Mr EasyNeihuLine
Dear Johnny,
Strong leadership is required now to resolve all of the problems experienced by the Neihu Line.
I nominate Mr EasyCard and that master of management mayhem, Sean Lien (連勝文) of Taipei, China, who recently returned from a six-week visit to the US on an Eisenhower Fellowship.
I don’t mean it really, and I quickly rescind my nomination before it is too quickly seconded by members of the KMT family.
But my brief act as a provocateur will certainly leave you ample room for a sizable rebuttal.
CBO
Johnny replies: Actually, your brief act as a provocateur left me speechless. You have set in place a series of events that will see the Heir Apparent move along from his cushy early appointments to a more challenging agenda.
To wit: How does Mr Apparent, once placed in charge of the Neihu Line’s rehabilitation, situate himself in relation to the growing bitchiness between Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九)?
Not that he would be listening, but Mr Apparent would do well to accept a piece of my advice: Let people out before you walk through the door, offer your seat to the elderly and don’t talk on your cellphone too loudly.
I have no doubt that Mr Apparent can meet these basic requirements of good management. How else could he have gotten his hands on an Eisenhower Fellowship?
Postmodern brazzers
Dear Johnny,
How do you explain idioms to Taiwanese students? I had this problem last week when I tried to teach the saying, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”
My student replied that his copy of Big Brazzers featured a girl on the cover who was indeed a fair depiction of what was inside!
Pete M. Jones
Taipei
Johnny replies: It depends on how you look at it. To diehards like yours truly, this publication is what is strangely called a “Yank mag” by some of my Western colleagues. (I have no idea why they would name such material after Americans in general, or Americans from the north in particular).
But, to some postmodern fiends, the contents belie the cover by circumventing male hierarchical domination through the ironic interplay of text, picture and layout in displaying the synergy of desire and disgust, lust and loathing, thus leaving the deconstructing reader with conflicting cognitive signals and a real mess to clean up.
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