Walking on Shells

2 Years in Taiwan

2010-06-21T21:22:00.000-07:00

June 9th was a special day for me. It marked 2 years of living in Taiwan.

Living and working here has been an unbelievable experience. But at the same time I cannot say if it surpassed my expectations. Mainly since when I arrived all I expected was to work and to live here. Part of that was I had minimal idea of what to expect and little guidance from my boss beyond being told where to go. I was ok with that.

In short, Taiwan has been amazing.

I won’t thank specific people here since most of the people I need to thank have already been thanked in person. Still looking back makes me truly humbled that so many people here in Taiwan have been so kind to me and done so much to show me guidance and take me under their wings. Almost without exception, the Taiwanese people have been wonderful toward me. Even more so now that I have been dating one for 7 months.

I have done my best to adopt the local manners, languages, culture, customs, and feeling. Taiwan has become my second home and I’ve become Taiwanese.

When I come back to Taiwan after my summer trip there will be a lot to consider in my remaining year. What I can be sure of is that I will continue to have great experiences here.

Highlight Reel

2010-06-21T19:56:00.000-07:00

In the last 18 days since I have updated this blog there have been a lot of things that have happened. So over the next few days I’ll try to turn this into a highlight reel of sorts and go through those that stick out the most to me.

2 Years in Taiwan
Dragon Boat Festival
A mini ND dinner
My upcoming trip

NBA Finals

2010-06-03T20:23:00.001-07:00

A lot of people cast election votes for the person who is the least bad. I feel that way about the NBA finals.

As a Blazer fan I completely detest the Lakers. Every little thing about them. On the other hand, I can't stand Sheed and Garnet on the Celtics.

I just want this over and Greg Oden to come back. Sigh...

Siesta and Chiptole (Kinda)

2010-05-30T23:41:00.001-07:00

This weekend both my girlfriend and I were a little worn down. So instead of our usual weekend, which packs tons of things into those 48 hours, we decided to take a siesta and take it easy on Sunday. Even then the day before both of us had tests and I went out to get some tailored pants

It was a good choice. Just hang out at my place, watch tv shows, eat (lots), and rest.

Then that evening we went out to a newly opened Mexican place that was assisted in business planning by a ND MBA that I know and some of his cousins. I expected a nice sit down place with good Mexican food. Instead, I got Chipotle. Not that this is a bad thing. But I was surprised since I expected something different.

Basically, the restaurant was similar to Chipotle in all but name and interior design. Still the food was good. It is a little out of the way for me but I'll probably make it back there sometime.

How to Surprise a Taiwanese High School Student

2010-05-30T23:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was out in the Ximen Ding area of Taipei to see Shrek 4 (like the others it was pretty good). It was there that I inadvertently learned how to surprise a Taiwanese female high school student.

In public areas in Taiwan students will often stand there with clear boxes asking for your receipts. Each time you buy things there is a standard numbered receipt and the number on the receipt is put into a lottery style drawing. So the kids are there to collect them for whatever cause they support. They will stand there and say in unison their pitch and ask you to give them your receipts.

As I walked by one group of two students in an especially crowded area they started their pitch in unison and a little too close to me (~2 feet away). I snapped my head around to see the source of the sudden intrusion. When I looked at them they stopped cold for a few seconds then mumbled (that's the best word I can think of for it as they said it at a normal speed and volume but they were just saying gibberish) the rest of the line before breaking into nervous giggles.

Yilan!

2010-05-24T00:55:00.000-07:00

This weekend I took a short trip with my girlfriend, her high school friend, and 3 friends of the high school friend to the Northeastern Taiwanese city of Yilan. I had never been to the city before and I did zero prep work to know the sights and attractions I wanted to see (such is the great benefit of having a girlfriend who is an amazing party/trip planner). After we first got there everyone went out to a traditional "museum" spread over a huge area of land with lots of shops and stores. We were able to see the guy below pulling sugar to make traditional candy.

I also got quite a view of one of the local hotties while I was in Yilan/Luodong.

After a quick stop at a riverside park and a roll down a hill it was decided that we would venture out for a night of shrimp fishing. Now, I had been shrimp fishing before. It is a very Taiwanese activity that tacitly encourages you to drink, smoke, and chew betel nut while you do it--maybe like bowling in the US minus the betel nut). Basically, you grab a pole and sit around a small cloudy pool put a little bait on your tiny hook and test your luck. Somehow these guys are more than slippery and despite your best efforts you dont land many of them. When you do land them then you have to be careful since they have some decent pincher claws.

When you take them off the hook that means you have to be careful. Then again you can just use my strategy of just ripping their claws off as you take them off the hook.

Once you have used your allotted time you take the catch to be cleaned and barbecued. We had 6 people and not many shrimp. But we were beyond lucky. A little Taiwanese lady who had been using what I can only imagine was super bait handed us a basket full of shrimp. Instead of having 12 shrimp we were suddenly in the great situation of having about 35 more. With the glut of shrimp we found that they made fantastic toys.

The next day we didnt do too much before going back to Taipei. As we dropped off our rented scooters we went inside a store to get some gifts. The owner and her daughter, below, were facinated by the black girl with us and her braids. So much so that they asked her to braid the her hair. The thing was the owner was really nice but the little girl was incredibly shy--to shy to even talk to us or say thanks.

As we left the owner/mother spoke to me in Chinese and said the daughter was too nervous since she could not speak English but after seeing us her goal was to be able to learn English when she got older so she could talk with foreigners.

Half a Year

2010-05-20T00:07:00.000-07:00

Increbible really. It has been over six months since I started dating my girlfriend. In the long run of things, that really isn't in a long time and hopefully in terms of the total of our relationship that isn't a long time either. In the short run of things, it is a long time. Currently, I have been living in Taiwan for almost 2 years. So for more than a quarter of my time here I have been dating my girlfriend.

The time in the Taiwan and the last 6 months have flown by incredibly quickly and I'm sure that trend will only accelerate. Still the last 6 months have been an incredible adventure and a wonderful journey with my girlfriend. For those of you who read still occassionally read this thing, you will have to take my word for it until you are able to meet her in person; she is a great gal.

When I came back from Thailand and Cambodia I had to work on that Saturday then meet my boss for a business dinner. Even though I was tired, there was no question in my mind that I was going to meet her for KTV.

Then the next day we had our long awaited date day to celebrate 6 months. We were both tired and had a lot of work to do, but it was a great little escape to go visit Danshui for the day.

I'm looking forward to the next 6 months.

Cambodia and Thailand Trip

2010-05-19T21:51:00.000-07:00

I didn't take a camera this time so all of these pictures are from my BlackBerry. When we arrived in Cambodia on Sunday evening the captain came over the loud speaker of the flight to announce the outside temperature was 40 C. Think of that as more than 100 F and you get the idea; I started sweating almost immediately. That night I went to dinner with a coworker at a river side pub. But as the band came on a bunch of Russians came in. They were drunk already, of course, and proceeded to harass waitresses and the singers while being all-around jackasses. My coworker, who was travelling with me, and I decided to head for the exit as both the pub owner and bouncers took the Russians aside.

The next day was a full day of meeting and running around the scorching sun of Phnom Penh in a tuk tuk. Then Tuesday we spent the day again running around the city until 2pm when we went to check out of the hotel and head to the airport for Thailand. I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined a country with no McDonalds, like Cambodia, would have a Dairy Queen in the airport.

Then we landed in Bangkok. Everyone had told us the Red Shirt protests were dying down and there was a good chance of a negotiated solution in the coming days (we arrived on Wednesday). That said, there was still some danger in the city. But the danger was contained in a few areas of the city and the rest was safe. Thankfully I had been to the city about 10 times so I knew how to get around and avoid trouble.

The next morning I woke up for a full day of meetings. Then we were off for a meeting close to the protest zone. Again, we were lucky as at that time things hadn't really kicked off. Below is the area near the protest zone from about 38 floors up.

At night we headed to the night market for dinner and shopping.

Along the way I found a stall selling some bugs, including some huge cockroaches.

Then we settled in for a nice meal outside. Thankfully they had cold beers and fans since it was about 38 C and humid. I have no idea how people lived there before the advent of AC.

It was all good until the next day. I woke up at 4:30am feeling terrible and knowing I needed to visit my most important customer for a big meeting at 10:00am. Lucky for me I had a cocktail of Imodium, water, and powerful antibiotics. It seemed to do the trick and I was able to hold it together. That night we began to hear news about the protests.

We were still in a safe area. So safe in fact you could not tell there was anything amiss in Bangkok. But after a nice dinner we did notice lighter traffic. Throughout dinner we were getting reports from the protest zone (via our customers at the table) and given the expectation that things might go south (it actually took about 3 more days for that to happen) we decided to leave early in the morning for the airport. The next day I was up at 5am and was able to catch some early flights back to Taiwan.

As for being sick, I am still not 100% better but the worst is past.

Thailand Protests

2010-05-19T21:19:00.001-07:00

Well, it looks like the government and the military were able to disperse the protests by the Red Shirts from their central area. But I think they may well have fanned embers that fall throughout the country.

This is sad. Thailand is a wonderful country with fun and welcoming people ("The Land of Smiles"). Seeing a country tearing at itself is one thing but to see a country that I have visited about 10 times and enjoyed doing this is never fun.

That said, the struggles that we see going are on are in many ways proxy fights between the real powers that be in the country. Certainly we can all hope the situation improves soon.

Back Home

2010-05-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

Well despite what you have seen on the news Thailand was fine, for me at least. There are serious fissures in Thai politics and in society in general that have been on display for the world to see. It would take a long blog entry for me to give the political problems the air time they deserve. But it should suffice to say that the news has not done well at providing the complex view that is necessary.

Thailand is a young democracy and it is going through turmoil and still working to define itself. The news has shown this as two sides, Red Shirts and the government, facing off. If only it were that simple--then it would already be over. From my count there are at least 4 sides and each of those sides has multiple internal divisions and competing agendas. Pictures of the violence make for good news but the real story is much deeper and involves fundamental political changes that are afoot in Thailand.

All of that said, I was in Bangkok from Tuesday night until early Friday morning. Not once did I see a protester or encounter any violence. Bangkok is a large city and the protests are confined to a limited area. So other areas are not impacted. Yes, there was a degree of tension in the city but by in large life went on as usual and away from the protests you would hardly know what was going on.

With the exception of one meeting in the vicinity of the protests I was in the safe zones the entire time. Still on Thursday night things seemed to be going south so my colleague and I made the decision to play it safe and leave a little early on Friday. Now I'm back in Taiwan and all is well, for me at least.

Thailand

2010-05-11T20:54:00.001-07:00

Well now I'm in Bangkok. The protests here seem to have died down and the word on the street is that the situation will be resolved. Still I am staying away from the affected areas. When I get back to Taipei (Friday) I'll try to provide more updates about this trip.

Back in PP

2010-05-09T04:49:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Phnom Penh for the first time in almost 6 months. But it has changed a lot so it feels like I've been away a long time ago. Yes, today is Mother's Day but I was able to talk with my mom yesterday on Skype to make sure that she heard my best wishes.

I thought Taiwan was hot. I was wrong. It's 38-40C here and humid. Unreal.

I'll be here for a few days then, despite the protests and apparent danger, I am going onward to Bangkok. Things are smoothing out there so hopefully all goes well.

Summer is Here?

2010-05-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

There have been multiple times this year where I have fired up the AC at night. Then, almost inevitably, within a day or two I have to break out extra blankets since the weather is cold again. Such is life in Taiwan during the spring. A few days of warm weather and a few days of cold.

Now, I think, that dynamic is changing. It is getting closer to summer. When I say a Taiwanese summer what I mean is ~90 degrees hot on a normal day with oppressive humidity that makes saunas unnecessary.

I can feel it coming. The last few days have been really hot and have been increasingly humid. The summer is on it's way. Luckily for me there will be a good period this year where I will be outside of Taiwan for the hottest of the heat, but that will be discussed later.

Thoughts From a Nobel Mind

2010-04-28T20:12:00.000-07:00

Even if you aren't into economics jargon, I would hope that you take the time each day to read Paul Krugman's blog (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/), Conscience of a Liberal. He is indeed liberal and his best economic work is behind him having taken the mantle of an endowed Princeton professor and New York Times columnist. Still it's not every day you can read the thoughts of a Nobel Prize winning economist written in accessible prose. He has recently had some great stuff about the Greek debt crisis, the Euro-zone, and Republican excesses.

While I'm at it I also have to give a plug to the other blog on my daily reading list, The Best Defense (http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/), which is written by defense expert Tom Ricks. If you are interested in defense issues this is the place to go (if you are really interested in defense then peruse "The Small Wars Journal" http://smallwarsjournal.com/ as well ).

Trip to Taichung

2010-04-26T21:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend I took a nice trip to Taichung in central Taiwan; otherwise known as my girlfriend's hometown.

I got off of work a little later than I wanted on Friday and hurried home to get a backpack ready. Before I could even eat dinner I was off to catch the High Speed Rail (HSR) to Taichung. It is very fast, on time, convenient, and has a stop near my house. Except for talking with my girlfriend's parents (who are very good to me) I took it easy and hit the sack for some sleep.

The next day started a little earlier than normal for me at 6:50am because I had to join my girlfriend, her friend, and a friend of her friend for a day trip to the near-by Sun Moon Lake. The nice thing is that it is more than just a scenic lake. There is a big amusement park, gondola line, and Taiwanese aboriginal shows to see.

The amusement park was fun. The first ride I was on lifted you about 200 feet into the air then dropped you for about 2 seconds. Scary as hell but fun. Then there was a small roller coaster that I sat in front for. No problem I thought its only about a minute ride. But dear God, that thing was insane. Would I do those again? Absolutely

After that it was off to see the aboriginal cultural villages and culture shows. In a way it made me feel bad that they were being reduced to attractions on the level of a theme park. Sing and dance all day then do it again the next. So then we all headed off to the gondola to the Sun Moon Lake. It was great scenery and lovely views...but only if you like fog.

We had the fun we could then went back home for dinner. Before going to bed my girlfriend's mom taught me the basics of Chinese calligraphy and gave me a shot. It was my first time and despite my best efforts I was atrocious but after some practice improved to the level of pretty bad.

The next morning I went on a hike with my girlfriend's parents in jeans and nice shoes. Needless to say the hike wasn't hard.

So when I got back I cleaned up a bit and then made a french toast breakfast for everyone. I hadn't cooked french toast forever, which is sad considering I used to wake up early on the weekends back home and cook it for my family. Well it tasted just like the french toast back home. So I was quite pleased. On that note, I returned back to Taipei

Seriously?

2010-04-23T00:59:00.000-07:00

Today was Round 1 of the NFL Draft. I was stunned that Denver would take Tebow. They mismanaged Cutler who was much more polished out of college and now they are taking a quarterback who (let's face it) isn't used to pro offenses, has a poor passing motion, and if he tries running like in college will get clobbered. What makes that even more inexplicable is that Jimmy Clausen was still on the board.

