. She didn't mean to offend Croats, nor did she express love for Slovenia. I hope those Slovenians, who are now full of national pride, would be fine, if she waved a Croatian flag in Ljubljana and I hope that those Croats, who are now offended, would be equally critical, if their flag would be waved in Slovenia. But I'm afraid both sides would react the same, just the roles would be exchanged...

How would you feel, if a singer waved a flag of a foreign country on a concert in your country?

[Read my posts about SLOVENIA][Photo source: Večernji.hr]

Burn, bloggy, burn!

My blog hit 10.000 monthly hits for the first time

About my bloggy. Seems like finally some of my efforts paid off. You can see on the screen cap on the left, that people recently google all kinds of stuff and come to my blog, especially things related to Taiwan, Seoul and Macau. But some of my older posts about women are still popular. Then you add my and my girlfriend's Taiwanese friends, who sometimes retweet and plurk my posts or post on some Taiwanese forums and you get 10000 hits a month easily. Oh, and I even got featured on Bloggers in Taiwan, which is very cool.

About thanking. First of all I wanna thank all of you, who still come regularly on my Taiwanesque blog. I know that many things may be not very interesting to you. I suppose you must be thinking like: "OMG, another Taiwan post?" But that's what I like to write about. I cherish every day here, I cherish every small trip I make or every new dish I try, but most of all every second I spend with my dearest girl. It's really an amazing time for me and I'm sure you guys can feel it. I want to enjoy to the fullest, you never know when it ends. Somehow I became less private here, but that suits me well now. I just don't feel like sharing all my daily problems, but that doesn't mean that I won't share some things one day. I'm planning a big Taiwan post about all my challenges and rewards here. But that will need to wait.

About Google. As you can see, my titles are always a bit plain and informational. But I'm writing for SEO, which means I hope to get more traffic through search engines, especially Google. I think that some of my posts are good and give people good info and finally search engines started to redirect many people to my blog. I'm very happy about it. I know 10000 hits in one month is peanuts compared to some other blogs, who have so many hits in one day. But hey, I'm someone who was happy about the 1000th hit on my blog last year. And now I'm slowly approaching 100000. Yay!

About why does it matter. So why do hits matter? Hmm, they don't really, but they do indicate that people read my stuff or find it useful and not only you guys, who became my friends, also random "googlers". I mean, last year I used to measure my "success" with the comments I got, but this year I measure my success by the quality of my posts, be it the photos I show, the info I provide or the text I write. I'm happy when I write something that will be still interesting to read in 10 years, like about the Palaces in Seoul, the Restaurant on top of Taipei 101 or my photos of Senado Square in Macau. I don't know, of course, if that will be the case, but I know I would gladly reread them and remember the awesome time I had in 2010.

About my Kafkaesque life. Each blogging year is different and I know that I won't be always blogging about Taiwan or travel. My life will change and my blog with it. My life is Kafkaesque in a sense, that I don't see a clear path. Sometimes I feel I'm in a corridor of a big building and walking from one door to another, trying to find the right way for me. Will I find it? Hmm, maybe. Possibly. Who knows... for now, it's ok how it is. And if my blog becomes more popular, that can only benefit me in good ways, right?

About how I blog. Anyway, if you wonder how come I can blog so much and post so many photos, let me tell you, that I'm using my girlfriend's amazing Pentax DSLR, which makes great photos. And then I'm uploading my photos on her professional Flickr account, which not only makes my photos look great and clear, it also gives me the ability to upload as many as I wish, since a pro account has unlimited bandwidth and storage (hope Flickr won't change his terms and conditions because of me, hehe). Oh, and another thing is time: Some days I have a lot of time. My girlfriend's working a lot and when I don't work, I sort out the photos, watermark them, upload them on Flickr and then embed them here and write my post. I became well-versed in this, so I'm quite fast. And when I publish, I go out, buy some bubble (or milk) tea and a Taiwanese crepe and enjoy reading your comments, hehe.

About what's coming up. This weekend I'm going to southern Taiwan, to the awesome cities Kaohsiung and Tainan and to the seaside resort Kenting, which is located on the most southern tip of Taiwan. So I'm gonna blog about that in the next days and weeks. Before that I will post about Hsinchu and Keelung, two awesome Taiwanese cities as well. And there's much more coming up, I have a lot to share. Lucky for you, it won't be about some crazy food, hehe. That chapter is closed.

