Happy New Year

I plan to party hard, as I have been known to do on past New Years.

A Few Things...
My resolution for the New Year: start running again

What am I not happy about: I have to work on Saturday

What am I happy about: I have a job in Taiwan

Cool thing for next year: move into a bigger apartment with my friend Nick

This last year has been: a whirlwind

Person on my mind: my main man Eric who was also away from home for Christmas and will be for the New Year too

Person who would like to be on my mind: girl I met at the club a week ago

Merry Christmas to All!

No matter how I try and spin it being away from home on Christmas sucks big time. There is no getting around it. Skype is good but it cannot replace the real deal. Here are some links for Christmas Day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX3mjxAg2e0 (no video but a great song)

http://www.christmas-tree.com/stories/nightbeforechristmas.html (I decided not to post the parodies, which are fantasic. Google the lawyer version)

http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/ (one of my favorite newspaper editorials of all time)

It also sucks since I have never had a white Christmas and the first year I am abroad look what happens, record snow (it was 66 here today and 80 this weekend). Then again trying to come home right now would have been a complete disaster with all of the delays.

So to all of you back home reading this you are lucky you are home and I miss all of you.

A Card for the Season

Dear All,

I wanted to take the time to wish you a very happy and blessed Christmas (or Hanukah/Ramadan/Kwanza/Sienfeld Festivus/Winter Solstice, etc.).

Because I am abroad and due to the fact that I enjoy emailing, you will not receive a paper card from me. Beyond that, I dislike killing trees for a piece of paper that will hang on a refrigerator and then be thrown out. Much better to send an email that you will delete in a few seconds and never feel guilty about not responding to (I know what you’re up to).

Unfortunately, since I am out of the country, I cannot be part of any family pictures. Instead, I chose to scour the internet and find a vintage family picture from the good ol’ days. I chose one that reminds me the most of my family.
In case you are wondering, that’s me on the far left. That picture makes a warm and fuzzy feeling come over me, kind of like that one time in China where I…uh, never mind, forget you even read that.

I know there may not seem to be much good news in the world today. So I was happy to run across this information:

As you can no doubt see, global warming is indeed getting worse due to the alarming lack of pirates. That’s why I am so happy to hear about rising piracy off of Somalia, there’s one feel good story that’s being overlooked! They are doing their part to fight global warming, are you?

This past year has been good to me. There have been ups and downs, ins and outs, light and dark, pain and joy. Sometimes it even felt like this,

like this,

and this,

as you can see things have really been looking up for me this year. But most of all this year has been good to me because of your continued contact and friendship.


Best,

貝川

Christmas, 2009, and Chinese New Year

X-mas
Well it’s that time of year, the weather in Taipei has dropped to the low 70’s, the locals break out the parkas, odor of stinky tofu floats through the air, and all the stores play poor renditions of traditional songs. Yes, its Christmas time.

This year will be rough. I have never spent Christmas away from my family. When I try and explain Christmas to people here I really can’t encapsulate how special it is to have all of your family and friends together in the Christmas spirit. It is even hard for me to put into writing, but Christmas has always been really special to both me and my family. Family is what the season is about. So I will have to take some of my Taiwanese friends out to dinner or something.

Christmas Eve I plan to go to Church for the first time since I have started in Taiwan. Then on Christmas day I have to work. I want it like that. If I didn’t work I would be super lonely and sad since my Taiwanese friends have to work too, it will be a little sad to talk to my family on Skype though. At the same time I will feel somewhat connected to my brother from a different mother, Eric, since he will be at sea with the Coast Guard so we will share that in common this Christmas.

The 26th will be fun since I am going to a big party with the local ND club in town. This is the year end club party and everyone should be there. There is supposed to be a really nice dinner and some prizes at one of the nicest venues in town, but for the price I am paying to get in it had better be nice.

I got my Christmas gifts from my mom the other day. Let me first say, she is one hell of a lady to send me all of this stuff. I got a small fake tree for my apartment, some lights, X-mas M&M’s, a travel, clothes, a book, and other stuff. I was happy to get the book since I haven’t had much to read over here. But my mom was slightly nudging me with the book; it is a rational argument for a belief in God. That is just her way of countering my atheist tendencies (I am more of a deist really) and I appreciate it. Needless to say, my coworkers were really impressed with all of the stuff I got and I had to open the box several times to show people the stuff and share my M&M’s.

In the package, I got my dad’s famous/infamous X-mas CD’s. Except for Kenny G they are pretty good since they have a healthy does of the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Better to listen to these real CD’s than the knock-offs played in all the stores around here.

2009
Looking ahead I am trying to figure out what to do for New Years Eve, if you have advice leave it in the comments or email me. Basically every club and bar has a cool special that is going on. My friend, Calvin, said most people just head for the bars on New Years.

The “best” place in the city, Luxy (look a several posts down to see why I really didn’t like it too much when I went) has an open bar before 11PM then a show by the Three 6 Mafia. I love live music so that sounds pretty good to me.

Of course, Taipei is world famous for its New Years celebration since at midnight Taipei 101 is used as a 101 story tall fireworks platform. I would feel really bad to be here and miss seeing that.

Taking a cue from the college days I think this means that I will go to some club/bar and drink before leaving to see the fireworks then going back to said club/bar. But that plan would rule out Luxy and the Three 6 Mafia, unless I take a taxi, since it is pretty far from area around Taipei 101.

Decisions, decisions.

Chinese New Year
Then at the end of January there is the Chinese New Year and I get a week off. I want to get out of Taiwan since Chinese New Year here means a week of nothing but constant firecrackers. But I am still undecided on where to go and I need to book something soon and I want to try and convince someone here to go with me too.

I can go to Thailand, but I have already been there and I am going there for work 2 weeks before the Chinese New Year. I may go to Vietnam but that requires a pre-trip visa and I am not sure where I would go in the country (Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Hue, etc.).

I am thinking about Cebu in the Philippines. It is supposed to be tropical and have some of the best beaches in the world. But my first choice is Bali, Indonesia. To get an idea check out the link from a good photographer: http://www.flickr.com/photos/javajive/sets/167412/.

However, during Chinese New Year Bali will likely be filled with tourists, so no decision yet.

I Hate It When It's True

I have been thinking about this for a long time. When I first heard it I was a teenager it was my dad saying it in reference to my grandpa. I thought it was sort of funny but also a little silly.

There is a Mark Twain quote that goes something like, “When I was 15 my dad was the dumbest guy in the world but when I was 25 I was amazed by how much he had learned.”

Now for me, my dad has become awfully damn smart. Not that I would ever tell him that of course.

Not smart in the sense that he told me some pearl of wisdom that I live by. No, smart in the way that now that I have a real job I see things I didn’t see before that have made me really respect both of my parents. What I mean is that I feel really busy and overworked with just me to take care of, so I cannot imagine how hard it is to take care of a full-time job, kids, the kid’s activities and homework, and still remain sane.

What is the lesson here? If I ever have kids I have a damn high bar. So the best option is not to have any kids, problem solved—no bar, no way you can’t make it.

The Weekend Update

So, as is standard, this weekend saw a continuation of the bar tour. But I will get to that later. I actually took it easy on Friday since we had an engineer in town to work on one of our machines and I had to get up early the next morning.

On Saturday morning, I went across the city to listen to a talk about Taiwanese politics by left leaning members of the community who know an older ND alum. I met some cool people, listened to some interesting talks about Taiwanese politics, and was able to talk to a leader of the ongoing Taiwanese student protest.

After that I walked around downtown in some expensive shopping areas and tell myself one day I will change some of my wardrobe from just “rolled out of bed” to “looks like hell but at least his shirt is decent.” I was also pretty pumped since I found a hidden Tibetan shop that sells all sorts of stuff. I am planning to go back there and get some prayer flags to decorate my apartment.

That night was fun. I went to the Brass Monkey bar. It was all people who were older than me so I just had a pint of Guinness and laughed at the 20 or so very drunk Irish guys (seriously though, these guys are Irish, what do you expect?) dressed in Santa suits and drinking Coronas.

