Regulars

Masthead

Letter from the Editor

From the Desk


Culture

The Tale of the Big, Big Pigs
By Doug Mitchell


Reflection

What It's Like to be Married to a Taiwanese Girl
By Andrew Crosthwaite


Toppers

Top Twenty Bizarre English Names in Taiwan
By Matt Gibson


Profile

An Interview with Cole Swanson
By Steve Williams


From the Road

Art in a Tropical Garden
By Ruth Kozak

Disabled and Displaced in Afghanistan
By Kloie Picot


Photofactual Essay

Kaohsiung Harbor
By Matt Gibson


Expresso Fiction

The Exile
By Chris Scott

Wages
By David Alexander

The Train People
By Albert Creak


The Homefront

The Taiwan Angels Tour for Toys"
By Matt Gibson

Walking in Taiwan
By Paul Andrew


Gettin' It Done

How to Get a Taiwanese Driver's License
By Sean Allingham


Comix

It's Just Not Cricket
By Whistlin' John Smith

Get Your War On
By David Rees

Poohat
By Leon

Bonus Web Features

Arabian Nights
By Marion Erskine

Best Friends
By Andrew Crosthwaite


From the Desk


The largest retail company in the word: 7-11

Amount of money American Airlines saved in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class: USD$40,000

The year that the first Wal-Mart opened: 1962

Wal-Mart’s world ranking in terms of economic output, if it were to be considered a country: 20th

The number of corporations that, if considered to be countries, would rank among the 100 largest economies in the world: 53

The method employed by the Fumin County Government in China’s Yunnan province to improve the feng shui of a mined out mountain: they spray painted the barren mountainside green

The percentage of the earth’s original forested area still standing: 22

The number of trees on average that it takes to print the Sunday edition of the New York Times: 63,000

Number of times that the total amount of paper used by US businesses in one day could circle the earth: 20

Percentage of women in the world who will ever wear a diamond of one carat or more: 1

Factor by which the bacteria on the average office desk outnumbers the bacteria on the average office toilet seat: 400

Average life expectancy of an enemy combatant in a Chuck Norris movie: 4 seconds

The top three pirated software producing countries in descending order: Vietnam, China and Ukraine

The top importer of US made spaceships and parts in the world: Taiwan

The country with the most mobile phone’s per capita in the world: Taiwan with 106.45 phones for every 100 people

The percentage that Taiwan’s GDP increased from 1980-2000: 210

The only country whose GDP increased more during the same time period: China (382%)

Percentage of Taiwan’s population that lives below the poverty line: 0.9 (the lowest of all countries listed)

The number of terrorism acts committed in Taiwan between 1968 and 2006: 1

The only South-East Asian country never to have been (officially) colonized by a Western power: Thailand

The jail term a 61-year-old Thai man was sentenced to after attempting to copulate with an elephant: 15 years

His excuse: The elephant was a reincarnation of his late wife and he “recognized her by the naughty glint in her eyes"

The percentage of men and women respectively that have told lies to sleep with somebody: 34 and 10

The proportion of Americans now carrying a viral STD: 1/5

The proportion of people carrying an STD that experience no noticeable symptoms: 80

Two unsuccessful methods employed by officials at the Bangkok Zoo trying to encourage a pair of pandas to breed: Giving the pair a mock wedding and showing them ‘panda porn’

Percentage of the all websites that are pornographic: 12

Percentage of search engine requests pornographic in nature: 25

Percentage of internet users that view porn: 42.7

Top three pornography producing countries in the world in descending order: China, South Korea and Japan

The year that the Chinese government officially removed homosexuality from its list of state recognized mental illnesses: 2001

The year that Phoenix Satellite Television launched China’s first gay-focused T.V. show: 2007

The amount of money that one Chinese man offered to pay in a web ad seeking a woman to pretend to be his mistress so that his wife could beat her up: approx. $400 USD per 10 minutes