About some funny googlers. Ok, let me finish my long ramblings with something funny. Do you ever check your trackers to see what people google that brings them on your website? Well, I check my trackers every day and my favorite one is Feedjit (the photo above is from there), which shows you (in pink), what people googled, before they came to my blog. Some of the things are hilarious and I've been collecting them for a while now. Let me share them here for you. Let's try to answer those googlers' questions, I hope you can help, too:

Q: how to find beautiful and kind hearted singaporeans

A: That's nearly impossible :-P Kidding. There are few among my readers :-)

Q: chinese ar language lor

A: Ya lor! On my blog lor. So good lah!

Q: which asian country singapore has the most good-looking guys

A: Is Singapore Asian? I thought they were Western :-P

Q: why do singapore girls like foreign men?

A: Foreign men are sweet talkers, Singaporean men eat sweets while talking.

Q: malaysian muscle guys

A: You can find one here!

Q: slovenian guys and asian women

A: Imagine someone from Laos googled this? Why? O.o

Q: What is the most random entry on google

A: I'd definitely think it's this one. What a crap I have produced (facepalm).

Q: i hate my asian eyes

A: Why? Why? +_+ As long as your sight is ok, you should be fine.

Q: i hate whites

A: Oh! Who was that Mauritian, who googled that??

Q: why aren't asians touchy-feely

A: And that asked by a Korean? Are you kidding me? :-P

Q: what do i do with my girlfriend in the last day when she's traveling?

A: When she's traveling? And where are you at that time? O-o

Q: Why does my nose bleed when i see a pretty lady

A: Because you've read too many Japanese mangas.

Q: why do chinese have nose bleeds when seing women

A: Because there are too many hot Chinese women! ;-)

Q: How to please a Korean woman at the table

A: Take chopsticks, grab kimchi and feed her. So simple. :-P

Q: life of a korean woman

A: Cook, serve man, be obedient, bow, diet. Lol. Kidding of course!

Q: what special dress do korean women wear after they get married

A: That one is called "thong" or in Korean "donggu". ;-)

Q: What to say to a Korean woman to get her attention WITHOUT even speaking her language

A: Ok, if you want to say something to her WITHOUT speaking her language, which obviously you mean Korean, then you better use a quote from Borat, I suggest this one: "Yaksemash, my name ah Borat, I like eh you, I like sex, is nice!" That'll give you enough attention.

I've recently realized...

1 ...that I can't stand the snow anymore!

This year's winter is crazayyy! Seriously, we didn't have so much snow in one winter for the last 20 years! It's snowing almost every week and the winter services can't keep up with the removal, because it just doesn't stop. They clear a road and 1h later it's fully covered again. It's a vicious circle. But I had to go to the neighboring small town today, because I had to send some packages to my friends. I hope they arrive in one piece in a week or two :-) We'll see.

2 ...that I have the most awesome girl in the world!

Speaking of packages, I finally received another one, this time from Taiwan. My lovely girl sent me many yummy things, but the main purpose was a SIM card, so I can call her upon my arrival in Taipei. Ain't she sweet? Besides that, she sent me many Taiwanese sweets, Japanese Matcha milk tea and two pairs of chopsticks. I was so happy, because I'm a known chocolate addict and as I have mentioned in one of my previous posts, I'm collecting chopstics. She picked very beautiful ones, that are made of bamboo. That's my favorite material, because it's so easy to hold. Thank you soooo much :-)

3 ...that internet is a very serious business.

Regarding my previous post, I have to tell you, it created a lot of buzz. 41 bit.ly clicks and over 60 comments in one day is a lot for my blog. I know some of you said I should ignore all these haters and I totally understand you. But at least I got some more traffic on my blog because of them, since they had a good laugh on my expense before. And the discussion was good, a lot of different opinions were shared. I know that there will always be ignorant and opinionated people, who will see me as someone I am not. That's up to them and most of the time, I ignore them, but sometimes I don't, hehe. That's what this blog is for. And thanks for all Your support, it means a lot to me. It was an awesome day in my Kafkaesque life :-P

4 ...that some of my most recent followers are really awesome!

