Stuff in Xiamen

So some things are the same and others change.

China is still the less developed version of Taiwan. That is pretty clear. But there are fewer foreigners here so people are much more impressed with my Chinese. On the same token, little kids see fewer foreigners so they are not sure what to make of me. There was one little girl at dinner tonight and each time I looked at her she got scared, so I went talk to her and her mom and say hello in Chinese. The fact that a white person was speaking Chinese to her scared her even more.

At lunch today we had hot corn juice as a drink. There is indeed a first time for everything.

However, I spent most of the day at a paper company here sitting in on meetings for a product deal that I was not part of and hopefully will not have to deal with. So the motivation to listen to the prep yesterday was minimal. That meant today I had hours of meetings about something I cared nothing about (seriously I was meeting/looking at paper production for 7 hours including a lunch with the company) and didn't understand.

你好

Hello from China. I am at the house my boss rents in Xiamen, China. I will be here for two more days to see some more of the company here and hold some meetings. Today after I finally got connected to the internet I was emailing and Skyping like a madman. I talked with a bunch of people in two different languages by calls, messages, and emails. It seemed like I was working on 50 different things at once. This is on top of the fact that I left the Taiwan office at 10:40PM last night.

The main thing I was working on was a trip to Laos that I have planned next week. Our agent from Thailand is going and I decided that I will go too and meet a potential customer. So next week I'll try and update this thing with some pictures about how it goes there.

In other news, it's official I am no longer together with the girl. I am by no means heart-broken. It was what had to happen and I was more or less surprised it took so long. If it happened early it would have sucked but after not seeing someone for several weeks you stop caring as much.

Starfruit

When I was a young lad my mom would sometimes buy starfruit as a bit of a treat for us. It was also a fruit that we really didn't see that much of. As we got older my mom always bought less and less of it. The cool thing about Taiwan is that there is a ton of really good and locally grown fruit. I really enjoy being able to stop by any of the road-side fruit stands and pick up some of the good seasonal stuff.

Apparently, the starfruit is in season right now. When I go for a walk at lunch I actually see them growing on trees all over the place. The guard at our company handed me a huge one today when I came and said it was now in season.

What a Difference a Day Makes

So last night I was not feeling well. I was sick and tired. On top of all that is was one of the coldest days in Taiwan in the past few months. Then I wake up this morning after a good sleep and I feel alert, much less tired and sick, and the sun is out. It was good.

International Emails

I received emails from the following countries yesterday:

Japan
China (via Skype)
Germany
Namibia
Kenya
Uganda
Thailand
Hong Kong
Singapore (and Skype contact)

The crazy thing is that I sent emails to a lot more countries than that.

Continued from 2 posts below

I went to dinner with the girl last night but I didn’t say anything at dinner since she had a friend there and I didn’t want to embarrass her (and it was already a bit awkward seeing her not after 1 month, but she is even hotter than I remember--which is damn hot).

Instead, I brought it up on the subway ride back. I said that if we are in a real relationship we need to see each other more since the last few weeks don’t cut it. My suggestion was that we could set a regular day (Wednesday was my suggestion) that I can run out to Linkou and meet her for dinner as a way to see her more. Nothing fancy really, just a meal then go back home but it would let us to see more of each other. Not asking too much here.

She was both taken aback and less than thrilled. She didn’t give me an answer and instead said she would think it over. The feeling I got was that my travelling to Linkou would intrude on whatever she has going up there (another dude?).

When I got home I emailed her and basically said: if we are in a relationship it means we actually have to spend time together and work to make time for one another. If we don’t and just want to change our facebook status and call it done then it’s pointless. My view was that it is no longer a real relationship so why should we continue to call it what it isn’t?

I was able to talk with her a little bit on MSN before I went to bed. She asked if I still like her, yes I still do. But I told her my feeling was being in a relationship with someone you like but never see is kinda pointless. She then told me something “bad” had recently happened to her but then didn’t respond to any messages asking what.

Unless this “bad” thing is pretty convincing and she can agree to see me more then there is no use being in a relationship. I’ll still be friends with her and think she is cool and really hot but to me there is no use being in a relationship with someone who seems to have minimal desire to see you.

Happenings at Room18

So I was going clubbing with 2 Hong Kong friends. These dudes wanted to go to the club Mint since it was free cover. It was free for a reason, mainly that it sucks. There was no one there, there are too many seats, its small, but the redeeming quality is good music (not the standard club fare). Seeing the state of affairs we left and went to Room18.

The place is pretty expensive but is very cool and very crowded. I actually ran into my buddy Oscar. I had been meaning to call him and go grab a coffee so I was pretty cool to bump into him there. For me one of the funniest things of the night was my Hong Kongese friend Victor could not talk to women worth anything. As soon as he tried they would leave or if he was lucky he had a good 5 min before they fled.

Of course, this is not to say I had any better luck. The people were happy to take drinks I bought and then move on. The feeling I got whenever I talked to any ladies was, "Hey nice of you to talk to me but I am damn hot shit and I'll move along in a few minutes unless you drop a ton on drinks, and even then I'll probably move along." Then again I vibe I got was that every guy there was on the prowl for girls, so maybe that had something to do with it.

That said, there were some very very pretty ladies there last night. Toward the end of the night I started dancing with one lady there. Get your mind out of gutter, I went home alone. But she has been texting me a ton and trying hard to hit me up on MSN and do little video chats. Slow it down baby. I still have a "girlfriend" situation I need to work out here.