More Good Features of Fonestock

Actually when using this software I kept discovering neat features left and right.  For example, if I click on the small "i" that appears at the right side of the stock info for one of my stocks in my watchlist, another screen will pop up.  This screen allows for several technical indicators to be run simultaneously.  This software provides a benefit that none of the other software packages I used provided:  Using Fonestock allows you access to thirteen (13) different technical indicators!  If you recall from my previous posts, these technical indicators can be like your friends that can tell you when certain stocks are entering trends or when it may be a good time to buy or sell a stock.  For each technical indicator you will be told whether the results are "bullish" or "bearish."  To simply these terms, bullish means that the stock is moving upwards whereas bearish means the stock is moving downwards.   Also, the terms bullish and bearish could be used in reference to how optimistically or pessimistically a stock is currently being viewed. 

Clicking on the “Functions” button at the top of your screen will take you to another selection of options from which to choose from to analyze your stocks.  First of all my clicking on the functions button in the upper left hand corner from the intraday chart or from within the indicator charts, you will be able to compare one stock to another stock or indices. You may wish, for example, to do this to compare a competitor’s stock to your own or to see how your stock is doing in relation to the market is it being sold under.   

Fonestock allows for up to six different stocks or indices to be compared at one time.  Keep in mind if you compare more than a couple, you will need to remind yourself of which color represents which stock or index.  

The chart button allows for the candlestick chart to be displayed.  I have found no other free app thus far on the Apple apps store that is provided such detailed information as candlestick charts in their free software packages.  The candlestick charts can be resized by simply “pinching” the screen.  Furthermore, recall those thirteen (13) technical indicators I mentioned earlier?   

You can also choose to display that same information in chart form (two charts at a time) below the candlestick chart by simply clicking on one of the two charts and then selecting which indicator chart you would like to be displayed.  You can choose from Volume, RSI, KD, MACD, Bias, On Balance Volume, Psychological Line, Williams%R, Momentum, Oscillator, AR/BR, ADX/DMI, and Tower.  

You can easily change the display of this information by clicking the function button at the upper right hand corner of your screen and selecting from viewing a daily, weekly, monthly, or 5-minute chart.  Furthermore, these indicators can be adjusted through the “setting indicator parameter” under the functions button in the upper right hand corner of the chart window.  For those that have a good understanding of statistics and technical indicator analysis, this is a valuable tool in determining the right moments to trade certain stocks.

One thing I noticed that I did not like was that the software only provided bid and ask prices for those stocks being traded on Taiwan exchanges, any stock I am following currently on other exchanges cannot for some reason display the bid or ask prices. 

Furthermore, when I go to view the “quote” screen from my intraday data chart, I can only see those Bid & Ask prices with additional info for those stocks traded on the Taiwan exchanges.  More company “profile” information also seems to be available for those companies traded on the Taiwan exchanges as well.  Although this information seems much more plentiful than other software that I have surveyed. 

 

The software also includes a portfolio feature that is in a sense an extension of your watchlist.  Your watchlist can give you quick real-time overviews of what is going on with your stocks but your portfolio can help you keep track of all these in one place, especially in relation to your gain or loss of money! Stocks are added to the portfolio in a similar manner, as with the watchlist except this time you will need to indicate the stock name, price and number of shares.  You will need to manually enter this information.  Just for fun I added a few shares of Apple’s stock in which in my imagination I purchased for $50 a share. J You can view your portfolio in relation to today, price, change and gain/lost.  Also if you do actually end up trading this stock that you have bought later on, you will be able to view your realized gain and loss by keeping track of it right within the Fonestock software.

 

Another missing feature of most software packages is that of alerts.  I did not really see many of the other packages providing any alert functions or features.  Here from the “my alerts” menu (which can be accessed at all times by pressing the corresponding button at the bottom of your screen) you can simply add an alert by providing a few details about a stock including symbol, criteria (can choose between price, volume or any of the technical indicators previously outlined), a trigger and how you should be alerted in relation to this trigger.  For example I have entered the Citigroup Inc. symbol and 40 as the trigger for the criteria of price.  I can now choose whether to be alerted when the price falls to, rises to, reach upper bound or reach lower bound in relation to this 40$ price trigger.  I set the trigger to Price falls too.  After saving and turning the trigger on, I’ll now be alerted if the criterion I set is reached in relation to this stock. I can be alerted either by sound or by vibration.  Histories of alerts that have been triggered are also saved for you to view as needed.