From there, I went to another place that I heard about called Bliss. At first it really sucked since hardly anyone was there and the only redeeming factor was the owner’s cute dog. Well, I made up my mind to order some fries and leave. But the fries were out so I ordered a bunch of nachos that ended up being huge. So I offered to share them with people in the bar and eventually got roped into some drinking games. It also turned out one of the foreign dudes there, Nick, lives a short walk away from me. When the time came to leave I went to breakfast with Nick and some Taiwanese girls then shared a cab home with them.

Sunday was a waste. I slept all day. About the most productive thing I did was read 100 pages of a book my mom sent me. Seriously, I did nothing else of value today.

Six Months in Taiwan

Today is a real milestone for me. I have been living and working in Taiwan for 6 months. Half a year. It’s crazy to think of it like that and how fast the time has gone by.

This is also the longest single time I have ever spent away from my home, and what better place to do that than in a foreign country and working in a company where I am the only white person.

Thinking about my life here it is strange in a way, to me this is my “normal.” Normal is getting up and spending most days not seeing white people—it is strange when I do—Taiwan has become what I define as normal. To me, my life here is utterly normal. I have my routine, I work, I buy food, I go out for some dinners, etc. In fact, what is more interesting to me is that I can have time to bitch and complain—as I am known to do—instead of caring or worrying about life here. In the list below of the good and bad in Taiwan there is nothing about culture shock or such it is more mundane, which tells me I have settled into this place.

Since Thanksgiving I have been thinking about what I am thankful for. I am going to mesh that with a list of some of the good things about my life here:

Good: I have a job when so many people do not, I have a stable job for at least one more year or longer (if I want it), I get along with the people at work, I can get around here easily, I have plenty of little haunts, my language has improved, I have two good friends in Calvin and Kara, my boss is a good dude, I am getting a crazy load of experience with my job, I am increasingly running the show at the office in terms of international business, and I get to achieve my dream of working abroad.

Bad: I have nearly abandoned the LSAT, I hardly run anymore, I don’t get around greenery enough, my language—especially business Chinese—is not where I want it, I am losing my Chinese handwriting (damn computers), my English regresses the more I speak Chinese, I still don’t have a lot of friends, the lack of travel for work, I have a shit-ton of work and I keep getting more, and I always seem to be the youngest person no matter where I go.

Par for the course. Whenever I feel angry, stressed, or overworked I just have to remind myself how luck I am to be here and have a job. Even if I never stop bitching.

Cultural Thing I Guess

A lot of janitors here are female. Apparently it is no big deal for them just to come in and clean bathrooms when there are people in it. I can’t tell you how many times I have pulled into a restroom and found a few cleaning ladies in there, which makes me stop dead in my tracks. Personally, I think that it’s a little strange but the Taiwanese dudes they just pull right up and do their thing while the janitor mops around their feet. I am still not used to this one.

Great Video for Christmas

I consider myself hard to the world. But this video had me tearing up, but not crying mind you. These deals with the dad-soldier home from war to see the kid always get me.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28086865#28073985

Latest in the Bar and Club Tour

I went with my friend Calvin to one of (supposedly) best clubs in the city, Plush. It was underwhelming. The menu was expensive, even if we got in without cover, and the place was nearly empty. The only thing it has going for it was the really cool interior. We waited there until a little after 11 and the place felt deserted (there were seriously no more than 15-20 people there).

Then we left and went to what is now supposed to be one of the cool clubs in the city, Room18. This was a bitchin’ place. They had a good drink selection, cool interior, a trance area, a hip-hop area, and it actually had people inside. But, how do I say this, the vibe I got from the people was a little less than friendly or maybe haughty. Part of that could be the hip-hop section was too damn loud to hear anything much less talk to people (if I go back I’ll take a pen and paper since that will be easier instead of trying to talk over the music).

There seemed to be a ton of Canadians (Taiwanese-Canadians) there. In fact, there was one table full of attractive but less than friendly Canadians. I also met another Canadian dude. I was hitting on some girl towards the end of the night, well it turns out it was this dude’s girlfriend. But no worries, he lived in Vancouver and we Northwesterners tend to get along.

The other highlight to the night was the 1.5 fights that took place. For the first one, I was wisely moved out of the way by Calvin and we were able to watch the action in one of the mirrors on the ceiling. Apparently there were just no bouncers around since these two Taiwanese dudes were just beating the shit out of each other and throwing some wild punches. The best part was a waiter tried to walk through with a big pitcher of ice—that ended poorly. The next 0.5 fight was one I was right next to. Some Taiwanese guy said something to a foreigner and they started posturing for a fight—but this time one of the waiters wisely grabbed a bouncer who pulled the two dudes apart.

A New Adventure

Well my boss always seems to have a new market or plan up his sleeve but they never seem to work out or they just amount to little more than pipe-dreams. This is why I initially thought I would be travelling all over Asia then never did. However, I am slightly more optimistic about the new pipe dream. It is the biggest, most advanced, and well thought out plan he has given so far.

We had a vendor here to try and get us to buy a new machine. But to buy a new machine we need to have new customers, and the boss really wants the new machine.

So where to look for customers for phone cards? Africa, of course.

Seriously, there are large and growing populations that all have access to mobile phones and there are no landlines. The mobile companies do not trust the people to follow through if they sign a contract so everyone has to buy phone cards and the market is booming. So, in theory, this looks like a good deal.

Now it is up to me to get this off the ground. That means developing contacts, finding and agent, finding customers, etc. Oh yeah, and best to do it within 2-3 months.

Thing is I am actually pretty excited about all of this. Definitely what I thought I would be doing more of when I came here to Taiwan. It is cool to think that as a young dude I essentially have control of this new business endeavor.

The downside is of course the dangers of the region. But as long as I say away from the danger spots (Nigeria included) I should be fine. We actually got a lot of good information from our vendor who is in Africa all the time. He had some insane stories about Nigeria and the close brushes he had with death in that country.

We shall see if this comes to anything, hopefully so.

Tutor Joy

This week I got an email out of the blue. It was from my old Chinese tutor from my time in Beijing. She wanted me to help her correct a personal statement she was making for her applications to U.S. grad schools. I jumped at the chance. For me it is pretty cool, first since she is applying to ND and second since she helped me so much for 3 months in Beijing that this is sort of my chance to give back to her. She is going to have a killer statement if I can help it. I just haven’t decided how much of my voice should come through (I mean it is sort of unfair if it becomes my personal statement and her voice is lost—unfair to her and to any future school that she tried to apply to since they are getting something totally different from the essay the receive).

Almost 6 Months

I’ll write more about this later, but in 10 days I will have lived in Taiwan for 6 months. That is the longest I have ever been away from home (my home is STILL Oregon and always will be). It is crazy to think how fast it has flown by. I work so much it just flies by. At the same time it has been a real amazing experience and the job I have will definitely prepare me for whatever I do in the future.

I’ve defiantly become independent and come to appreciate a lot of things that I don’t always have over here. At the same time my Chinese is slowly getting better—which makes me really happy when I can pick up more in meetings and conversations.

For me the thing that I think is cool about being over here has been that this is my first real experience living on my own (ND doesn’t count since that was all living in dorms) is in a foreign country where I go for days without seeing other white people. I guess I like being unique.

Mint

My weekends tend to go like this. Friday: off work, dinner, listen to music, do some activity, sleep until the afternoon the next day. Saturday: up in afternoon, hang out, go out and do something, dinner, go to bar/club, get home at 5AM, and sleep to afternoon. Sunday: wake up, go out for coffee, dinner, and get ready to go back to work.

Friday I went out to the Taipei Tavern sports bar. It was a cool place and it was cool to see a replay of the Dallas-San Francisco game. But the crew there was more than a few years my senior. Not even the Heineken beer girl, who is paid to flirt with customers, would talk to me.

Saturday I met a friend and went to a club called Mint where my friend’s friend was a DJ. But she kinda sucked as a DJ and I was glad when she was done since the music got better and she got us free drinks (a can of Coors was about $6, so without her the place was a real ball-buster). There were not a whole lot of people there but strangely there was a glut of very tall American models there for some reason. But I was happy since I got the number of a non-model there.

