Xpat website is back!!

http://www.xpatmag.com/

Currently under re-development, but you can still download all the past issues.

Enjoy.

Vending Machine Rats

Do you ever feel like a rat in a science lab
when you use a vending machine?

I do.

Push the lever and get your sugar pill.

Xpat: From the Desk Spring '08

Design by Matt Gibson
http://matt-gibson.org/

Full Text

Xpat: Letter from the Editor, Spring '08

Design by Matt Gibson
http://matt-gibson.org/

Greetings Xpats,

Welcome to a new year and a new editor here at Xpat Magazine. After three years of sterling work, Matt has passed the torch to me and I intend to keep it burning brightly. I’m up for the task with many years of writing experience and a deep love of xpat life.

As an xpat my first gig teaching English was in Surratthani, Thailand. If you’ve ever been to Kho Pang Nang or Kho Tao, Surratthani was the shit-box town where you caught the ferry. It was one of the best years of my life; great people, fine food and islands on my doorstep. I finished work every Friday afternoon in time to sip cocktails on the porch of my bungalow and watch the sun set. It was the life.

I’d still be there today if things had worked out differently.

One of the many struggles of living in a rural Thai town was finding things to read. You could buy books on the islands but they were pricey. Newspapers arrived in the late afternoon at two stores in town, and would be read for days from the headlines to sports section. Magazines were a special treat. They would come from home in care packages and would be passed around until the covers fell off. They were mostly women’s magazines and pretty light on intellectual stimulation. You should be glad you have Xpat.

Then I met a girl. We were together for three glorious months. Unfortunately, she’d already bought a ticket to Istanbul to follow her dream of living in the only city in the world that spans two continents. My brother once told me, “never chase women or buses – another one will come along in ten minutes.” Well, I’ve never been big on following advice, so when my contract finished I took all my money and bought a ticket to Istanbul. I flew out of a tropical paradise and landed in a city of 20 million people with lightly falling snow.

We had an awesome year drinking tea, smoking nargile and playing tavla by the Bospherous in a city that had been the capital of five empires. The search for literature was easier there. Istanbul has been a home to xpats for over two thousand years.

I’d always dreamed of riding the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow. So when our contracts in Istanbul ended we looked to Asia to fund the voyage. But where to go? Japan? Too cold and expensive. Korea? Cold and kimchi diet. Taiwan? Hmmm Taiwan. Taipei? No, too big. Kaohsiung? Hmmm…. Kaohsiung.

Since then, Kaohsiung has been our home. In Taiwan our quest for reading material has continued. We’re lucky here to have decent—albeit expensive, book stores. We’re even luckier to have Xpat Magazine. So, it’s with great reverence and respect that I take over as managing editor of this periodical and vow to bring to you more of the well-written stories, half-baked opinions and a deeper understanding of Taiwanese culture; a culture which, at first, is strange and alien.


In my years living as an xpat I’ve realised: the longer you stay in an alien environment the more you realise that those things which separate us as humans are much less important than those that bind us together. We all have the same origin and ultimately, the same destiny.

So enjoy the Spring ‘08 edition and feel free to get in touch with any questions, comments or submissions – remember that this flaming torch of a magazine is for us, and by us. Keep reading, keep supporting our sponsors and keep spreading cultural understanding wherever you go.

Peace out,

Al

Laugh, I nearly shat!

East V. West

I did a "cultural awareness" workshop for work and came across this simple illustration of the key differences between east and west. It was produced by Chinese-born graphic designer / artist, who lives in Germany. I thought it was a very apt interpretation.

Bio:

Yang Liu was born in 1976 in Beijing, China. Since 1990 she has lived in Germany. She studied at UWE at Bristol, UK and gradueted with Master degree for Design in 2000 at the University of Arts Berlin, with Prof. Holger Matthies, since 1999 she has worked with Derek Birdsall in London, 2000 -2002 with Thomas Manss London and Berlin, 2003 - 2004 Chermayeff & Geismar New York, since 2004 she has established Yang Liu Design in Berlin

bath-time

meal-time

queuing

restaurant chatter

parties

weekend street scene


relationships

self

boss

opinion

on time

problems

beauty

Internet Ethics

***WARNING: Some links in this post contain adult material.***

I might be showing how far behind the times I am here, but I came across a story recently, which might make you think about right and wrong online.

Some of you might know Craig's List. It's an internet bulletin board started in San Francisco and is now available all over the world.

In 2006, a couple of jokers in Seattle posted at ad posing as a submissive female looking for a dominant male to defile her. The aim was to see how many responses they could get in 24 hours.

They got 178 replies and 145 photos.

People sent email addresses from home and work, phone numbers as well as their real names in some cases.

Next they posted all the replies on a wiki-satire site called Encyclopaedia Dramatica, with the goal of getting people to identify the respondents in real life.

The ethical debate has been raging ever since. The story was picked up by various news outlets including the BBC.

Opinion:

This ain't cool.

The men who replied weren't doing anything illegal - the ad was posted by an apparently consenting adult seeking a consenting adult for an activity in their own home. If they were trying to out kiddy-fiddlers, I'd have a different opinion.

Even if this is what you are into, you don't need to have it broadcast to the world; possibly affecting all other aspects of their lives.

The issue here is within society as well. Why should your interest in any variety of legal sexual activity affect your professional or social life? Who are we to judge others by what they like with their privates?

Yet we still live in a world where hatred and intolerance are rife; where violence against those who are different still occurs.

An example: the British blogger who wrote "girl with a one track mind" anonymously. It describes here experience as a sexually active woman in London. The site became so popular that it was turned into a novel.

The day the book was released a bunch of flowers arrived at her door. The courier made her lean out the door to sign. What she didn't know, was that there was a photographer in her garden. The card on the flowers said: "Zoe (her pseudonym). Congratulations on the book."

The story broke the next day in the Sunday times. She was hounded by the press, received threatening letters and her family was even harassed. She lost her job working on the Harry Potter films on the grounds that they didn't want to be associated with her.

Yet at the same time, Danny Radcliffe can get his shlong out in the West-end with no worries at all.

This is an example of a double standard and how someone's personal life can ruin the other aspects of their life - for no good reason.

Let's leave Bill Clinton out for the time being.

People have sex.
Most likely not with you.

Get over it.

Lets work on that evolution people.