Big thanks to my Croatian friend Saša, who has a big passion for Japan and always supports me. Big thanks to the Philippine dearies Krissy and R u s s, who just started to follow recently and always give great comments. And Russ was so kind, to help me with a HTML code I've been looking for. Salamat po :-) And another special thanks to a special lady: Ruma. She's Japanese, but guess what? She was born in Taiwan during WWII! And that makes her my oldest commentator on this blog and I feel very honored. Last but not least, big thanks to two awesome guys: Amogh, my fellow blogger from India and Chris, fellow blogger from Malaysia. Thank you, guys :-)

5... that I only have few more days left to my flight.

And a lot of things go through my mind, like: Wow, everything will change! - I'm gonna fly again! - I'm gonna be soon in Asia again! - No more snow, yay! (it was 30°C today in Taipei!) - I'm gonna be with a woman again! - Will I look good on 'the first date'? - I better brush up my Chinese fast! - I'm gonna be a typical tourist again! - Chinese new year is here! All that goes through my mind and much more... Wow, time really flies...

6... that my mom will never learn, how to hold chopsticks.

I'm sure your mom can hold them better :-)

[All pics by MKL, 2010]

Be alert: Britney.Lohan never sleep!

A post about spammers and weird commentators

Spamming and weird commenting in the blogosphere is out of control recently. Lucky for you, I'm good at spotting these weirdos, because I always subscribe to comments on your blogs. I collected these comments for a while now and I made a list of them, which you will find below. The days of penile enlargement emails are almost gone and most of the Nigeria scam emails have also nearly disappeared from our emails. Britney.Lohan fcuked also have a hard time promoting their sexual adventures on Twitter. However spammers are still out there, but as the anti-spamming measures had some success, they became more and more inventive.

Let me show you some of those spammers I had the pleasure to deal with recently.

1 Using your friend's email address to spam you

I have no idea how they did that, I suppose they phished my friend's password, because I swear the address was exactly the same as my friend's. You don't need to be a professor to realize that something's not right. My Malaysian friend would never greet me with Howdyy.

2 Using your friend's MSN Messenger to spam you

A message like this pops up suddenly, when you're signed in MSN, but your friend is offline. Happened several times to me recently. He he hu hu ha ha, I wonder who would click on such nonsense... Lucky not me. :P

3 Spammer pretending he's a tweeter like you

Those were the weirdest spammers I ever saw. A while ago I allowed them to follow me, not knowing what they're up to. They became less recently, but they're worth to mention. Their nonsense is really a waste of cyberspace, don't you think?

4 Link spammers in comments, who comment nonsense

Just few days ago my sidekick Manju and her sidekick Shirley teased me with spamming. They (+many others) made my last post the most commented one. Thank you and I must say it cracked me up, however, it did attract real spammers: The next day I suddenly got 7 spam comments by two weird names - Xmas gifts and Beaches Resort. The names already tell you, that something's not right. Check the comment here, but don't click on the spammer's link. I left that comment to prove my point here.

Then today I noticed a guy, who didn't really write nonsense. He was flattering, yea, but his sole purpose was to link to his blog. He dropped comments on Shingo's [here], my [here], and Shirley's post [here]. All his comments were sent every 3min. Either he's an extremely fast reader and types fast or he's just a spammer like all the rest. I assume the latter, but make up your own mind.

[Related: My previous post about fake commentators]

[Click to enlarge to see his comments]

5 Link spammers in comments, who comment on topic

Did you notice some commentators always link to their blog in every of their comments? Guess what, they're spammers, too. And they piss me off, too. Yes, they may comment on topic, appear to be just a normal follower, but they're using your blog to increase their Google Pagerank. That's just not right and I decided to delete these comments, too. I may just delete the extra link and republish for now, if it becomes worse, I will delete whole comments.
That's spam, my friends. Even if the comment is cute and flattering, in the end they're trying to make money (by getting more hits and ad-clicks) on your respectful site's expense. It's perfectly ok to link in your user name and I also don't mind, if you link to a website (or a blog post) that relates to your comment. But linking to your blog in just every comment is spam!

6 Not spammers, but WTF anonymous commentators

I've seen this guy commenting on various blogs I follow and he even commented on mine and I have no idea what's the point of this. It's not spam, it's not on topic, it's just random nonsense. I guess he spammed so many times in his life, his brain shrunk and that's the result. Or am I too mean? Well, he does post the same statement over and over again, just altering the words a bit. Sheesh, some people will always be a mystery to me... on- and offline.

How do you handle spammers? What is spam for you and what not?