That said Tebow seems like a great guy. So best of luck to him. But, seriously, Denver what were you thinking?

Let's Have a Tea Party

2010-04-21T01:34:00.001-07:00

As a political science major and a connoisseur of current events, I am somewhat intrigued by the American Tea Party movement (jokes about tea bagging aside).

Here is a disorganized umbrella movement that has no particular agenda but has still managed to shake up the American political scene. Normally not having a clear agenda is bad. But here it allows them to become a big tent where all members can bring their grievances and feel included since there is no set agenda. At the same time, their disorganization and lack of a clear agenda will eventually hinder their growth and political influence (unless they organize more tightly).

I mean if you say you don't like big government that feels good; not many Americans will say the oppostite. But what does that really mean to not like big government? Do you like big government (military) defense spending or do you taken away? Do you like Medicare or do you want that to be taken away? Do you like public roads or do you want that to be take away? Do you not like public healthcare and want that to be taken away? What I mean is that saying you don't like big government is fine, until you have to make a decision about what constitutes "big government" and should be cut.

The question of why has this movement blossomed has been bedeviling columnists. I suggest looking at the columns by Leonard Pitts Jr. he has some good stuff on the topic. Although the reactionary aspect and the vitrol the protesters have shown is extremely worrisome to me I don't mind people organizing politically. After all, that is the basis of America. So I'll let others deal with the why, I'm more interested in the implications.

A lot of people think this is good for Republicans and bad for Democrats. That maybe so--but don't bet on it. Republicans have just as much, if not more, to be frightened of than do Democrats. You see the Tea Party is generally right wing, far to the right of moderate Republicans. Now is the primary season and to capture the votes of those on the far right (who are the key to winning over in primaries in order to be elected) you must appeal to them. So what we have seen is normally centrist Republicans (John McCain and Charlie Crist) running to the right to gain votes.

That is normal. The problem comes in the general election when Republicans are split. Their candidates will have taken far right positions in the primaries that they cannot easily renounce. So they will be stuck on the far right. The unfortunate part for them is that most of the electorate is in the middle (Median Voter Theory). So while they may make it out of the primary intact they will be shooting themselves in the foot for the general elections. Furthermore, their is no guarantee that the Tea Party candidates will pull out of the general elections. This hurts them by splitting the base Republican vote even further while repelling moderates, who are central to winning any election in American politics. At the same time the Democrats don't face a similar third party challenge, so they should have the advantage, right?

No. Or at least not necessarily. The Tea Party seems to be tapping into a strong anti-incumbency current in the US. That feeling could be bad for Democrats. But unless the Republicans/Tea Party can put up viable candidates in big races, things could still swing the Democrat's way (assuming the left votes as a block and turns out). The biggest question will be turnout. If the right gets a lot of people out to vote then the Democrats will be in trouble. Still the Democrats are running scared and after the election likely still will be scared (keep in mind it is normal for the minority party to gain seats in the mid-term elections).

I do wonder, though, if the elections go poorly for the right what the reaction will be. My fear would be that all this talk of impending doom on their side would fuel many crazies. If they did poorly in an election then they would lose hope of affecting change at the ballot box and instead resort to other means. Hopefully that doesn't come to pass. The problem, though, is that they have adopted very extreme rhetoric towards the government in general and Obama in particular. This is a problem because, despite what Jesse Helms said, politics is the art of compromise--so when you call your opponents devils and say there are soon to destroy all that is good then you leave yourself no room to compromise. Ironically, people angry at the government not moving fast enough adopt extreme rhetoric which then incentivizes politicians not to compromise thereby introducing further gridlock.

The final interesting thing is that most politicians are elected saying what they will do to bring your more services or pieces of pie. Instead, the Tea Party wants nothing of the sort. I wonder how long it will last in an electoral system geared to generate two parties and weighed with its own contradictions.

Only time will tell.

A Crazy Little Thing

2010-04-21T01:12:00.000-07:00

A crazy little thing indeed. I was talking to a college friend who, for now, shall remain nameless when I was in Xiamen. Told him I was dating a very lovely lady over here and it was going on 5 months since we had been together. He responded by joking and saying something along the lines of, "5 months? Wow, she must be great since 5 days is usually a long time for you." I laughed. In college 5 days sure was a long time since I had other interests like running, beer, and class that came first.

Then I came to Taiwan and lived here for a little less than a year and a half before I met my girlfriend.

Time certainly does fly by and those 5 months have been no exception to that rule. So to celebrate our 5 months together my girlfriend and I both went to take a gondola ride, have a nice dinner, and do some shopping this last weekend.

Like all time with my girlfriend it was great fun and I had an absolute blast. So here's to the next 5 months!

Xiamen

2010-04-21T00:09:00.000-07:00

Looking back at this month you can pretty clearly see it is threadbare in terms of posting. The reason for that sorry state of affairs is that at the beginning of the month I was in Xiamen, China.
There really isn't too much to report.

Up at 6:30am most days, outsourcing company by 8am, lunch and dinner there, head out ~6pm, work in hotel lobby until late, talk to my girlfriend on Skype, sleep, and do it again. Besides talking to my girlfriend the highlight was seeing the graffiti below (it says "Heaven"):
I was there solely for work and that is exactly what I did. I arrived on Wednesday and then worked full days (plus using a few hours of hotel wifi to do more work when I got back) until I left on a Tuesday. So basically full days sitting in an outsourcing factory going crazy with emails, Skype, and all manner of other communication.

Back story is that I was there to monitor some outsourcing production we were doing. The company we were working with has a good reputation and in the end turned out a good product. The problem was that every step along the way was fraught with errors, problems, or delays. What should have been a quick project dragged on far too long. I'll keep the details confidential but it should suffice to say that the outsourcer had some serious problems with production management. At one point, the problems came to a head for me. Those of you who know me know that I do not get visibly angry very often--especially not in front of customers or in a professional setting. But this was not most times. Seeing these problems and the lack of urgency on the part of the workers made me very angry. Thinking like a Chinese person I knew there had to be a hard response but one that would allow everyone to save face.

So I first worked myself up even more to prepare for my show (I was angry but what I did was more of a show). When I was angry enough I took the lady in charge of this project and the manager aside for a terse conversation in Chinese. Basically, I told them, "We are going back to the office now! I cannot accept this situation because it has already taken you so much time to adjust this machine and we've had too many delays." That was to let the manager know I was angry. Then as we walked back to the office and inside the office I tried my best to bust the chops of the lady in charge out of ear shot of other; to let her save face. When I finished she went away smarting. I have no idea if it worked but after waiting 5 hours to that point the adjustments were done within 45 minutes. But, damn, did it feel good. Now I know why my GM likes to bust chops so much.

After that there were still problems. But we got things done and I've been taking care of shipping since then. Toward the end I was just tired of things. I was tired of the problems, tired of delays, and tired of not seeing my girlfriend. I made sure things were set and then promptly came back to Taiwan.

The Dentist

2010-04-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to the dentist after probably the longest absence my whole life (going on 2 years since I last visited) thanks to the joys of not having insurance.

For a lot of people a trip to the dentist is kind of like the picture above. Frankly, I have never found it that scary or bothersome. Even as a little kid they gave me laughing gas when filling my cavities and I had a great time. A few years ago having oral surgeries I talked with the doctors while they were slicing and dicing my gums and I had a great time.

But I was a little nervous about the Taiwanese dentist since I know NO Chinese vocabulary words for dentistry.

So the night before I set up an appointment by walking to the dentist office about 1 minute from my apartment. It was no problem, I set up an appointment for 7pm the next day and took 1 minute to fill out a form.

On the day of the appointment I arrived at 7pm and got right in. At 7:24pm I walked out with a basic tooth cleaning (using the scratch tool and then smear some mystery solutions on my pearly whites). The cool thing is that I could have been out 10 minutes sooner if the dentist hadn't wanted to talk so much. He would be cleaning my teeth then take of his mask and talk for a few minutes about his kids in the US or ask me questions to practice his English. Real nice guy.

The best part was that my wallet was only NT $500 lighter (US $15) when I walked out. I will eventually get my Taiwanese health card and then that number will be even less.

That Time Again

2010-04-20T23:36:00.000-07:00

I can feel it in the air, sometimes. Summer is coming. How do I know this? In Taiwan you can tell by the humidity. When you walk outside in the middle of the day and it feels like someone draped a wet towel over you in a sauna then you know summer has arrived. Right now I can tell that it's coming.

The last few days have been in the upper 70's and low 80's with a hint of humidity. But I can feel it; I know it's coming.

Sure the weather will mess with my head like it has the last two months. Three days are hot and require AC then the next three will be cold and rainy requiring some layers. It goes back and forth and is wonderful if you want to get a cold.

So tomorrow will no doubt be cold. Still the mercury will creep ever upward as the days go by and soon even the cold days will be mid 70's and humid. What else does that mean, besides me drowning in sweat for a few months before I get used to things? Typhoon season is around the corner.

Whew!

2010-04-14T21:37:00.001-07:00

Well it's been a while since I have posted anything. Yes, I've been busy. But more importantly I've been in China and thanks to the censors I have no access to my blog--hence, the lack of updates. I'll try to provide a bit of insight about what I was doing in China for 6 days.

Just note that it's really not too interesting. 6 days of only seeing production, the same office, a hotel lobby for free wifi, and an apartment isn't overly interesting material.

The worst part was missing my girlfriend. She is one hell of a great gal.

Shrimping

2010-03-31T18:25:00.000-07:00

This last weekend I decided to pull a Forest Gump and go shrimping--shrimp fishing that is. It is a very Taiwanese activity to do. Throughout Taiwan there are businesses that are set up like this.

They build several big pools (~20 feet long or so). Then fill them with shrimp (ranging in size from large to gigantic), lobster, or crab. Then you charge people a fee per hour to come in and catch them. Once they are done catching their fill you provide a place to clean and cook the catch on a little grill. Most also have a little refreshment stand or small kitchen at which you can order some food.

There are a few problems though. First, the prices tend to be expensive. Second, the shrimp are quite hard to catch when it is colder since they are cold blooded and don’t move or eat as much in the cold. But the plus side is the shrimp are big and incredibly good to eat.

Still I went this weekend with my girlfriend and a few others despite the cold. It was expensive and we only got a few shrimp. But damn those things were tasty.

That would be the first one I caught. Notice that massive single claw (the other likely got taken off in a fight).

Lost in the Shuffle

2010-03-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

I need to stop and take a moment to say a word of congratulations. Right now I have several friends in both the U.S. and in Taiwan who are engaged. In no particular order:

Steve and Katie
Joshua and Tingting
Joe and Kara
Brian and Aimee

Congrats to all of you guys! I won't be joining you anytime soon for the married life so I'll just go ahead and live vicariously through you.

Healthcare!

2010-03-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

"congrats man! we have health care"

Those were the words I received from my friend who is stationed in Baghdad with the Marines. Very cool to have someone in a combat zone so happy that the U.S. Congress passed a plan to extend health care coverage.

First however, I need to state two qualifiers before delving into this post:

1. I have done minimal research on the provisions of the bill beyond reading Paul Krugman's economic analysis.

2. I am not sure, as of yet, how the bill will impact me given that I am currently uninsured.

Having said that I was happy about the passage for several reasons. First, I think this can help to make the U.S. more economically competitive by reducing the burden on employers to provide insurance (however, I don't think what I have seen of the bill does nearly enough to reign in costs). Second, providing health care for the poor, the young, and the elderly is never a bad thing. Third, if the experience of Taiwan is an indicator health care can be extended quickly. Fourth, I recall a story by Fareed Zakaria saying that much of GM's production has been moved to Canada because workers there are just as skilled but don't have the huge burden of health insurance.

Despite the good that I think can result from this bill I have been disappointed in many aspects. As mentioned above, costs will not be controlled well enough because we fear "death panels." Speaking of which, leads me into the most disheartening parts of this debate: political behavior of the American right.

Politics is the art of compromise. So when you start things off by screaming that a bill is the return of Stalin, Mao, and Hitler then you don't leave yourself room to compromise or even improve that bill. As has consistently been the case this year, the Republicans (and Tea Par tiers) have not sought to improve things and instead turned to purely vitriol-filled spouting. So much for acting like adults. They alone haven't poisoned the political process, but they have done far more than anyone else to poison things.

While I am happy the bill passed I am sorely disappointed in a significant section of the populace. Then again disappointment doesn't even begin to describe low lives who would use the n-word when yelling at Congressman John Lewis. Shame on them and the Republicans for not doing more to reign them in.

Ok Pope...

2010-03-28T21:43:00.000-07:00

I'll be the first to admit I don't go to Church often enough and I'm not always the best Catholic. That said, I'm still Catholic and I've gone to Catholic schools the majority of my life. So the mess the Church has found itself in has a degree of resonance.

The Vatican seems to have (tacitly, at least) drawn the battle lines and decided to man the ramparts in response to the growing problems they face about abuse by priests. What they have to realize is that they are up a creek and the best response is that "the truth will set them free." By fighting back or denying they seem to be covering things up to those outside the Church.

These problems will not go away, especially if their existence and scope are not acknowledged. The Vatican is out of options in fact. Fighting back is a last ditch and completely incorrect response. For an organization that is supposed to be open, loving, and following in the steps of God this is completely wrongheaded.

To start the beginning of the end for this scandal the Pope needs to forcefully say that all abuse by priests is wrong and there is no statue of limitations any longer in effect. Then he needs to act to create guidelines to prevent abuse from happening in the future. Get ahead of your critics. Act decisively and swiftly. Make sure that heads roll for those who abused and allowed abuse to occur. But at the same time make sure that abuse cases are properly investigated (by outside police organizations) so that freeloaders cannot hitch themselves to these charges.

Think of Letterman. He was able to get in front of the story. He was embarassed but suffered far less than if he had waited for someone else to break the news. Compare that to Tiger Woods who let the news get far ahead of him. When he eventually did open up it was too little too late.

In sum: fighting back will only make matters worse. Instead, pre-empt critics and get a jump on these charges. But also take necessary measures to make sure false accusations are rooted out.

Shanghai Trip

2010-03-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well not really a Shanghai trip. You see, I was in several locations in China:

Thursday: Fly to Hong Kong in the early morning and spend the day at an Expo (quite tiring actually) then arrive in Shanghai on a flight right before midnight. The meal on the flight was great, even in economy. It was so nice in fact that we got ice cream! One more reason to love Asian airlines.

Friday: I woke up early and went to work on my presentation for that evening. After finding a small budget hotel in the Pudong area of Shanghai I checked in and went to work practicing. In reality it didn't matter too much, our guest was late so I had to rush through the presentation. Unlike the original plan to pass me off as an IT specialist we just said I was my boss's assistant because everyone else in the room was involved in IT. That done, we went out for a nice dinner.

Saturday: Woke up very early to head to the new Shanghai West Train Station and caught the train to Hangzhou. That was to be my fist time in Hangzhou.

