Tai-where?

Sex sells simulated violence

2009-11-28T12:08:00.007+08:00

Clearly, the only thing between the Taiwanese people and complete subjugation by their democratically elected government is their God-given, constitutional right to bear Airsoft arms. Secret weapon: the adorable teenyboppers selling the silly things.

This was the extent of the posing I could get her to do, despite
repeated suggestions of "Charlie's Angels! Charlie's Angels!"

Our local friend and erstwhile housing agent, Tommy, was nice enough to take me to Taipei's electronics building last week: four sprawling levels of computers, components, audio systems, and anything else appealing to the permanently adolescent nerd gene (found on the Y chromosome, of course). The perfect location for an Airsoft gun booth. It would have been paradise, had only the prices been as low as I hoped.

As Tommy informed me, there is no cheaper source for electronics in the Taipei area. Problem is, this Strait is not desperate (ahem) and it is not inhabited by an unsophisticated people. Let's say a box of computer components falls off the back of the proverbial truck - it happens everywhere. If it happens in rural Myanmar or Appalachia, the components might be used to patch the roof, to chink a hole in the wall, or for any durable, sharp edges they might have. If I - the Western bargain shopper with a broken computer - am lucky, a few battered pieces will show up on the grey or black market.

Should the very same box be found in Taipei, the lucky Taiwanese to discover it is more likely to deliver it to his cousin's friend who runs an assembly plant in China and arrange to share the profits from the fully assembled, higher-dollar product, than he is to sell one piece directly to me for below market price. Or he might trade it for a future favor as is commonly done here.

I guess I just need to be the one to find the box. I can use the other 143 pieces I don't need to fashion a pointy weapon with which to defend our home against invasion by Airsoft-wielding criminals.

Anthony

What schnookums said...

2009-11-27T10:24:00.001+08:00

Love and gratitude to all,

Anthony

Thankful

2009-11-27T08:30:00.000+08:00

Today I am thankful for my amazing husband, who is unbelievably smart, kind, witty, handsome, and supportive. I love that he has such strong convictions, and won’t settle for less than what he wants and deserves. I admire his strength, and am envious of his ability to see the merits of others and their arguments in situations when I'm inclined to be dismissive.

I am thankful for our families. Anthony and I have been blessed with tremendous opportunities through the work and sacrifices of our parents, encouraged intellectually, and supported in all that we’ve done. We are lucky to be able to call our siblings good friends, and to have close, treasured, relationships with our grandparents and so many aunts, uncles, and cousins. I miss you all, and appreciate more than I can say your willingness to support the choices that Anthony and I make and the paths we choose; even when those paths take us to the other side of the world.

I am thankful for my friends, both old and new. For the amazing women who made leaving Kansas City so difficult; for the dear friends I grew up with who will always be such a large part of my life; and for the awesome college group with whom I share so many stories. I am grateful for everyone in Taipei who is fast becoming a friend, all those who have been so welcoming and forthcoming with invitations. I know I will form new, lifelong, friendships here.

I am thankful for my coworkers, both old and new. I met so many wonderful people at work in KC and offices across the country, and many of you also belong above with my other friends. We have had so much fun together, so many nights out, and have so many inside jokes. And despite the stories I’m sure I will continue to tell on my new colleagues in Taiwan, I am thankful to have been welcomed wholeheartedly, challenged intellectually, and included socially. I appreciate the open minds and the genuine interest I have encountered. I look forward to calling many of them friends, as well.

I am thankful for many other things: our good health, a stable job, this adventure we're on, and that our shipping container contents will be delivered on Monday. I am grateful to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner to attend in Taipei on Saturday, that Mexican food is available here, and that email/Skype/facebook have made it relatively easy to stay in touch with our loved ones back home.

My life is blessed, and today I give thanks.

Carolyn

Photolog 11.24.09

2009-11-24T01:25:00.002+08:00

Vignette from an overseas office

2009-11-20T15:49:00.002+08:00

A luncheon scene:
Ten (or so) colleagues have gathered in the breakroom to dine together. Conversation is congenial, if a bit stilted, as it is taking place in English. There are several minutes of quiet as everyone navigates chopsticks and noodle bowls. The silence is broken by a Staff leaning across the table and inquiring of the newcomer:
“How old aah you?”
The answer is given. Gasps are heard from everyone present.
“Aiyayah, you look much older! But you one of youngest in office! Why you already married?!?”
A longer, still gracious, response.
“Huh. Well maybe is good thing. It would be very, very hard to find husband for you in Taiwan!”
Heads bob and chopsticks gesture in agreement with this statement. No response is given. There is another conversational lull as the chopsticks step up their pace.
“I touch you?”
“Pardon?”
“Can I touch you? Newlyweds very lucky! Could use some luck!”
A pause. “Sure.”
“Yessss! Very lucky! We have lots of newlyweds in office. Maybe we win lottery!”

