Sunday, December 4, 2011

The Third Reich goes down!

Great news! It looks like the large Nazi swastika symbol at the door of Macana is gone! It's not hard to believe, as it was so blatantly in poor taste. What is surprising is that it took so long! As I had mentioned before, someone had tried and failed to deface it, but it lived on for months.

Now, Macana has very cleverly changed the winged Third Reich logo into a lion with Zodiac signs. It now looks reminiscent of the winged lion logo that Van Halen used on tour years back. logo

Anyhow, I guess the pressure to change finally had an impact! Taiwan 1, Macana 0.

Nazi post repository here.


Sunday, July 10, 2011

Lost bird or abandoned "pet"?


Now I've been told by a bird expert that this is an Oriental Pied Hornbill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Pied_Hornbill

Trouble is, this variety of bird is not native to Taiwan, although it may be found in Southern China. So it makes me wonder how it got out in the wild here in Taiwan.

We were doing a long walk through a stretch of farm land near the river in Xindian when we heard a loud banging sound. Drawn in the direction of a water tower perched on the 5th floor of a building, we saw this astounding bird.

A local passed by and looked at us starring at the bird and asked, "What kind of bird is that?"

Anyhow, here is the video. You can hear the banging sound after the motorcycle passes.

 I think there are a few possible explanations here:
 a) the bird is lost and somehow flew to Taiwan (unlikely as  its not a migration bird)
 b) it was brought in (smuggled in) as a pet and it got loose
 c)  it was brought in (smuggled in) as a pet and it was abandoned
 d) it escaped from a preserve or a zoo

Any other ideas?

The concept of having wild animals as pets is not uncommon in Taiwan. If you are interested, read more here about orangutans, wild boars and more:

http://blog.islaformosa.com/2008/06/orangutang-alert-and-other-strange.html

If you are a bird enthusiast, we saw the bird at the location on the map. You can see the water tower in Street View:

View Larger Map



Tuesday, June 7, 2011

More Taiwan Nazi imagery... unfortunately

Spotted this on the sidewalk in the center part of Taipei. The store is Macana. It is undeniably Nazi.

Should you care to lodge a complaint or accidentally splash it with fresh paint follow the link to the location.
Google Map location

Monday, May 30, 2011

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Mynah Bird Clip

I was finally able to get a decent recording of the myna bird in my neighborhood. Check it out!

Mynah by islaformosa

This is the previous article:
http://blog.islaformosa.com/2007/09/myna-birds-taiwanese-sounds.html

Friday, May 27, 2011

Yahoo Getting its Ass Kicked in Taiwan

Taiwan used to be a Yahoo country. It appears the tide is changing and Taiwan is becoming Google-fied.

When Yahoo teamed up with Taiwan-based Kimo to offer Taiwan a localized version of Yahoo it seemed like a match made in heaven. Google has made up a lot of ground though, I'm guessing based on the adoption rate of Android and the myriad of services on Google now offered in Chinese.

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