It is supposed to have a nice lake and some scenery but I saw the inside of conference rooms and restaurants instead. Showing the many dialects of Chinese I met one guy with a thick Cantonese accent to his Chinese and another with a thick Hangzhou accent to his Chinese. Also, for the first time in at least a year a waitress took it upon herself to bring me a plate with a knife and fork. I had no idea what to do with it. I was using chopsticks. That night I flew to Xiamen and arrived after midnight.

Sunday: I woke up early again and went to another meeting. Then I caught the ferry and a plane back to Taiwan. It was good to get home.

Mag Lev in Shanghai

2010-03-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

I'm really not sure why the Chinese brought in the Germans to make this train. It runs on magnents for about 6 minutes. The line runs from the airport to a connection of a subway station. That's it, one stop. The only reason I could think of to build such a contraption was that the world fair was coming.

Oh yeah, maybe build it since, damn, it's cool. The thing runs at a top speed of 430 km/hr which apparently makes it the fastest train in the world. However, when I was on it the fastest speed we reached was 301 km/hr.

I took this video on my Blackberry. We were coming from the Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) to the Pudong side of Shanghai.

New Career Path?

2010-03-17T01:47:00.000-07:00

My job in many ways involves me being a chameleon. Last week I was sales, purchasing, the president's assistant, and a travel agent. Today I was a machine trouble shooter, shipper, trainer, and outsourcing sales manager. Those are pretty standard roles for me.

Still today I was caught a little off guard about a new role my boss wants me to do. A little background first. In China, the top people never get involved early in any business meeting or new project. They leave that to an underling. Some businessmen and politicians even have designated people for this. The underling handles the details and works out unsavory or tough things then the bosses meet at the end and shake hands. The idea being the big guys are too busy and they don't want to play hard (publicly) or bust chops.

So my boss is taking a trip for a big meeting in Shanghai (we are talking meeting with CEO's and other big guys), which means he can't be seen as too involved early on. He also wants to throw a little curve ball toward the guys he is meeting. That means I'm coming and giving a presentation in Chinese to these big shots.

The fun thing is that when I go in and give this presentation I will be introduced as an IT professional. Frankly, that couldn't be further from the truth. I know next to nothing about IT. But I'm not paid to say no. So on Friday evening I will be an IT professional.

Weather and Tests

2010-03-15T01:39:00.001-07:00

Don't get me wrong I like Taiwan a lot. It is a nice place to live and the people are great. Still the weather leaves a lot to be desired. A few weeks ago I had to turn on the AC. The sun was out it was humid and it was hot--lovely weather for shorts.

Then last week that was reversed the temperatures were dropping into the 50's. That may not seem too bad but to transition from a temperature in the 80's to the low 50's is a pretty big change in the span of a week. Even for the Lantern Festival it was like that. The first day was a little overcast but warm. In the evening there was a drizzle. By the next day it was raining hard and it was significantly colder (~20 degrees F).

Then this weekend I did something I had not done for almost 2 years. I took a test. I was taking a practice LSAT and I managed to score right at the median. The cool thing was I when I spoke with a girl who was also there to take the test. She was from the same state, same city, and lived pretty close to me. When I asked where she went to high school--you guessed it--she went to the same school as me. She was a year older.

Nevertheless, I was stunned. It is a small world indeed.

The New Addiction

2010-03-09T19:24:00.000-08:00

Not an addiction , yet. But I get it linked with my Outlook email (work email) so I'll soon be a goner. That said, I've already decided that have to turn this bad boy off during the weekends since there is a huge temptation to check it.

Still coming to work this morning for the first time with a working Blackberry 9000 was great. I was able to check my email and get a jump on my work for the day.

Drinking Snake Blood (Mildly Graphic)

2010-03-08T18:01:00.001-08:00

If you are on the squeamish side of things I would recommend waiting for a later post to read this blog. This is not like the movies where they say no animals were harmed. There was a snake that was grievously harmed (killed) for this.

The setup. A friend of mine from my student days in Beijing happened to be in town a few weeks ago so my girlfriend, my friend, his coworker, and me all went to a dinner then headed to the Mengjia area of Taipei. We first went through the Longshan temple which was still decked out for new year and then my friend had a fun fortune telling. Below is a picture from inside the temple

Then it was time to head to the infamous Snake Alley in search of snake blood to drink and good times for all, execpt for the snake of course. Here's how it's done:

Step 1: Choose a restaurant. The best ones are the ones with live snakes. Bargain for a good price and then have the owner choose a nice one for you.

Step 2: He hangs it up in full view of all passers-by while it is still alive and squirming.

Step 3: Owner slices and dices the live snake and bleeds it into a cup.

Step 4: Owner continues his grisly work while an assistant takes the cup full of blood and mixes it with some booze and water (but not too much!).

Step 5: Drink that shot glass of snake blood before it begins to coagulate but remember not to look back at the snake that is still squirming.

Books I've Read Part 5

2010-03-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

A heads up, the blog formating functions are not working so hot right now. So there are some extra spaces in there where there shouldn't be.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Much like his first book, Gladwell follows a formula. Make big and bold predictions about stuff that appears normal. Then use lots of stories and studies to give examples that may only vaguely support your main thesis. By this time hope the reader has forgotten the thesis so you can give them more (very interesting—not kidding here, they are very interesting) stories and examples. At the end scale back so your conclusions are positively mundane. Go on speaking tours.

China Safari by Serge Michel and Michel Beuret

This is a fascinating book. It tells the story of the burgeoning Chinese investment in Africa. This, development of the third world and the opportunities this poses, is the story of the coming decade. We don’t realize it. From my own experience I have a contact in Mozambique. He told me of a Chinese guy there who opened a plastic bag factory—he makes over $1 million a year since no one else was doing it. When I was in Africa the estimate that I heard was that there were over 1 million Chinese in Africa. So the authors have plenty of material—and they do a very good job of showing both the good and bad of Chinese investment. That said they focus very much on the bad and they use a sarcastic tone at several points (maybe this is the result of the French translation.

Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson

Greg Mortenson is amazing and I hope he wins a Nobel Prize someday. He has been able to accomplish so much with limited resources. If you haven’t read Three Cups of Tea don’t worry this book stands on its own and explains the back-story while also explaining how he has expanded his work into Afghanistan. There really isn’t much more to say—I was fan of his going in and I’ve given money to his organization—I was going to like the book no matter what. But don’t take my word for it.

The Forever War by Dexter Filkins

I had read some of his stories in the New York Times and found him knowledgeable and insightful. So I decided to read the book. Especially at the beginning, it is choppy and disjointed. I understand why it was like that. But I thought it would have been more interesting to provide more background and give more stories about some of his experiences covering the Middle East. Still that doesn’t take away from what is a very engaging book from one brave reporter.

Nothing to See Here (Political Post)

2010-03-05T00:02:00.000-08:00

I've held off too long. Her are my unsolicited thoughts about some political matters facing the US right now.

Mit Romney
As far as Republicans go, he is not too bad. Then again when your only competition is rapid and frothing at the mouth you don’t have to do too much to look better. He has set himself up very very well for the 2012 Republican bid by staying out of messy stuff and being selective with his appearances. He will be the frontrunner for sure.

That said, even a not so bad Republican reminds me why I am a Democrat. In his new book he says that Obama’s moves to soften the US image (dialogue with Muslims, less bravado, closing Gitmo, etc.) have harmed the US. What that tells me is his head is so far up his ass that he has ceased to see daylight.

First, he doesn’t get out of the US much. Those moves of Obama’s have done a great deal to help the US image. Second, when it has never been more important to do so, he is not displaying any knowledge of shifting global politics and power. The US can no longer set the full global agenda and watch while countries fall into line. Those days are gone. He doesn’t seem to understand or care.

Torture
A lot of Republicans are after Obama about torture, not having military trials, and a legal response (trials in NYC) to terrorism. That is a bunch of crap.

Regarding torture, there was a good article by Fareed Zakaria recently. Looking at the case of the underpants bomber, he said the kid’s dad turned him in—or went to the US embassy in Nigeria to report him. Think about that—a father reporting on his kid. Zakaria’s point is that such a report would never happen if the father believed the US would detain the kid indefinitely and torture him. But if that father believes the son will be treated humanely and face an open justice system he will be more likely to turn him in. Something to think about.

Military Trials and Legal Response
I’ll stay on the subject of the underpants bomber. Face it people. There was one dude with chemicals in his briefs. Think how many people could possibly do this. Now think how much time, energy, and talking we spent on it. For basically nothing, terrorists made us all freak out. The best thing we can do is take it as a risk of flying and move on with life and grow our economy. Nothing would hurt them more to see us shrug this stuff off and face it that we cannot fend off every attack.

So I find it hard to believe that we want to use military trials. That confirms the thoughts of terrorists that they are in a big war—a few fighters waging war on a whole nation—and that the nation is deeply threatened by them. If you put them on trial in a civilian court the message is that you guys are common criminals. That’s the message I would want to send.

Palin
Please, Sarah, run for the 2012 nomination. I want to prove (crosses fingers) that Americans can see through fake populism and a lack of intellectual understanding of issues while rejecting you for not basing your policies in reality. Let’s prove it once and for all.

Obama
The guy is still better than any alternative. But that is no longer saying much. He seems too wishy-washy. The main problem was trying to compromise (too much and too often) with Republicans who decided there was no way in hell they would ever compromise. At some point he needs to put his foot down. He would also do well to give Americans an over-riding goal and explain how is policies work toward that goal.

He is also losing my title of favorite world leader to Australian PM Kevin Rudd (a fluent Chinese speaker).

The State of US Politics
Crappy. I did something I hardly ever do—I wrote a letter to a US Senator, who didn’t even happen to be from my home state. Senator Richard Shelby was holding all federal nominations in order to get more federal money (anti-terrorism center) in his home state. I was appalled when I heard this (the same guy will likely slam Obama if he ever tries to spend federal money) and felt compelled to tell him so.

The Developing World
I’ll say it again. Those of you in the US are missing it, the story of the decade. The world is moving on. We need to get with it. Africa, Asia, South America, etc. they are all getting on with things and trying to grow rapidly. Our political squabbles just hold us back. The developing world is where the action and the money are now. The longer it takes us to realize this—the longer we will fall.

Pingxi Lantern Festival

2010-03-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

I was really looking forward to the weekend. Last year I remembered seeing pictures of the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival in Taiwan (look it up on YouTube, Flickr, or others for even better pictures than I have here). There is a similar festival in Thailand—but this was my chance for a nice weekend trip with my girlfriend while having a chance to see a cool event.

We took the train to a small town nearby Pingxi then we headed up to another hillside town called Jiufen. That place has some great food on their old style street. They have some grilled mushrooms that are absolutely to die for.

From there we headed out to the festival—sort of. We got to the train station to head toward Pingxi and found it was crowded beyond belief. There were swarms of people squeezing onto the trains. No problem though, they had extra trains running on the line that day and it wasn’t supposed to be too long of a trip. We made it through a few stations squeezed into the train with hundreds of our best friends so tight that we almost didn’t need to hold onto things. Then the train just completely stopped at one station for 20 minutes and just waited.

Finally, it started again only to stop again and wait at the next station. The problem was the tracks were old so only one track could be used so each train had to wait for the train ahead of it to complete its pass before it could proceed. Thankfully we found this out from a nice guy who we had been chatting with on the train so together with him and his mom we got off and walked to a nearby bus which took us most of the way there.

Pingxi was a rush of activity and was completely packed with people. There were innumerable food stalls and stalls selling lanterns. The lanterns were made of sort of a rice paper and stood about 5 feet tall. The Taiwanese “ghost money” was placed in a metal holder attached to the wooden ring at the bottom and lit. The hot air would fill the lantern and it would take off.
The lanterns are related to Chinese New Year in that people write their hopes or wishes on them then watch as those wishes are carried into the heavens. The lanterns, like smoke signals, also served the practical purpose of communicating in the rough and steep terrain of Northern Taiwan.

There really isn’t too much more I can say about the lanterns. The festival was beyond amazing and it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. The hundreds of lanterns floating into the sky in unison (around the main ceremony, other places were haphazard) was unbelievable to watch.

That said, it was also really fun to watch people screw up away from the main ceremony. There was a strong breeze so some of the lanterns would take off and crash into trees or telephone poles while the paper was still burning. When one went up the whole crowd would breathlessly watch and cheer if the lantern made it past the obstacles. But as cool as it was for us I could only imagine the people downwind, who 3 times a year had to watch out for smoldering orbs falling from the sky.

On the way back we saw a pretty wicked fight. Still that was nothing compared to the crush of people trying to get on the trains and get out. But get out we did.

The following day was much colder and there was a light rain that was coming down so we decided to go to the Gold Museum near Jiufen before heading home. They had 220kg block of gold that you could touch
Overall this trip was definitely the coolest one I have been on in Taiwan.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane!

2010-03-04T23:56:00.000-08:00

I'm really excited about this weekend. This will be my first real trip with my girlfriend. That alone will make things pretty amazing and fun.

What is better is that we are going to the Pingxi (I've also seen it written as Pingsi) Lantern Festival. It should be awesome (so long as it doesn't rain). To get an idea of what I am talking about check out these Flickr photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dans180/sets/72157594573716216/

Or you can check out the event site (in traditional Chinese): http://act.tourism.tpc.gov.tw/skylantern/activeinfo1.html

I'll update about it when I get back!

China Trippin'

2010-03-04T23:38:00.000-08:00

So last weekend I was at home and on a conference call. I knew there was a potential I would be headed to the Middle Kingdom since I had already cancelled one trip. I figured that I wouldn’t go this week since there were some potential customers from Japan coming in on Monday and I would need to take care of them. But I was wrong.

So I was up at 5:30am on Monday to go to the airport. It is nice now to have the Gold VIP card for the domestic Taiwanese airline flights. I no longer need to book domestic flights in Taiwan—just show up and be upgraded to business class. I was in China before noon after a short ferry ride. Right after arriving I had some time to read my book before a contractor came to meet me (watch out since I'll have another book review post soon).

My few days in China were basically filled with "hurry up and wait" jobs. Basically, I was there to manage and oversea some production at a contractor’s place. There was a lot of, “Quick solve this problem!” Followed by, “Ok, wait an hour while us to make these adjustments.” That would have been ok but my work email was uber slow so there was a lot of computer chess while I waited.

The first night I was at average priced but slightly creepy Chinese hotel. They had condoms and other sex items in the bathroom and a small card in each room for a “special” massage that you could call the hotel for.

There were also some cool clubs (none of which I went to) near the hotel. One was a pirate ship in the middle of a big square. It was warm enough to walk around that night. Unfortunately for me, I thought I would only be there a short time (1 night) so I didn’t even bring a light jacket. Then when the second night rolled around I was a little chilly as the weather began to change.

The next day the hotel wasn’t a problem. I slept in a dorm provided by the contractor since I was there working until well past 11pm. By the time I made it to the little hotel style dorm room I was pretty beat but I remembered to put some strong mosquito repellent on my forearms. Still when I woke up there were several newly fat mosquitoes buzzing around the room—they had feasted on my hands and elbows.

