My Penang tour, 2007

See Penang through my eyes

Penang! Oh glorious Penang! The beautiful tropical island of exceptional food, yummy girls, friendly people, pristine beaches and the eternally hot and humid climate. Penang will greet you with a warm kiss in the morning and pour a hot shower over you in the evening. But don't worry, you will be dry... and wet again in no time. This will be the last post of my 2007 Penang adventures. I definitely need to return one day and go on a foodventure. During that time I have tried a lot of awesome food, but I forgot to take photos. Well, I wasn't a blogger yet and taking pics of food was not something I would regularly do. But after being with a passionate Taiwanese blogger such as this cutie, I'm totally into food and blogging and food blogging. In the past, I usually went on long walks and took photos of the things I saw along the way. That's what I did in March 2007, when I decided to walk around Penang, from Gurney to Komtar. Let me show you my best photos:

The muddy waters along Gurney drive. On the other side is Peninsular Malaysia.

Penang is a mix of old houses and new high rise condos.

A colonial house. There are many on the island.

Penang is not really pedestrian friendly, the roads are much better for cars.

The water looked so good that day.

The Eastern & Oriental Hotel. Charlie Chaplin and Sun Yat-sen stayed here.

Not sure, what this building is, but it looks a bit like Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris.

This is the Penang Museum and Art Gallery (homepage).

Penang is sometimes spelled as Pinang.

This is Penang Town Hall, a beautiful building.

Another part of the Town hall. Read more about it on this blog.

Old streets in central George Town, which is the biggest city in Penang, the state.

New and old together side by side.

A big roundabout. And in the middle is...

The Jubilee Clock Tower, one of Penang's famous buildings.

The clock tower as seen from afar.

A food stall and locals enjoying their lunch break.

Malaysian construction site safety measures are not so strict.

Penang Customs Department Building or Wisma Kastam is a beautiful building.

I like the clock tower.

Bangunan U.A.B nearby. Not sure, what this is, but looks good.

And then I came to Little India.

The area is really nicely done. I wish I had someone with me to eat something yummy.

A nice Chinese temple close to the Indian Mahamariamman temple.

The Kapitan Keling Mosque, Komtar and another mosque at Acheen Street.

The majestic Kapitan mosque is really breathtaking.

Another smaller Chinese temple in the area. Penang is full of them.

This is only a small part of Penang. The state, the island, the city have so much more to offer. I wish I had a better camera last time, but on the other hand I'm happy I could at least take some decent photos for my own personal memory. I really had a great time in Penag, because I had just graduated and this trip was like a reward for me. Penang is full of precious memory for me and I cherish them. I know I will revisit one day, but as a different and older person. I had my 27th birthday in Penang, how cool is that? Anyway, it was tons of fun. Penang is amazing, visit, if you have the chance.

[My MALAYSIA page][My PENANG page][All photos by MKL, 2007]

Are we »too Asian«?

A great video that plays with stereotypes

This cool video made by students of the University of British Columbia (UBC) is a reply to an article, that stirred up a controversy in Canada by talking about certain universities being “too Asian”. Some quotes from the article: “I look Asian but I’m white in all other respects”... “completely whitewashed”... a “banana”... “yet another Asian student who wants to major in math and science and who plays the violin”. Read the article>>

Then on the other hand, there's no major outrage over this... Interesting, isn't it?

What do you think about the video? What do you think about the stereotypes about Caucasians and East Asians mentioned in the video? What do you think about the articles?

Thanks to Bekah, who linked the video on Facebook.

I'm closer to Taiwan

The departure date is set

Today I finally managed to get the air ticket and now I have all documents verified and all forms filled out, I just need to mail them to the embassy and hope that they process them fast. I'm worried a little, because Chinese new year is around the corner and people at the embassy may go on holidays for few days. But I still hope my papers will be done before that and mailed back to me. Another thing is my flight, which is at 11 am and I need between 4 to 5 hours to reach the airport from my home, taking various trains and buses. I have to figure out, if it's better for me to sleep over in Vienna a day before departure or leave home very early and hope to get there in time. That's gonna be something to think about in the upcoming weeks before I leave Europe. I still have some time to go. Unfortunately, I won't be able to spend Chinese New Year with my girlfriend the way we hoped before, but well, things went slower than anticipated. I think a smooth transition is more important than one Chinese new year celebrations. If we make this right, we will spend many Chinese new years together and this one won't matter anymore.

Taiwan, get ready. I will see you soon.