When the place got out at 4AM I did not want to take a cab back home since that would have meant having the dude who took me there crash on my floor. And given that I really had not had much to drink, by my standards, I was not about to fall asleep. So I grabbed a coffee and ended up waling around the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall for over an hour until the subway started up.

I am already pumped for next weekend since my friends Calvin and Kara are taking me to what is supposed to be a cool club in town. We shall see how that goes.

ND Football Year End Post

I haven’t written much about ND football recently. I don’t like to watch the games if I know that they lose and they have done plenty of that recently. It’s sad to say but I think the days of Charlie Weis are numbered. I personally like the guy and think he is a good dude. Hell, I raised a few thousand bucks for his charity this year. However, he is not that good of a football coach. So will ND fire him? If they do then who will they be able to pull in to take over the job (Gruden on line 1)? Either way it will not be pretty and will cost a lot of money.

That said; if he had not lost to Syracuse I thought he would have 1 more year. But after that loss all bets are now off. If he does stay, they need to follow the advice I drunkenly screamed at games last year, “Fire (the OL coach) John Latina!” The OL has been atrocious for too long and you will never win without a great OL.

Expat Thanksgiving

For me Thanksgiving was just another day. It was the day after the aborted trip to Thailand. So I was at the office late, yes I worked on Thanksgiving. Then I went home and treated myself to a good meal at one of my favorite restaurants—Le Rouge (http://www.lerouge.com.tw/en/).

I some absolutely kick ass bruschetta (or however you spell it), salad, and some good pizza. This was the only time I ever had pizza on Thanksgiving and believe me it didn’t hold a candle to a turkey dinner. But unfortunately better get used to it since I am going to have to work on Christmas too.

I was pretty bummed the next day when it was Thanksgiving in the U.S. I talked to my whole family on my lunch break via Skype. My aunt had more than 30 people over to her house and I sure as hell talked to each of them. It was cool to talk to and see my grandparents and relatives. But at the same time it made me a little homesick that I couldn’t be there. My grandma made 11 pies and 3 turkeys—my family eats big. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday since my whole extended family gets together and just has an awesome time stuffing ourselves, telling jokes, bullshitting, and just having a rocking ass time and I miss that over here.

At the same time I have a lot to be thankful for. Not the least of which is having a job.

Thank God I'm Not in Bangkok

This week I was planning a trip to Bangkok, Thailand with my boss. It was going to be an intense one. Travel there via a stop-over for a meeting in Hong Kong. Then two days of meetings in Thailand were we were going to get nailed for our lack of progress on new the QC process for a new product. Then back to Hong Kong for another meeting. The plus side is that our customer was having a vendor year-end party at a bar. The downside was that I had to give a performance and I did not want to do the Asian-style karaoke song and dance. I’ll try and post a video of what I was planning to do—I thought it would be cool.

Well the night before I left there were some serious anti-government protests picking up in Thailand so I checked BBC and they were saying no way these dudes go to the airport and things would still run smoothly. Well wouldn’t you know it but the next time I saw the news, when I was in Hong Kong, they had taken over the airport. My boss and I had no idea who serious it was since we were headed to a meeting. But when we got internet access and saw all the flights were cancelled and our customer called and told us not to come we knew it was bad. So we were lucky that we chose not to go to Thailand earlier (we would still be stuck in Bangkok) and were able to get back to Taiwan. Although it would be pretty cool to say I was stuck in Bangkok during all of this.

Well after I got back to Taiwan we had to deal with a ton of stuff from Thailand, it gives me an excuse to read more news (as if I need an excuse) at work. You see, we normally ship things to Thailand via air freight but now that’s out of the question so we have been working with the customer to re-organize everything and given that things are changing fast it has been interesting.

I must say it is really cool to read about something like in the news and then have it impact people you know and have a direct impact on my job. Not something that happens very often.

A Weekend of Contrasts

So I haven’t updated this thing for a long time now so it’s about time that I get back to the grindstone. Yes, I’ve been busy but I’ve been lazy too. Last weekend was interesting. I went to be “best” club in Taipei and therefore all of Taiwan. The place is called Luxy (http://www.luxy-taipei.com/ or just Google "Luxy Taipei" and eat your little heart out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6X0sGz36HQ&eurl=http://www.luxy-taipei.com/en/main.php) It was a nice place, there was a cool fire-show, there was a trance section and a hip-hop section, but I was under-impressed. The people just seemed fake to me.

The highlight of the night was to watch a French dude that I was with and was drunk off his ass try and grind up on chicks or do rather uncouth things only to scare them away. I even tried to apologize to some of these poor girls but they were even more scared of me since I knew the Frenchie. The best part of the night was getting a lift home from two pretty cool girls who spoke sick English.

The fake people at Luxy (I call them flower vases, they look pretty on the outside but inside is nothing) were a real contrast to the other days of the week were I was with cool people. Friday night I went out to dinner and coffee with my friend Melissa. She’s a real cool girl and whenever I talk to her over coffee it ends up being a 3 hour conversation. The downside is that she’s busy with school so I hardly ever see her, which is too bad. The other non-fake experience I had was to go out to Yanming Mountain for lunch with my friends Calvin and Kara—and it was SO good it was all fresh stuff grown there at the restaurant on the mountain (sweet potato leaves are amazing when they are fixed right). We then went and chilled Taipei city with Kara’s cousin, Min, who is a baller. They were able to get me to eat this Taiwanese treat—it’s made of rice, peanut powder, but mostly made of pig blood. They told me it was all rice but unfortunately for them I can read enough Chinese to see pig blood. It really wasn’t bad but I don’t think I’ll have one again.

Work Sucks, Let's Party!

Ok, so I think that my musings on US politics are a little boring. Instead, let’s take a journey through the last week or two. I am going to break this into two parts: the fun stuff (i.e. the weekends) and the not so fun stuff—working.

Part 1
So last weekend, I took it easy I slept a ton went out and watched two movies. The new Bond movie was pretty good until the end. I also saw “Tropic Thunder” it was pretty good even if a lot of the jokes were lost in translation on the Taiwanese people around me.

This weekend I went out on Friday to my favorite all you can drink bar for a good ol’ time. I always go there alone since I seem to bump into interesting people and manage to drink heavily in the process. I always end up with phone numbers from tons of random people but they never call me and I never call them so I figure it’s all fair. When I was there I started talking to this faux-gangster and his buddy. They were pretty cool dudes. Then one of the girls (Xiao Yang) he was there with started talking to me, and as a matter of fact was pretty into me, she started trying to hold my hand and told me she really like foreigners, yada yada. After a little bit grabbed a seat at a nearby booth for a minute and a dude there asks me about my girlfriend. I tell him nope, not a girlfriend. Soon I come to find out ol' Xiao Yang is there with her boyfriend who apparently had a huge argument with her—ok not good news.

At 4AM this the place closes, I go outside to wait for a cab and I end up bumping into the faux-gangster, his buddy, and Xiao Yang again. They suggest we get some beers from 7-11. Hell yeah. So I go outside with them to eat my chips, drink some tea, and drink some beer. Out front, I strike up a conversation with some Taiwanese aboriginals who happened to be there with beers too. Of course, this night ended with a high nore when el faux-gangster got pissed at something small some other dude says then taking off his shirt and getting ready to fight—only to be restrained by Xiao Yang. I sat back and watched this spectacle for a few minutes then bowed out and took a taxi home.

I tried to call my friend James on Skype for an international drunk dial (shout out to Schenkel for drunk dialing me on Skype when I was at work) when I made it home. Unfortunately, the combination of my internet being down, me being very drunk, and me wanting to go to bed foiled those plans.

I slept REALLY late on Saturday but did get up and go to a cool hookah bar; I’ll definitely go back there at some point.

Well Sunday I get a call from one of the random people that gave me their number, another faux-gangster named J’ro. I meet him for coffee at Starbucks. I had minimal recollection of meeting him outside the bar. Come to find out he is an unemployed, former factory worker and rapper, has “ghetto superstar” tattooed on his arm, and has a huge fetish for Latina women. Normally, I would cut this kind of person off immediately but he can apparently get me into one of the best clubs in the city for free so I’ll be hanging out with him once more.

