"Life Instructions" can be found everywhere in Taiwan. Some might like to think of them more as rules or obligations. At their simplest, they exist to warn and put a little fear into people, if they don't stop talking loudly on their cell-phones while taking the subway! At the extreme, are instructions for finding your daughter a husband, even if she is no longer living.

In Taiwan, Life Instructions weave themselves through a society practicing both Eastern and Western traditions and therefore, often seem to contradict each other. Yet a unique feature about Taiwan, is that these cultural traditions live happily beside each other, with almost no conflict at all. On a long road leading to a famous Taipei temple, dozens of fortunetellers offer equally as many methods to see your future, competing and promising that their service is better than the other person down the road. At the temple itself, you will not only find old people, but also young stockbrokers, openly asking for more success on the stock market. At night, the temple takes on a very different atmosphere... Sometimes 'bar hostesses' are known to ask the gods for better business and continued health.

In "Life Instructions", Glen Clifford looks at some of these aspects about Taiwanese society; starting surprisingly, with a cheap pair of PC notebook speakers - and the Life Instructions that came with them. Why do we have so many Life Instructions? We keep returning to the same ideas of fear, insecurity, the hope for a good life - and a safe journey into the other world... All part of the everyday, in Taiwan.

(link to PDF version of above blurb)