The third day was a lot like the second. The most exciting part was that from about 7:20pm until 10:15pm I was involved in some negotiations with the contractors. I basically held not cards in the negotiation—so I really didn’t get much, but it was a good and fun experience to do it.

If it says anything about my trip the other thing that stood out on the final full day was the toilets. I had been using a squat toile for the whole time. Not until it was about 9:30pm on the last day did I realize the last stall had a normal Western toilet. I laughed.

If you don’t know or have never used a squat toilet you aren’t missing much.

After all that I cam back to the office in Taipei and got back to work.

Shutter Island

2010-02-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

You have to see this movie. It was extremely good, in a messes with your head sort of way. I don't have much time and I dont want to give anything away but the movie is more thriller and less horror. Not at all what I thought.

Last Minute

2010-02-28T07:05:00.000-08:00

I have a last minute trip to China in the morning. So I wont have facebook or blog access. Not sure if I come back first of go to Bangkok.

We shall see.

Hamas Hit, The Iranian Connection?

2010-02-25T19:52:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8537740.stm

This is interesting stuff that I have been following for the last few weeks. It is very unusual to see something like this get pulled out into the open. I'm interested because I think it shows an intersection of regional and global politics.

Depending on your side you have the Dubai police to blame/praise for shedding light on this stuff. The Dubai police have done a lot of work on this one--just look at the CCTV video they put together of the hit teams (check youtube if you have 30min and watch it since at the very least it is interesting). In fact, it is fascinating to watch this play out. I was actually surprised by the number of people involved and how the various teams switched off duties.

Everyone seems to be pointing the finger at Mossad. Yes, this does fit with their MO. But there is likely much more than meets the eye here.

There are a few strange things: 1. Why didn't they do anything about the cameras? 2. There are now a total of 30 or so suspects, why are there so many to kill 1 guy when Mossad likes smaller crews?

A lot of people are calling these guys and gals amateurs because there is so much CCTV footage of them (let's also not forget Mossad has screwed up and gotten caught before so despite their reputation they don't always get their man). But even to someone without any background in this stuff, like me, it's clear from the footage that these guys aren't amateurs. They go about things, prepare, make the hit, and get a large number of people out of a foreign country on faked passports all while hiding in plain sight. That's good.

I think these guys wanted to be seen--unless I'm completely off base (a distinct possibility) they had to know about the cameras, yet did nothing about them. I think they wanted to send a message and make sure people saw. Or they may have believed that messing with the cameras would leave an even more clear trail to them and so they gambled that the Dubai cops wouldn't be able to piece things together.

That would explain the first strange thing.

The article I link above posits that there is a potential that Dubai was a Mossad station, and that station has now been uncovered. Hence, the number of people. This is a distinct possibility. But what deserves more attention is why there would be a station there. To me the answer is Iran.

Just this week Israel unveiled a new UAV that can fly to Iran and their military continues to view Iran with great alarm. Dubai--a country not overly hostile to Israel and close to Iran--would provide a great place for a station. If the focus was indeed on Iran, then you can bet the US and Britain had knowledge of the station and potentially its activities. This could explain the reason so many people were involved--not all were Mossad. It would make sense that a Hamas military operative in Dubai would have contact with Iran for weapons or other materials. Just being Hamas opens him to the Israelis but the second part would bring him to the attention of Western intel agencies.

So the large number of people could be from various agencies. Their goal was potentially to send a message to Hamas and Iran (by killing a go-between) that they are being watched and they are vulnerable.

That would explain the second strange thing.

The one thing that I have been wondering though is how much did Dubai know? Dubai doesn't like Iran (too much that is) and many Gulf states are nervous about Iranian nukes. So I wonder if there is a possibility that Dubai invited Israel to set up a covert station to focus on Iran. During this course of events Mossad finds the Iran-Hamas contact is in town and put a hit on him. That prior knowledge could explain how quickly Dubai pieced things together. Or if you really want to go another route, you can even wonder if Dubai knew in advance hence their quick and thorough investigation.

My view: Mossad all the way on this with Western support. Mossad likely had a center for operations in Dubai to focus on anti-Iran operations that was supported by other intel agencies. Realizing this was in their midst Dubai has been working over time to shut them down so they don't appear like they are stooges to the Israelis. Mossad is happy to send such a loud message and Israel figures it can patch things up over fake passports over time.

Chinese New Year Part 2

2010-02-23T23:37:00.000-08:00

Following the posts below, this stuff took place last on Tuesday February 16. The previous night I got home a little late but the plan was that we would all go to a place called Wulai that is famous for hot springs, water falls, scenery, an old cultural street, and a large aboriginal population.

When we took off it was cold but not raining. Then along the way it started to pour. We were already pretty far out of Taipei city so it wasn't worth it to turn back, and we had rain gear (as you can see in the picture of me below with the moped).

The rain continued but we eventually made it to Wulai. Once we got there and parked the hard rain stopped and it just sprinkled a bit. Made me want to wink.

From there we went along the old cultural street. We had some wild boar and veggie kabobs (see below). We watched the guy below make some candy. But most of all we tried, in vain, to avoid the rain, which had since picked up and was coming down pretty hard. Despite the rain the area was still cool and still packed with people on Chinese New Year vacation. As the rain wore on we got a little tired of things and decided to head back.

By this point we were all cold, wet, and tired. But my friend decided that he would forgo his umbrella on the walk back. He is uber Christian, not as rare as you would imagine in Taiwan, and said in his usual sunny manner, "Well God will take care of me." Wouldn't you know it, we hadn't walked 100m when he found an umbrella laying on the street. He loved it.

From there we got colder and wetter on the moped ride back. The only good part was stopping for some hot lamb soup along the way. Still despite the cold and rain I had a good time.

Chinese New Year Part 1

2010-02-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

Before I did all of the things in the two posts below, I had my own adventures this last Chinese New Year (hence the lack of recent posting).

The first night I went to my boss's house for a great big dinner. It was a lot a of fun to relax and eat some great home cooked food. It was not so fun to lose some money playing dice. Still it was an awesome time.

The next day I went out with a friend of mine and his girlfriend to see the plum blossoms on Yangming Mountain. They rode their mopeds up there and I hitched a ride on the back of my friend's moped. There were not many blossoms but it was fun to get out, walk, and joke around a bit.

When it started to get a little dark my two friends got on one moped and I got on the other and we rode to a huge department store/entertainment plaza/theater. I promised myself I would never ride a scooter in Taipei. So much for that. We hung out and watched a new Taiwanese movie called Monga that shows the lifestyle in some areas of Taiwan during the 1970's.

We left at 3:30am and rode mopeds in the rain. Take it from me, that sucks to do. But I did get to take a sweet picture of me at 4:00am in the Monga (same as he movie setting) area of Taiwan in my moped rain gear.

What a badass.

The next day I joined those same two friends for a hot pot and some drinks at my friend's house. It was funny since his grandmother who only speaks Taiwanese (no Chinese) kept trying to talk to me--and since she is old she kept forgetting I don't understand Taiwanese.

Nerds!

2010-02-23T19:32:00.000-08:00

So I went out with my girlfriend for after I came back to Taipei for what I was thinking would be a nice stroll on the campus of National Taiwan University since they are on vacation for Chinese New Year. Instead, we started seeing people dressed funny. More and more we began to see these people dressed in comic or anime costumes. Now I love anime and comic books just as much as the next person (not at all) but I was shocked to see this.

It was nerd central! Every comic book fan in Taipei was there with some dressed in costume. Below is a complete stereotype, but it's funny.

There were tons of guys with cameras there. They hadn't been out of their parents apartments or seen real women for ages judging by how rabidly they were snapping pictures of the costumed ones. It was such great fun to make fun of all of these people in English--just that made it worth it. I mean it was almost like a super nerd competition in which the prize was completely ruining any and all future chances of marriage.

Some of the costumes these people were wearing were pretty ornate.

I also learned if you dress like a comic book character you have to wear boots with HUGE heels. The bigger the better. The two girls below had comparatively standard heels. I kept wondering how much fun it would be to "accidentally" bump them and see if they could keep their balance.

To give credit where credit is due, I must say that some costumes were pretty good. Case in point was this girl dressed like Avatar.

Like all of the characters or mildly attractive girls (nerds loved them). There were packs of nerds surrounding them to madly take pictures (and hopefully get an email address to send them the pictures) while they posed. It was a symbiotic relationship. People with no hope of finding a boyfriend/girlfriend because they are so involved in comics dress like characters and then have their pictures taken by people who have no hope of finding a boyfriend/girlfriend since they are so involved in comics.

I kid, but only a little

All of these pictures are from my girlfriend's cell phone. I was dumb enough to think, "Camera, I'm just going for a walk. Who needs a camera?"

Met the Folks

2010-02-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

Well to say things went better than I would dared to hope would be an understatement. I thought went vey well--especially compared to my expectations going in (maybe that says something for low expectations more than anything else).

Besides meeting the folks it was a great trip overall. I was able to see a bit of the central Taiwanese city of Taichung. My first day in town my girlfriend and I went to the Science Museum for a few hours. It had been a long time since I had been to a Science Museum so it was cool to go back and see it (I was pumped to see the cell exhibit since I was really into bio when I was in high school). In addition, it helped that I was seeing my girlfriend for the first time in a week. So even the overabundance of kids swarming the place and the rain outside didn't dampen my spirits.
After that we went back to my girlfriend's home for dinner with the whole family. I had dropped my stuff off earlier in the day but this was my first chance to really make an impression and talk to them (the whole weekend was in Chinese save some talking with my girlfriend). The home-made dinner was great and everyone was pretty talkative. My biggest mistake was to dip a small cake in the wrong sauce but after some laughter it was fine. Thankfully I have been to a good number of Chinese dinners so I knew how to behave and how to handle and give toasts.

What did catch me off guard was that my girlfriend's dad gave me a red envelope! It is a traditional Chinese gift at the Lunar New Year and is given to close friends and family (it is filled with money). I was beyond shocked that they gave me one.

So then after dinner everyone went out to the family room. I looked at some calligraphy with my girlfriend's mom and then since it was raining outside and no one wanted to go bowling I ended up sitting down with the family for about 2-3 hours to talk. Frankly, I had a good time and they were impressed that I could express myself fluently in Chinese and hold a conversation about a variety of topics. When that began to wind down my girlfriend, her dad, and me all went to drive around the town for a night-time tour. Let me tell you there are a lot of hostess bars in that town. It caught me off guard.

The next morning we got up and I went out with my girlfriend, her brother, his girlfriend, and her sister by train and then bus from Taichung to Changhua and then to the old town of Lugang. The town was cool and had lots of history but was jam packed with people, which made getting around a bit of a pain. It was also cold (for Taiwan) and that would normally put a damper on the fun.

However, everyone had a pretty good time and luckily the rain held out until we went back to Taichung. But in spite of the rain everyone walked out to a nice dinner that night.

The next day caught the High Speed Rail back to Taipei with my girlfriend. All in all, it was a really great few days. I did a lot, spent a lot of time with my girlfriend, and met her family (all while living to tell the tale).

On The Horizon

2010-02-11T22:30:00.000-08:00

At the risk of giving away a little too much about my personal life, I decided to make this post.

This week has been incredibly insane on account of tomorrow being the start of the week long celebration for the Chinese New Year. So that means a bit of rest and lots of eating with friends who were kind enough to invite me to their homes over the next 2-3 days. When you live alone it is always great to have people to spend a break with so that you don't just sit home and surf the web for a week.

After those 2-3 days things will get a little more interesting for me. Next Wednesday I take a trip to central Taiwan to my ladyfriend's home town. When I'm there I'll be meeting her family for the first time. Usually that is an experience that would make most people a little nervous, the added curve ball is that they don't speak English. Thank God my Chinese is good enough that I can hold conversations/follow conversations with people.

Right now, I would call my feeling nervous anticipation. It is something that I want to do and I'll go through with it but at the same time there is a bit of nervousness in the back of my mind (which is normal). I would liken it to a cross country race. Right before the gun you were always nervous about what was ahead, even though you had run that race innumerable times. You were always tense, but then when the gun went off you settled in.

To say that I'm a little nervous should go without saying. I want to make a good impression but right now I have to wait to do that. Once I get to the doing phase and have less thinking then things go well. In the meantime, I know I'll be ready. Just a matter of waiting for that gun to sound.

Company Year-End Party

2010-02-11T21:48:00.001-08:00

The Chinese Lunar New Year is almost over. So that means it's time for the company to have our year end party. The Chinese New Year is analogous in importance to Christmas back home in the States. Everyone gets off for a week and all the companies have a year end party. That means a lot of food, karaoke, and drinking. Minus the middle part, all are things that I enjoy.

After a nice little party with everyone from the company (it was even better since I didn't have to give a performance) my fine ladyfriend came by and we joined a few coworkers for karaoke. When I was doing the karaoke thing I decided to show the people there how to shotgun a beer. They were quite impressed. So much so in fact that I had to repeat the process several times and teach them how to do it too.

You Know Your British When...

2010-02-05T20:53:00.000-08:00

Today I was reading about the Falkland Islands War on Wikipedia and I learned a nice little tibit that I found pretty funny and very British. When some of the Royal Navy ships where sunk in the sea fights during, the sailors would sing as the ships went down and they abandoned ship. The song? "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the end of the Monty Python's "The Life of Brian."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ

When your ship is going down and you want to sing to Monty Python you are most definitely British.

Plain Amazing

2010-01-31T20:32:00.000-08:00

Check out this video. The guy sort of looks like a bear, but he has some serious talent. I was sent this by a friend the other day and it is too good not to share.

This is the link since the embeded video isn't working:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddn4MGaS3N4&feature=fvst

It's kind of sad that guys (and gals) like this can't get wider exposure or radio plays. Frankly, he has more talent in his beard that Britney Spears has ever shown in her life to this point.

If you are looking for some lesser known but still really good bands also check out Honor by August, Less Than Jake, and The Dandy Warhols.

Cai Guo-Qiang follow up

2010-01-31T20:25:00.001-08:00

Since I was barred from taking pictures of some of the parts of the Cai Guo-Qiang show I mentioned in the post below I had to do a Google Image search to get these pictures. They are the two coolest parts of the show by far. The tigers are life-sized, as are the wolves and you can walk around them and if guards aren't looking you can touch them too.

The dual picture above with the wolves shows the original. There have been some small changes to the this part. But the changes made it even better. It was the coolest part of the show by far. Well worth my $6.50 to get in.

Cai Guo-Qiang

2010-01-31T08:31:00.000-08:00

Today I went with a few thousand of my best friends (there were swarms of people there) to the Taipei Art Museum to catch the end of an exhibiton by the famous Chinese performance artist Cai Guo-Qiang. He uses a gunpowder to make a lot of his works which creates some cool effects. However, I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the two coolest pieces of his work (I'll try and Google Image them and post later). That said the stuff here is still pretty cool.

This was in a similar fashion as sculpture in the Cultural Revolution and was made of weak clay so it would intentionally fall apart.

This was the enterance to the museum. There were 5-6 Chevy's hung like this and shooting lights.

