Shu Flies (舒飛) won the popular vote for overall best blog in the 2009 Taiwan Blog Awards as well as the popular vote and peer-judged award for best personal blog. As a reporter for the Taipei Times she writes about many interesting and quirky places in Taipei as well as her personal experiences of living in Taiwan.

Blogger - Catherine Shu
About the blogger - I'm features reporter for the Taipei Times. In my spare time, I like to explore Taipei, work on various craft projects and wrestle with our cat, Taroko George.
Blogs - Shu Flies (舒飛) , The Renegade Bean
Years in Taiwan - Two and a half years
Years blogging - About seven years. Before starting Shu Flies (舒飛) in 2007, I blogged about life as a newcomer to New York City and the 2004 Republican National Convention for Gotham Gazette , a Web site about NYC public policy. I also kept various personal blogs on platforms like Livejournal.
Blogging platform - Blogger
Country of Origin - United States
Age - 28

Could you please tell us little bout your background? What brought you to Taiwan?

I'm US-born Taiwanese American and, as a teenager, I had a lot of mixed feelings about being multicultural and a minority. I felt somewhat disconnected from my family and my background, in large part because of my lack of language skills. I could speak "household Mandarin," but that didn't really make for deep conversations with my relatives. When I was in college, I began to think about moving to Taiwan and studying Mandarin for a few months. My adolescent fantasy was that doing so would make me feel like a fully actualized human being.

It wasn't until I met my husband in graduate school, however, that my plan became concrete. He'd studied and worked in Taipei before going back to the US to get his master's degree. About a year after we graduated, he received a job offer and decided to return to Taiwan. After some thought, I figured moving to Taipei for a couple years would allow me to study Mandarin, learn more about my heritage and get closer to my family. I managed to land a scholarship to study at Shida's Mandarin Training Center for nine months and then I started working at the Taipei Times. It's been more than two years now and I intend to stay here for much longer - I feel like I've made headway on all of my goals, but at the same time there is still a lot to learn.

What do you like about living in
Taipei?

This is such a hard question to answer because there are so many things and not all of them are easy to put into words. Before I left New York City, people told me they thought I'd be bored living in a smaller city. That couldn't be further from the truth. I feel like I live in one of the most dynamic places in the world. As part of my job, I interview independent designers and artists. It is fascinating to see how they draw inspiration from the different facets of Taiwan's rich and diverse cultural heritage, or how they confront the more difficult and complicated aspects of this country's social and political history. There is also a vibrant indie music scene here. I've bought more CDs and been to more live shows here than in my eight years living in or near New York City. The landscape of Taipei is constantly changing, literally and figuratively.

I also love the little things I bump into during my walks around the city: a carefully arranged garden on a balcony, lines of poetry spray-painted onto a concrete wall, intricate ironwork on bright red doors. Whenever I feel down, I just chose a neighborhood and take a stroll. I always find something that brightens my day.

How long have you had a blog and why
did you start blogging?

I started Shu Flies right before I moved to Taiwan. I wanted to let my friends and family know what was going on in my life without sending out a million e-mails every day. Before I left, I realized that a lot of people don't know anything about Taiwan - or even that it exists. I grew up in a Taiwanese-American community, so I always took it for granted that anyone could pick out Taiwan on a map. Turns out I was wrong. I figured that keeping a blog would let people know that, no, I wasn't moving to Thailand to study Mandarin or living on a mountain top in the middle of China.

I also knew that living in Taiwan would bring up my old childhood insecurities about being neither "American" nor "Taiwanese" enough. I wanted to record my thoughts and feelings so I could reference them later. I have a pretty lousy memory for highly emotional experiences, so keeping a blog has helped me track the evolution of my reactions to certain things over the past two and a half years.

What are the main topics you blog
about?

I try to write about things that most guidebooks don't cover and provide address information in English and Chinese so that those places are accessible to people who don't speak Mandarin. I enjoy posting about retro Taiwan (i.e. the songs, movies, toys and other things that were part of the cultural landscape when my parents were growing up), popular culture and daily life. The great thing about being an expatriate is that even everyday things are wildly intriguing, like a peppermint oil stick advertised
by a celebrity impersonator. Finding that in 7-Eleven was the highlight of my week, even though it
gave me a pounding migraine.

I also write about being an Asian American in an Asian country and what it's taught me about race, ethnicity and my own sense of identity. It's been frustrating and painful at times, but the experience has been mostly positive. When I arrived in Taiwan, I think I subconsciously thought of my multicultural background as a problem to solve or a balancing act. Now I see it as a wonderful gift.

And since Shu Flies is a personal blog, I write about the little things in my life, like my cat Taroko George (though he's not that little anymore).

