Rooted in Taiwan, Connected with the World

I just delivered a prepared speech to my fellow Toastmasters this morning.  This speech was unusual in the sense that it was the first time I have covered EQ, which was my favorite topic before I retired, in a prepared speech at Toastmasters. In addition, it was special also because about a third of my speech was associated with funerals, a taboo area most speakers would have avoided. However, I felt like composing my speech in this fashion to showcase my personal transformation after experiencing many funerals in the past decade—including that of my own parents. Here is the script for my speech. _________________________________________ Detecting The Unspoken  Do you like going to a party? How about a funeral? Good morning! The question I just asked may sound like a no-brainer, or, an easy question, because the answer is so obvious: while not all people love partying, few people enjoy the vibe of sadness and mourning at a funeral.  Well, like most people, I preferred a p...

I just finished studying my twenty-second Shakespeare play, The Life and Death of King John (often shortened to King John ), a history play about the reign of John, King of England (r. 1199–1216), the son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the father of Henry III.  Written in the mid-1590s and first published in 1623, the play dramatizes the reign of King John of England, focusing on his conflicts with France and his own nobles, as well as the political machinations surrounding his nephew, Arthur. Through the play and extended reading, I gained insight into the interwoven history of medieval England and France. Above all, I learned about what some historians call the First Hundred Years' War (1159–1259, also known as the Capetian–Plantagenet conflict), a series of conflicts and disputes in which the House of Capet, rulers of the Kingdom of France, fought the House of Plantagenet (also known as the House of Anjou or the Angevins), rulers of the Kingdom of England. ...

I just completed my twenty-sixth trip under "A Day in Town," my multi-year backpacking plan of spending a day in each of the approximately 350 townships in Taiwan. My destination this time was Taichung City, one of the six special municipalities in Taiwan. With a population of over 2.8 million, the second largest in Taiwan after that of New Taipei City, Taichung borders Miaoli County and Hsinchu County to the north and Changhua County and Nantou County to the south. To the west, it faces the Taiwan Strait; to the east, it shares the Xueshan Range and the Central Mountain Range with Ilan County and Hualien County respectively. Taichung City administers 29 districts (the equivalent of "townships" under the special municipality). Since I had visited four districts during my trip here last year, this time I visited another four: Dongshih, Xinshe, Fengyuan, and Shigang, which collectively form the eastern corner of the city--except for Heping District, which covers part ...

I just finished reading Part I of The Three Musketeers , a masterpiece of French author Alexandre Dumas. Published in 1844, the novel consists of 64 chapters in two parts, with Part I covering Chapters 1-37 and Part II the remaining 27 chapters. The first of the author's three d'Artagnan Romances, The Three Musketeers is among the most widely translated French novels ever written. The version I read was an English translation by William Robson, published in 1894. As part of my preparation to explore this timeless literary work, I read the biography of the author and learned surprisingly that his name has a matronymic origin, with a meandering, dramatic family history behind. Thomas-Alexandre, father of Alexandre Dumas, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). He was the mixed-race, natural son of the marquis Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie (Antoine), a French nobleman and commissary general in the artillery of the colony, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, ...

I landed safely yesterday, having been out of my country for a two-week trip to Lithuania and Poland. This was a long-awaited trip because I was first inspired to make it five years ago, when Lithuania became the first country where we could use the name "Taiwan" for our representative office in Europe. A lover of both history and culture, I learned in my subsequent preparations about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which, before being partitioned three times, had been the largest state in Europe, with its territories spanning between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. I was fascinated by the rise and fall of the commonwealth and decided to include Poland in my trip as well.  So I embarked on this dream journey and arrived in Vilnius after a 23-hour journey with connections in Hong Kong and Frankfurt. Three days later, I traveled to Kaunas by train. The next destination was Warsaw, followed by Krakow, where I took my return flight that took slightly less time (thanks to je...