Free Republic

May 9 issue - Americans admire beauty, but they are truly dazzled by bigness. Think of the Grand Canyon, the California redwoods, Grand Central Terminal, Disney World, SUVs, the American armed forces, General Electric, the Double Quarter Pounder (With Cheese) and the Venti Latte. Europeans prefer complexity and nuance, the Japanese revere minuteness and minimalism. But Americans like size, preferably supersize.

It was a big weekend for President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan, who returned Saturday from the funeral of Pope John Paul II, the first president from Taiwan to set foot in Europe. It was a diplomatic victory he’ll have little time to savor, however, as he came home to profound discord over a series of events that have again begged the question that must eventually determine the island’s future: Is Taiwan Chinese?

In her beauty salon tucked down an alley in Temple City, Anna Hsu chats gregariously as she tends to her customers' facials and dabs makeup on brides on their wedding days. "Business is business," Hsu said. "I'm very careful about what I say when I have Chinese clients. This is not the right place to talk about politics."

A popular Japanese comic announced yesterday that it would censor one of its own stories after nationalist anger about its portrayal of Japanese brutality during the Rape of Nanking.

TAIPEI - Don’t try to book a China Airlines flight to Beijing because you’re likely to end up in Taipei.

Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Taipei is shifting toward teaching Taiwan's history and local dialects in schools, ahead of Chinese and English,

On August 26, the Tokyo Education Board adopted a new public school history textbook filled with nationalistic bias involving distortions of historical facts and exoneration of the Japanese invasion of Asian countries and the rounding-up of women in occupied areas for use as sex slaves for its military personnel.

ROME - For most Italian single men, inviting a girlfriend home is a dangerous affair: If the visit is not planned carefully, they run the big risk of bumping into the other woman in their lives — their mother.

SHIJIAHE, China - Hundreds of police stormed this village in central China before dawn last Saturday and fired rubber bullets into large crowds of unarmed farmers who had threatened a protest in the provincial capital, injuring dozens in one of the most violent clashes known to have taken place in the Chinese countryside in recent years.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - An American couple has won custody of a 5-year-old Chinese girl who became the subject of a tug-of-war between her foster and biological parents, ending a four-year fight that drew international attention.