I must admit, that Ta Prohm was for me the most engaging part of Angkor Wat. True, it was the focal area of the film "Lara Croft, Tomb Raider;" but that wasn't the reason, and the film had taken a lot of liberty with set and camera angles. No, the appeal lay in the fact that it was this temple and its environs that the Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient decided to leave (as much as possible) in the natural state that the whole of Angkor Wat was found in by its 19th century discoverers. ...

Among Cambodia's many unique features, Tonle Sap (The Great Lake) stands out. Enhancing the lake's uniqueness is its relationship to the 7th largest river in Asia, the Mekong River. The Mekong begins way up in the Himalayas and drains down through China, Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos into Cambodia. It does not stop there of course; from there it goes into Vietnam (remember the many war movies that treated it there) and finally the sea. ...

One can always look at Taiwan in terms of the past or in terms of the present. Never is that brought home more than on February 28th. In terms of the present, today many are celebrating the victory of the DPP party in 3 of the 4 by-elections held yesterday. Again as a statement of no-confidence in the Ma administration's policies, and despite heavy campaigning by the KMT including President Ma, the voters by way of the ballot box re-iterated the fact that Ma's approval ratings and performance ratings remain low, a low that is somewhere between 20 to 30 per cent. So Taiwanese can be happy that they can democratically and freely express their disapproval. But 2-28 means more. ...

I will be posting shortly on experiences in visiting Angkor Wat and the mysteries how such a thriving civilization and large temple array around which once lived over a million people could disappear into the forests and trees of the land for centuries. In the meantime, if you want to whet your appetite, go to the left column where the photographs are listed and click onto Cambodia. There you will find three sets of photos, including Ta Prahm--the area made famous by the film, "Lara Croft, Tomb Raider" Enjoy.

It was another dramatic Taiwan Kodak moment and Chou Hsi-wei was there in the midst of it. After many years of incompetent rule, this Mayor of Taipei County with his flair for grandiose drama tearfully announced that he would not run for re-election. Why? It wasn't that he did not want to run; it was that his party, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politely refused to let him. Five crucial elections are coming up in December and the Mayor of the newly formed Sinbei City where Chou would run is one of them. The KMT cannot afford to lose any one of the five, but Sinbei City is one of the more crucial. ...

Taiwan's former President Chen Shui-bian has been in jail since December 30, 2008 (over 400 days). The change in judges requested by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to keep him there has extended his imprisonment for the third time. This time it is for two more months. His case reeks of the double standard that has never left Taiwan's prosecutorial function and the courts since the one-party state days of the KMT. While Ma Ying-jeou's former law professor Jerome Cohen and scores of professors have written open-letter after open-letter to point out these inconsistencies and erosion of justice, all the Minister of Justice (MOJ) and the Government Information Office (GIO) do is to laugh and try to create a veneer of legitimacy over Ma Ying-jeou's government.

The hypocrisy and pretense fostered by the government of Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou is once again demonstrated by Ma's former law professor as he observes how Ma's Minister of Justice attempts to make Taiwan emulate China. An edited version of this text appeared in English in the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) on January 20, 2010 under the title "Under Threat," and appeared in Chinese on January 21, in the China Times (Taiwan) (繁體中文)(简体中文). by Jerome A. Cohen and Yu-Jie Chen. It is important to read this to understand the continuous and disparate double standard that Ma's people place Taiwan under. Wake up Taiwan!

Taiwan is a nation replete with anomalies, an out-moded constitution and a big identity problem. Only the Taiwanese can solve this problem, but to do so, they must face up to the totality of their past, admit who they are and decide where they want to go. Nowhere are these issues and problems more easily seen and recorded than in the recent and annual Government Information Office's (GIO) publication "The Republic of China Yearbook 2009." If you think the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing or wants, you need look no further. ...

The death of a dream and the loss of a country are terrible things to face and admit. It has been sixty years since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost its civil war in China and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) drove them into exile. Sixty years! But even though sixty years have passed, many KMT members have still not gone through the five stages of the grieving process and come to accept that loss. Instead, they remain locked in one or other of the earlier stages of grief (denial, anger, and bargaining). Acceptance is too hard a pill to swallow, but as the KMT wallows in its grief, denial and pity, Taiwan suffers. ...

