Shrimping

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

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!

"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...

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

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

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?

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

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

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)

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

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)

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

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!

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'

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.