[Cartoon: Source][Helpful: Google's hard facts about comment spam]

Bigger Taiwanese man mocked by Singaporean tabloid

The post is long, you may choose one point to read and comment

I came across an article on STOMP (Singaporean online tabloid), that has triggered some random thoughts and I want to share my opinions. It was posted in the section, where anyone can generate content. You can imagine that the stuff posted there is usually of very low quality - I'd never find this article, if it wasn't for Vampie posting a link on Twitter. The article is about a bigger Taiwanese guy, who has a skinny cute girlfriend and he posted his private photos online (probably on his blog, no idea, because no source was linked). Check the whole article here. It seems that the intention of the person, who wrote the article, was good, however it generated a lot of nasty comments, which made me write my two cents on everything I saw:

1 The photos watermarked with Stomp.com.sg is just wrong!

The author took these pics from a private blog without the approval of the Taiwanese guy and he didn't even link to his source. That's just wrong. The least he could do is link to the guy's blog or photo album, so that the people could get a more objective impression of the man and his girlfriend. I admit that I also take photos from external sources, but I never use them to defame individuals (to the contrary) and I always quote my sources. Now I know that I may sometimes overstep the copyright laws, but most of the time I hope I am within fair use. I know I'm not always, but I try my best. I know many bloggers use external content, especially photos. The truth is: *We all break the copyright law, unless the third party gives us permission. But the thing is, so far those laws are not really enforced in the blogosphere, at least not in the personal blogs I and most of you write. As for me, I'm not afraid. Always quoting my sources and the fact that I don't make any money with my blog makes me the least bad of all those who take external content. But I don't take someone else's photos and watermark them as if they were mine. A watermark for me means that you claim the ownership of the photo. I only watermark photos taken by me. *Here's an interesting article on blogging and copyright (a must read).

• What's your opinion on blog copyright?

2. Does the Report as offensive function really serve any purpose,

if you can read comments like these (and similar can be found on other posts):

TongSumPa said on 24 dec, 2009 Report as offensive
bcos he got a big fat salami

florawinx said on 24 dec, 2009 Report as offensive
omg disgusting... it's impossible

ArizonaTea said on 24 dec, 2009 Report as offensive
Have sex? Use the fatass's dollar notes cover the entire body lor,
the girl see all the notes sure horny liao.

prince2yan said on 23 dec, 2009 Report as offensive
Last picture has a buttcrack for you too see ^^.
His face looks like something i see in the market. Meat section ?

getalifewillya said on 23 dec, 2009 Report as offensive
GOD! This guy face -________-" *puke*

AngelsCollide said on 23 dec, 2009 Report as offensive
he probably fat in his wallet also.

iluvstomp5 said on 23 dec, 2009 Report as offensive
How much the girl charging?

mudboots said on 23 dec, 2009 Report as offensive
This fatty is so disgusting!!!

Who will ever report 90% of all the comments on that website? And even, if someone does, do they really delete all of them? Because I saw nasty comments like that on various posts. Ok, I admit that the section mentioned above is just pure tabloid stuff or even worse (if that's possible), so the question is: What did I expect? I don't read Stomp's articles, I only read Dawn Yang on Star blog, which I find of very good quality, but the rest is not my cup of tea.

• What's your opinion on this?

3. Even, if you write a post with good intentions, if the comments are offensive, you're responsible for them.

I believe that I'm responsible for nasty and racist comments on my blog. Hence I delete them, if I spot them. Of course it's up to me to decide, which comment is acceptable and which not. I decide when the line is crossed. Same goes for the stuff I write. I may have good intentions, I may joke, be sarcastic, but for some people I will cross the line, like it happened to me here. You need a thick skin as a blogger and as a reader, that's for sure. You'll never please everyone. I'm ok, if people disagree, they can defend and argue their statements, but so can I. I will always defend my posts here or on another blog. But I won't allow racists, spammers and nasty people to abuse my blog. That are just my rules here and I don't even need a Report as offensive function. I'll settle that with my own rules. It is a public blog after all, there has to be a set of rules, a frame, even freedom of speech has it's limits. In Germany, for example, it's against the law to publically deny the holocoust or shout Heil Hitler!

• What's your opinion on responsibility of the comments?

4. What's wrong with those Singaporeans who comment such nasty stuff?

I know that there's a certain portion of young Singaporeans, who are infamous for being nasty netizens, bashing and picking on everyone, who's in the spot light. But I still think it's a small portion, Singapore has 4.5 million citizens after all and most of them (for me personally) are very nice people and the positive impressions prevail for me. I think every country has these kind of people, some countries more, some less. I know my country has them and I wrote about them here.

