to Hong Kong Sevens and back

These last few weeks have been a cyclone:

Got sick.

Got better just in time to go to the Hong Kong Sevens for a weekend of craziness:





Came back to crazy work deadlines and got sick again.

The worst of the deadlines have passed and now feeling better after two relaxing weekends at the beach house:

Until the violence stops

Two weekends ago I watched both the Chinese and English performances of the Vagina Monologues. The first time I had heard about the productions, I thought to myself, "what kind of production is this?" Would there be sections that would make me blush? Would there be moaning and the speaking of words not usually spoken in public? Well, yes...but there were also portions that would move me, enlighten me. The most moving part of the performance was the focus of this year's Spotlight Campaign: Justice to Comfort Women. These so-called "comfort women" were civilians that were forced by the Japanese military to become sex slaves during World War II. I vaguely remembered hearing briefly about it during high school, but hadn't paid the issue much attention. Four of these surviving women—now in their 80s and 90s—bravely took the stage. Their stories are shocking, harrowing, tragic…and I am grateful that these women have gone public with their stories to demand the apologies owed to them so that my daughters, sisters, mothers, and I will not face that terror.

Chew on these numbers

The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that "the richest 1 percent of Americans now get about 15 percent of total US income, close to the 18 percent the same small group had in 1913."

An article in the same paper reports the next day on the economic strides Australia has made in recent years. Despite these gains, Australians reportedly think that the country has "become a meaner place over the past 10 years" and have some misgivings about the growth. Income inequality has increased: "in 1995, the richest 1 percent garnered 5 percent of the national income; now it's 9 percent."

So, Australians are disturbed that the richest 1 percent of the population has 9 percent of the national income; in constrast, the richest 1 percent in the U.S. has 15 percent of the national income, up from the all-time low of 8 percent in 1963. Where's the discussion in the U.S.?

The little things

This is an interesting article about the power of small changes. What small change will I make today?

Grey socks

I think I will forever be able to distinguish the socks I brought to India: the grey ones versus the white ones.

Taj Mahal & the City of Lakes

Our fourth day of India. We've now seen the Taj Mahal, the ancient city of Fatehpur Sikri, ate at a dhaba (traditional roadside restaurant) in New Delhi, and today arrived in Udaipur, the city of lakes.

It's been fun imagining oneself living as royalty back in the glamour days of Fatehpur Sikri (Neil and I agreed that being the king there was probably more fun than being the emperor of China and stuck in the Forbidden City) or as a queen in the Garden of the Maidens in Udaipur. The garden was built for just the queen and her ladies-in-waiting back in the 19th century, but of course the king and his buddies would sneak in. Men.

We also hiked to a Hindi temple to the goddess of the mountain perched on top of a hill for a fantastic view of Udaipur. Lakes with white homes nestled in the plain, ringed by brown hills and mountains. We had a delicious vegetarian thali (Indian set meal) on the rooftop of a 180+ year-old haveli (royal residential home), enjoying the view of the Lake Palace and other structures along the shores of Lake Pichola.

universal vs. luxurious health care

Mid-journey to my vacation in India, and taking in the advantages of the Thai Airways lounge as part of my ~5-hr layover in Bangkok.

While planning, I looked up the CDC's recommendations for travel health in India. Then I decided to find a travel doctor. The folks over at Chung Shan Hospital insisted to Neil that only kids need immunizations, and adults should just take reasonable sanitary precautions. Local Taiwanese scoffed that I, typical American, was being paranoid. I thought I should still try to see a doctor, so while booking an appointment online at my preferred hospital, Taiwan Adventist, I noticed they had a travel medicine clinic. Perfect.

The morning of my appointment, a nurse called to tell me that travel medicine was outside of the usual services covered under health insurances, and would require a registration charge of NT$700. Eek! A big jump from the usual NT$100-200, but still reasonable at about US$20. It's my health, so I decided to go for it.

Boy, was I surprised to find that travel medicine is under the Priority Care Center; I'd heard about the Priority Care Center from well-to-do expats who pay a premium to bypass the waiting in line under the normal national health coverage plan. You certainly get what you pay for. In the chic and comfortable waiting area, I saw nurses patiently speaking in Japanese to a sick Japanese child with his worried Mama, and another nurse speaking Taiwanese to an older gentleman.

I got over half an hour of my doctor's time. She was well prepared with recommendations from both the U.S. and Taiwan CDCs, and discussed with me the potential risks of both disease and side effects from medications. A nurse even went and got my prescription "just in case" travel medicines for me - no standing in line, woo!

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a polio booster (recommended by the CDC for all adults) because Taiwan carries only the oral kind (and the risks of infection by immunization are greater than my chances of getting it in India, especially since I was fully immunized as a child) or a typhoid vaccination (none available in the whole of Taiwan). Perhaps there's no stock because the costs of carrying it are too great compared to the endemic risksv relative to the country's public health goals.

This isn't to say that I'm unsatisfied with Taiwan's health care system - I think it's great. There is a lot of waiting and not much hand-holding, and a strong does of patient advocacy is required (doctors are under pressure to see as many patients as possible), but overall I've felt the care I've received to be competent, and most importantly, affordable. As far as I know, it's universal access to adequate healthcare (unlike the U.S.).

Again, my experience goes back to my observations of the U.S. as a land of extremes, with the majority obese and a handful of too-thin celebrities held up as models. Of top-notch medical research and techniques, and a huge number of people unable to afford health insurance. As for me, it's still nice to know that it's also possible to receive the kind of time-intensive, thoughtful care I got back at MIT Medical here in Taiwan.