Ma Ying-jeou has been president of Taiwan for almost two years and Taiwan's economy still flounders. Like a one-trick pony, Ma seems only capable of playing the run-to-China card, but so far his panda and tourist gambits and direct flights have done nothing. His advisors have no other pro-offered plans or proposals. So as desperation mounts for the past year he has been touting an unknown economic framework agreement (ECFA) with China. Despite previous failed experiments, this will be Taiwan's salvation. That is great but despite his claims of transparency and openness, no one still knows what Ma's ECFA will entail. Not to worry, says Ma, just give me a blank check and I will take care of everything. That of course is what a growing number of Taiwanese fear, i.e. that Ma will take care of everything so that there will be no Taiwan left. ...

The soap opera of life in Taiwan continues under its so-called President, Ma the Incompetent, a.k.a. Ma Ying-joke. People no longer commiserate about the joke of his 6-3-3 campaign promise. Nor do they even mention the joke of his promise that his great rapprochement with China would bring over 3,000 well-heeled, free-spending Chinese per day to turn Taiwan's economy around. All Taiwan got were loud mouth pikers who when they weren't spitting on the sidewalks were trying to stiff restaurants because they didn't bring much money. The latest sad thing that makes people wonder "Why did we ever believe him?" is the great panda fiasco. ...

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is a past master of fat-cat positions and bought loyalties. Who can not help but remember the inequalities of its forced forty year one-party state rule of Taiwan. Who cannot help but remember how while promoting the ruse of being pro-democracy the KMT guaranteed party members lucrative lifelong positions in the Legislative Yuan (LY). After it lost China's Civil War, the KMT retreated to Taiwan in 1949. Party members elected to the LY in 1947, never had to face another election until 1992 when Lee Teng-hui finally cleaned house. Most LY members by that time had either died or were ready to retire with fat pensions. Is the past, the past? Not on your life. ...

Between the known and the unknown, falls the shadow. Between the surface and reality falls the guess. Between what can be controlled and what cannot, falls the wish. Between the shadow, the guess, and the wish, comes the consultant, a shadowy seller of guesses striving to say truisms that the wishers want to hear. Thomas Friedman, "The World is Flat" (2005) and the World is "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" (2008), recently graced the shores of Taiwan, and demonstrated this process. Unfortunately the more one listens to him, the more one wonders how he ever became a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Or better yet, what judgment standards does the Pulitzer Prize Board have? In the 14 Journalistic categories awarded only to paid entrants, does cleverness trump content? Does style trump substance? ...

Saturday January 9, 2010, a clean sweep for the DPP as it took the three Legislative Yuan positions that were up for re-election when vacated because of among other things previous KMT vote-buying. Ma's new spin-doctor KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung is going to be working overtime to try and put a positive spin on this one. All three positions had been KMT held. More by-elections in February, but the immediate damage is that the DPP now has more than one-fourth of the Legislative positions and can officially challenge the President in legislative matters. ...

The more one watches Ma Ying-jeou's distant management style, the more one thinks of Swift's floating island of Laputa in his satire, "Gulliver's Travels". From high above, the king of the floating island communicates with his subjects down below via written orders, directives and messages lowered in a basket. His subjects must respond in kind placing requests and petitions in the basket to be hauled up for consideration. Swift is satirizing the Hanover King George I of England who did not speak the language of the people and preferred to rule from afar (Germany to be exact). Ma of course does speak a faltering Taiwanese, but his mind is not on Taiwan. It's elsewhere dreaming of restoring the mythic Republic of China that never lost the Civil War and still rules China by its 1947 Constitution. ...

Even though Dubai now claims the world's tallest operative building, Taipei 101 (having held that boast for 5 years) still stands proud and tall over the city of Taipei. Proud and tall, that is, except for one item, the unfortunate glowing lights spelling out "Taiwan Up" on its façade. Taiwan Up, who came up with that embarrassing inept slogan? ...

Those of us, who live at ground zero in Taiwan, have long grown tired of hearing pundits and distant observers in USA media etc. judge things from a distance and spout or believe the pearls handed them by their past wine and dine Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) friends. For the past eighteen months we have heard those pundits speak in glorious terms about how the election of Ma Ying-jeou was going to solve all the problems in the Taiwan Strait, harmonize the triangle of the USA, Taiwan and China and allow everyone to become millionaires. ...