On your blog you write about many of
the interesting places you cover as a features reporter for the
Taipei Times. Can you tell us about some of the most unusual or
memorable ones?

I loved writing about Ri Xing Typography (日星鑄字行).
It's the last place in the world that has a complete set of
traditional Chinese character molds for lead-type casting. Chang
Chiehkuan (張介冠),
the owner, is gradually digitizing Ri Xing' s fonts and turning his
factory into a museum. Ri Xing is filled with shelves and shelves and
shelves of lead type. I highly recommend going if you are a Chinese
student. I think a visit and a chat with Mr. Chang will help you gain
a deeper appreciation of the beauty and vibrancy of traditional
Chinese characters (which will certainly help when you have to write
the characters for "depression" 50 times for homework, as I did
while studying at Shida).

Ri Xing is within walking distance of one of my other favorite places: Taiwan Storyland (台灣故事館). It's
a tourist attraction that recreates a Taipei neighborhood from the
1960s, but what makes it truly unique is the level of obsessive
detail and care put into it. Almost all of the vintage objects in
there, including sports cars, a gigantic movie projector and everyday
objects like hair dye and medicine packets, were collected by one
person, Franky Wu (吳傳治).
I took my parents there when they visited back in November and had a
great time watching them point out things they'd seen or used when
they were kids.

In fact, the entire area around Taipei Main Station/Zhongshan MRT station is one of my favorite places in Taipei. Yongle Fabric Market (永樂市場) on Dihua Street, Spot-Taipei Film House (光點-台北之家) and Zhongshan North Road Section 2, where all those crazy engagement photo studios (including the one my husband and I went to for our own pictures) are all within walking distance of one another. There are also really great shops, like Booday (蘑菇), one of Taiwan's leading lifestyle brands, Lovely Taiwan (台灣好店), which sells crafts from all around the country, and De Stijl (識得). The latter imports vintage jewelry from Europe and the US, and it also has a really unique storefront. When the owners were remodeling it, they uncovered all these little details from the last 50 years, like hand-painted wallpaper, tile walls and a hand-molded plaster ceiling. It's a microcosm of Taiwan's recent architectural history.

What benefits has blogging given
you, either personal or professional?

When I first started my blog, I wasn't sure how much I wanted to talk about my work on it. I realized, however, that my job is so interwoven into my personal life that it's impossible to not mention it. I haven't received any professional benefits in terms of freelancing offers or anything like that, but it does give me a place to put my articles and photographs and hopefully expose them to a wider audience.

Shu Flies has made a much more significant impact, however, on my personal life. I've met some really amazing people through my blog, several of whom I now count as close friends. I occasionally get e-mails from other Taiwanese Americans who've read some of my postings about being a minority in two countries and say that they've had similar feelings or experiences. I'm always grateful for those letters. Looking out for things to blog about keeps me from taking my day-to-day life in Taipei for granted. And, finally, Shu Flies has brought me closer to my family. Introversion seems to run through our gene pool and it's sometimes hard for me to verbally express to my parents and my relatives how much they mean to me and how happy I am that living in Taiwan has made me closer to them. I hope that comes through in my posts.

Do you have any advice for new
bloggers?

I would definitely recommend putting your real name on your blog. I didn't start Shu Flies to meet people, but that's been one of the best things about blogging. I think the fact that my identity is out there makes it easier for people to reach out to me (for one thing, they can Google me and confirm that I'm not a raging lunatic, at least not as far as my online presence goes).

I also think not having the protection of anonymity keeps me accountable. Despite all its rewards, being an expat is very hard at times and sometimes I just want to bitch and moan and make raving generalizations all over the place to blow off steam. But having my real name on my blog makes me think twice about doing that. Also, if you are putting a lot of work and time into something, it makes sense to take credit for it.

Having said that, I am not criticizing anonymous bloggers. The Internet can be a really shady place and you have to decide what your personal comfort level is.

What are some of your favorite
Taiwan blogs?

In English:

Wandering Taiwan (http://wandering-taiwan.blogspot.com/)

Taiwan-Born American (http://taiwanbornamerican.blogspot.com/)

Alive and Kicking (http://mi-chanchan.blogspot.com/)

Sweet Potato Island (http://sweetpotatoisland.blogspot.com/)

ivansoba (http://ivansoba.blogspot.com/)

In Chinese:

peray 的 blog (http://blog.yam.com/peray1)

eureka! eureka! eureka! (http://www.wretch.cc/blog/eureka117)

White Wabbit Records (小白兔唱片, http://blog.roodo.com/wwrecords/)

Booday (蘑菇, http://haveaboodayshop.blogspot.com/)

Annie's Café (http://yingchihchen.blogspot.com/)