One last feature of the Fonestock software that I would like to review is Marketmovers, which is located under the “More” screen that can be accessed at any time by clicking on the on the “More” icon on the lower right hand corner of your screen.  Marketmovers is a very interesting feature of the Fonestock software package that allows you to select a portion of or an entire exchange to locate the top dollar gainers, dollar losers, percent gainers, percent losers and finally volume actives.  This tool can be used to quickly and efficiently point your attention to a stock that is experiencing some drama change in the market.  You can also easily set the data count, so that from 10-200 stocks can be displayed for your review.

Lastly, of course there is a settings area that allows for the connection to automatically be established when you launch the program, input your user name and password (for paid accounts), register, easily access the Fonestock website, turn on or off the audio alerts, and adjust your auto fetch settings. 

I really think that I have located a gem here with my discovery of Fonestock and I am looking forward to continued exploration with this software as my guide.  I think the best part of all is the ease and intuitiveness of this software.  I found it very user friendly and easy to teach myself how to utilize all the features I have described in these past few articles.  Now that I have had my chance to play around with the software, I can really begin to get to work!

What's next after my free trial period of Fonestock?

In my last post I mentioned that you could register and access all software features, including real time quotes for free for a month merely by registering on the Fonestock website or directly through the Fonestock software. It’s easy to do so. From the “more” menu you can click on “setting” after that you'll need to click on “register” and then input your information to open a Fonestock account. Keep in mind that this is just opening an account and you are not required to pay anything just yet. You are just getting yourself ready to enjoy the free 30 days trial of the software with real-time quotes. Later you can use this account to either from the same “more” and “setting” menus in the software register and pay for the paid service or you can go on the Fonestock website to pay.

If you prefer to do everything from the Fonestock website, this is also an available option for you. Just log onto the English website and click on “product,” then “software,” and finally “buy it.” When you reach the “buy it” page you’ll be prompted with some choices. Fonestock software allows you access to stock information from Taiwan, China, and United States indices. Fonestock also provides four different subscription plans: monthly service, monthly service with automatic billing, bi-annual service, and annual service. Each of these service plans have the option of allowing you access to Taiwan, China, and United States indices or any combination of the three. To see the different prices of the packages, simply click which options you’d like to have access too and your shopping cart will automatically be updated with the correct price. Keep in mind that if you choose the monthly service with automatically billing you will continue to be billed automatically each month until you contact Fonestock to cancel the service. After deciding on which package you'd like and adding it to your cart, you’ll first be prompted to log into your account. You should already have an account at this time but if not you still have the option of opening one. Then you need to choose confirm & checkout. Here you will be prompted with the contents of your shopping cart for review. You can make changes before going to the next step, which will ask you to enter your up-to-date contact information. Before this step, you also have the option of saving your shopping cart contents and then come back later to check out. After confirming your contact information, you'll need to enter your credit card information to pay for your subscription purpose. Tha's basically it.

Now that's out of the way, I can get back to introducing some of the features I've discovered that I enjoy about this software.

Single clicking on one of the stocks will take you to a basic stock chart. The chart will present you with some basic information including bid, ask, and last prices as well as what the stock opened for on that day as well as the highest and lowest prices it has sold for today. You can see the actual change in price or percentage as well. The last bit of info provided is the volume in number. The charts in themselves are the most interesting but if you are one of those people that like numbers that is fine as well. This software will suit anyone's needs because it provides both charts and numbers for all the information displayed. At the bottom you will be able to see all the numbers clearly and at the top you are presented with a line chart that shows the progression of the stock price as well as a bar chart that shows the progression of the volume. Simply tilting your iPhone sideways alerts the software to increase the size of the charts and to hide the text. Either in this tilted mode or in the normal vertical mode, a single click on the line chart will allow you to see minute per minute intraday data.

If you slide your finger on your screen from the right to the left, a volume distribution chart will be displayed for you.

As with the other line chart and bar graph, turning your phone sideways will allow you to view a larger scale version. Clicking on the date button allows you to choose to view today, yesterday, two, three, four, or five days ago data. You can also click on the “period” button to change the view to that of either a 5, 10 or 15 day data period. Clicking with your finger on the chart will allow for a line to pop up on your screen that will help you to see the price or volume for any given day that is displayed on the chart. Wherever your finger moves on the chart will allow the numbers to be automatically updated.

Classic City Resort Hotel in HuaLien (Trip Part 2)

After our day at the farm we made it to our hotel and checked in. We heard the hotel is the newest one in Hualien and also the safest. It is located next door to the local police office! We were still waiting on our teacher so we decided to walk around and get something to eat. Dinner was included at the hotel but we were starving. We just ate a chain dumpling place and found out it was the first time that RuoYi had eaten sour & spicy soup and pot stickers in Taiwan. She usually eats at home with her family. So surprising.

