Author Archives: Meg

S-Town

Posted on April 5, 2017 by Meg

Are you listening to S-Town? I’ve just started listening to it, and it’s such a terrible and true look at small-town Southern life. It’s about the horror exhaustion and outrage saturation of reading the news and thinking about it, and the … Continue reading →

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Imposter Syndrome, Again. Still.

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Meg

I don’t want to talk about the Orange Lord, but he recently described his time in office by saying “I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president.” It’s amazing to me that he can take this attitude. By any … Continue reading →

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Comics Wife Life, Part 38,473

Posted on March 23, 2017 by Meg

In which I am an unending delight.
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Yantai Journals

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Meg

Oh, hey so I briefly mentioned the Chefoo Concentration Camp when I wrote about exploring Tamsui. There’s an episode of NPR’s This American Life about the diary of a Girl Guide leader who was imprisoned in Chefoo. The story is … Continue reading →

Posted in Boston, China, Yantai | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Interestings

Posted on March 2, 2017 by Meg

Shortly before I left for Taiwan, I was having ramen with Marcus, and he asked how the MFA was going. It was a somewhat rushed meeting in a trendy ramen shop, since I was leaving for Taiwan the next day … Continue reading →

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The Time Of A Song

Posted on February 21, 2017 by Meg

All our classes were asked to come up with a skit for an end-of-class performance, so my ESL students the first week were came up with two really hilarious skits, both using quite limited English and ending with clever bicultural puns. … Continue reading →

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Mackay Street & The Complications of Anglicizing Chinese

Posted on February 14, 2017 by Meg

Part 1: From Far Formosa My first challenge in my trip to explore George Leslie Mackay’s history was actually finding the city… The town name is Anglicized as Tamsui, Danshuei, Tanshui and pretty much any variation around those. It was Cousin George‘s description … Continue reading →

Posted in Boston, Taiwan, Tamsui | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

From Far Formosa

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Meg

So when I was planning to come to Taiwan, I read George Leslie Mackay’s From Far Formosa. The author is a very, very distant cousin, from a branch of the Mackays who went to Canada after the Clearances. (I believe … Continue reading →

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New In Egg

Posted on January 28, 2017 by Meg

A photo posted by Meg (@simpsonsparadox) on Jan 26, 2017 at 5:21am PST This tiny Taoyuan shop has a million toy vending machines, with all kinds of little keychain cuties and unfamiliar action figures, so of course I stopped by … Continue reading →

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Laowai Man Is An Outlier And Should Not Have Been Counted

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Meg

Hello Man, who lives in a backwater and shouts at 10,000 foreigners per year, is an outlier and should not have been counted. Continue reading →

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