Boat with broken porcelain. Not really sure what is was supposed to represent.

Facebook Privacy and This Blog

2010-01-31T08:23:00.000-08:00

It's interesting to think that when facebook started I wasn't all that concerned about privacy. Post anything was the rule. Then over time I've become much more conservative about it. I guess the more users and variety of friends I have (adults especially) is directly proportional to how much I put up on it.

Lately I've taken some more measures to drastically limit just how much I share on facebook (for those of you with access to my fb account it may not be obvious at first). It also makes me think how much I should post here. For example, I don't use my English name, share the name of my company, or post pictures of the ladyfriend. Still the danger to that is I still post too much. In the coming days, I'll probably put up a slightly more personal post than usual. But after that we shall she just how much personal stuff I continue to post.

Books I've Read Part 4.5

2010-01-31T07:42:00.000-08:00

So it's not that I've stopped reading. I've just been reading at a slower pace (only on the subway to and from work). But in the last few months since November I've read these books/novels. Here are my unsolicited thoughts.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Yosarian may indeed still live but I was already tired of the novel in the first few pages. There were some parts that I laughed at but for the most part it was a labor to get through the prose. In the forward, Heller even stated a review said that the book seemed to have been shouted and not written. That's a pretty apt description. Beyond that there was very little that moved me to be interested in the characters. But if I was still in school it would be a great book to search do a report on. Thing is I'm not in school , so while the novel may indeed describe dislocation and madness of war but it was long and by the end a huge pain in the ass to get through.

River Town by Peter Hessler

My mom sent me this book for Christmas. While I have an avowed distaste for English teachers I immediately forgave Hessler on account of his being in the Peace Corps and being an excellent writer. For you reading this the book may be interesting, but for me it was engrossing. Hessler spent 2 years in rural (BFE) China teaching. He went through many experiences as a foreigner that I have (to a much lesser degree in Beijing and far less degree here in Taiwan) also experienced. That said, his was much more intense. The interesting thing for me is that as a Chinese speaking foreigner I completely understood him when he stated that you start to carve out your own little world over here and that you don't like other foreigners intruding on it. I recommend the book but I hate to say many of you may not get the same enjoyment from reading it as I do since the book in many ways mirrors some of my experiences.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Who am I to pass criticism on someone who survived the firebombing of Dresden and then cleaned up the bodies afterward? So I'll keep this light. I understood how and why the book was constructed. But I thought that it would have been more effective to pay more attention to the actual events that occurred in Dresden.

The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria

Read. This. Book. If you want to know how the world is moving this is the book to read. Zakaria is a smart man and the book was scary in a way. It discusses the diffusion of American power and move from a unipolar world that is now having to accomodate the BRIC countries. I see this every day here in Asia. Those of you who are in the U.S., believe me, you can hardly believe what is coming your direction from China and India. Get ready. There is nothing else to say--this book is a must read to understand the changing international system.

There should be more reviews soon. I'm getting close to being done with the last book I had for Christmas and I just spent $60 today to get 5 more new books at the best English bookstore in Taipei.

Back in Bangkok

2010-01-28T01:29:00.001-08:00

I'm in Bangkok. I haven't been here for months. After spending so much time in third world Cambodia I am shocked to be in place with similar looking people that isn't third world (Bangkok borders on first world in many areas).

I give my performance tomorrow and I'm totally psyched! Wait, no, not really.

Update: Well I found out some interesting tidbits tonight at dinner from my customers. I already knew my boss was not a drinker and doesn't like anything beyond wine. Last year at the party we left toward what I thought was the end (10:30pm). Turns out after the performances they go nuts! They told me today that last year (and this year too) they toast everyone with whiskey then do beer bongs. Some people actually have to rent rooms in the hotel where it's held since they can't make it back. Now I'm not dreading this so much.

My Review of The Tipping Point

2010-01-26T21:17:00.000-08:00

If the point of a book is to make you think then you can consider Malolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point a resounding success for me. I have been thinking a lot about this book since I started reading it. Thing is, there is more too books than making you think.

In that wider sense, the book fell flat for me.

If I was to tell you that fashion trends spread when they are taken up by socially influential people and mimicked by others you would shrug and tell me that is standard knowledge. Then if I told you that small but intensely committed groups are one of the best ways to spread messages and organize (think the Obama presidential campaign) you would probably tell me this is not earth shattering news. On both counts you would absolutely be right.

What Gladwell is essentially doing is basing his book on those two points. He then tries to add depth by citing lots of stories and studies and giving fun names to the people who help spread these things (Connectors are at the center of social circles and have tons of contacts that they spread things to. Mavens have in depth knowledge to disseminate to the rest of us.). Then he tries to add breadth by saying this is how many social phenomena spread. He mentions such diverse examples as Hush Puppies shoes, AIDs and other STDs, Airwalk skate shoes, and the decrease in crime in NYC during the 1990’s. He is adding window dressing. He is talking about big things by using something small—but in the end he ends up saying very little and still gets people to think.

I had a problem with the book from the start. It is one thing to describe a fashion trend but it is another thing entirely to describe the dramatic decrease of crime in NYC (a more complex sociological phenomena than a fashion trend) using the same theory. Any time I see a simple and clean cut explanation for something extremely complex I get suspicious. This is no different.

Taking the drop in NYC crime rates as an example, he says there were a lot of factors—each of which was important but none of which was the single cause. First off, why couldn’t there be multiple causes? Second, why doesn’t he compare this data on crime to data in other cities or the rest of the country? Third, he mentions that fixing small things on the NYC subway system (graffiti and fare jumping) helped to improve order overall—but this isn’t part of his thesis. In fact he never offers a clear explanation of how this spread through contacts to cause this widespread social change according to his thesis. Fourth, he forgets to mention much of this was due the dramatic increase the numbers and quality of the NYPD.

When I was reading the book I kept thinking of the mistake he was making. In my LSAT class they always drilled you on “sufficient v. necessary.” Meaning if something was sufficient to cause X it doesn’t always mean it is necessary to cause X (it can be but there are a multitude of possible causes)

However, none of this is to say he is wrong. I simply didn’t buy the depth and breadth he tried to add to the two points I mentioned above. To be sure, those two points are important and understanding them is also important. For example, the election of Obama showed the power of using small groups of very highly motivated people (but has since ditched this entirely) by distributing materials and motivating a core group they disseminated the information to their key contacts and it spread through social networks. But I think it is an error to apply those points too widely and not consider wider ranges of possibilities that cause things like the spread of AIDs or dramatic drops in the NYC crime rate.

So the book was interesting and has some insight. I was wary from the start and I remain so. Still it made me think.

Nobody But Me?

2010-01-23T00:37:00.000-08:00

No, thats not what you think it is.

You see, here in Asia karaoke is damn huge. There are KTV karaoke parties all the time and huge buildings devoted to karaoke. Unlike the US when you sing over here it is in a small room with your friends and you can eat and drink in there--it's not in front of some huge bar, usually.

With that in mind, let me ask you what you think happens when a company has a year end dinner party. The answer is lots of singing in front of the group. People here aren't embarrassed if they sing poorly. Some nights I come home and find the street outside my apartment closed since there is a local karaoke night. They suck really bad. Or when I was at the mafia wedding one of the biggest dons in all of Taiwan got up to sing a song even though he wasn't very good.. Last year I dodged a bullet at my company party and my customer's party when I was able to perform a magic show.

But that luck ended this year. My customer specifically requested that I provide a song and dance. Shit. I can't sing and I can't dance well. So what to do? I was thinking of doing a lip sync (and I probably will) so the question is to what song will I do lip sync?

My boss had this song as his idea (he's making me do the performance alone). Oh Korean ladies, why do you have to do this song and make my life hard (skip to 2:00):

First off, I'll give them credit since the song is catchy. But come on! No way in hell am I singing and dancing to a song that is performed by 5 girls. Come to think of it maybe I should get another group of Korean women to come and do the performance for me:

Frankly, if I have to sing I'm thinking of doing this song:

The song is simple and catchy and not too many non-Chinese will know it well. In fact, I remember when it came on in a store in Beijing one day and everyone stopped and sang alone. This song is also more appropriate than my favorite Taiwanese song (get a lyrics translation):

對我來説林志零算什麽! The end part is pretty funny since he's singing "把手放在空中甩" which means wave your hands in the air. Then he tells all the ladies to take their shirts off and throw their bras in the air. Oh, MC Hot Dog you amaze me.

Haitian Earthquake

2010-01-14T23:09:00.000-08:00

Thankfully my friend John left Haiti in the middle of last year. When I emailed the day after the quake he told me that even before this happened the situation was dire (at best) and the only potential silver lining is that it would make people see just how terrible things are in the country.

And in other news, Pat Robertson's head is still up his ass (in the words of Andy Borowitz: "Pat Robertson 'A public relations nightmare' says God" at http://www.borowitzreport.com/).

Update: Another ND guy sent me (listserv) an email. He is right on the DR-Haiti border with the Peace Corps. He said he was knocked off his feet by the power of the quake. Now his town is being used as a staging area for the relief efforts.

Becoming Taiwanese

2010-01-14T22:36:00.000-08:00

When I was ND the winter temps would be a balmy 25F on a good day (you knew from Dec-early March it would not be above freezing). There were a few weeks during the year when the mercury didn't go north of 0. Then there was one memorable day when it was close to -40F with the wind chill.

Sitting in that for 4 years I told myself that if it ever made it to 40F I would be so incredibly happy.

So now I live in Taiwan, a place where the usual temperatures don't get close to 40F but at the coldest hover in the neighborhood of 50F. Given my past experience, this should be a piece of cake.

Nope. I guess I am becoming more Taiwanese by the day since when it hits 50F I bundle up in a big jacket and hat. Either that or I'm just going soft. But, man, it does feel cold.

Rip City

2010-01-09T04:19:00.000-08:00

I can't lie, I hate the LA Lakers with a fiery passion. Kobe, you bet. Odom, him too. Walton, are you kidding me. Artest, of course. Gasol, yup him as well. Maybe I hate them so much because of the way they beat the Blazers in the Western Conference Finals back in 2000. But mainly I just hate them since I am a long suffering Blazers fan.

Hell, I remember when I was 6 years old in 1991 rooting for the Blazers to beat Jordan and the Bulls. The local radio station Z100 had their hit "Bust a Bucket" made for the Finals with Buck Williams throwing down the vocals.

Just listen this ear candy from the early 90's:

What all this means is that I am an unabashed Blazers fan. Albeit, a long suffering one. So it warmed my hear this morning to see that the Blazers beat the Lakers in Portland for the 9th time in a row. Count that, the Lakers haven't won in Portland (despite their consistently dirty play) since 2005!

I was going to post about the bad feeling I have with this year's Blazers. Two big men out for the year. Blake in the hospital. Rudy maybe back. Nicolas gone until next year. Andre Miller being a basket case and not fitting in. But despite all of that and a huge argument the other day they beat the Lakers.
I'll put my doubts on hold for a minute and savor this crushing of the Lakers.

Rip City Baby!!!!

No Fatties Allowed!

2010-01-05T00:35:00.002-08:00

So I was checking the BBC today and I ran across this little gem: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8439495.stm

This was my favorite quote, "Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded."

I'm not sure if it is good or bad but, it is funny. This guy makes it sound like the predatory fatties are stalking that site just waiting to eat some poor helpless beautiful person.

Come to think of it, all you fatties out there roaming this blog need to cut it out too! I have standards.

The New Year

2010-01-04T23:55:00.000-08:00

Well 2010 is here. I had a great time saying goodbye to 2009. I've heard a lot of people talk about how bad of a year 2009 was. For me, it was pretty good--I was able to learn a lot, experience a lot, and grow a lot. For the world, I think it is pretty safe to say that 2009 was a less than thrilling year.

Anyway, I had a great New Year's Eve. After work I ran to a Taiwanese bbq restaurant. It is very different from American style since here they grill meats that are about the same thickness as lunch meat. The reason behind that is instead of grilling up a bunch of chicken or some steaks, like whenever we through a party at my place, here they have all sorts of food to cook. That means they have veggies, thin meats (all sorts), seafood, etc. If you make the things small and thin then they cook quicker and faster.

Once we got done with the bbq a few of the people went back to my place before heading to downtown Taipei. Every year the 101 story tall Taipei 101 is used as a fireworks launch platform and this year it would be the last year that Taipei 101 would be the tallest building in the world before being passed by the Burj Khalifa. To say the crowds for the show were enormous would be a terrible understatement. We went to one of the better viewing areas to find a sea of black haired humanity.

The problem for latecomers, like us, was that the people who came early all just sat down and waited, which made huge areas completely impassible. The fact that so many people were sitting and refused to move or even make lanes made for a pretty funny confrontation between all 5 feet of my ladyfriend and some dude who was well north of 6 feet who didn't want to move (she managed to publicly shame him).

When the show was over we lingered for a bit to let the crowds thin out before heading to a friend's house who lived in the area and catching the subway home at 2:30am.

2010 will hold a lot for me. Right now the main goal is to take the LSAT and apply to law school. If that gets done I'll enter 2011 happy.

Christmas

2009-12-24T21:33:00.000-08:00

No matter how I tried to spin it, last year's Christmas over here sucked. I had to work (like today) and other than come candies to give to my coworkers and some lights on my desk I didn't do much. That night I had dinner with a friend and two coworkers.

Earlier this week I prepared a small post that was pretty sad in tone (lamenting that I really didn't feel in the spirit). The stores and people here don't really do Christmas beyond using it as an excuse for commercialism and playing poor renditions of good Christmas songs.

But over the last week that attitude melted away; thanks to the ladyfriend. She was the one who hauled me to Carrefour to get get Christmas decorations--it was at that time a 6.8 earthquake hit Taiwan. She was also the fire under my ass to get things up and decorate my place.

In the end, I caught the bug and got into the spirit this year, in large part because of her infectious enthusiasm for Christmas. Hell, I even went to Mass last night.

Merry Christmas to all of you who still read this thing.

Notre Dame Coaching

2009-12-23T22:02:00.000-08:00

I can't lie on this one. I am less than happy with the Notre Dame selection of Brian Kelly. He could very turn out to be great--but I have my doubts (given the track record of his predecessors it doesn't look good for people who have never been to the top of the college coaching world).

Maybe I am a cynic because of the lack of production the last few years, but I feel like ND really settled here. I wanted them to go all in and make a balls-out effort to get Bob Stoops (hell, in my dreams I thought of Mike Shanahan or Bill Cowher in blue and gold); throw the bank at him and make an offer he couldn't refuse.

Why Stoops? Well, some mutual interest was part of it. More important is his track record. He has been to the top of the college football world as a head coach (National Championship Game) and he knows how to get there.

Yes, Kelly has an impressive track record. Yes, he also has head coaching experience. Yes, he turned Cincinnati around. Those are all great things. The problem with that is Cincinnati (no matter how you cut it, is a different level from ND).

Think recruiting, how often does he have to go to Southern California and go head to head with USC for a stud recruit? How about games, has he ever gone toe to toe with Florida, Texas, or USC? On the opposite track, will Mack Brown or Urban Meyer really think to themselves, "Oh crap, we're gonna play Kelly!"?