• What's your opinion on nasty commentators?

5. Why did the Taiwanese guy post these half-nekkid photos in the first place?

I think internet is not a perfect place. You should be careful what you post and reveal of yourself. So the guy is partly to blame, too. Although I do believe that bigger guys have the same rights to post private pics as skinny guys. It's just that this year few of my bloggy friends saw their pics taken and used on another blog. A friend who has like 1000 Facebook friends saw her pics taken and someone created another nasty account in her name. That taught me to always be careful, that's why you won't see pics of me on my blog, only as a small avatar in the comments and maybe on my About me page. Those of you, who do post private photos, really need to think well what you post, because you never know on what website your face might end up and in what context. Sometimes it's just someone who has no life and hates you for having one and will try to pull you down by posting your pics and trash you. Be careful, my friends.

• What's your opinion on posting private pics online?

Wang Zi Fei: Chinese online sensation

China's beauty in black

Recently there was news about a girl in China named Wang Zi Fei (王紫菲), who has become an instant internet sensation! She's called The Beauty in Black, but I'll explain that later. First have a look at her pictures: Doesn't she look beautiful?

Do you want to know how she became famous?

She sat behind US president Obama at his town hall meeting with an audience of students in Shanghai (Nov 16, 2009). While he spoke about individual rights and freedoms, the camera captured Wang Zi Fei in the back, who took of her red jacket and sat there in a black shirt and skirt and listened. Soon after the broadcasting Chinese netizens went crazy and started to speculate about her, naming her The Beauty in Black and begun to spread all kinds of false (and also nasty rumours) about her [Source here]. Soon her identity was public and the poor girl had to write a blog post to refute all the crazy rumours. [You can read the English translation here, but scroll down]

It's obvious that she caught attention, because she's beautiful. And I'm sure that the one who initially went crazy were men. That's just how it is and always was: Men go crazy when they spot a beautiful woman. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Zi Fei, I wish you good luck and hope you can get something good out of this after being defamed by so many Chinese netizens. A model career? We shall see. 加油, 紫菲!

[Photos: Source 1, Source 2][Zi Fei's Blog (chi)]
[Tiny.link to this post: http://tinyurl.com/MKLsWangZiFei]

I'm featured on the BLOGETTE

Hi my readers. It's been a hell of a week for me. Probably the silliest thing during the week was the nontroversy between a fellow blogger Carina and me. All I can say is, that it was really unfortunate. I totally misinterpreted her post, because it sounded so serious and I was baffled in that moment. But when I saw the harsh comments, I was suddenly compelled to write my side of the story. Well, now I wish I wasn't, but what can we do now, right?

Misunderstandings happen. But I acknowledged my part of the mistake, deleted my post and apologized and so did Carina. So now I really hope we can put this unfortunate event behind us and move on. I learned another valuable lesson, so all this wasn't in vain.

Today I checked my Google Reader again and I was pleasantly surprised. Carina started her Feature Friday series, where she promotes some blogs she likes and my blog is the first one in this series. You can read the post here. She wrote such a nice post about me and my blog, I really feel appreciated and humbled. I can only say thank you so much for the kindest words and for being introduced on your blog and my hope is that we can continue following each other like we did before the nontroversy. I tend to forget silly things like that very quickly. Hope you can, too.

Please check Carina's blog!

Have a nice weekend.

NY Times columnist apologizes to Slovenians, because our netizens went haywire

You know, my country, Slovenia, is a very small country. It's a kind of a European Singapore, a bit bigger in size, but a little less people live than in the actual Singapore. We have like 2 million people. That's like a small city in China, btw. Nevertheless, our online community is big and... loud. Wherever someone will write about Slovenia, our netizens will find out and it will be reposted in blogs (same way I do now). So today I read in our online newspaper about a column in the New York Times, where Nicholas Kristof, one of their columnists, who recently wrote a lot about the current state of the American healthcare system, apologized to Slovenia, because he made too many comparisons with Slovenia and apparently our netizens went haywire and complained a lot. Here's what he wrote:

Now I don't really know, if he was sincerely serious (it sounds more like sarcastic), but it does lead me to one question: Are my fellow netizens crazy!? I mean, that's just beyond crazy. And it happens all the time. Wherever Slovenia is mentioned, there will be at least one of our netizens complaining about it. I kinda see this attitude a lot in Singapore, too (hence my comparison). But to put things into perspective, Korean and Chinese netizens are far worse, because they're even more sensitive and there's like millions of them. Stuff that happens there is scary. So my question is:

How are netizens in your country and are you sometimes ashamed of them?