After that we made our way to a bowling alley and enjoyed a game. It was here we discovered that DaFu was an experienced bowler and that RuoYi had never bowled before in her life. Still, RuoYi managed to be in second place when the scores were tallied. After this we had a drink and HaoYi treated everyone. I can’t recall what DaFu had but I still hear RuoYi raving each day about the Plumb Coca Cola she had. Unique but very delicious.

We were really tired after that so we went back to our hotel to take a shower and rest. Our teacher was very late so when he finally came we really didn’t feel like doing anything else. He tried to force us to go to the night market but refused. We finally went downstairs in the hotel and had our dinner, which was disgusting. Then we went out to buy some snacks and some alcohol at the local grocery store. We went back to the room and enjoyed a unique game of UNO. After that we went to bed.
Maybe now is a good time for me to talk a little bit about the hotel, Classic City Resort, that we stayed in. The rooms were very tiny, especially the bathroom, but they were all very nice and clean. The bed was very comfortable and the price was pretty affordable. I think we paid a little over $3000NT (US$90) for the night.



The staff seemed very nice and was informative and friendly when we asked them questions. The location of the hotel is a bit far away from the night market (where you want to go for Hualien snacks) and the train station. You’d need to walk about 30 minutes to get to the night market and maybe another 30 minutes to get to the train. They do however have some connections with some travel agencies and booked a tour for us that was cheaper than what we had originally planned on taking before arriving in Hualien. I would consider this hotel in the same category as Just Sleep but Just Sleep was a much nicer experience for me, especially in consideration of food. The room sizes, however, seemed similar. Classic City Resort’s breakfast was a buffet but I can’t say it was very appetizing. I even thought their coffee tasted bad. I still tried to eat it though in order to get my money’s worth. We could choose our main course for our dinner with some side items that were on the buffet. We all chose the steak, which we couldn’t finish because the portion was very huge but tasted terrible. I think the best thing I ate was the soup that was most likely a powder.

Shin Guang Jau Feng Recreational Farm

My Chinese language teacher made a decision for our class to have a class outing. I really didn’t have time for the outing because I have been busy with my part-time work and Chinese courses but I’m really glad that I decided to go in the end; this trip really helped me to grow closer to my classmates.

My Chinese class originally had six students. Besides me, there is DaFu from Japan, HaoYi from Canada, JinSong from Vietnam, RuoYi from Thailand and Marcus from Germany. Marcus ended up having to drop out of the class and currently RuoYi and DaFu come when they can because they are soon going to being their first semester as undergraduate students in Taiwan. JinSong & Marus could not make it to join our trip.

I guess my grammar is the worst out of all the students but Marcus was not really around enough for me to tell much about his Chinese language ability. Anyway, I am trying to slowly improve and recently I take more changes to practice my speaking. I meet with my tutor more often and am trying to get all my homework done in time so I can hand it into my teacher for grading. I think all the students really enjoy the class and we pretty much have a fun time now that we've grown accustomed to one another. We always joke around during class and give the teacher a hard time. He's a nice guy though and can joke around with us as well.

The trip we took was to Hualien. We chose Hualien because it was the only place in Taiwan that all of us had never been to. Well HaoYi had gone but when she was a child and she couldn’t recall the trip at all.

I really can’t tell you all the places we went to in Hualien because I really felt a lot of the places looked the same and many of them reminded me of my hometown in Kentucky. Maybe it was all the mountains and the greenery.

The first day we took the Toroko Express from Taipei to Hualien. It’s quite comfortable and much better than what I’ve expected. This Taiwan Railway train requires you to purchase a seat so no one can buy a standing ticket to disturb the passengers. Our teacher could not join us because he has something else to do that day so we ventured to Hualien on our own. Before the trip I was not really familiar with DaFu but with a 2 hour train ride ahead of ourselves, we eventually found ourselves chatting about our lives. We mostly gossiped about the language teachers at National Central University.

After arriving we went straight to the bathroom and then received a call from the driver the travel agency arranged for us. He was in a rush and drove crazily to the Shin Guang Jau Feng Recreational Farm. I consider it more of a zoo than a farm. We rented a golf cart and drove around the farm for about two and a half hours seeing animals and not being able to attend any of the live shows because of bad timing.

I suggest you not to eat any of their dairy products because the ice cream tasted like cheese (so weird!) but we all finished our ice cream (which was hard as a rock) because we didn’t want to waste the money. For those that are going here (even though I’d recommend you not to go…ha) please do not buy any souvenirs until you get to the gate of the place where there is a sort of small museum and coffee shop. The first floor is filled with all the same stuff you can buy on the “farm” but this way you don’t need to carry it around with you all day long. One last thing, it looked pretty bad there. I heard it's been hit strongly by typhoons so that could be one reason but it just looked not very well taken care of to me.