I want to like the guy but I feel like he was a fallback option--and that is not his fault. In all honesty, I hope he does very well. His team has the talent to be strong so if he brings discipline and smash mouth attitude that has been missing that should carry them for a little bit. Hopefully, he can recruit well and coach like a man possessed.

I hope for the best and wish him well. Despite my seeming despair in this post, I want him to crush our opponents and rip some hearts out (Temple of Doom style).

My Trips in 2009

2009-12-22T07:43:00.001-08:00

I need to edit some of these (i.e. look through my passport to count entry stamps) but here is the preliminary count:

Cambodia: 8 times

China: 3 times

Hong Kong: 2-3 times

Japan: 1 time

Laos: 2 times

Taiwan: I live there!

Thailand: at least 7 times

South Africa: 1 time (to split hairs it was twice but both were driving)

Swaziland: 1 time

United States: 1 time

Balmy and Tropical in Phnom Penh

2009-12-22T07:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I am back in Cambodia and therefore back in the Third World. It was a last second trip (tickets not booked until last night at 4:30pm) left today, and then go home tomorrow in time for Christmas in Taipei. NOTE: I need to make a post totalling all the trips I've taken this year but this trip makes 8 times to Cambodia in 2009.
Thing is that I'm pretty happy to be here. It's warm, like 30 degrees C. That is much more than I can say for Taipei. When I woke up this whole last week it was 7 degrees C in my room but it would be as cold as 10 degrees C outside. Thing is that even 10 degrees shouldn't be too cold.

Instead, its damn near freezing (even my old roommate, who now lives in Seoul but came back to visit thought it was freezing). I have had to wear a hat and thick jacket. The locals say it's because of the moisture in the air that makes it feel much colder. It isn't helped by the fact that

few buildings have heating and fewer still have double windows so outside or in you will be cold. In truth, I have no idea what it is--but it is cold.

So I'm happy to be here in Cambodia for a trip to at least me defrost in the Third World.

(Big) Pictures of the Year

2009-12-17T18:19:00.001-08:00

When I was little I had a subscription to National Geographic magazine. The day it arrived in the mail I would open it and first look through all of the pictures before reading the actual articles. So for the little kid inside of me The Big Picture from the Boston Globe is fantastic. They just posted their pictures of the year in 3 parts. I highly suggest you take a look (as a warning many of the pictures deal with dark subject matter):

Part 1:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/12/2009_in_photos_part_1_of_3.html

Part 2:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/12/2009_in_photos_part_2_of_3.html

Part 3:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/12/2009_in_photos_part_3_of_3.html

As an added bonus, here are MSNBC pictures of the decade:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34261690/ns/news-picture_stories/displaymode/1247/?beginSlide=1

A Long Rant: English Teachers

2009-12-16T22:01:00.000-08:00

So let me pose a situation to you. Imagine If I came to any random place in the US and I told the people I ran into the following…

I have a job you can do—English teaching in a foreign country. You don’t need to be well educated; graduating college is absolutely a plus but not necessarily required. All your job requires is minimal skill—you have to speak English, that’s it. Translating, logistics, and disciplining students will be handled by a local teacher’s aide. In exchange, you will receive a salary that places you above the local norm and is more than enough to live comfortably. This is in exchange for teaching classes in the late afternoon and evening so you can sleep in every day The local environment is pretty modern and with a little time you can get used to it. In addition, local people will treat you quite well and more often than not defer to you. Many people (especially some women) will find you a hot commodity. The downsides are that you live abroad, your salary is not high by American standards, and you cannot speak the language which can make even small things a huge pain in the ass (but enough local people speak English that it matters less and less).

Of course, the place I am referencing is Taiwan. So who would want that job? Let’s see, generally males who tend to be young and college grads with no job. Absolutely, there are lots of them over here. But who else? Well people with few marketable skills or abilities, people with poor prospects back home, people with bad jobs back home, and people who may not fit in well.

Those are the characters who seem to end up over here in Taiwan—in seemingly increasing numbers. Now I prefer to live and let live. The problem, however, is that these (shall we say less than upstanding) English teachers become what Taiwanese people view as the norm for all foreigners.

When I meet a new Taiwanese person and they find that I speak Chinese, or even if they ask in English, I invariably get a few standard questions. “Where are you from?” “Are you an English teacher?” “Do you have a girlfriend?” Then something along the lines of, “Do you like the food here?”

You see, Taiwanese people here tolerate English teachers as a necessary evil. They realize a lot of them are not overly savory characters but do not realize just how unsavory they may be. At the same time, they teach English, which is needed in Taiwan to get ahead so they serve a necessary purpose. They are also known as a less than hygienic mob that teaches most nights then boozes or goes out to pick up chicks the rest of the time (read easy money and easy women—who are derogatorily called “Western food girls”). On top of that, a lot of them do not behave well or have an entitlement complex.

There are many foreign teachers who come here and just set up shop. They find some local girl who speaks English to help them with daily stuff—reading and getting around. Because they don’t speak much, if any, Chinese they have to find girls that speak English which limits the pool to the Western food girls who tend to have a foreigner infatuation (this can badly for both sides, as nearly every embassy here can attest). Still many just stay here, marry and open their own English teaching school while gaining a modicum of respect as people cannot understand that they may just be a sleaze. Example, I know a girl my age who was dating a 35 year old English teacher who had been over here for years and was still teaching English and making a local wage. I hate to say it, but that is not unusual for many foreigners here.

The problem for me is that I am the same age as many of them. So I am looked at the same way. They give me a less than desirable reputation before I open my mouth. When I am with my ladyfriend I tend to get a lot of looks that seem to say, “Ah, just another English teacher here to pick up women.” There is no way to explain through eye contact that this image could not be further from the truth. I can do nothing to change that, and that pisses me off since I don’t like being lumped together with jackasses.

Disclaimer: They are not all bad, of course. I have met some genuinely fine individuals who teach English in Taiwan and care deeply about providing the best education possible to their students. But in my experience they are an exception and I avoid nearly all association with English teachers when possible.

Down Goes the Window

2009-12-16T19:13:00.000-08:00

There is a window in the men’s bathroom at work. When it is stuffy inside I open it, when its cold outside I close it. Normal stuff.

So day it was cold outside and I went to close the window. Except, as I began to close it the pane fell out of the frame and disappeared into the abyss outside. The first thought that went through my head was, shit that think is going to shatter and crash and I’ll still have to take care of my business when everyone comes running to see what happened.

The crash never came. There was a muffled crunch and clatter. So I stood up on the toilet and peered out. Turns out, there is a low roof outside and the window was still intact.

I told my coworker and he looked at me and started laughing. He said to tell the other lady who would take care of it. She did the same thing and told me to go out and get it, I politely told her there wasn’t a chance in hell I was doing that. We shall see.

China Trip

2009-12-16T18:02:00.000-08:00

So I was in China 3 weeks ago and not a word about the trip made it onto the blog. That was for two reasons. One, everything in the .blogspot domain was blocked as was facebook (ever since the Iranian election) and a number of other websites. Two, even if it was able to open I was too busy to write and post anything to it. It's time to change that. I was in 3 different cities so I will divide this up into the route the trip took.

Xiamen: I arrived later in the afternoon and went directly to the branch office for some meetings. That night I went to dinner with some people from the office and went to stay at my boss's apartment with an Italian designer who shares office space with the branch office. The next morning I caught a flight to Shenzhen.

Shenzhen: Other than a dinner planned that night there wasn't a whole lot to do (in terms of meetings). So I grabbed lunch with a Chinese coworker and we discussed the views of Chinese people toward foreigners, especially foreign English teachers (Most foreigners I run into in Taiwan are teachers and most young foreigners in China tend to be of that persuasion. They are not always viewed well, and for good reason. A lot of them are jackasses or less than palatable characters). Then I went back and worked from the hotel. That night we had a good seafood dinner and I was reminded just how much Chinese people smoke. The next day we met with the agent we are trying to work with and had a demo that ended up less than stellar. On the plus side we had great Hakka food for lunch and he invited me back to drink next time I'm in Shenzhen. The agent drove us to the airport--it was a good thing I have a recollection of Chinese traffic or else I would have been too scared to open my eyes (driving the wrong way down a one way street from a freeway off ramp, that's fair play).

Beijing: The picture above is on the flight from Shenzhen to Beijing. The sign says jia you!, which is pronounced "g-ah yo" and mean "lets go" or "keep it up" but literally means "add gas." In a few weeks I'll write more about this picture and some others like it. The flight was funny since many Chinese people are not so used to travel on planes. The ones who aren't will always gather every one's tray close to them after a meal then jump up to give it to the flight attendants or leap out of their seats as soon as the plane lands (before the gate) to grab their overhead bags.

I'm not used to cold anymore, which is a problem considering it was below freezing in Beijing. This posed a problem as I have small luggage that I travel with so I don't have to check it. That meant I couldn't bring the one thick jacket I have in Taiwan. I tried to do layers and it was still damn cold. Still I was horrified to get mosquito bites when I was there; too cold for me but not too cold for mosquitoes

The meetings went well, the hotel was fine, transportation in the city is more convenient, I made a new friend, and I went to Sanlitun'r for a beer with that friend. A good day and two nights for sure. Maybe it was the cold. You see Beijing, used to be by far my favorite city in the world (excluding Portland). But after a year and a half of living in Taipei I feel really at home here (if I lived in Beijing I would probably feel the same about that city) and I feel comfortable. On top of that, the people are nicer and the women much prettier. To be sure, Beijing is still pretty damn cool.

Xiamen: Then I woke up early and flew back to Xiamen. I had planned to travel back to Taiwan and make it home in time for dinner. Instead, when I was in Beijing I found I would have to stay around to pick up some samples and that would potentially delay my return to Taipei until the next day (which I would have to work and this would give me only one day to get ready to leave for Cambodia). In the end, I picked up the samples after a great lunch and some 007 style intrigue that I didn't fully understand.

The were two other things that stood out for me in Xiamen. One was an angry taxi driver who waited at the airport for 2 hours only to drive me 4 minutes. He tried to rip me off but (30 Renminbi? What the hell is that?) but I got him to drop it and still gave him a little extra. election sticker. Then I also recieved an Taiwanese election campaign card when I was in China. Go figure.

It was nice to get back to Taipei.

A Night Out With Sales

2009-12-16T17:44:00.001-08:00

First, if you look below at the post about the Armin Van Buuren concert you see I had quite a fun night out there. Well what made it even more fun was that the sales department at work all went out for dinner. The GM likes me so I was about the only one who didn't mid that he came along.

Either way good times were had by all. I have one coworker who likes to drink but lights up like the Chief (cheers if you get the reference) but also gets really funny and not just just lobster red. Thing is I am the only one in the office who can really drink, and my coworkers know it. The guy who lights up like a stop light and I were talking and being modest like the situation required I said, "Oh I can't drink." His response was, "You can't not drink," as he filled my two glasses with beer. About that, the GM got me two glasses since one was apparently not enough for me. Hence, I double fisted and still drank the rest of sales under the table.

A word about drinking at a restaurant in Taiwan. They have what are called beer girls. Basically, they are scantily glad waitress in beer clothing (white skirt, boots, and top with Corona logos, for example) that guys can chat with while the girls try to get them to order more beers.. Well the GM called one over and had her bring lots of beers, as he joked I was "He's foreigner, so he can't drink too much beer. So give him two glasses!"

Having me there was a constant source of entertainment for my coworkers. There were not only beer girls but girls selling some other product I had never heard of and had no idea what it was (dried oyster maybe). But that didn't matter to my coworkers. They would keep calling the girls over so I could talk to them. Which really meant they would talk to the girls about me or in the case of one coworker he was able to get the girl to give me her MSN even though I told him I have a ladyfriend.

Although I did feel sorry for the girl. When my coworkers called her over they said, "Hey, here is the GM he would love to buy such and such product, he has lots of money!" The GM got embarrassed and promptly got up to go the bathroom. Then they said, "Hey, look here is the sales manager he would love to buy the product too!" When that failed they said, "Look here's a foreigner see if he wants to buy."

All in all, it was a very good night.

Some People Don't Know When to Stop

2009-12-10T21:38:00.000-08:00

Maybe my mindset is different. When I was a kid and I got in trouble with my parents my goal was always to apologize relatively quick (or quicker than whoever I was in trouble with) to nip the problem in the bud (and to make myself look like a peace maker). On top of that, some things just don't need to be escalated.

So it was with a great deal of interest that I read this story: http://beavertonvalleytimes.com/news/story.php?story_id=126023763307305700.

The only real answer to this that I can think of is that the guy told himself. "Well I'm going down, I might as well go down in flames and give myself a great story to tell."

Nothing like turning a simple seat belt violation into an assault on an officer charge.

Seat Belts

2009-12-09T00:24:00.000-08:00

When most people are little their parents always tell them to wear seat belts. Those parents have never been to much of Asia.

I don't drive over here (I do sometimes ride motorcycles/mopeds on occasion) so I tend to take a lot of cabs. Or when I am in Cambodia I take a lot of tuk tuks to get to and from customers. The thing is that those two modes of transport rarely if ever have seat belts here in Asia.

Honestly, I have been hear a year and a half now and I can probably count on two hands the number of cabs I've been in that actually have seat belts in the back seat. This is true of most of the major Asian cities I've been too: Beijing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Taipei, Kaoshiun, Phnom Penh, Bangkok... None of these places have seat belts in the back seats.

Problem is that none of these places have good drivers either. So if there is any place in the world that could use seat belts to protect against the effects of crazy drivers it is all of those cities.

Degrees

2009-12-06T19:22:00.000-08:00

I'm in Phnom Penh, Cambodia now. I'll write more on China later but I was super busy there and all blogs and facebook were censored--hence, no updates.

It has been interesting the last few days. I've almost completely stopped using degrees Fahrenheit since everything over here is in Celsius.

Beijing was -5C, inside my apartment was 19C, and here in Cambodia the daytime temperatures are about 31C.

So It Begins

2009-11-29T17:47:00.000-08:00

Today: At the office, then transit via Kinmen Island (Taiwan) to Xiamen, China
Tuesday: Fly to Shenzhen
Wednesday: Fly to Beijing
Friday: Fly to Xiamen and transit back to Taipei via Kinmen
Saturday: To the office
Sunday: To Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Thursday: Back to Taipei
Friday: Work
Saturday: May have to travel back to Kinmen, but this is optional

Taipei Thanksgiving Dinner

2009-11-26T19:08:00.000-08:00

Last year my Thanksgiving sucked. I worked really late and then went home to a cold and small apartment before grabbing a quick dinner by myself. This year was more than a little different. I got off a little after 6 (not too bad really) and met the ladyfriend.

We went out to the Da'an district of Taipei to a small place that was serving a moderately priced Thanksgiving dinner. They had the turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, something that was kind of like cranberry sauce, salad, some veggies, and something that resembled bread stuffing (the house wine was quite good though).

