Welcome to "My New Life in Asia"

View of Taipei 101, the symbol of Taipei,
on a wonderful spring day.

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog, "My New Life in Asia."

One year ago, on the 4th of November 2011, I arrived in Taiwan for the first time. It was an exciting moment. I'd been dreaming to go to Asia for years, and finally my dream had come true.

A lot of things happened ever since that day, I've had many new experiences and learnt a lot of things. Some of them shocked me, others made me happy. I had a great time, but also many disappointments.
Though I studied Chinese for two years when I was in Europe, I'd never thought about moving to this small island which, although it is a very interesting place to explore, is somehow overshadowed by its big neighbours, the People's Republic of China and Japan.
The reason why I chose Taiwan was that I fell in love with a Taiwanese girl. "A romantic story with a happy ending", you might think. Well, not really.

Two weeks ago I went to Hong Kong. I spent six amazing days there, meeting friends and doing a lot of interesting things. It was then that I decided that I should leave Taiwan. I bought a ticket to go back to Europe on Christmas. I think that when a country is too much related to certain negative personal experiences, it's really hard to move on. I plan to return to Asia in January, but I'd like move to another place, probably Hong Kong or Mainland China.

I decided to start this blog because I wanted to look back on this quite eventful and important year of my life. I'd like to share with you my memories and my experiences during this first year of my "new life" in Asia. This is not going to be a typical travel blog, a sort of tourist guide for people who've never been here. The main purpose of this blog is to share with you my thoughts about Taiwan and Asia in general, and the things I've learnt about this place in one year. Sometimes I'll write about anecdotes from my life, sometimes I'll just write about the culture and the people. But I won't limit myself to certain topics. When I write, I'll choose the topics that interest me at that moment. I can talk about books, history, news or simple tell about something that happened to me. That's the good thing about blogs: I am free to write whatever I want and give it the form I want.

When I was little, I wanted my life to be an adventure. I wanted to see and explore new places and meet new people. I have been doing this for a few years now. From a small town in Sicily, in Southern Italy, an island close to Africa and somehow lost in a timeless nowhere, between Middle Ages and Modernity, in the middle of the Mediterranean but in many ways detached from all her neighbours, - from that tiny spot on the map which seems so far away from the big, modern, globalized world, I travelled, I moved to a city in Northern Italy close to Slovenia and Austria, then went to study in Germany, and finally came to this other island, so different from the one I was born in, on the opposite side of the world. And in the future, I'd like to go to Hong Kong, to China, I really want to see and know so many things. And I am happy, really happy. I cherish every moment, every memory. I am thankful to all the great people I've met. And even my bad days taught me many precious a lesson. If my life were to end tomorrow, I could, at least, say that I lived it the way I wanted. And that's the most important thing.

Will The Huawei Case Finally Awaken Democrats To The China Threat And The Danger Of Faux Free Trade Rhetoric?

Huawei Shenzhen office building (by Raysonho via Wikimedia Commons) On January 28 the Department of Justice of the United States unsealed two cases against Huawei , China's largest telecommunications company, and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou. Huawei has been accused of trying to steal trade secrets, committing bank fraud, breaking confidentiality agreements and violating sanctions against Iran. One indictment claims that Huawei attempted to steal trade secrets from T-Mobile by promising bonuses to employees who collected confidential information. Huawei is not a company like any other. Over the years it has benefited enormously from the support of the Chinese Communist regime. The founder of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, joined China's army during the Cultural Revolution . In 1978 he also joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the early years Huawei's sources of capital were high-interest loans (20%-30%) from Chinese state-owned enterp

How the Chinese Communist Party uses "Chinese culture" as an excuse to justify its crimes

Shanghai, Nanjing Road (photo by Agnieszka Bojczuk via Wikimedia Commons ) Since its founding in 1921 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has mastered the art of propaganda and recruitment of individuals both inside and outside the country who are willing to cooperate with it and further its interests - a practice known as "united front work". "United front work" refers to the CCP's strategy of cooptation of groups or individuals that are not members of the CCP but are willing to cooperate with it. Cooptation describes the process of bringing outsiders (usually the resource-poorer) inside (usually the resource-richer) ( Saward , 1992). An example of this strategy is the case of former Hong Kong's Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa. Prior to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from Britain to the People's Republic of China (PRC), Tung Chee-hwa had close ties with the government of Taiwan. However, after his shipping company ran into financial trouble and

Washington Post correspondent in China Gerry Shih assaulted for walking with Caucasian European

Gerry Shih, a China-based correspondent for the Washington Post, was assaulted on a Beijing street for "walking with a Caucasian European," according to a Tweet he posted on November 29. The assailants allegedly shouted at them: "F*** your American embassy!" Sign of the times: roughed up in Beijing street tonight for walking with Caucasian European. Neither of us said we were American but their parting shot was “操你美国使馆” pic.twitter.com/ekPLNsLBnj — Gerry Shih (@gerryshih) November 29, 2019 In recent years the Chinese Communist regime has intensified its anti-foreign rhetoric as Xi Jinping has sought to consolidate the power of the Party and rid China of perceived "foreign influence". Foreigners in China have been targeted by the government and anti-foreign sentiment has been enouraged. This year arrests and deportations of foreign teachers in China have increased amid a government campaign to promote "patriotic education." An inc

10 January 2014 at 19:04

Hi Aris! I've just found your blog by chance and I think it's simply amazing! I'm also from Italy and I was in Hong Kong with an Erasmus Mundus Multi project in 2011-2012. And got mesmerised by that city =)
13 January 2014 at 00:22

Thank you so much, Aida : ) It's always a pleasure to have such positive feedback, it gives me the motivation to keep on writing and share my thoughts and experiences with others. I love Hong Kong, too. So far, it is one of my favourite cities, along with London and Berlin. I hope you'll get the chance to go back soon. Ciao! : )

Aris Teon

Search This Blog