More to come in the future….

Reflections on My Time As an Exchange Student

This is a reflection essay regarding my experience as an exchange student at Chinese Culture University in Taipei, Taiwan. I was an exchange student when I was receiving my Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language from Murray State University. These are some of my thoughts regarding my experience a few years ago.

Every semester, dozens of students leave their families, friends and routines behind to experience life in another country. Everyday you hear about someone that has studied abroad or plans to in the future. This kind of experience is becoming more common, but often those who attempt to take part in this type of cultural exploration do so leaving the country without a unique experience. When I first began my plans for Taiwan, I assumed this trip would be like the last five taken in the past three years.

My other trips were often sheltered by my acquaintances and friends. This time things were going to be different - I would be totally independent.

Go alone. It may sound scary, but being alone in a foreign country can be the best way to experience the culture. Of course you may want to exchange cultural experiences with other foreigners living and studying abroad, but the true experiences are those gained by diving into the culture by self-exploration.

Try the local cuisine. When I meet people from the States who are working or studying in Taiwan, I can almost immediately categorize them by the food they eat. People entering McDonald's, Pizza Hut or Subway are missing out. The ones having a real cultural experience are those scurrying to the night markets and consuming such delicacies as stinky tofu, pearl milk tea (milk tea with tapioca balls), phoenix claws (chicken feet), pig blood rice and chicken buttock kabob! Part of this is their open-mindedness about the culture and their interest in exploration. And I have tried all of the above mentioned.

Go out by yourself. Go off the beaten path and explore on your own. It's okay to visit the tourist attractions; but after this, go down a few dark alleys relying on your intuition, rather than your friends, to locate something exciting. Sometimes the things that the natives think are boring will be interesting and exciting to you.

Leave no rock unturned. The month of July is the ghost month of the lunar Chinese calendar. My friend's mother celebrated by offering food to her dead ancestors in remembrance. After praying, we burnt ghost money for the relatives to use in the afterlife. My friend did not accompany us during these endeavors of remembrance because she may have felt it would be boring, but it helped me understand the way in which some Taiwanese respect and remember their deceased loved ones. It reminded me of the way Americans place flowers upon gravestones.

Get lost. Sometimes getting lost can be an adventure. You may discover a small cafe that has the perfect cup of tea or a wonderful small boutique that specializes in unique traditional gifts. Once I took a walk looking for somewhere to study and do some journal writing. I accidentally happened upon a small, uniquely decorated cafe. I was treated wonderfully and given free fruit with a nice note inviting me back.

Learn the language. If you are studying in a non-English-speaking country, try your best to learn some of the language. Students who study abroad in the United States speak our language to communicate, so why shouldn't you do the same in their countries? Nothing is more irritating than a person who has lived in a country a year or longer but cannot say more than "hello" or "goodbye" in the native tongue. And if you are proficient enough in the language, try to have a conversation with someone. You may make a great friend and find someone who can help you unearth the best buys and unique attractions.

Pack carefully. Do some research on the Internet or chat online to find out how much certain things cost. Sometimes it is easier to buy the product after you arrive. I buy certain personal care products in the States while certain clothes and food are very cheap here. Also, leave plenty of room in your luggage for souvenirs. Do not overpack - especially with clothes. Pack clothes that easily mix and match.

Write about your experiences. Remember, this is your time to study but also your time to have fun. Being abroad allows a person to open up and do new things. Write about your experiences and share them with others.

Leave America behind. Do not enter a country thinking you know everything about it. Even after visiting Taiwan five times, I still have a lot to learn. Once I had a problem with my visa, and I pushed to have the details about the problem explained and corrected immediately. This is not the way things are handled in Taiwan. I felt bewildered and confused, but eventually everything was fixed. Do not enter another country with the mindset of, "In America, we ..." Things are done differently all over the world, but this doesn't make them wrong.

I cannot specify everything one should do while studying abroad, but the most important thing that I have learned is to be independent. Do not be afraid or get nervous. If a misunderstanding occurs, the world is not going to end. The worst that could happen is that you get the wrong food or get lost and get to experience something new! Take a confusing situation and make it a learning experience. Do not let anxiety or apprehension cause you to miss out on a wonderful experience.

Being independent has allowed me to feel confident in myself and my experiences. I am not following some prepackaged tour program, I am creating my own experience. I'm in control, and that's part of the fun. Studying abroad is about having experiences and learning about the culture. Exposure to another culture may help you visualize something about yourself of which you had no idea.

I Have Found a Real Gem -- Fonestock

As I promised I am back with more stock software information. This time up for review is Fonestock, a software package also available free-for-download from Apple's app store as well as from other venues. As the saying goes, if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all...well in the case of Fonestock there is a lot then that I have to say! I may end up splitting my comments for this software into two different posts in order to not overwhelm you.

