Meet me in Tavoan

My reaction to receiving the family photo album. On Thursday, I received an email notifying me that a package from the US had arrived. "It's here!" I shouted. My sister had mailed me the box about a week ago, but we spent months discussing what she would send me¹ so I've been waiting for some time. The photo album was carefully wrapped in white tissue paper, stowed beneath a few gifts and my childhood things. I placed the album on my chair and gingerly peeled back the paper. The cover was…

The domain name is live. GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! I've finalized the domain name for this project: Meet me in Tavoan. I wrote about the origins of the name in this post. Now you can add this blog to your feed reader (if you want). I also wrote some additional information on the About page, explaining the usage of 臺灣 (Taiwan) in Chinese, which I'll copy here: Why 臺灣 in Mandarin Chinese? The Siraya language doesn't have Chinese characters, and thus I chose to use the name it has evolved into: Taiwan.…

Connecting with the Pan-Asian diaspora in the Netherlands. In June, I spent one week in the Netherlands—mostly in The Hague—visiting my cousin and some friends. I wrote about that trip extensively on my personal blog, but wanted to highlight a place that pertains to this blog: Nowhere Bookstore. The shop is located on Piet Heinstraat in Den Haag. Nowhere Bookstore was founded in Taipei and moved to the Netherlands in 2025. Their books cover topics pertaining to "the Sinosphere¹ world," mostly…

Connecting with the Pan-Asian diaspora in the Netherlands. In June, I spent one week in the Netherlands—mostly in The Hague—visiting my cousin and some friends. I wrote about that trip extensively on my personal blog, but wanted to highlight a place that pertains to this blog: Nowhere Bookstore. The shop is located on Piet Heinstraat in Den Haag. Nowhere Bookstore was founded in Taipei and moved to the Netherlands in 2025. Their books cover topics pertaining to "the Sinosphere¹ world," mostly…

Brainstorming and sharing some ideas/findings I haven't worked on this project in the last two weeks due to social engagements. Once I step outside of the obsession, the momentum disappears and I have to make time to get back into it, otherwise this will turn into another forgotten and unfinished endeavor. Coming up with a domain name sooner rather than later will be beneficial for me, so I won't have to spend too much time updating existing links to the website. While "A work in progress" kind…

Summary and observations for my research and learnings. PrefaceAs someone who mostly watches animal documentaries, I asked some trusted sources for a list of their favorite documentaries about people. In these posts, I will write about my key findings and analyses about the filmmaking rather than my opinion on the subject/topic itself. SummaryGrizzly Man (2005), directed and narrated by Werner Herzog, is a documentary that focuses on the lifework of Timothy Treadwell. Treadwell was an animal…

Inspiration and design process. I should know by now that if it's the weekend, I will try to squeeze as much time as I can into building the website. Today, that was probably around 5 hours. I did A LOT, which you can read in the changelog. This post is dedicated to the library, formally known as the RESOURCES page.¹ SemanticsAs I pondered how I would eventually add a section for books and movies, it dawned on me that this page was becoming a library. "Resources" is a general term, whereas…

Site updates and thoughts. Today I created the Resources page, in addition to other changes such as stylizing lists and adding SVG icons. I've moved my documentaries list there, created a list for articles and another for references. I have a bad habit of not bookmarking/saving articles and lost a crucial one because of this. :( At this point, the website is more of a glorified brain dump than an actual research project. I'm thoroughly enjoying the process right now though, and I'm the type of…

What to expect from this space. Hello all! Some of you may know me from my main Bear Blog, pretendtypewriter.net. As a fan of this platform, I'm happy to introduce my second blog, A work in progress (name subject to change), home to all things relevant to the project, which you can read about here. What to expect: In-depth analyses on old family photos Theories on my family history Documentary reviews (for inspiration) Plans on how I will conduct my research The meaning behind certain elements…