Published under the pseudonym Salvatore Paradisio
Xpat Magazine March, 2007
“…there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and not try to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain.”
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) American Beauty (1999)
Xpat Magazine December, 2006
The fastest elevators in the world : Taipei 101’s high speed lifts, which travel at 17m per second
The world’s tallest building : Taipei 101 at 509m tall
The world’s largest proposed building : Burj Dubai in Dubai, UAE, expected to be completed in 2008, will be 800m tall
Xpat Magazine September, 2006
Tyco executive Dennis Kozlowski’s brother-in-law’s defense for an extravagant bachelor party held for his son with Tyco company money: “It wasn’t like a three-ring circus…there was only one dwarf.”
Xpat Magazine June, 2006
V
olume of soft drinks consumed by the average North American in 1999 : 48 gallons
Top grossing soft drink company in the world : Coca Cola
Xpat Magazine February, 2006
Taiwan’s relig
ious affiliations: mixture of Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist 93%, Christian 4.5%, other 2.5%
Population of China: 1.3 billion
Xpat Magazine December, 2005
Speed of winds from hurricane Katrina (mph): 160
Speed of winds from Supertyphoon Haitang (mph): 145
Proportion of New Orleans underwater at the time of writing: 80%
Photography courtesy of Kevin Lin
Xpat Magazine December, 2006
When Kevin Lin, a postgraduate student and Taiwan’s most famous endurance athlete, agreed to an interview with Xpat I was stoked. Kevin is an internationally renowned ultramarathon champion. He races distances measuring in the hundreds of kilometers through extreme climates such as deserts and arctic snowfields. He was recently commissioned by Matt Damon’s movie company, LivePlanet, to join a team of three endurance athletes that will run over 4000 miles across the Sahara desert in less than 80 days (more than two marathons per day). If you mention his (Chinese) name to your Taiwanese friends they will undoubtedly nod in recognition. This was going to be a groundbreaking interview for Xpat – our first real celebrity.