I want you to be able to digest all the information and freely ask questions about specific features of the software.After using this software package and a few others for the past three or four weeks, I have been drawn back to this one again and again. This is why I have decided to stick with using Fonestock to help me track my future stock market interests. Not only does this stock software offer free real time stock quotes without the necessary to pay any fees, but it is very easy to use and provides a lot of information that the other software packages I reviewed did not make available. These real time quotes are available for one month for free.After that, if you like their software you will need to pay the registration fees to continue receiving the service.You will only need to register the software in order to be able to access real time quotes, before that you will only be able to receive delayed quotes.Still, this software seems much safer than other software packages because the registration process only requires you to submit a driver’s license number but not a social security number for software registration.The only drawback that I can find with this software is its weak news provider.

It took me a minute or two to realize that I could link to the news from the intraday chart by clicking on “related news” from the functions button located at the top upper right hand corner of the interday chart screen.Unlike other software packages, unfortunately I don’t seem to be able to link directly from my watchlist. You can, however, like other software packages search the news directly from the main screen you are presented with when you open the software.The news

in Chinese, on the other hand, actually seems to be real news articles detailing events that could impact the stock market.Actually though, I don't really find this as much of a drawback. I can still search for info on any certain stock from within their news provider window.Let me go into a bit more detail about some of the features of the software and why I like it so much.

First of all, I feel the background black color contrasts well with the text and charts, making it easy to read in any environment. The charts are probably what finally drew me to make the decision to stick with this software as my final choice for stock apps available on the iPhone. The first feature that you will first encounter is the Watchlist, here you can create your own personal list that you can follow in real time. There is also a feature that allows you to see all the stocks you are tracking together in a single listing as well.Unlike some of the other software packages, you do not need to know the stock symbol in order to add a company. Knowing the company's name will allow for easy searching of the company and then adding it to your personalized watchlist.

I added a few stocks from some companies from both a Taiwan and a USA exchange and created a list. You can call your list anything like, here I have labeled the list as "My Holdings." When I tap on my "My Holdings" list I'll be taken to a screen that will give me some detailed information about each stock including the symbol, last price, change, change%, etc. and then I can click on any of these headings to rearrange my list either ascending or descending according to the just-clicked heading. You can also while editing your list has the ability to edit the headers as well. More to come tomorrow...

iStock Manager Vs. Bloomberg

I am not exactly sure why, but I'm a bit turned off by iStockManager. It may have something to do with all the inaccessible features of the software. It is offered as a free download but if you pay a fee other features will be unlocked for you. The problem I have with this is that there are to many parts of the screen taken up beckoning you to "go to login" for the paid Ameritrade account. Unlike Bloomberg's software, this software package allows you to not only track your stocks but you can also link it to TD Ameritrade to actually trade your stocks. Also, since I have shelled out the cash for the paid TD Ameritrade account, I can only receive 20 minute delayed quotes of the stocks. I can't get real time quotes the way in which I was able to do with the Bloomberg app. Anyway, I'm not sure that I want to keep using this software or not, just because I'm unhappy about the interface.

As a side note, while using these stock software applications I noticed that sometimes my iPhone automatically will lock and turn off the screen. This gets on my nerves after awhile. I know that it is to save battery life but if I was really trading and every minute counted, I would want some feature to be added to the software that would allow this battery saving feature of the iPhone to be turned off when I had my stock trading software active.

At the top of the screen you are shown the stock prices but that's it. I don't think that is a very intuitive way to present the stock information. Sure I guess I can guess what those numbers mean but I see no reason for not providing some description. You can view a delayed "now" chart, as well as a 5 day, 3 month, 6 month, 1 year, and a 5 year chart. You can also link to news articles concerning this stock but I think the news is really lacking since I got no results for Apple's stock by clicking on the news icon. I went into Bloomberg's app and was able to get news.

One feature that I do like about this app is that from the main screen or the "general" screen you get a 52 week range average and you can see where the price of the stock is falling currently. In my screen shot you can see Apple's stock seems to be a bit in the high range. It would be interesting if I could expand this average to a longer period of time, more than 52 weeks.

I didn't really fiddle around with the screens in relation to the trading features since I did not open an TD Ameritrade account, so I can't give much feedback about those features. I also don't know if it was just my Internet connection but I felt that this app loaded the charts so slowly. I started to get very aggravated after awhile. So then I went into Bloomberg and discovered that the charts and info loaded very quickly, the same for Fonestock as well.

I also really like the feature of being able to just search for the company name instead of being required to input the stock symbol.

