Tag Archive for ‘Asia’
Ask Matt: Finding a Teaching Job in Taiwan Through a Recruiter
Share Hi Matt, I like your site! I just landed a job at a language school in Taiwan, teaching both kindergarten and elementary age kids. I found the job through IACC. I have a few questions: First, I noticed that you said do not deal with recruiters as many of them have shady business practices. [...]
Ask Matt: Studying Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan
Share Dear Matt, I am trying to find a Mandarin course in Taipei, Taiwan which starts in October (anytime) for myself and my husband. We have never been to Taiwan and do not speak any Mandarin. We have found a course which starts in December, but we just can’t wait that long to go! Emily Dear Emily, Although [...]
Check Out This Month’s Action Asia Magazine
Share Check out this month’s Action Asia magazine for my profile of one of Taiwan’s most prominent and longstanding foreign paragliding pilots, Malcom Vargas.
Yenshuei Fireworks Festival 2010 Photo Gallery
Share The Yenshuei Fireworks Festival (Yenshuei Fong Pao) is a festival held in the Yenshuei township in Southern Taiwan every year. During the festival millions of fireworks are shot out of large hives into crowds of revelers dressed in heavy clothing and full-face motorcycle helmets. Each hive may contain as many as sixty thousand fireworks. [...]
Portfolio
Share Click a thumbnail to view a larger version of the picture. To navigate the full-size picture gallery click on the arrow icons, the picture itself, or use the arrow keys on your keyboard.
Riding the Crocodile V2.0
Share Note: This is a heavily reworked version of an article that originally appeared in Highway 11 Magazine. Don’t miss the photo gallery from the farm at the bottom of this page! I tipped back my cowboy hat, which I had brought to wave in the air while riding the crocodile, and sized up the [...]
Learning to Fly: Paragliding in Fang Liao Taiwan
Share Recently I’ve been working on a series of articles about paragliding in Taiwan. I’ve been learning how to paraglide, and about the evolution of paragliding in Taiwan, from Malcom Vargas who is, as far as I know, the only certified foreign paragliding instructor in the country. These are some photos from one of my [...]
Standing in the Fireworks: A Trip to the Yenshuei Beehive Fireworks Festival, Taiwan
Share On Febrary 27, 2010 a Chinese New Year fireworks celebration in the Guangdong province went awry and killed 19 villagers. On February 28th, 2010 I was in Yenshuei Township in southern Taiwan facing a several hives containing tens of thousands of fireworks set to fire into the hundreds of people that were crowded around [...]
Ghosts and Angels on the Beautiful Island
Share When I woke up around nine that Sunday morning my cell phone showed that I had 33 missed calls. It rang again in my hand. It was the head teacher from the school I worked at. “We’re at the hospital.” She told me. “Jana was hit by a bus.” On the way to the [...]
Snorkeling, Rum, and Island Hopping: Five Days in Coron, Busuanga Island, Philippines
Share To escape the suffocating traffic and staccato of firecrackers that besiege Taiwan every Chinese New Year, several friends and I booked tickets on a budget carrier, Spirit of Manila, to the city of Coron on Busuanga Island in the Philippines for five days of snorkeling, island hopping, and rum drinking. The tickets were very [...]
A Proposition
Share I was contacted today by Lidia Nyiri, a PR Consultant for TravelGrove.com. She asked me if I would write a blog post reviewing her company which, “helps users find cheap offers on airfares, hotel and car rentals, cruise deals and vacation packages”. She said the review didn’t have to be nice. It could be [...]
Bunk Magazine Issue 5 is out now
Share The first issue of Bunk Magazine was published by the Armory nearly 10 years ago, long before I arrived in Taiwan. Around the time I moved to Taiwan the last issue of Bunk, issue 4, was published. Bunk had a big influence on my decision to start Xpat Magazine. It showed me that an [...]
Letter from the Editor: Bunk Magazine Issue 5
Share The Armory is synonymous with art. The Armory itself is a work of art, having been built by a sculptor from the remains of the demolished armory that once stood in its place. Since then the Armory has hosted numerous art and photography exhibitions, usually for charity, and often paid local bands to play [...]
The Best Budget Trip for Chinese New Year
Share This year Chinese New Year vacation is expected to be from February 13th to 21st. It’s already a bit late to buy tickets, and many flights are already sold out, but there are still some good deals to be had. Since Thailand and the Philippines are both relatively cheap countries with postcard beaches and [...]
Crocodile King Exotic Mutant Animal Farm
A photo essay I shot on a trip to the Madou Crocodile King farm, a small private zoo in Tainan County, Taiwan, that features various exotic and mutated animals and one gigantic crocodile. The crocodile, stuck in a tiny pen for several years, has become extremely fat. Seriously. The largest crocodile ever recorded was 8.6 m long and weighed 1,350 kg. This croc, according to the sign, was 5.2 m long and 1250 kg, which puts it in the running for the fattest croc in the world. It’s so fat and slow that you can walk up behind it and sit on it. We did. Check it out.
Tonight I Ran Under a Crescent Moon
Share Xpat Magazine Winter, 2008 Tonight I ran beneath a crescent moon, thick like a section of orange, the color of lightning, surrounded by inky night speckled sparsely with stars. Golden Beach is the best place to run in Tainan. It’s relatively close to town and there’s rarely anybody on it at night. I run [...]
I'm a travel writer and photographer currently based in Tainan, Taiwan where I founded and edited Xpat Magazine, one of Taiwan's largest and longest-running expatriate periodicals. My writing and photography has been published in various print and online publications including Taiwan Today, the Taiwan Fun Magazine Group, and TransitionsAbroad.com. I speak English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese (to varying degrees) and am available for assignment. I can be reached through the form on the contact page of this website, or at xpatmatt (at) gmail.com.
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