Radio Free Taiwan

My sister recently began smoking tea leaves, first out of curiosity, but continued to do it as a substitute for smoking tobacco. She has been very pleased with the results, finding it a lot less psychologically painful to give up cigarettes knowing that she can still enjoy the breathy sensation of having a smoke.

I have tried her tea cigarettes, which she makes using standard premade tubes. They are very pleasant actually. The smoke is less harsh than tobacco smoke. It smells similar to extra-low-grade grass.

We were a bit concerned about the possible dangers of smoking tea, so I looked it up on the Internet. There seems to be very little known about this practice, but most people tend to opine that it is probably less harmful than tobacco. There is no significant ‘high’ produced. Surely the smoke contains various tars and carcinogens, but it does seem to be ‘lighter’ than tobacco smoke. Besides, when you smoke a cigarette, you are not only smoking tobacco, but also hundreds of secret ingredients added by the manufacturer.

Here is a copy of the email I sent to my sister covering the results of my search. I didn’t discover much.

Hiya sis’

Here are some links for reading about smoking tea.

1) This one is just people yacking about it. Nothing is substantiated in any way, but there are some sensible comments. I liked the most recent post (scroll to the bottom.) You can add your own post if you like. Keep it short and sweet though. (This is a good general rule to follow when posting to forums, BBSs, discussion boards, etc.)(Those three terms all mean pretty much the same thing.)

http://www.faqs.org/qa/qa-13599.html

2) Here is a quite long thread on the subject. Most posts are quite stupid and/or rude. This is a good example of the level of intelligence typical of Internet discussion boards.

http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?t=80&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

3) This is what I found on Erowid.com, the best drug Website of all. It’s not much.
http://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.cgi?ID=2286

Some people say boiling it first (i.e. have a cup of tea first and then dry the leaves) is better than smoking it in its original forms as you would find it in a tea bag.

Different types of tea are different in flavour and effect - experiment. One person said oolong tea gave him a buzz while other types didn’t. Green tea seems to be popular.

Overall, there seems to be few people doing this, even fewer who have thought to use it as an aid to quit cigarettes, and hardly any research has been done on the subject.

Click the graphic to visit the Web site.

This is pretty self-explanitory. Visit the site for an inspiring look at Taiwan’s trail system. It’s in English!

I won’t try to add much here. This Liberty Times (pro-green) editorial states that foreign money is pouring into Taiwan despite the fact that most Taiwanese feel their stock market is the pits. The problem is that too many locals impatiently expected huge, fast profits from investing in companies that jumped on the China bandwagon. When this impatient rush led to losses, everyone blamed Chen Shui-bian’s government for their own poor judgement. This is the stock market folks. Play at your own risk.

China investment restrictions work

THE LIBERTY TIMES EDITORIAL
Sunday, Nov 27, 2005,Page 8

Since early this year, foreign investors have poured more money into Taiwan’s stock market than any other stock market in Asia, with the exception of Japan’s. As of this month, foreign investors have contributed over NT$400 billion (US$11.9 billion) to the nation’s stock market. This month alone, the influx of foreign capital into the market has reached more than NT$140 billion, a record high for a single month.
…
These statistics indicate that although the media believes the nation’s economic outlook is dismal, Taiwan is still a top investment target for foreign investors. Evidently, the pro-China media outlets were ignoring the facts and pursuing their own interests when quoting some foreign investors’ criticisms of Taiwan’s China policy.

If we analyze the portfolios of foreign investors we find that last year they invested NT$283.9 billion in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC, 台積電), China Steel Corp (中鋼) and Chunghwa Picture Tubes (華映). This month, foreign investors have also focused on buying shares of TMSC, AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) and United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). It seems that when looking for companies to invest in, foreign investors still prefer Taiwanese firms that are based in Taiwan.

This is the link to the story.

And a related article here.

This frank article in the Defense Industry Daily makes several references to the Taipei Times and infers the DPP’s fortunes may improve as some dark mud finally starts sticking to the KMT. Interestingly, the pan-blues won’t be able to say this one is a DPP plot. The impetus to accellerate the French frigate scandal investigation comes from Switzerland who promises to return the money to the middleman if Taiwan doesn’t make some kind of formal move by the middle of December.

Here is a link to all the DID stories on Taiwan.

And here is a very recent article from the BBC giving a good rundown on the whole scandal.

Book delves into frigate scandal

By Hugh Schofield
In Paris

It has been one of France’s biggest political and financial scandals of the last generation. It has left a trail of eight unexplained deaths, nearly half a billion dollars in missing cash and troubling allegations of government complicity. And yet 10 years after it first broke, the story of the “frigates-to-Taiwan” scandal has yet to be told in full.

And the greens lost badly in the election today. Rats. I posted about it here and here.