After using iStockManger and Bloomberg I'm not really sure if either is the best choice for me. I really do think that Bloomberg offers a great news feature but seems lacking in some aspects. iStockManger seems a little bit better since I can at least see the last 52 weeks average and know a little bit about what is going on with the stock but if you recall some of my earlier posts regarding technical indicators, I believe some of those can really help with making some decisions on when to buy or sell certain stocks, especially in regards to certain patterns that may develop overtime with stocks. But these two software packages have not shown me that they would be able to assist me in any trading decisions.

Taiwanese Pop Music & KTV Addiction

What do I know about Taiwanese music? Not very much except that Taiwanese really love music and with that love for music comes singing. I've never really met a Taiwanese person that doesn't love to bust it loose singing karaoke. In Taiwan karaoke is so popular that they even have establishments that you can go to rent a room with comfortable sofas, a big TV, and a karaoke system that allows you to sing until your heart's content (or your wallet is dry). Many of these places also offer an included snack style buffet but you can also order food or bring your own food and beverages (corking fee applies). They do have some English songs as well but very few. Most of the English songs are old, like 60s and 70s hits but there are also some modern ones as well. You'd be surprised at the number of Taiwanese that can sing. It's like they actually practice these songs for the day they can go to KTV (that's what they call karaoke) and strut their stuff. Even though I'm not that good of a singer, alright I'm not even a little bit good, but I really like KTV. I just wish there were more songs that I could sing. The last time I went I actually attempted to sing some songs in Mandarin and I guess I did okay. I even surprised myself that I could follow along with the lyrics. I don't have enough practice singing though so everyone was urging me to sing out loud. I guess the more beer or vodka you have before you start singing really helps a lot. Some of the popular KTV establishments include HOLIDAY KTV (everyday is a holiday) and PARTY WORLD. I think many people visit these type of establishments as not only a way to have fun but also to relieve stress or celebrate an event like a birthday. I'll try to round up some of my own old photos from my KTV party days and post it to the blog in the upcoming weeks.

As far as Taiwanese music goes, in general I'm not a big fan. The reason is a lot of the music that is produced by Taiwanese singers sounds very similar to me. Also many of the CDs are not that great. Some singers release two to three CDs in a single year, so of course the quality of the music will suffer. Unlike in the US, where a singer is just a singer. In Taiwan a singer is supposed to be a singer, actor, comedian, and whatever else their managers can think for them to become. Of course they must look beautiful or handsome and do modeling. So I think the life of a singer in Taiwan is not really a singer but a superstar. They need to be multifaceted and stay in the public eye, otherwise they will be forgotten.

Taiwanese really love ballads here, especially love ballads. The more sad the better. I do have to say, though, of course Taiwanese are more open minded about music than people in the United States. In the United States if you are not singing in English, you are not going to be listened to. I think people in the United States have a hard time believing that you can actually enjoy a song without knowing every single word of a song. Anyway, nowadays there are a lot of singers that you cannot really understand what he or she is singing anyway. I do however have some Taiwanese music on my iPod but am only familiar with a few singers. These singers are probably not as popular as others in Taiwan but anyway, I'm not introducing you to what exactly is popular in Taiwan but about what I like and listen to.

I recall when first coming to Taiwan I was introduced to two big singing stars, A-mei and Leehom Wang. A-mei is an aboriginal Taiwanese, meaning her ethnic background is not like the majority of other Taiwanese in Taiwan. Most of the Taiwanese that reside in Taiwan are of Han Chinese ancestry. A-mei made her big debut in 1996, so when I came here in the year 2000 she was still quite popular. Of course people still consider A-mei a big success but I think because she didn't keep herself in the spotlight people paid less attention to her in recent years. Her music can be called a mix of pop and rock. She also writes some of her own lyrics and has won a ton of awards. On the day that I went to KTV with my friends I sang one of her songs. I guess one reason she is lacking in popularity is that she's getting up there in age, I guess she's nearing 40.

Leehom Wang seems to be releasing albums all the time. He has also won lots of awards and even done a little acting. He is actually an Asian American kid that just happened by chance to get the chance to become a singer. It's hard for me to describe his music style because I think he just combines a bit of everything in order to create his own style of music. He calls this style "chinked out." I didn't really actually sing any of his songs during my last visit to the KTV.

I guess you could say that these two singers were kind of introduced to me through listening to other friends CDs but the last I will introduce was my own discovery. I guess I found out about Elva Hsiao by watching her videos on MTV on Taiwanese TV. I think all of the singers I've introduced should be able to speak English well but Elva went to the US to study for a time and this reminds me of something else about Taiwanese music that is so interesting. A lot of the songs will have one or two sentences of English in the song. I'm not really quite sure exactly why...maybe to make it sound more interesting? Maybe to add something to the song? There is actually research being conducted to try to determine why English is used in Mandarin songs (I heard a PhD student from National Taiwan University discuss this topic once). Elva's music seems to be filled with this kind of stuff. I think you can describe her music as Pop.