[My LIFE in Taiwan][Photo by LilyChen, 2010]

Miley Cyrus Dress

Miley Cyrus Dress:
81st Annual Academy Awards
Miley Cyrus arrives at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Miley Cyrus Dress

Miley Cyrus Dress

Miley Cyrus Dress

Miley Cyrus Dress

Miley Cyrus ring at 81st Annual Academy Awards

Miley Cyrus dress at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Miley Cyrus hairstyle at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Miley Cyrus hairstyle at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Miley Cyrus cute face

Miley Cyrus hairstyle at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Miley Cyrus dress at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Miley Cyrus posing at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Miley Cyrus dress from back.

Miley Cyrus at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Miley Cyrus hairstyle at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Miley Cyrus facelook at the 81st Annual Academy Awards
Miley Cyrus dress at the 81st Annual Academy Awards
Miley Cyrus dress at the 81st Annual Academy Awards

Popular Taiwanese blogger HoneyQueen exposed

Blogging is huge in Taiwan! As I wrote already in one of my previous posts, almost every young Taiwanese has a blog or a Wretch account, where they post photos (and usually a lot of photos). So a nation of bloggers naturally produces few very popular bloggers, so called "blogger celebrities". Currently the most popular blogger in Taiwan is Benshee (aka flowermonkey 花猴), a twenty-something girl that writes about her life, makeup, clothes, travel and restaurants and has around 100.000 visitors a day! Yes! That's right: Hundred thousand a day. At this point I'd need about 6 months to reach that number and some bloggers would need years to have such traffic. And in Taiwan there's an unofficial rule, that a blogger earns the same amount of money per post as the number of their daily hits. For example, it's rumored that Benshee would currently get 100.000 NTD per post, if a company asked her to promote a product on her blog. That's around 2500 Euro per post (or around 3400USD). Imagine, she writes 5 posts and she can buy a new car with cash. This shows that blogging can be a big business in Taiwan and few are making some big bucks just by becoming popular.

But this post is not meant to write about Benshee, I want to tell you what has recently happened to one of her friends, who is also a popular blogger. Her nickname is HoneyQueen (林哈妮) and her blog has around 30.000 hits a day. That's of course a lot of traffic as well and gives her the chance to advertise various products by reviewing them and recommending them. And as the unwritten rule goes, she could well charge up to 30.000 NTD (which is around 750 Euro or 1000 USD) for a post. From what I heard, the things she recommended on her blog really sold well and some of her readers are (or were) real fans of her and would flood the shop or store she would write about on her blog. So it was a win-win situation for her and the company. But then something happened. She wrote a product review about a skin care product that supposedly removes pimples and she posted before and after photos. But one of her readers found out that she used a makeup foundation in her after photo to cover the pimple for the (nonexistent) effect.

The person who found that out, made an anonymous blog just to expose her and highlighted all the mistakes she made, you can see that here. For example: HoneyQueen claimed the before and after photos were 4 days apart, but the data proves that she first put make up on and took a photo and later used it as the after photo. Then she gradually removed the make up from the pimple and took more photos, which she used for the before photos. All photos were taken within few minutes, if the data is accurate. Also on both photos she's wearing the same clothes, her eyes look similarly red and her eye lashes also look the same way (if you zoom in the photos). After this was leaked, people started to check her older reviews and found out that she's done similar things in the past: Her credibility was instantly tarnished. Not only that, the Taiwanese mass media started to report the incident which lead to HoneyQueen's apology on her blog. However she only apologized for this latest incident and not for all the reviews she has faked in the past. From what I've heard, she's going on a hiatus until further notice. So far, no companies have claimed their money back, but at this point nobody is willing to promote their product on her blog, which is of course not surprising. What will happen with her blog in the future, we don't know, but these days, her traffic and popularity is constantly in decline (here's a Taiwanese blog rank). For now she's definitely lost her face and hopes that the media will quickly divert their attention to someone else.

And here's an irony: HoneyQueen herself once exposed a blogger, who did exactly the same thing by faking the effect of some diet medicine. I guess what goes around comes around.

What do you think about all this? Did you ever notice a blogger faked or exaggerated the effect of a product? How do you review products?

Update: Now even Benshee a.k.a. FlowerMonkey has apologized for not clearly explaining a photo of a product's effect and vowed to abide by much higher standards, when it comes to advertizing products on her blog. (We can only hope that will be the case...)

[A TV report on the incident][Photo: Source]