[Sources: NY Times article][Nicholas Kristof on Twitter]

Fake commentators

I like to read blogs and comment. I comment a lot. And I also subscribe to follow-up comments, because I like to see what others said and what the blog owner will reply to my comment. So I get a lot of emails every day in my inbox. And sometimes I notice stuff like on the screen caps below. People who copy and paste one and the same comment to various blogs I also follow (call me blog detective, hehe). This guy managed to do that 3 times so far, maybe there'll be more. So check this: Manju's, Mel's and Toothfairy's blog:

No. 1
No. 2
No. 3

Now I wonder. You want to promote your blog, right? You want other bloggers to read your blog, follow you and comment, right? So why do you start with a fake flattery? You clearly didn't read any of these posts, because you use exactly the same comment over and over again and the whole point for you is to lure new readers to your blog. This is very hypocritical, don't you think?

I know Mel and Manju, they are very kind bloggers, who always respond back, so this post is partly written for them to not fall into a trap. And I wrote it also to illustrate this type of behavior, which is happening a lot lately (or maybe I'm noticing it now?). I don't know.

I'm all for promoting your blog. But the best way is to read the blog post and honestly comment on the topic. A good comment will be a better promotion than fake flattery and it will make the other blogger curious about you. So you don't need to link to your blog extra, the link is already in your name.

I'm not claiming that I'm always the perfect commentator. And I know all of you aren't as well. Sometimes we just browse through a post and comment something short. That's legitimate. Sometimes we drop a funny comment or a silly comment without really reading the whole post. Even that's ok. But these copy/paste fake flattering comments are just over the top. Now that's just my opinion.

What do you think?

Update: The person did leave a normal comment on Mel's latest post. Maybe he read my post or maybe he changed his tactics. I don't know, but as for now, he's... busted! :P

Amy Star about hostile people online

My friend Amy Star left a great comment on my blog and I am reposting it here:

"I think that people who are generally hostile online feel powerless in their lives and use the anonymity of the internet to lash out at strangers, because they feel unable to deal with the people they know. Like that troll you mentioned on Twitter today: I'm sure that individual envies anything good in others' lives (like your blog) and tries to trash it. It's a misguided attempt to make her/himself feel better by trying to make others feel worse. These people don't realize that happiness isn't a zero sum game: more happiness for one doesn't necessarily mean less happiness for another. In fact, happiness and love breed more happiness and love. Love is so much more powerful than fear."

She makes good points, right?

Links: [Amy's blog][Amy's Twitter]

Elly Tran Ha, Vietnamese beauty

Vietnam's internet sensation

Today it's time for a lighter topic. A while ago a female friend of mine shared with me a set of photos of a beautiful Vietnamese girl. Since she also loves to enjoy photos of beautiful women, I was happy to check them out. I was impressed and decided to introduce the young woman to my readers. So today I checked that set again and tried to find out more about that girl. I found out that her name is...

Elly Tran Ha (also known as Elly Kim Hong). She is a half Vietnamese and half Chinese model from Saigon, Vietnam, supposedly born 1987 (her age is disputed). She became popular in 2009, when a known gossip blogger in Vietnam posted some of her pics on his website and her career suddenly skyrocketed. So far, little is known about her, but she became an overnight internet sensation in Vietnam (and in Chinese speaking countries). And if you look at her pics, I suppose you immediately know why.

These photos of her are very popular currently and they're circulating all over the internet. I'm sharing some of them here for you to see. Look at the photos that made Elly an internet sensation:

Beautiful Elly is all natural. She surely was blessed by nature.

Elly is cute, petite and busty. But it's obvious (and probably sad) that she seems to have become so popular solely because of her chest. So now I'm asking you: Why are petite women with a large chest so attractive? And why are people crazy over Yao Yao?

Looks like Elly Tran Ha has some competition. Have you heard of Hoang Bao Tran?

Source: [Photos above] Links: [Beautiful women]
[Elly's Facebook fanpage][Elly on Flickr]