Atypical Taiwanese: A story about TC LIN

Fascinating news article today about TC Lin (aka Poagao) in Taiwan, superbly written by Max Woodworth at the Taipei Times …online now…

Moderator’s Note: Sorry, but I was asked by the Taipei Times Features Editor to remove the Taipei Times story which CrazyaboutTaiwan had posted here and replace it with a link, which I have done. The law is the law…

News travels fast.

A friend of mine who works for the New York Times in Japan, responsible for Asia coverage regionwide, says the NY TIMES wants to interview TC Lin, following the Taipei Times story by Max Woodworth (nice reporting, Max) today. The reporter wrote me:

“Very interesting story in the Taipei Times today, yes, dan.
…and yes: i’d like to come to Taipei and interview the guy for a TIMES story … but would have to squeeze it in
before the world cup soccer
starts here (amid a pretty heavy schedule).
how’s that sound?”

if the NY Times does do a story on Mr Lin, then expect NEWSWEEK, TIME and CNN to pick it up later, too. TC Lin, you are about to become an international celebrity! Ready?

Geez, Dan, contain yourself, ok? A link to the Times article would have sufficed; you didn’t need to post the whole thing. And I think “international celebrity” is a bit optimistic, don’t you?

Hey Poagao,

TC is you? Cool! I thought it had to be you, but I didn’t know your real name.

Do you like the Taipei Times more now that they wrote a nice article about you or do you still favor the China Post?

Hobart

Believe it or not, I don’t really like any of the papers. I’d say that the China Post is better than the others in some areas, worse than the others in other areas. It just depends which areas you’re talking about. I think this has already been hashed over well enough in other threads, though, so I’m not going to repeat it all here.

Congratualtions Poa- when/where can we get the book? And to think, I actually emailed him when he was just another little lao wai… :sunglasses: :smiley: PS where’s the taidu icon???

I’m working on it. I’m in negotiations with some local publishers, but I think I am going to have to translate it into Chinese for them, which might take a while, so it’s a toss-up as to which version will be available first (if that’s not being too overconfident).

Well, if it’s published internationally first, Poagao, then the Taiwanese can translate it themselves. It sounds like NY Times coverage might just be the trick! I can’t wait to see the movie version. Will you play yourself or do you have someone in mind, like Russell Crowe?
PS, cute photo.

Alien: Well, these things always go both ways; there’s always Leonard Nimoy. Or barring that, John Cusack.

Personally I’d like Ving Rhames, though.

Poagao,
Your book’s not entitled “Black in Taiwan”, so Ving cannot possibly play you. Cusack’s a bit tall and gangly, and Nimoy far too old (but I can see the resemblance from his younger days). Your choices are highly illogical.
How about Mark Wahlberg? He looks cute in fatigues too!

And you’re calling me illogical? This is getting out of hand!

poag, I suggest as possible additional sources of revenue, you look at the licensing of you soldier photo on teacups, posters, calendars, T-shirts, etc. Very nice thighs in one pic. :mrgreen:

Very funny. I wouldn’t want to get sued by all of the people whose meals I ruined.

Jeeez, you better get used to accepting compliments guy. Come to think of it, I can use my sister-in-law’s scanner to reproduce that soldier pic on my own t-shirt. Actually they have all sorts of ways to scan pics and then put them of stationary, pajamas, coffee cups…I’m getting ideas…‘Poagbo’, ‘Dirty Poag’ (make my day), ’ I was a da bi zi once, and young…’, ‘The Last Poag’…I better stop

Alien, I think we need to set up a Poagao fan club.

A Poagao Fan club! What a great idea since he’s about to burst out on the scene!
You can be the president, v.
I want to be his agent and make sure he doesn’t get swindled into doing something which might adversly affect his burgeoning celebrity. He’ll be getting 20+ million per film if he lets me play his cards right.
Poagao career path:
–an internationally bestselling novel
–a starring role in the most highly anticipated local English theatre production of the decade.
–his own local tv series along the lines of Jerry Springer (the taiwanese may open up to him more as he’s one of them, but not ethnically so)
–his own production company
–adapting his novel for the screen, starring,and directing, and costarring Jet Li,Andy Leung, and Chow Yunfat as the Sergeant who makes him do push ups.

CrazyaboutTaiwan wrote a book too, right? So let him go and market it to an international audience. Craze- do you have any pics of you in fatigues or any kind of uniform (no Hess t-shirts please) that you could post here so we could check you out and evaluate your star potential???

I started this thread about TC Lin because I liked the article that appeared in the Taipei Times last Sunday and thought others overseas or islandwide might also want to talk about it. It was a very interesting story. Let’s stay on message here.

Crazyabouttaiwan, as for the T.C. Lin article by Woodword, yes, that was a nice feature. Thanks for bringing it to my attention because I missed the Times that day. Ciao.

F.

The article about Paogao was indeed interesting. Made me wonder about all those other threads dealing with the difficulties in obtaining ROC citizenship, yet Paogao was able to do it several years ago (granted, he was adopted by ROC nationals).

I don’t mean to get too academic, but I was wondering if anyone had an opinion on calling TC Lin an “Atypical Taiwanese.” To me, Taiwanese is an ethnic group, at least until the day that the Republic of Taiwan comes into being. If TC Lin is going international, to call him a “atypical Taiwanese” or “Caucasian Taiwanese” or anything “Taiwanese” is confusing and only muddies the larger debate about Taiwan. Shouldn’t he be called an atypical citizen of the ROC? Whats your opinion Paogao?