After that, I went down to see the “wild strawberry” student protest. It was there that three 18 yr old college students stopped me and interviewed me for a school assignment. They were supposed to speak English but since my Chinese was better than their English we mostly spoke Chinese. Then they invited me to a night-market so I went with them and had a pretty good dinner.

Part 2
At work, things have been rough these past few weeks. The plus side was that I got a bonus that is equal to about $90 for my work, nice to get a little recognition. There have been three main pains in the ass. First, I have had to deal with a camera system that cannot meet the specs of a customer and try to figure out how to deal with that. But we have a tight production schedule and don’t have enough time to test it.

Second, my boss did his usual deal: hey there is this new order from China, you have no experience with it so how about you get some experience and take it on as the project manager here in Taiwan…um sure? The problem is that the bastard customer can’t seem to decide on what kind of damn artwork they want. So that means every day this week there was an artwork change that had to be made urgently and could not wait only to have a new change come the next day that also could not wait. My job was to talk with the China office and get the customer demands, relay them to the design department, check the new artwork, send the artwork, and then get new changes to repeat the cycle.

But he most stressful was the deal from Thailand this week. They held off on telling us when we needed to give them a delivery schedule for our order (until they worked out if we were to ship by sea or air freight). Then this Wednesday night they called saying they needed the schedule immediately for all air freight. This was not too hard and I was able to talk with 2 coworkers for a rough schedule that we could finalize in the morning. Then I got a call from my boss we got an additional Thailand order of 1.7 million to bring the total to 5.5 million. By this time it was after 6 and most people were gone so we told Thailand to wait until the morning for us to meet and discuss it.

Then we set things out in the morning and I call them, well it turns out we cannot have anything arrive after Dec. 25, so we have to alter our schedule once more. Ok, now it's all set. Then they send me an email that they now want us to send 4 million to them by sea freight. So we have another meeting to completely revamp the schedule due to different lead and shipping times. I send them that. I get a reply that they cannot accept sea freight after Wednesdays, which would have been nice to know before. Of course, by this time it’s getting late so we revise again, discuss and I send. When I it send I put the date like this "Dec 7th (12-7)." I get a confused response wanting to know what (12-7) means. I sort that out. The next morning I get another email saying they cannot accept our final delivery on the 25th. So we change everything once more, and this time they agree.

Post-Election Thoughts I

Three days later and I am still happy. This is a great day for the US. Obama will have a chance to dance with history as he confronts our country's problems. After the downer of 2004, I was jacked to see Ohio flipped then even more excited when the thing was called. For the past few days I have been readign Newsweek.com for the absolute BEST coverage of the election.

There is a world honeymoon now, but the good times can only last so long. Let's face it, Obama walked through a fart cloud this election and his reward is a huge pile of shit. Domestically, the Democrats will have the major challenge of running the show (which is exponentially more difficult than just being in opposition to Bush). This should also provide the Republicans a chance to take the easier position of just opposing Obama (easier to do than leading).

What I will look to see is how the Republicans try to remake themselves in order to stay viable (pandering to the minority of Americans who are small town whites is not a strategy for success—the “real America” and small town nostalgia is big load of bs in a country that is vast majority urban and suburban).

Another question for Republicans is have they lost the youth vote (about 60%) to Obama for good? Even if young people don’t turn out as much in future elections, this coupled with a growing minority population is not good for Republicans.

In this way, McCain was almost doomed from the start. He his real chance was 8 years ago, that was the time for his candidacy, this is the time for Obama. Even if McCain had not shifted to the right over the past 4 years he still likely would have lost. His was the party of incumbency and the creator of problems. I remember Tim Russert, before his death, stating all the polls showing Americans thought Washington was broken and needed to be fixed. In that context, being from the party that has controlled Washington for much of the last decade is not a good thing. As Thomas Friedman stated, to not kick them out of power would be a stamp of approval for the gross incompetence of the last 10 years.

Finally, let’s all say it together: Reagan and Kennedy are officially dead. Both men came along at important times and their legacies left deep and lasting impressions on their parties. But, let’s face it, they had solutions for their age and their problems (of course some of their ideologies will continue to be applicable) but those eras are long gone. Yet, Democrats rush to claim the Kennedy mantle and Republicans fall over themselves to claim Reagan’s mantle. With Obama and the rise of economic challenges the Kennedy mantle has fallen and we hopefully have someone who understands the economic challenges of today are not the ones of years past (in this sense it is more of a comment on FDR and the response to the Great Depression).

For the Republicans, this is more profound. Reagan is gone. His was a philosophy of low taxes, a goal of small government, and cutting spending (see McCain response to economic crisis-cut earmarks to restore credit markets). Like it or not, big government is here to stay--the challenge is to make it work well and promote the conditions for economic growth. We may well have to cut spending but it will be against our will since we went wild with spending we could not pay for, or that college grads will have to pay for down the line—national debt, Social Security (see a few posts below), Medicare, etc. And despite what both candidates say, if we want a real solution to these problems we will need to raise taxes. The real question is by how much will they have to go up to stay solvent.

The Winner

A screenshot from my computer, if Fox actually says it then you know it's over for the Republicans.

Two Shout Outs

John DiTillo, if you are somehow reading this from Haiti, I love the emails dude. Stay safe there and enjoy the rice and beans.

My old high school men's (and women's) cross country team won the state title in Oregon. The state title team I ran on still had a better 1-7, this I will always maintain.

Pre-Election Thoughts: What the Election Means for the Future

Today I was thinking about what this election will mean years down the road. Being out of the country I haven’t gotten caught up in all the action too much (I volunteered for Kerry and was all about 2004). I guess that is my way of saying maybe I am thinking more long term or taking a wider view here.

I am going to try and stay away from what political changes this election will bring in this post, that is pure speculation at this point. I am going to try and comment on some things I am more certain about.

This election will change the way future elections are run. The ground organization Obama has run (micro-targeting, tight control over field offices, and a huge Internet machine) will be copied and improved for years to come. This is the start of something that will continue to expand as new possibilities are opened by the Internet. To give credit where credit is due, some of this was also pioneered by Karl Rove.

Of course, all of this is possible because of the money in Obama’s bank. This is the other big change, to do all of this groundwork takes lots of money. The best way for a candidate to raise that money is to forego public financing, like Obama. We are seeing the death of the public finance system. This is at once good and bad. The internet gives candidates without money or name recognition (Ron Paul) a means to even the score. Yet, for established incumbents and candidates they have a model for how to raise money to crush their challengers. I think we will see politics become more skewed toward those who have money or can raise a lot of it fast (which does open the door for corruption and will increasingly advantage incumbents).

There was an article in Newsweek that mentioned that now with the 24 hour news cycle and all the Internet stuff the candidates don’t take chances and instead repeat their talking points over and over to avoid any gaffs. This is not good news as it removes content from politics and leaves empty slogans behind. At the same time, the internet makes it possible to research candidates and find all of their positions and judge the validity of their claims.

After the election, I will speculate more about the political future of the country.

China and the Economic Downturn

China is now starting to feel the global economic downturn. No real shocker in that, it's a globalized world and things like this spread in that kind of world. It is worth keeping an eye on since I have always believed that if the Chinese economy suffers that situation will create the largest potential for political change in China (what kind of change I cannot say).

China has corruption and an opaque system working aganist it. These will obscure the real scope of any problem until they are too late or blow up completely. But their government can act relatively quickly it has shown, but this is a new ballgame as it's economic engine of exports has fallen. The advantages the government can work with are 1. it knows the dangers of a slow growth rate 2. it has huge foreign currency reserves to work with 3. the property market is not about to free-fall nor is consumer spending.


The economic growth in China is important because this is the basis of the government’s claim to legitimacy. The social contract there is essentially: stay out of politics and don’t try to change things and in exchange we will keep the economy growing, which gives you chances to make money and move up. Of course, if the economy begins to falter (and there have been some reports of this http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27527443/) the worry is that the people will be very unhappy since the one promise of the government is now gone. As the article states, the government is now paying workers when the bosses run off in the wake of a failed company. This is quite new, in the past it was tough luck for the workers as this was a semi-regular occurrence in many areas of China that the owners screwed the workers out of a salary and ran off with the money themselves.