It was by no means the best Thanksgiving dinner I've had, not even close. But it was still good. The thought really does count. Living abroad it is always cool to find things like this that resemble the States. On top of that, great company helps too. All in all I'd say it was a nice upper 70's Thanksgiving in Taipei.

Just a note, in Taiwan dogs are not necessarily prohibited from being inside various establishments. In this case, the owner's dog just walked around inside.

And for all of you who still read this thing Happy Thanksgiving! I wish you nothing but the absolute best.

An Expat Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T21:46:00.001-08:00

Life as a (young) expat here in Taiwan is generally pretty cool. But the one thing that I dislike is when it gets close to Thanksgiving (and later on near Christmas). Maybe it is since I don't have an oven to cook with, maybe since it is in the low to mid 70's outside right now, maybe it is since Taiwanese people don't really eat turkey or cranberry sauce, or maybe it is just being away from home and missing the whole feeling of the season.

There is just something missing about it over here. Then again, that just may be since Thanksgiving isn't celebrated here among the locals so the feeling that goes along with it is missing. It is just a feeling like something is missing.

Unlike last year when I worked late (hence a dinner by myself), I have a nice dinner with the ladyfriend planned tonight. We are going out to a restaurant/bar that is breaking out all the trimmings. I am pumped!

My Vidoes from the AVB Show

2009-11-22T17:05:00.001-08:00

Here are some of the better videoes I took during the show. My ears were blown out, it was crowded beyond belief, and I was learning what it means to sweat like a hog. But I still think I have some good (if not short) stuff here. However, on the last video my camera's memory card was running out of space so I wasnt able to get it when the beat kicked in. The title of the last song is called "Broken Tonight."

My hearing is finally returning today. But it was still a great idea to go to the show. Overall it was great fun and the spectacle was incredible. If he comes back to Taipei I'll go see his show again.

I'm not sure if I'll post any pictures here. I may just post them in a big album with some other stuff on facebook.

Armin Van Buuren

2009-11-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

This Friday I went to a nightclub in Taiwan that I absolutely detest to see the top DJ in the world, Armin Van Buuren. I had heard from Colin that the show would be life changing. So I went there early.

I was blown away; it was over a 1 hour wait to get in the door. The line looped around the nightclub (Luxy) a few times. I have no idea if there are fire codes in Taiwan to mandate how many people can be inside an enclosed area--but Luxy was without a doubt breaking each and every one of those codes. Even now I have no idea how so many people fit inside. It was actually a little scary.

The other downside was that it was hot beyond all belief with so many bodies. By the end of the night they were handing out napkins to people to wipe sweat (a bottle of water was $5).

Below are some videos other people took of the show. I'll try and post some pics and videos of my own on Monday:

If you watch a few videos you should hopefully be able to tell why I couldn't hear a thing when I got out of the club (4 hours of assaulting your ears will do that to you). Even 20 hours later my hearing is still a little below where it should be. Next time I'll listen to my mom and bring ear plugs.

The video below is probably about 3:30am. It was at this point that the Luxy dancers came on stage to do a little dance.

This last video is towards the end of the set but should give a good idea of the atmosphere. After he was done he signed some autographs and then did a little encore. The set went from 1:30am-4:30am then another Taiwanese DJ came on (at which point I left)

The show was actually pretty interesting. It was much different from the rock shows I'm used to. Basically he played lots of pre-mixed songs of (there was also tons of free-style stuff too) and would every so often put his hands up in the air (and expect the crowd to do likewise).

Still, the show was incredible. I was actually sober the entire time as I had been drinking earlier at a company dinner and I didn't want to fight through hundreds of people to reach the bar. Even being sober the way the music, video screens, and the lights all came together was amazing. I had a very good time and came home at 5:30am.

Not Just Any Wedding

2009-11-19T18:02:00.000-08:00

So last night the lady friend and I were set to go to dinner at a Thai place with a mutual friend. Then he called and said he had to change plans and at the last minute go to a wedding reception, and he wanted to know if we would like to come along too as his guests. Hell yeah! Chinese weddings are awesome. There is lots of good food, flowing booze, and tons of toasts.

But this was not just any wedding. This was a mafia wedding. One of the sons(?) of one of the top 5 mafia groups in Taiwan was being married and our mutual friend's family has--lets say--a connection to some of these groups.

It was pretty awesome. There were tough-looking body guards dressed in black all over (they formed phalanxes around the top guys and formed a tunnel to get into the wedding). Another guy had a shaved head with a dragon tattoo on it. At least one person I met was rumored to have killed someone. Oh yeah, some of the top Taiwanese mafia dons were also in attendance(I got pictures with them and I'll try and post as soon as my friend passes them along).

Thing was, I was the only white guy there. But I'm used to that now.

Edit: Here are the pictures from the wedding. I blacked out the faces of the mafia guys. I also blacked out my lady friend's face per my policy of not showing here in a public forum.

Firecracker

2009-11-18T17:15:00.000-08:00

Well those of you who are intrepid facebook stalkers already know, but I am dating a new and very lovely lady. This time I was in much less of a rush to jump into things. But after being introduced by a mutual friend of ours we really kicked things off and found we got along very well together.

Suffice to say the new lady is very funny and very cool. So far, I have always had a lot of fun hanging out with her. To say she is a firecracker or spark plug is not any stretch of the imagination.

However, given this is a fully public venue I will resist further comments about her. My rule is the names of lady friends and their pictures are not to appear on this venue (after all, that information is on facebook).

Electronic

2009-11-15T20:52:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about this for a long time now. But a lot of the popular music is the US is being Euro-fied...it's going electronic. Look no further than such upstanding citizens as Kanye West or a lot of the others associated with that genre of rap music.

The reason I write this post is since I do appreciate the eletronic stuff. A few months back I went to a techno show on the beach. This coming Friday there is a huge techno show (Armin Van Buuren) here in Taipei that I will be at.

So I was not all that surprised to see this posted on facebook from someone else I know who likes techno. A song featuring some American rappers and the DJ Tiesto:

Kaoshiung and Globalization

2009-11-15T20:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend I took my first ever trip to the south of Taiwan. I feel bad about being here for so long but never venturing down there. Part is me being lazy and part is me knowing it is pretty comfortable here in Taipei (I do want to take it easy on the weekends).

Saturday I woke up early to catch the 8am high speed rail train from Taipei to Zuoying (Kaoshiung) station with my boss. The high speed rail (HSR) is great. It is clean, fast, on time, and easy to use.

When we showed up there we went out to meet a business contact of ours. After some initial confusion, there are two malls of the same name where he wanted to meet us, we met up and had a great lunch and business talk.

I don't want to reveal too much about what was said but it revolved around doing business in his country (he is from Africa). The whole time I was amazed. Here I am a white American working in Taiwan and meeting an African about doing business with him in his country (along with help from his Taiwanese wife).

Bye Bye Charlie

2009-11-08T18:24:00.000-08:00

It is time. Charlie Weis must go. The question is will he make it easy and resign to save face or will he force the school to fire him?
I stuck by him during the losing season in his third year (I told myself it was a recruiting problem from the previous coach and poor assistants that came back to bite him in the ass). But the results have not improved. He outthinks himself, he refuses to pound the ball, he has sloppy teams with poor fundamentals (tackling, blocking, etc), his players do not noticeably improve (outside of quarterbacks), he cannot decisively beat teams, and his teams are almost never fired up.

For whatever reason, Weis couldn't get it done. In the end, getting the W is what matters.

I should also be very clear about something. Weis has a reputation as a blowhard and a jackass. But in my (very limited) interactions with him (I organized a charity run for his foundation) I found him to be very nice and very committed to his family. I think he is a good guy and I from the bottom of my heart I wanted him to succeed. He is a fellow ND alum and he understood the school (talking to each dorm after his hire). Weis also pulled the program out of the hole left by Willingham and was able to bring in top athletes. But he has shown himself incapable of getting the program back to where it needs to be--he is a great NFL coordinator but not a great college head football coach. The effort was there but the results were not.

Looking forward, whoever comes next will have a LOT of very good talent. If the next coach can bring in some good assistants and teachers they will have a full cupboard since Weis was a very good recruiter.

I know I speak for a significant portion of the fanbase when I say, BRING ON GRUDEN!!!

Same Old Stuff

2009-11-05T22:07:00.000-08:00

I have been really bad about keeping this thing up to date. I've been a little busy but it has more or less been me being lazy and not having anything too exciting happen. So here are some highlights from the past few weeks:

I went to a classical music concert with my boss and and a business partner. There was a 20 year old violinist who was just unreal (even though I was fighting off sleep until intermission when I could grab a coffee).

Hanging out with some friends after work.

Halloween. I was supposed to grab a dinner with an old friend of mine at her restaurant and then come back home early for a rest. Instead, I ended up staying long and talking with my friend in Chinese (as she doesn't speak English). Then out of nowhere I suddenly became the most popular person in the world and everyone started texting me with parties to go to. I ended up going to two different parties and got home at 4am. At some point, I may try and sort out the events from both parties but not in this post.

The October Oriented (an organization that organizes events for professionals in Asia related fields) Happy Hour. The routine is go to classy bar, meet people, talk for 3 minutes, give them your card, and move on. That is the usual routine. Instead, I talked for a long long time with a diplomat who happened to be an alumni of ND. It's really amazing that I run into people from ND over here. So it was great to talk football with someone who actually understands football. Before he left he said something along the lines of, "Man, you are one of the first normal (foreigners) people that I have met over here." I take that as a great compliment (if only that sucker really knew me!).

Being called "Clint San" in meetings with Japanese people.

Going to a launch party of some new Scottish malt whiskey (57% alcohol!) with a friend. The Scottish guy who was there was unintentionally funny. He was describing the aroma (the aroma was pretty good) and taste (alcohol mixed with cinnamon and more alcohol) to the gathered audience. Imagine any flavor you can think of and he said it was in the whiskey. Road tar? Yup, he said it was in the whiskey. Seaweed? Yup, he said it was in the whiskey. What is the experience like drinking the whiskey? Like being pulled into the largest whirlpool in the world he said. He was a nice guy to talk to though.

There were several earthquakes yesterday. For one I was in the office (it was about 6.0 but more centered in the southern part of Taiwan) and for the aftershock I was on the subway. As I told my mom, as far as I know my house was built to stand them. But in case the worst comes to pass there is only one floor above me, hence less rubble on top of me.

Looking ahead, I may take a trip to Kaohsiung (in the South of Taiwan) during the next 2 weeks. On the 20th the DJ Armin Van Buuren (thinking of you Colin) will be playing at a nightclub I normally try to avoid. I'll go there to see him though.

Funny thing is, when I look back at this post there were some interesting things that happened. But I still feel like they are pretty run of the mill for me--which is pretty damn sweet when earthquakes, concerts, trips, parties, and happy hours are becoming run of the mill.

It Was the Best of Times...It Was the Worst of Times

2009-10-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the worst of times. I hated two suppliers and my branch office with a fiery passion for being such pains in the ass. Discussing it in detail now makes pissed. But there were: delivery problems, pricing problems, payment problems, lead time problems, packing problems, co-signers bailing, GM mad at me, company president in a meeting, accounting pissed, and about 10 changes in the order quantity and conditions.

Today was the best of times. After my trip last week I have built up enough miles to move to the Cathay Pacific Silver Level Frequent Flyer Club! Hell yeah!

That means personalized baggage tags, lounge access (free food, newspaper, wifi, drinks, showers, etc.), and more frequent upgrades. It is going to be awesome! Cathay is an amazingly good airline and now I've got lounge access.

I Knew It!

2009-10-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

Well there you have it, the word of some guy and some research says it all. We were built to run.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html

Unscathed

2009-10-25T22:48:00.000-07:00

Following up the post below, I sent Pat a facebook message and got a reply today that he was fine. He said when the bombs went off he was about 1000m away but there was a lot of city between him and the blasts.

Hope for the Best

2009-10-25T05:30:00.000-07:00

At ND I took pride in knowing most of the people from Oregon. One of the fellow Oregonians was a guy named Pat. I was not particularly close with him but I knew him as a good acquaintance and would stop to talk whenever I ran into him.

Right now Pat is a Marine Lieutenant serving in the Baghdad Green Zone. From his facebook (yes even Marines have facebook in comabt zones, apparently), he works in the Green Zone but goes outside on occassional patrols.

This morning there was a large car bombing outside the Green Zone that, at last count, killed over 90 people. Now Pat probably was inside the Green Zone. But right now I have no way to tell. So in the meantime keep Pat in your prayers.

Show Me The Money

2009-10-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Let’s talk through a hypothetical. You see me—a dashing 24 year old walking through customs at the airport in Cambodia. I am wearing a long sleeve dress shirt and slacks with some nice-ish shoes. That probably is not the most common thing in an airport full of backpackers and the occasional businessman. But that look I was going for probably would not scream at you, “Haha! Look at me all you bastards! I’m made of money! I’m a dollar bill with legs!”

Unfortunately for me, that was the exact look I seemed to give to a customs guy. He asked me to open up my bags after the security check and then asked, “How much money do you have on you.” I thought for a second and told him, “About $50 or $60 and a bunch of Thai Baht.” He looked at me in disbelief and basically said no no no I want to see inside your bags, you have more than that (they did not want to search my bags in public). I was taken aback.

When he still didn’t believe me he decided I needed to come to the back customs office. Now I was pretty nervous at this point. I was alone with 2-3 customs officers in a back office out of view of the rest of the passengers in a country known for corruption and one of them was sure I had some big bucks on me. I was worried they would demand bribes…among other things.

Well they had me place my bag on a desk and open it to show them all my cash. “You have $15,000 in here.” I slowly and firmly said, “No, I have about $50,” and instead showed them all my sales sample books (trying to play dumb) and telling them, “Oh, you probably saw this on the X-Ray machine.” They rolled their eyes and demanded to see the money again. So I made a show of showing them the one $50 bill I had. It was hidden in my pair of packed shoes and covered with socks (always break up your money in separate locations when you travel).

You should have seen their faces.

Someone who hides money in their shoes is not a walking dollar bill. They asked again about the money, but this time with less self-assurance. It was at that point I realized they no longer had the advantage. I perked up and said, “Oh! I have a $20 bill in my other shoe, do you want to see that?” They really didn’t say anything so instead I opened my other bag pulled out a passport holder I use for money and said, “Here I also have Thai Baht and some Taiwan dollars.” At this point reality, punched them in the face. They realized I truly was not made of money—although they tried to hide the disappointment. To screw with them some more and drive the point home I pulled out the roll of cash in my pocket, “Here are some Riels I have too (the Cambodian currency which are given out as change for cents since all prices in Cambodia are in dollars, the roll I pulled out was worth all of $0.75).”

They thanked me for my time and apologized for the trouble. The guy who called me in then informed me it was illegal to take over $10,000 out of or into Cambodia. I looked at him again, laughed, and said, “I don’t even think I have that much in my bank account in Taiwan. How could I take that out of Cambodia?” His response was to apologize again and show me to the door.

