This was originally posted on blogger.

Taiwanese sticker culture. It’s totally normal in Taiwan to send stickers to your friends. And your coworkers, boss, customers – whoever. When I landed in Kaohsiung for the first time, my interactions with the quarantine hotel I was staying at were mediated through LINE, the common messaging app in Taiwan & Japan. Most of the time, I would type something, they would respond, and then send a sticker.So many stickers. A sticker is like a glorified emoji that moves. Or you could see it like sending a meme or a GIF. And you can also buy them. And they make stuffed animals and key-chains based on the common ones.

Honestly, I think we need more of this in the West. As I re-acclimatize to American culture, I realize how much warmth and nuance we’re missing out in with the purely textual medium.

Hope and change. What’s something that Obama, Trump, and Bernie all have in common? They acknowledged the struggle of working people in America. Obama’s 2008 campaign, “Change we can believe in.” Bernie in 2016, “Not me, us.” (with messaging about a “political revolution”). And Trump said he would “Make America Great Again” and “drain the swamp”.

Trump’s populist messaging struck a chord with the American people, and I hope that the Democrats take note. The Democrats came off this year as out of touch, patronizing, and fake. Yes, sure, maybe sexism and racism had something to do with it. But I think really the problem is lack of authenticity.

Trump is authentic. He speaks his mind. He’ll say things other people are afraid to say. Given polls skew towards the Democrats, it seems like there’s a number of shy Republicans out there. Why is that? Trump is also, as it happens, a master of the media. He used two attempted assasination attempts to his great advantage. Apparently, there was some photo of him working at McDonald’s that went viral. He bought the support Elon, who – whether you like it or not – made the Republicans seem a lot cooler. And he chose a convincing, well-spoken vice-presidential candidate to add in the mix.

I do think the Democrats needed the 2024 election as a kick in the butt. If the stakes really are as high as they said, then they should be fighting a whole lot smarter. This isn’t just about more campaign dollars. The Presidential election is about picking a phenomenal candidate, and finding a message that *really* clicks with people. I sometimes feel like the Harris campaign was run in a way that made them feel satisfied with the effort they put in, but in actuality wasn’t at all competitive. Now people may disagree.

The point is that there’s much we can learn from how the Republicans won the hearts and minds of people across the country. Without this temperature check, would we liberals have any idea how much people are hurting? People are losing their stable jobs, they’re afraid of automation and AI, and the cost of living is going up and up. This happens in fully blue states just as much as it happens in purple or red counties. So something has seriously got to change.

Bible-pusher Rohan. Before I moved to Taiwan, I was fanatical about this book, The Defining Decade by Meg Jay. The lessons of this book are left for another blog post. Certain books like that can really reshape my world-view. That book in particular wasn’t saying anything crazy or marvelous, but rather putting oft-repeated advice in a new perspective – one that I had an easier time digesting. It galvanized me to do something different and original: move to Taiwan and be an English Teacher. My thoughts at the time were would give me “identity capital”: a story, a set of experiences that make me a memorable human being. At the very least, it’s evidence that I can go against the grain, and follow through on something off the beaten path because it makes sense to me.

These days, I’ve been thinking about the job search. There’s a whole slew of tips and tricks online, but that doesn’t make the job search any easier. Most of the people I’ve talked to took months to get anywhere. If you think about it, most people have only ever job hunted a few times in their life. Sometimes less. So people’s experience is limited; it is by nature anecdotal. There’s some old parable about the seven blind men that try to draw an elephant. Basically, they each touch different parts of the elephant, but with such a limited scope, they can’t get the whole picture of what the creature looks like.

Two years ago, I recommended The Defining Decade to anyone and everyone. Now, I have a new Bible: The 2-Hour Job Search by Steve Dalton. This book is more easily summarized: instead of shooting resume after resume into the black hole of job application portals, your time is better spent networking at targeting companies by informational interviews to learn about your industry. Moreover, Dalton provides explicit instructions on how to implement this strategy. No generic tips & tricks – just actionable advice, based on research and his experience as a career counselor. I like this book because it flips the traditional paradigm on its head. And god, there’s a lot of vague advice for job searching, but very few people who actually know how to do it.