To be sure, I am NOT saying this will bring down the government or even create noticeable change in the government. What this has the potential to do is create a spark that feeds doubts about the competence of the technocrats in the government and could lead to demands for more openness. I still firmly believe that political change in China will take place at a slow pace and in measured steps. But economic problems have the potential to push the pace of change at a faster rate. Food for thought.

Cultural Experience

I had a nice cultural experience last week when I had a 2 million card order going to Thailand. It was very stressful, frustrating, but a learning experience nevertheless

The customer sent me an order for the cards, but it wrong price so I emailed them to give me the correct price for the sea freighted shipment with a new order form. They gave me a new one but it was still wrong so I tell them to revise again. They told me they were pretty sure they had the right one. Okay, so this is a problem and now I have to sort this out. I check with my coworker who sent the quote and get the email from him since this is the way to find proof of this thing and come to a conclusion (this is what we Westerners do).

I then email the quote to all the people it concerned to show the correct price, standard fare I thought. Well the customer got mad since apparently I am not supposed to send price information to multiple people, fair enough (my bad here since this made them lose face).

Then it got real interesting with cultural stuff. I guess I am not supposed to “prove” the price to them (again they lose face by being told they are wrong). Even though they had previously agreed to the price and saw that we had proof of that, in Thailand this thing is still something that can be negotiated.

Well they refuse to agree to our price and say they want their boss and my boss to talk it over the next day when they meet at night. But they also want the shipment on time and it has to leave in the early morning, and it cannot leave without an invoice showing the price. This means I have to sort this thing out now! Well I end up calling my boss and we just give the customer the damn price and then let them negotiate the next day. Looking back it doesn't sound too stressful but the back and forth with my boss, coworkers, and the customer was a colossal pain in the ass.

Oh well, live and learn. I'll chalk this one up to experience.

Take That AARP!

So the other day I did something my parents would always tell me not to do (kind of like the time I wrote a letter to the local paper to tell them an editorial they ran was stupid). Well this time I chose to call the AARP a bunch of asshats. They do some good things, like fighting for better health care in America and sticking up for seniors. But if you are under 35, they are asking you to bend over since you will end up paying for whatever happens to Social Security. Below is my email and the response I got from them (it is largely a form letter that skips the major points I tried to sarcastically raise in my letter).

To Whom It May Concern:

I want to say thank you. In the middle of a subprime mortgage crisis you, as you have been for many years now, continue to mortgage my future. So I want to thank you for your disregard for me, as well as the many thousands like me. As a young person, I clearly do not deserve the benefit of a brighter future.

You see there are three main ways to address the costs of Social Security and Medicare. We can (1) cut benefits (2) raise the eligibility age for benefits or (3) increase the costs of copayments/premiums/etc. The AARP opposes all of these three measures. The result is there is only one option left in the bag. Of course, that option is to raise (payroll) taxes on those who are still working. With the upcoming tidal wave of Baby Boomer retirements, the current problems with Social Security solvency are only going to be exacerbated.

This means there are lots of new taxes coming to support Social Security and Medicare (if you cannot rule out the three options above then this is all that is left on the table). And we all know who is going to get stuck with those rising taxes to fund these entitlements, American workers, especially those new workers just joining the job market.

So as a recent college graduate, I want to thank you for your unwillingness to compromise and work out some sort of deal on Social Security and Medicare that does not place the entire burden of supporting entitlements on young people. Let’s not mince words, this is my future on the line. When the time comes that I have trouble buying a car, a house, or a basic middle-class life, I will remember how you thought my future was so unimportant as to stick me with your entire bill. After all, it is only my future, it is not like I really deserve it. So thank you for working so hard to keep it from me.

Best,

ME

P.S. I vote


Dear ME:

Thank you for contacting us to express concern that when AARP vigorously represents older Americans, it might possibly be at the expense of younger Americans.

The vision of AARP today is broad-to improve the quality of life for all people as we age. As an organization of people who are 50 and older, it's true that many of our programs and legislative initiatives serve the needs of the current older population.

Adequate income security and health care programs do help prolong the independence of older Americans, no doubt. However, it is important to remember that when the independence of older people is maintained,the burden of responsibility carried by other family members is lighter, and family resources are freed to better assist the young. Social Security and Medicare have dramatically improved the quality of life for today's retirees. AARP continues to work to protect and enhance these programs not only for current beneficiaries, but to strengthen them for today's young people who will need to depend on them in the future.

For most people, financial security depends on a lifetime of working and saving. AARP serves all working people by fighting against age discrimination in the work place, advocating for expanded pension sand other retirement savings opportunities, and working for safe,affordable and high-quality utility services, to name a few examples.

As we participate in the policy making process in Washington and the state capitals, we recognize that many of the troubled medical and financial circumstances in which people find themselves late in life result from childhood problems such as poor education and poor health care. Therefore, AARP works with the Children's Defense Fund,Generations United, and other inter generational organizations to support measures that improve services to children, improve educational opportunities and our schools, or provide health coverage for uninsured children. Legislative strategies that pit one deserving group against another are not tolerated by AARP.

We are also concerned with the federal budget deficit and the fiscal burden that may be inherited by younger Americans. We have supported budget discipline measure, such as congressional "PAYGO" rules for tax cuts and entitlement changes. In addition, we constantly look for ways to address waste and unnecessary spending in public programs, especially in health care. We look at expenditures from revenues within the tax code as well as at direct-spending programs for opportunities to save taxpayer funds. In the long run,investments in human capital, biomedical research, and physical infrastructure will support a stronger economy and the growing numbers of older Americans.

We know that, like you, most AARP members are very concerned about the shape of the future for their children and grandchildren. Our priorities carefully reflect those concerns. As we work to improve the quality of life for today's older Americans, we work for future generations as well.

Thank you again for taking time to get in touch. I hope this information is reassuring. It is always a pleasure to respond to a member's concerns.

Sincerely,

SOME LADY
Member Communications

Night out on the Town

I have always thought dancing is something that should be only done under the following conditions: during heavy drinking, after heavy drinking, in a dark place, and in a dark place packed full of people. On top of that, I am an atrocious dancer.

So I was more than a little hesitant when I was at a lounge style bar this weekend to take the offer from this girl to go dance in an open room. Lounge bars are big here in Taiwan, they basically play music while you sit at big sofas or seats and just hang out. I was invited this weekend by a dude that I know here.

Back to the story, this girl's nickname translated means "doll" and she had to be just a little over 5 foot and was a smoker. No way that could turn out poorly for me. Well she eventually got me to dance for a brief moment. After which, I kept up my drinking. All's well that ends well.

Stickin' It to The MAN

So what do you get when you give a couple thousand Taiwanese from the South an evening in Taipei with tons of signs, mini-floats, and airhorns? An anti-government rally of course. They were protesting to support Taiwanese independence from China and opposition to the pro-China policies of the current President Ma Ying-jiu and accusing him of allowing in tainted Chinese products. Since his surname, Ma, sounds like a lot like the Chinese f-word there were a lot of creative signs. Most of the people there were Taiwanese, as evidenced by the speakers exclusively using the Taiwanese language and not Chinese

I actually saw the march/rally on tv while I was working on the LSAT in a coffee shop. So I decided to take the subway down to see it. I got there and walked around with this huge rally, which was fun. They were peaceful and pretty well organized with cheers and communal airhorn blows. The Taiwanese are huge on banners, so naturally, there were tons of little flags and banners. Of course, I was one of the few white people there. The rally was held by the opposition DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) so a bunch of their leaders spoke in front of the president’s residence and there was a huge made-for-tv spectacle with lights, cheers, banners, small floats, balloons, songs, and a huge beach ball modeled after the Taiwanese flag.

Most at the rally were from the south were the DPP has its strongest hold due to the large number of native Taiwanese there. These people want nothing to do with China and the recent tainted milk from China has only reinforced these feelings. It made for a fun rally to watch.

One got away one stayed

So after I came back from China it was time to hit up all you can drink night. I went back to Babe18, the name sucks but the place is a pretty cool all you can drink night for $15. The downside is that the bar is like walking into a cig. Everyone there seems to smoke.