Learning Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan

Some people have said they are interested in knowing more about the Chinese courses that I'm taking and how the teachers go about teaching foreigners Chinese in Taiwan. First it needs to be made clear that the Chinese that is spoken in Taiwan is similar to the Chinese spoken in Mainland China but it is not exactly the same. Both are considered Mandarin Chinese, that is one dialect of Chinese. Chinese as a language family has several different dialects that make up the whole Chinese language but most can speak a common dialect referred to in English as Mandarin Chinese. Also the Chinese as a single race, regardless of the country they are from use a single written system. Those in Mainland China use a simplified form of Chinese characters, whereas in Taiwan and other areas (such as Hong Kong and Macau) that include large numbers of ethnic Chinese, utilize traditional Chinese characters. In Mainland China they refer to the system of Chinese characters used in Taiwan as “complex Chinese” instead of "traditional Chinese," but they are in reference to the same thing.

To help you to better understand a difference in the written system, please have a look at these two characters. Both are characters for the word “love” in Chinese. One as you can see is missing a certain part of the character that represents the “heart.” The one without the “heart” is the character used in Mainland China whereas the one that contains the heart is utilized in Taiwan.

One can come to a good understanding about the difference between the Chinese spoken in these two places by considering the way English is spoken in England and in the United States. Both of course speak English but their pronunciation is slightly different and at times the word choice is a bit off. Sometimes certain words in British English mean something entirely different in American English. This too rings true for the Chinese spoken in Mainland China, often referred to as PuTong Hua , or the "average language" (direct translation) whereas in Taiwan it is referred to as "GuoYu" or the "country's language" if translated directly.

I learned a bit of Chinese when I was an undergraduate student in the United States. My Chinese teacher is actually still in the United States but she's currently working with international students at my undergraduate university. I can't really say I learned much from that class though. I then had a chance to become an exchange student at Chinese Culture University in Taipei, Taiwan. I can't really say I learned much Chinese in the courses I took there either since they basically only had two levels "advanced" and "native-speaker" when I enrolled in courses there. Of course, they called the "advanced" class beginner. Even the students that had studied Chinese for a year in their own countries had difficulties. How was I supposed to survive with next to know knowledge of Chinese. I did, however, buy several books during this time and slowly studied with a tutor. When I left Taiwan to go back to finish my masters, I was able to speak some simple sentences and follow simple conversations. When I was a lecturer at National Chiayi University, I continued my tutoring again and I think I improved somewhat. I improved to the point when I had the entrance exam for the Mandarin courses at National Central University, I tested into their 4th level. To be honest, I don't really know how many levels they have here but it seems like 8 levels. I'm currently enrolled in the 5th level and I'm taking it for the second time. I didn't feel I progressed enough the last time I took the level, so I opted to take a rest for one semester and then go back to retake the classes.

Right now I feel my Chinese speaking hasn't advanced as well as it should have in the time I've been given but I blame this mostly on the fact I don't have much time to practice speaking. I guess my reading and writing has improved and I think it was a good decision for me to retake this level. A basic week of Chinese classes for me goes like this: The teacher first goes over the new vocabulary that can range from 30-50 new vocabulary depending on the lesson. Each vocabulary word has one or two example sentences that students are asked to read aloud. From time to time the teacher will elaborate on some sentences or vocabulary words, if he feels they are particularly difficult. We are seldom asked to actually use the words orally in a sentence. We can usually finish these within two two-hour classes. Then it's on to grammar. Each lesson has about 8 to 10 grammar structures. We have fill in the blank questions for practice with 5 to 10 practice sentence per grammar point. There is a little introduction to the grammar point, which the teacher will usually teach to us in his own way and then we go one by one through the sentences reading them aloud and filling in the blanks. After this we will sometimes have a listening exercise where we need to listen to a conversation and then answer some multiple choice questions and also listen to a dialogue that contains all the vocabulary and grammar we learned. We will then usually read the conversation aloud as well. This is usually done on the third day of class. That's the basic routine with us finishing a lesson in about 3-4 days and a test on the 4th-5th day. Our homework is to write each new vocabulary about 10-20 times and use it in a sentence correctly. Besides this, we also need to complete a homework book that asks us to write an article of about 500 characters (equivalent to about 750 words in English). We also have an oral presentation every two weeks. We are also expected to read two novels before the end of the term and turn in a written 600-900 character reflection essay over each novel. Sometimes I feel the classes are overwhelming and it's difficult for me to keep up.