It could have been much much worse—instead it is pretty funny.

I have no idea why I was picked out for this. All I can guess is that they assumed that being young and nicely dressed meant I was carrying a lot of money and I was also naive. But the fact that I was carrying so little (I never have much on me by the time I leave Cambodia) made it almost impossible for them to demand anything from me. Lesson learned

Cambodia Pictures

2009-10-20T03:26:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the 6th time. Then I head to Bangkok tomorrow for the God knows how many-th time. Below are some pictures I took here in Cambodia.

Who Wears Short Shorts?

2009-10-11T22:31:00.000-07:00

I do! What's the matter with ya? I'm a runner, what do you think I wear?

The only thing getting between me and my love of short shorts has been market economics and and taste. Let's be clear, it is now cool in the summer for girls to wear short running shorts with the slit up the sides in everyday activities. I need to get royalties. I have been doing that for years (much to the chagrin on those around me).

So naturally, one would think this increase in demand would lead to an increase in choices of short shorts for me. Herein lies the problem. Despite my efforts to bring short shorts and skinny pale legs to the masses it took the sex appeal of large numbers of women to accomplish the task. That means there are not too many varieties of men's short shorts--in fact, they have been almost impossible to find as of late.

Naturally, I was estatic when I saw some a few months ago in Taipei at the Nike store. But they were too large and no one had more stock in Taipei I was told. Then last night I decided to take a chance and see (with fall already here and winter coming) if they had restocked. I was in luck.

Even though I don't run much any more I shelled out the money to buy a pair of those beauties (sure some might say no way what amounts to a few strips of fabric with built in undies is worth almost $25, I say money well spent).

What the #@%*!!!

2009-10-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

Those were the first words out of my mouth when I opened my homepage (msnbc.com) to find that Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. For the record, my money was on the PM of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, to win this year (I'll take Greg Mortenson for next year).

I am a fan of Obama's, but I still cannot understand why he was chosen. The most rational reason I have thought of is that the Peace Prize committee was so incredibly relieved to be rid of Bush (like most in the world). So they felt that simply not being Bush was, in and of itself, grounds for a major award.

I may not agree with the choice and I hope that Obama accepts it on the behalf of others (US AID, Peace Corps, etc.) but make no mistake, our country was severely damaged in the last 8 years if simply not being the previous president deserves this honor.

Funny Stuff

2009-10-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

I saw someone post this on facebook. The video is a funny Japanese prank. If only I had come up with this when I was still in school.

Kinmen

2009-10-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

About 2 weekends ago, before my dog died, I was spending a weekend on Kinmen Island at a rustic (outside at least as the inside was completely remodled guest house). It was pretty nice and I was able to relax a bit. Most of my days were spent eating the local fare and riding a moped around the island.

Crazy water inside of a secret tunnel used during the Chinese Civil War

Landmines along the road, left over from the warTemple at night

Outside an enterance to an underground tunnel

The guesthouse/bed and breakfast where I was staying

Highlights

2009-10-08T17:56:00.001-07:00

So there has been a lot that has happened but hasn't made it onto the blog. I will put up pictures of some of these things:

A weekend trip to Kinmen Island (home of 58% alcohol Kaoliang booze) to stay at a rustic guesthouse and moped around the island.

My old roommate, Nick and his girlfriend, coming to stay with me for 2 weeks in Taiwan.

Playing Starcraft with Nick--we are nerds.

Going to an Ivy League alumni party as a non-Ivy League alum and being in the majority (about 95% of the people there). Seeing people I knew and making new friends too then getting home at 4am.

The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival with a Taiwanese bbq with my friend and his family.

Drinking with my friend's uncle at the bbq.

Going to a party at a different friend's house afterward.

Being drunk at a party during an earthquake. How many people can say that?

Getting home at 4am (second night in a row) after attacking shrubs on the way home.

Party for Nick at my apartment tonight.

Recent Books I've Read (Part II)

2009-09-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I posted about some of the books I had read. Since I have plowed through a few more books it's time to give my unsolicited thoughts, again.

Managing the Dragon by Jack Perkowski

First, with books like this you do have to be aware about self-promotion and white-washing as the author is writing about his company. At several points, there are relatively obvious parts about how great his company is. That said, the book is very interesting--provided you are interested in business in China (if you are not interested then skip it). I have a lot of respect for the author an what he has been able to do and I think that I did manage to gain some insights while confirming other observations of mine.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey

As you can tell from my "book reviews," I do not read too many novels. But I have to say right now this is probably my new favorite novel. It helped that I haven't seen the movie as there were a lot of times I found myself laughing. The confined setting, character development, narration, and struggle all made for an absolutely fantastic read.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Like the first book in this review, you have to pay attention to white-washing and shameless self-promotion when you read books that are about the author's work. To be sure, there were absolutely times where the book became a volume about how Greg Mortenson is a saint (several people were quoted as saying he would win a Nobel Peace Prize). But the truth is, I agree. The guy is an absolute saint. The things he has been able to accomplish--much of the time with a shoestring budget are incredible. I think this is the side of American power that is far too often neglected (compare our military budget to the State Department's). If we really want to address world poverty, terrorism, or the multitude of other ills in the world then this is an example to follow. If you want to be inspired read this book.

Joker One by Donovan Campbell

The book was interesting and I have incredible respect for the author (nearly 7 months of daily combat in Ramadi), but there was just something missing for me. I felt like a lot of events were left untold. For example, he talks about one battle in which 10-12 Marines died (but none in his platoon) but only speaks of the events he personally saw. I felt the author needed to spend more time in this situation, and others, to give the reader a feel for the larger picture that was playing out (beyond his own vision). I am sure the daily grind blended together but the author could have used more examples of this. Personally, I would have been interested to know what happened to some of the major players when they returned from Iraq. In the end, the book is interesting and gives an intense picture of fighting, but left me with a lot of questions about the story.

Lucy Babe

2009-09-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

Well my mom sent me an email a few days ago saying that my dog (whose back legs had been getting slightly worse for a while) was really having trouble. After a visit to the vet, it turned out that some of her vertebrae we mashing her spinal cord and paralyzing her back end at an increasingly fast pace. So she had to be put to sleep.

But that is what happens when you have a dog that is almost 14 1/2. The fact that she was so old is also the reason that I was really not surprised by how quickly she deteriorated (actually when we first got her I would have been shocked to hear that she would live this long--I thought she would have been nailed by a car long ago).

While I do have a lot of really good memories of my family's first and only dog, I must say that I really haven't seen much of my dog in the last 5 years when I have been at ND or in Taiwan. So yes, it is sad since I really loved that dog but it was also time for her to go. It will be strange next time I am home not to have her around or waiting to greet me at the door, that is when it will really sink in. I will miss my Lucy Babe.

Edit: I just got an email from my dad. I really did not expect him to be so shaken up about Lucy passing away--but it does make sense. The dog absolutely adored my dad (he gave her lots of food). But since my brother and sister left for college the dog had become unbelievably attached to my parents. Even though they would never admit it, they were very attached to her too since it kept them from being empty nesters. She became more their dog than the kids' dog. Hence, judging from my dad's email they have taken this pretty hard.

My Second Job

2009-09-25T02:30:00.001-07:00

So I didn't post much of anything last week. There was a reason that did not involve me being lazy behind that one. I actually took some time off...for my other job. I am a volunteer for the local ND Club in charge of recruiting and outreach to local high schools.

I had to take the time off since ND sent an admissions director over here. That means I took a day and half off. In that time, we went to 5 high school visits during which I had to translate at 4 of the events. Then in the evening we had an admissions information session and dinner that I helped to arrange and was on hand to answer questions.

At the end of all of that I was a little worried I was losing m voice. Above is a picture of the ND alums who were on hand at the information session.

Toga! Toga! Toga!

2009-09-25T02:08:00.000-07:00

So last weekend was a lot of fun. The problem was I got myself into a bad routine. What routine could be that bad given my penchant for sin?

Well, the fact that 2 nights in a row I got home at 6am, got to sleep around 7 and then woke up in the early evening. That sucked when Monday rolled around.

Friday night a friend of mine invited me over to hang out since he had just moved into a new place and I ended up there just chilling for a long time.

The next day was a going away party for a friend of mine. She rented a room and invited about 18 people over for a toga party. I was jacked up. I had not had a toga party since my sophomore year Alumni Wake.

The hotel we were at was huge and very nice(huge bathroom with a crazy hot tub, bed, and a living area). What was not normal was this hotel existed for one purpose: a place for people to have sex. There was a "hidden" vending machine of, shall we say, "implements of a sexual orientation" and a tv full of porn. Once we found that out we ended up singing karaoke, drinking, and smoking hookah. Overall I was having a rocking time and even sang some Chinese karaoke.

All went well until another friend of mine got trashed and puked all over the floor.

Oh yeah, ND beat Sparty. I cant stand those guys.

A Work Rant

2009-09-18T01:28:00.000-07:00

I do realize need to update this thing more often but this week has been insanely busy and I am booked solid this weekend. So more updates will have to wait a little longer.

Having just said that, I need to rant. It is never fun to leave the office on Friday with a bad taste in your mouth. Our accounting department and GM have put off on payment of a big invoice for 2-3 weeks. They were overdue back then but we were waiting for the exchange rate to come down. Each time our agent would contact me or the company would send me a letter I would talk to the company accountants.

With second to last letter they sent I spoke with the accountants and they told me to tell the GM--who was busy at the time. Since one of the accountants was going in to talk to the GM anyway she told me she would talk to him. The answer was the same--wait for the exchange rate.

So today I get a final letter saying pay up today or we stop doing business with you. Well I take this directly to the GM. Apparently, the urgency of the situation was not adequately conveyed to him by accounting. When I sat down with him and conveyed that urgency the funds were transferred within an hour.

Of course, the accountants blamed me. After all, they said, I should have told the GM each time letters came or I got emails in addition to telling accounting. To be fair, there is without a doubt some truth to that and in the future I need to communicate that better to the GM since he gives approvals to pay invoices like this.

But let's get serious accounting department. Do you really mean to tell me that if I communicate this kind of thing to you (my job is to communicate with foreign companies) that you cannot handle the internal communication and I cannot trust you to convey this kind of thing to the GM? Part of my job is to act as the "bouncer" and to sort out what the GM and president need to know and what can be better dealt with at lower levels. If I clearly tell you this needs to be paid and go through and explain the letters to you then you still cannot communicate that? Could I have talked with the GM after each contact? Absolutely, but if I talked to him about each email or letter I get then it's a waste of his and my time. Accounting is responsible for paying invoices. I guess I was wrong to think that communicating with them about an urgent matter is enough to make them take the initiative to handle this sort of thing.

What pisses me off the most about this episode is that they are trying to pass this and future responsibility to me. They essentially said to me--well you have to tell the GM too since we cant always tell him. The unstated assumption on their part is since GM likes me and I am not scared of him (like they are) I should have this reponsibility. That's a load, if you can't tell him why do I bother talking to you at all? In my opinion, this part of my job should be to communicate information from foreign business/contacts to the people who need to know so that they can handle the given matter internally. At that point I believe I should hand off responsibility to them. It is a waste of my time if I have to chase every little invoice or problem down--but that is what accounting thinks I should do.

But the weekend is going to be awesome.

Purely Politics

2009-09-17T23:45:00.000-07:00

It’s time for a purely political post. I haven’t done this for a while—and I have no idea how I was able to resist for so long with all the juicy political stories out there. So put on grab a drink and sit on the left of that chair, because here we go…

I was not entirely surprised to see Ted Kennedy pass away considering the cancer he was fighting. To me, Kennedy is undoubtedly one of the major Democratic figures of recent times. At first he was just riding the family wave (his story seems to me to be like the kid who inherits the family shoe shop despite having no interest in shoes but ends up doing well for himself in the end) and then he became known as a partier (and one who enjoyed a nice “joyride”). For better or worse, he was somehow able to mellow with age and overcome all that baggage to become an icon in his last years.

I guess the lesson here is that even if you drive off a bridge with a young lady in your car and leave her to die, divorce your wife, drink heavily, and go shirt chasing with a nephew when he is accused of rape—you too can become an iconic figure (although being from a famous family doesn’t hurt). Ok, so that was a low blow joke. In reality, he was very committed to his causes and did an incredible job to work for the betterment of Americans—especially the poor among us who have now lost one of their great defenders. He will be missed in the healthcare debate.

Now I turn from someone who was a bit of a mess early on to become an icon for the right reasons to someone who started out decently but has been in a slow motion crash for the last few months. Yes, that would be Sarah Palin. She seems to grow progressively more insane by the day (something about stopping digging when you are already in a hole comes to mind). As a Democrat, I am ecstatic that she is the leading face of the Republicans—I really do hope they run her for president since that will mean a Democratic majority for years to come. But as an American I am horrified. To my eyes, she embodies the visceral rejection of science and modernity that is rife in the Republican party and the right as a whole. This is in the exact moment in history when we need science and a rush to modernity to stay competitive in this global world.

Speaking of science I am a disciple of Thomas Friedman in that I absolutely agree we need a massive investment in clean fuels if we want to keep our standard of living and stay at the top of the world order. Yet, our politicians seem totally incapable of this—even a toothless cap and trade bill is being hung up. Even France has been able to offer up a carbon tax while we struggle over a watered-down cap and trade bill.

That is why this story caught my eye about solar panel manufacturing and implementation: (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/business/energy-environment/25solar.html?_r=1&hp as well as http://www.reuters.com/article/GlobalClimateandAlternativeEnergy09/idUSTRE58A0SO20090911). If China comes out ahead in producing and implementing clean technologies they will eat us for lunch (note: I do realize the article says the Chinese solar market is not there—yet. I will tell you unequivocally: it will be. They are starting massive solar projects including a solar farm that will cover over 25 square miles in the Gobi Desert. And given the massive market potential high exponentially increasing production capacity—one that tends to overproduce due to industry decentralization—the domestic Chinese market will be there. It is simply a matter of time).

Our politicians have not been honest with us. The rules of the game have changed. Unless we commit ourselves to become the most prepared to take advantage of globalization we will have a future that looks increasingly dim because other countries are rushing to prepare themselves.

Finally, the healthcare reform debate. I am biased since I have no coverage. But in that regard I am lucky to live in Taiwan because of the national health plan that provides cheap coverage.

Example, I had an outer ear infection recently. So I went to the doctor’s office close to my apartment one time and then went back for a follow up appointment. Both times I was able to see a doctor after less than 5min of waiting (walk in with no appointment), be examined in a professional manner by a nurse and doctor, given medicines, and sent on my way (and followed up with by the hospital). The total for two appointments and two rounds of medicine without national health plan coverage: about $32. If I had national health plan coverage the cost of the visit would be less than half of that amount.

I find it strange that the US spends more on healthcare than any other nation, but by most measures we are still less healthy than those countries with national health plans. I think a national health plan is a great idea and would lift the burden of health coverage off of employers and thereby make American products cheaper on the global market (by removing a significant portion of business operating costs associated with providing health coverage for employees—a cost not shared by most of our competitors).