Well as the booze started to flow I started making some friends. I ended up chilling with these two guys and one of the guy's sister, all of whom I had met before. Eventually, I end up dancing with this one girl and I get a number out of it before she has to take her drunk friend home. She told me to call her the next day, not a problem at all. Of course, when I tried to call her I found I apparently put in an incorrect number. Shit. Well, Renee, if you're out there and happen to read this send me your digits.

But the night wasn't a total waste. I happened to get a number of another girl there and so in between basketball games with my neighbor during the day I set up an evening coffee. I was pleasantly surprised that she was mildly cool. We'll see how that goes.

Xiamen and Jinmen

The operation in China is still in its infancy, so there wasn't much for me to do. The plus side was that I met the staff there, which is good since I end up dealing with a lot of their orders. I also met the Chinese partners as well as the president of the Korean company that we are partners with in China. It's good I know a little about politics and recent Korean history since it always impresses Korean people that Western people actually know it and much less care.

I impressed myself since just by hearing her speak I could tell one of the ladies in the office was from near Beijing and I could tell by his face that another guy was from Manchuria.

I also had tons of comments about how well I use my chopsticks, I think that's really strange that using chopsticks impresses people so much. If I was not able to use them I don't know how I could eat a lot of time. Then again for white people in Asia the bar is low...they think you don't like the food, you can't eat spicy stuff, you cant use chopsticks, and you can't speak the language...I do all of those with relative ease.

The picture below is the street behind my boss's house. I didn't have many pictures from China.

I had a lot of business dinners. However, my favorite meal was late at night. I had came back from dinner and I was walking around the area where my boss rents his house and I walked by a street side diner (squat tables set up on the street). There were 4 girls sitting there and one said in Chinese, not realizing I understood, "Hey, look there's a handsome foreigner"and they all turned around. Being me I laughed really hard and told them in Chinese "I can understand what you say" and kept moving.

But I passed by on my way back and they invited me to sit down and eat and have some warm beer. I had a good conversation with them. One of them asked me if I dislike black people, I said I have no problem with people of any race and America is much less overtly racist than 50 years ago. To try and make that clear, I told her I voted for Obama. Then they told me they hated Japanese people, oh China. After that they asked if I thought Taiwan was independent, this was a landmine so I did my best not to answer. The conversation got even better when I found out that 2 of the 4 girls were lesbians. I can't make this kind of stuff up. I ok with everything since one of the non-lesbians was really pretty.

My impression of China this fourth time around: I actually like it still despite the lower standard of living. I forgot how fun it is to have people stop and stare at you. It just has an energy to it and you can literally see it modernizing. But more than that it makes me think. I saw a Hummer there in Xiamen. I always think what happens when all of these people here want to consume things and drive cars like Americans do? What does that do to the environment? The globe? What do the poor people in the countryside see when they are seemingly shut out of the progress and how do they express that?

On the way back, I got to ride in the cockpit of the ferry to Jinmen (Taiwanese territory) Island. I had lunch with my boss then rented a bike for 2 hours and rode around a bit and took pictures. I swear there are more temples on that island than any place I've ever been. The people there don't see many white people so nearly every kid yelled "hello!" to me. One kid asked me in Chinese "Are you a foreigner" I told him in Chinese "No I'm from China." He stopped for a bit and got a confused look so I laughed and told him I am indeed an foreigner. Then I grabbed a flight back on my own and now I'm back in Taiwan.

The home stretch, how McCain could win

Lets get one thing clear, both are good candidates. In 2000 I said that McCain was the only Republican I would ever vote for. Although it's been said many times, the McCain of today is not the same as the McCain of 2000.

I voted for Obama because I believe he is the better on issues I care about (environment, alternative energy, new direction to U.S. foreign policy, but to be fair I question his lack of support for free trade). I'll let Fareed Zakaria put forth a much better case than I can in making the case: http://fareedzakaria.com/articles/articles.html. I agree with Zakaria wholeheartedly that McCain is out of step with the times on the financial crisis. He is stuck in the thinking of the 80's put forth by Reagan, and that era is over.

So I was thinking the other day, is there any way that McCain can win short of besides coordinated blizzard in all areas that lean Democratic? For one the Ayers story is too late and wrongheaded, if he hammered it 3 months ago it may have stuck but trying it when the economy is in the toilet won't work.

Well the thing that he has to do is what he has failed to do so far in his campaign. He needs to come across with a clear message and stick to it. He got a gift from "Joe the plumber" the other day. I think he needs to make taxes and fiscal responsibility his theme. Say, "For too long we have spent ourselves into the ground, if I'm elected we will cut spending in all areas. It will be painful. But we have to do it and in the end it will help us escape this crisis." He needs to then convene a huge meeting of influential economic minds to look at the crisis and name which ones would be in his cabinet.

Next he needs to do something bold that breaks from the Republican party (and stick to it). For example, say let's have the government take more responsibility for health care or join Obama and say let's talk to Iran. If he did those things, and made his campaign about them by answering every question with a reference to those things while having surrogates hammer these points I think he could improve his position.

The problem is that by doing this and changing his positions it will only feed more into the "erratic" label that he has been stuck with. But at this point there is no choice.

The biggest problem is McCain has been unable to settle on a consistent message and stick to it. He had a few months when Obama and Clinton were duking it out to raise money, get a lead, and get a consistent message. He couldn't do it. For that, and a lack of a unified campaign team, he's paying the price. I can only imagine the result if someone who cannot organize a campaign team was elected to run the country.

你好 from 厦门

Hello from Xiamen, China. I took a plane to Kinmen island this morning and then a ferry to Xiamen. Right now I am in the local office of my company here. I came to 1. burn my Chinese visa that was going to expire soon 2. see the office and operation and 3. look into getting a new Chinese visa. Since I am at the mercy of my boss this could be an interesting trip (lots of pointless work since there is really not much to do and he wants to keep me busy). That means try and look as busy as possible and adjust to not having AC.

Hualien Trip

I got up at 5:10AM Saturday and rode the train to Haulien (花蓮, Hūalián) in the Eastern part of the island. The area is very very green and has great scenery. There is no public transport there as it is a relatively small city so that meant a lot of riding mopeds. I swore I would never ride those things again, well I had no choice. I actually got to drive one a few times and since I didn't crash I was pretty happy with myself. I was able to get comfortable riding on the back (second seat) of them as well. The downside is that the back the seats are pretty hard so your whole ass goes dead after about 30min or so.

We (two language partners--a guy and his girlfriend--and the girl's cousin) spent a night at a hotel outside of town. There was a water buffalo in a field next to the hotel, this thing was big and even though I really wanted to touch it I was dissuaded because of some big horns and being unable to tell if it was worried about people near it or just mad.
We drove around the town a bit and eventually ended up at the beach. Being of Scandinavian heritage and not being in the sun for a while meant that random place like knees and the tops of my hands somehow got sunburned.

After that, we headed out to a Shinto style temple and then to a Buddhist temple. The Buddhist temple was one of the largest (two floors) and by far the most tourist oriented I've ever seen (snack shops, hotel, bus parking lot, restaurant). We were lucky since they had a HUGE ceremony as we got there. There were enough fireworks to bust some eardrums and there were big drums that were pounded throughout the whole thing. They had dancers in big costumes (about 10ft high) that come in do ceremonial dances and some alter type things as part of a procession.
Then it got nuts. There was a Buddhist priest/holy man who took the sins/evil spirits of the people there into him, well that made him into a maniac and a half. What to do when you take on an evil spirit? Hit yourself with swords and sharp objects of course. He didn't hit himself hard but still managed to get bloody (see the blurry picture below) and then have a nice little exorcism type deal afterward.

From there, we rode through the rain (I had a jacket and a poncho) to a night market for dinner. When eating there were some aboriginal people eating there too, but I was a surprised that they conversed in Chinese and not a native language. I was told the native languages are slowly fading away in favor of Chinese, especially among young people. I had a steak and won some gum for shooting a bulls-eye with a bow and arrow. Then there were people lighting lots of fireworks on the beach for national day. They had some big mortars so it was cool to see that after missing the 4th of July in my neighborhood. We then had a quick tour of the local red light district, which was basically middle aged women hanging out of a window along a dark road. The night was finished with a meal of dumplings at a different night market.