I also am taking a "listening and speaking" class in which I am supposed to review the things that are taught in this other 2 hour class but I feel that seldom happens. If my classmates do not ask the teacher a question, she will provide us with a lot of listening exercises which I feel are not very helpful to me because my listening is already pretty good. If I know the words, I can catch the point of the conversations. Also, the things the teacher provides to us is Chinese speakers speaking putong hua not Taiwan guoyu, so the accent and words are sometimes a bit difficult for me.

My plans are when I finish this term of Chinese in September that I will take a pronunciation course and have a tutor. I hope that I can find someone that can tutor me everyday or at least have speaking practice for 1-2 hours everyday. Maybe I will try to find two people, one for teaching and then one I can just talk with during lunch time.

Any thoughts?

iPhone Stock Market apps

Besides giving readers an inside perspective of an American living in Taiwan, this blog is also about chronicling my knowledge and understanding of stocks. Since I have my iPhone 3G with me everywhere I go, I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of this device by downloading some apps from the apple app store that could give me some insights into the stock market. Since I am tight with money, I decided to limit my downloading of apps to those that are available for free. I chose some popular ones as well as some less popular ones. I hope to play around with them in the next few weeks and talk a little bit about the advantages and disadvantages of each. Actually I just want to see which of these apps I find the easiest to use and the most helpful. I've decided to start my exploration with the following four apps, all available for free from the apps store on your iPhone: Bloomberg, iStockManager, Fonestock and iSwim.

The first is Bloomberg. The free for download iPhone app provides the basics with an easy to read and navigate interface. The black background is very easy on the eyes. The menus provided for you are News, Markets, My Stocks, and Stock Finder. The Stock Finder option allows you to search for stocks from a variety of Markets (Exchanges) without the need to already know which index it belongs to. Also a handy feature is that there is no need to know a stock's "symbol" to search. You only need to enter the company. For example, have a look at my search for a Taiwanese telecommunications company, Chunghwa Telecom Co. Ltd. The search option does not require me to first select the Taiwan Stock Exchange first before searching.

I also find the news feature really handy. For example, after I searched for Chunghwa Telecom, I was able to add it to my personal portfolio in the "My Stocks" folder. Here I am able to access and follow my stocks easily on a daily basis. From this screen I am presented with a screen that shows the current High, Low, Volume of the day as well as the time accessed. A 52 week set as default summary of the stock high, low, P/E, Return and Market Capital is shown beside a 52 Week summary chart. Simply tilt your iPhone sideways to have the chart expanded. Here you have the option to view 1 day, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, or 5 years chart. The charts displayed show dates, prices, and volume. I am prevented from seeing specific days. I can only view the information provided in the chart and it shows little information for each day, only the high price and the volume for that specific time.

When viewing "My Stocks" I also found the feature of being able to easily click on the column headings in order to change the displayed information. It's quite handy and easy to do. For example, in the photos below I am first looking at the Change but after clicking on the column heading "Chg" I can see the percentage of Change "% Chg" for all the stocks in "My Stocks." I think this is one of the most convenient features of this app.

Let me also briefly give definitions for three terms I have yet to use on the blog: To state it in the most concise number of words P/E refers to P/E ratio or price-to-earnings ratio. You may hear or see it written as "P/E", "PER", "earnings multiple," or "multiple." This number refers to the price paid for a share of a stock in relation to the annual profit earned by the firm per share. A higher P/E ratio means that investors are paying more per share so of course the stock is more expensive. Likewise, a low P/E would indicate a lower priced stock. You may want to briefly visit Wikipedia for a quick summary of Market Capital and Return.

The features that I like the best is the "Related News," which allows you to link directly to news that is related to the stock you are following and as a result may have some influence on this company's stock. I also feel it's helpful to see company data on the first page you are shown for any stock you decide to follow. Besides, the News feature in itself is quite interesting to me. I surf the news sometimes just as an interesting source for news when I'm on the train or bus going to and from school. You can even contact the reporter of that particular news article if you like, simply by linking directly from the article. You can also easily email articles with a single click in this app.

Besides the difficulty I mentioned above by not being able to view any type of chart except for the basic line chart (for example: no candle stick charts), there also seems to be no alert feature that could allow me for example to be emailed or messaged when and if a stock reached a certain bid price. Just as a refresher, recall that the bid price refers to the highest price that a buyer (i.e., bidder) is willing to pay for a good. In the context of stock trading, the ask price is the lowest price a seller of a stock is willing to accept for a share of that given stock. Of course it also doesn't offer any option for trading stocks as well. I am not going to delete it from my iPhone yet. I think the news resources are quite valuable to me.