The next day we went to the famous Taroko Gorge (太魯閣, Tàilǔgé). Along the way we stopped for a swim at an aboriginal village (normal little town, if not for being poor). There was a tiny Catholic church there as I was told most of the aboriginals are Catholic. As a note, the aboriginals were obviously the first in Taiwan and they and were followed by waves of migrants from the mainland over the years.

It was there that I had my first try of chewing betel nut, it doesn't taste like anything but makes you salivate a ton and makes all the saliva turn bright red (if you chew a lot over a long time your teeth and gums turn red too). Won't be doing that again.

We then went for a swim in the river next to the village. There had been one little girl in the village that was having great fun playing hide and seek from me before I went swimming (as I got into the water she was standing on a hill above us yelling "The foreigner is going swimming!" but no one really paid attention) and she eventually joined some other young kids about 100m down river from us. After a while, I swam down to where the kids were and got out and talked to them in Chinese. This was amazing to them since here was a white person--something they don't see much--who could talk with them in Chinese. They immediately asked if I was from the US, I told them I was from Africa and let that sink in before telling them I was indeed an American. They all had English names and had studied English in school and they asked me all sorts of questions (how to say monkey, apple, orange, etc. in English).
After some pictures with the kids, we finally went to Taroko Gorge (a big scenic gorge near Hualien) and drove through there and took some pictures. There really isn't much I can say about it. I mean, after 40min it started to all look the same.

From there we drove back to the train station and along the way picked up some Hualien speciality candy made from sticky rice Muaji and snagged some standing-room only tickets on the train back to Taipei.

I'll put more pictures up on Facebook soon.

哭笑不得

There is a Chinese idiom (哭笑不得) that means “not knowing whether to laugh or cry.” That pretty much explains last night. The machine I spent all that time working on last week had problems over the weekend and could not run. So Sunday and some of Saturday were already lost for production and we were already behind on an order.

Well the local agent came in and couldn’t do anything, as is usual. So it went a lot like last week where I would take pictures and send emails to the company that makes the machine and then end up calling them to light fires under their asses to help us (some of those people have to hate me). I brought in my computer and used the built-in camera to make Skype calls so they could see what we were doing.

After many calls and instant messages (around 9PM) we found the entire problem that caused the machine to shut down was a loose plug in an outlet. At that point, I was not sure whether to laugh or cry—we had stopped production for two days and the second time in a week while we have a million piece order for Thailand this week—all for a loose plug.

We managed to pull off the order in time, which makes me look good to my boss and is nothing short of a miracle. But this makes me look like a dumbass to the customer since I warned them that we may be late twice only to be on time.

I really need some sleep after this last week. I can tell I am getting a little sick so I think I’m going to take it easy tonight and go to bed early.

How to be The Most Powerful Person in The World

What you need:
Computer (with camera and hopefully a power source)
Skype (and headset)
Internet connection

I learned if you have those tools the world is at your fingertips. I came away amazed last night at the power of technology. With only the three things above I was able to talk with people in Germany, let them see our problems, troubleshoot those problems, and do it in one evening. I have no idea what would happen without it. Technology is truly amazing.

How to Make Yourself Really Tired

When I think about it good times at bars are just a bunch of short stories and people thrown together. I am going to rate my weekend bar/club experience along these lines of pretty good, good, neutral, bad, or crappy.

So this weekend I went to the all you can drink Babe18—I have a knack for finding bars with strange names—which is NT$500/US$15 for the night. Behind me in line there were two Japanese girls talking in broken English with a Taiwanese girl hosting some event at the club talking equally broken English, quite funny (good). Talking to an American dude who was born in Taiwan and works in China (good). Then I realized his buddy was totally gone. I remembered the pictures of my 21st when people posed with a nearly-passed out me and when I checked the camera the next day I had no idea who they were. I returned the favor to this dude, just image his shock when he was too drunk to remember the white dude at the bar (pretty good).

The group of three people who I went to the bar to meet, the same people I went to karaoke with last weekend. They were smoking like damn chimneys (this isn’t too bad as the whole place was essentially a cig), not really drinking, hiding in the back, showed up late, and wanted to leave early (bad).

Talking to random but super cool people and then having them offer me drinks, oh the joys of being white (pretty good). The two girls dressed in school girl uniforms who kept stopping me and pretending like they knew me and telling me to go to their table—I was mystified by this situation until I realized they were the meat to attract guys to some table hosted by a nightlife party promoter (neutral). Ending up by that table only to see one of the other school girls was someone I met at a bar the week before (pretty good).

Bar getting out at 4AM and me deciding to wait 2 hours to catch the subway instead of taking a taxi back to my apartment—wait that’s what I did that one time at Fever, except that time I decided to walk home (crappy). Some guy outside the club convincing 4 girls to give me a kiss on the check and say, “Welcome to Taiwan.” (pretty good) Getting back at 6:30AM and very drunk to find ND beat Stanford (priceless).

A Long Short Week

So this last week was pretty rough. We had the largest typhoon of the year on Sunday/Monday so that meant we had Monday off as a typhoon holiday and sent out a late shipment to Thailand (but with the weather they said it was ok). Then Wednesday evening our most important machine started having problems. Well the machine is from Germany so guess who at the company happens to speak English and be in charge of these sorts of issues and communications…me!

Thursday we had the local agent of the company that makes the machine come in and that’s when it started to go down. The main guy in Singapore who does service calls was busy and isn’t too good with software (the source of the problem) anyway. So that meant I had to go direct to Germany. Now we have a 1 million piece order going on Tuesday that absolutely needs this machine and I was instructed that I was authorized to have someone fly direct from Germany if it looked as if we couldn’t solve the problem. The problem here is that in Germany they get to the office at 2PM Taiwanese time so it wasn’t until late in the day that we could find anything from them.

The process went like: this email Germany the problem and what we did, wait and get nothing, Skype call to their service hotline, they email, we try the suggestions, take a bunch of pictures, email pictures and results to Germany (so they could simulate the problem on a machine there), and then start from the beginning.

About 5PM I called Germany to see if they could send someone…bad news. The next day was a public holiday and if we couldn’t solve the problem the earliest they could send someone would be Monday (WAY too late) and they needed to know the source of the problem before they could send someone. It was then I knew it was going to be a long one.

So we went through some more processes and eventually Germany gave me an email of things to do. This was the beginning of the end. I’ll spare you the details but I was on the phone for 3 hours troubleshooting the machine (which I never operate). I was the (as Bush may say) the communicator but I had help from the local agent and a coworker. In the end, we solved the problem and I left the office at 11:30PM (15:30 hours at the office, I also went back to the office at 8AM the next morning).

Now this saved the company a boat load of money since we didn’t have to pay for a German engineer to fly out on short notice, for his transport, work hours, and hotel. And just as important I gave us a fighting chance to make our Tuesday order on time. That is important since Thailand gave us a 4.5 million order for next month, which is the largest ever and we need to show that we can handle that volume.

The problem with this is that I had to put off a lot of other work such as sorting out the software and production schedules for sample cards that need to be urgently sent to Thailand and a lot of the invoice and spare part orders on my desk as well.

My boss has a way of overstating things (getting my hopes up to travel to Cambodia, Indonesia, and Laos) but hopefully he wasn’t kidding when he said he is going to try and get me a mainland China work permit (just think of the irony there if I get it, I could work in China but not in Taiwan there I live). But he said that I’ll likely be travelling to mainland China next weekend for a few days to check out our operation in Xiamen and I think he’s serious about this one.

The GM was pretty impressed by my work this week and recognized me in the morning meeting on Friday and then gave me the day off om Saturday (we have to work one Saturday each month and this was it). That gave me the chance to go to a breakfast lecture club this morning held by an old ND alum here. It was not too good of a breakfast (toast and “ham”) but I met another old ND guy (52’ grad) who was in town. The talk was about services for foreigners from the Interior Ministry. Seeing how I am here not-so-legally there really isn’t much they can do for me so it was a little boring. Although the guy who was speaking thought I was in high school so I got a kick out of that, maybe I really do still look 17.

What a Day...

I got to work today at my usual 8:00AM. But I got off a little later than usual...11:30PM. I'll write more about this later but for now I am going to sleep.

A Tale of Two Bars

As I write this another typhoon is raging outside, and this one is supposed to have winds near 118 mph. I actually hope there is no typhoon holiday because I have a 1.5 million piece shipment to get to Thailand tomorrow.

So Friday night I wanted to check out an underground rock place I had read about only to find it had moved. That meant I stopped by a watering hole about 7 min walk from my apartment. Here is the translated conversation between the owner, me, and the only other patron there:
Me: Hi do you have a menu? (Gives me menu) Do you have Taiwan beer? (No response)
Me: Do you have Taiwan beer?
Owner: Yes.
Me: Ok, get me a Taiwan beer (no response)
Me: Can you bring me a beer? (no response)
Me: Can I have a beer? (just looks at me)
Patron: Are you going to get him a beer? (owner finally brings me a beer)
Owner: Where do you live?

It was no wonder there was only one dude there. And to top it off the AC was almost non-existent in there. I will not be going back.

Then last night I decided to check out a bar in the university district called Club W (all you can drink bikini night!), what a name, then again Club Fever it’s not. However, when I got off of the subway there was no one outside the place so I decided to walk to another bar/club called 9% to see if that was any better. Now this was the place. I paid NT$600/US$18 and it was also all you can drink. There should be no questions as to if I took advantage of this state of affairs. The major downside to the place was the large number of dudes and generally smaller number of ladies.

Some of the highlights: meeting an Indian guy who loved to dance and/or grind up on the ladies all the while yelling “Woooo!” Talking to a random girl from Austria. Talking to a Taiwanese baseball player who had amazing English. Two very attractive women dancing on the bar. Some dude deciding I was his buddy since he heard me speak Chinese and then meeting all of his friends. As a side note, whenever I speak Chinese I suddenly become everyone’s friend.

The place closed at 4AM but this story doesn’t end there. It was raining pretty hard and there were a lot of people and not many cabs so I walked a few yards to 7-11 and sat down to wait. Well I ended up talking to some three girls and a guy who had just left as well and they wanted me to go to karaoke with them, why the hell not? When we get to the karaoke place who should I run into but my buddy and all of his friends from the club.

Well after singing some karaoke and drinking a bit (ok, a lot) more it was pretty good times. There was one crazy chick with some wild tattoos (“Live in the present” on her upper thigh) who was impressed that I could read Chinese when singing karaoke. The best part was they paid for everything. Even the cab ride back was paid by this other girl who was there. I was even happier since I got her number.

My Voice

Well I got my overseas ballot today in the mail (all of Oregon is vote by mail). It shouldn't take a genius to figure who I voted for. But in case you are not sure I included two pictures. Hint: I voted for some guy who's name sounds like "Obama."

奶粉

That means milk powder (or what we call powdered milk) here in Taiwan. People here use powdered milk for everything it seems like. Milk teas are extremely popular here and my boss once told me that when he eats cereal that he only uses powered milk and not the real stuff.

That’s why it’s such HUGE news here (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2008/09/23/2003423983) that there is an ongoing scandal with powered milk that was made in China that has sickened tons of babies but some of which was also imported here to Taiwan. (Side note: Shit there goes my weekly pearl milk teas).

Tonight my coworker sent me a concerned MSN message warning me not to eat the bread I always eat for breakfast because it likely contains some sort of milk powder. Come to think of it I had an upset stomach the other day. It’s got to be that damn powdered milk!

A New Adventure (Part II, the anti-climax)

Well today I got up at 5:30AM to take my adventure to China. I bought a $60 one way ticket to Jinmen/Kinmen island (an island controlled by Taiwan but within sight of Mainland China and one of the few places you can travel direct from Taiwanese territory to China) and got in at 8:00AM (by the way Taiwanese domestic flights necessitate you getting to the airport a whole 30min early) then hauled ass in a taxi to get to the ferry terminal for the 8:30AM ferry to Xiamen, China to get that visa extension (see the picture above).

Side note: I have included some pictures of Jinmen since it was really pretty and not as built up as Taiwan. That's mainly due to the fact htat China shelled the hell out of the island for years so not many people wanted to live there. The downside is most pictures are from an old-style village and don't show the rest of the island.

I got to the terminal in time and was juggling a phone call from my boss, since his father-in-law owns the ferry company so I had to go talk to some lady about the ticket. So I find the lady, Xiao Lan, and she says that the 8:30AM is cancelled since due to the very high winds and waves from a typhoon south of Taiwan and I would just have to wait for the next one. Then she calls me back to say all of the ferries are cancelled. Oh. Shit. I am at the end of my visa limit and if I don’t make it to China today I get a fine and a fucking record that may not allow me back into Taiwan.

Then for some reason I calmed down, I had stressed out a lot yesterday so I decided to go with the flow, which was the only thing I could do. My boss had his wife and her brother come to pick see me at the terminal to see what could be done. Now remember, I was there since I could not get a visa extension in Taipei, even for a multiple entry extendable visa.

Well we go up and talk to the immigration people to make sure that when I catch the ferry out the next day after the wind passes and that I don’t get fucked for being stuck there when everything was cancelled (basically to get a pass that says it’s ok I’m there for 61 days). However, within 15 minutes, a booked ferry order, and a form filled out the immigration people handed me a visa extension (the very one that Taipei could not handle)!

Apparently this is the little secret of Taiwanese immigration. As long as you show that you are planning to leave at a port of exit (seriously, wtf Taipei is the largest port of exit in Taiwan) and book a ticket out you can get an extension. That meant no more trip to China, which is good since that means I don’t have to waste my visa on a trip of only a few hours and now I can use it for a real trip.

Then I went out with my boss’s wife and her brother for some rice soup (it was only 10AM or so) and managed to spill some of this (good) shit on my hand and burned the hell out of myself. I’m ok now but I felt like an idiot. Then an hour later I had another meal at my boss’s in-law’s place, it was Chinese food made by a Filipino maid. That was the second time today I had talked to a person who never spoke with a white person who could speak Chinese (the first being the immigration lady). I then had a little time to tour the island before I jumped on a flight to Taipei.

And of course when I got into Taipei my boss had me go back into the office, which figured since as soon as something good happened today then something bad would follow.

A New Adventure (Part I)

So for those of you who do not know I am actually working here in Taiwan in a not-so-legal state. You see I have a tourist visa, which technically does not allow me to work but since I am paid under the table it’s not really a problem.

My visa is a multiple-entry tourist visa for 60 days that is extendable to 180 days. Seeing that I am at the 60 day limit I figured I would go to immigration, fill out a few forms, hand over the passport, come back the next day, and miss a few hours of work as a bonus.

The first warning was when the extension forms said I needed some government authorized form to fill out. No big deal I thought, I made a few calls (including one to a cop I know here). Then the shit hit the fan. When talking with the immigration agency they asked why I was here in Taiwan (tourism I said). Well it turns out (I shit you not that I am not making this up) the only way you can extend a tourist visa is if you are a rock star or you have blood relatives here in Taiwan. I am none of the above.

That meant I had to get the hell out of this place since tomorrow is my 60 day limit (even though the fine for up to 10 days over is only NT 2000—this is about $60). Well I made some calls to my boss and we decided that I can go to Xiamen, China I have a visa for China and it is easy to enter through Xiamen then stay with my boss until Saturday at his place. The initial plan was for me to leave tomorrow morning by taking a flight from Taipei to Jinmen island then a ferry to Xiamen.

The problem here is that I am also very urgently needed in the office since I speak English and we are trying to work out some new specs for our largest customer and there is a 1.5 million piece order going out Monday. So that means if I left I was going to screw my coworkers hardcore then absolutely have to work my but off when I came back.

So in a terrible twist of fate I agreed to cut my visit to a foreign country short. I will go to Xiamen via Jinmen tomorrow, take some pictures from the ferry terminal, and then turn around and come straight back to Taiwan. Sort of a waste of a single entry Chinese visa if you ask me.