Here’s hoping.
Carolyn

There's a Peoplebook, but it's not called that.

2009-11-19T00:46:00.002+08:00

First post from our new apartment! Let's make it about stupid cat websites, again: The Catbook.

There's also Ferretbook.

The low bar has now been set by this post. Hopefully.

Photolog 11.16.09

2009-11-16T17:41:00.004+08:00

We're going to try to do the quasi-daily photograph thing. Here's a little backlog to get things started:

Mmmm... fish flavored instant oatmeal to get you out of bed in the morning!

Plastic pigeons. Because, if your city doesn't have flying rats crapping on everything, you should fake it.

Carolyn helpless to resist snuggling street kittens.

Fascinated Taiwanese gathering to watch the giant white girl play with the tiny kitty. She going to eat it! No she not. How else she get so tall?

Tai-who?

2009-11-16T11:05:00.001+08:00

A little help here? Beuk? Wu? Anyone?

My ignorance here is so extensive that I don't even know whether or not I want to be friends!

I did investigate further using Google Translate, and I'm pretty sure it's just spam and not a long lost friend who has forgotten that I don't know a lick of Chinese.

Anthony

Home Is Where the DimSum Is

2009-11-11T23:18:00.017+08:00

I came across a website while browsing an expat message board today. I was supposed to be looking into secondhand bicycles, the only sane, non-public method of transportation we've seen around here. Instead, I found this: The Infinite Cat Project. It's basically pictures of cats watching pictures of other cats watching pictures of cats, ad nauseum. What a stupid, stupid website. Unfortunately, I got to Cat #234 before realizing this.

In no way apropos to this, we seem to have found an apartment. That is, we have made an "offer", it has been "accepted", and each side has put NT$10,000 (US$300) into escrow as "good faith".

To be honest, we're not entirely sure what that means here in Taiwan (see quotation marks). I have it from multiple knowledgeable sources that the only polite answer here is "Yes", regardless of your intention to follow through. Want to do dinner? Yes! (but, if the real answer is No, I just won't show up). Would you please run these numbers and get back to me? Yes! (but, if it's not really possible, I'll just pretend like you never asked). Would you accept X amount of NT$ per month to rent your apartment? Yes! (but, if a better offer comes along before signing time, these negotiations never happened). While we have yet to personally experience this phenomenon, we're hoping that last scenario isn't our first dose.

Though it's good for a chuckle, it's also worth mentioning that none of the above is intended to be derogatory toward our host culture; it is what it was before we got here, and so it will remain when we leave. That's part of what we're here to gain exposure to. (OK, that's enough political correctness for now.)

Ahhh, a place to hang my (cowboy) hat. Where I can kick off my (spurred) shoes and toss back some refreshing (whiskey, no) water. Our own little home(stead), where I can dress (in ass-)less (chaps) to impress and go for my (Peacemaker to keep the injuns in a more) naturally subdued state.

I sense a faint disappointment in the locals I meet that the parenthetical version doesn't apply, as if they're still waiting for the U.S. to send the real Americans over. Along with many demographic questions actually relevant to our apartment search, our Taiwanese housing agent wanted to know right off if I had any guns. "What? Right now?" I asked, pretending to draw on him. When he got back to his feet, I let him know that I would not be requiring a shooting gallery in our apartment building... then, just to have him on a bit, I politely asked about any stables in the area.

OK, so maybe some of that is exaggerated, adapted, or completely fabricated. Back to the facts - here are some actual pictures of our alleged apartment.

Living room & little second bedroom

Kitchen (stolen from the galley of a sailboat, I think)

Bathroom

Master bedroom (as seen from an un-pictured study)

Given the relatively limited building surface on such a mountainous island, the approach to living space and amenities is predictably different than in the U.S. Amenities that are infrequently used are often shared in a common area (laundry), outsourced to external vendors (full gym), or reduced to almost vestigial form (kitchens). Western expectations are readily met, but they often fall into the luxury category and thus incur a premium.

No bathtub to relax in, but there's a pool and hot tub:

No space to stretch out, but there's a courtyard and a small gym:

Hosting movie night is still possible with the building's theater:

The reason these differences stand out to us is probably due in equal parts to Taipei being a big city in Asia, and Taipei being a big city, period. For both Carolyn and me, this city is a big step up in population and density. We've never lived in a big city's business district, or in a high/mid-rise building.

After the shifty calculus of space v. location v. amenities v. cost was complete, we seem to have ended up with:

22 ping (~782 sq. ft., 2 BR, 1 bath),
an 8 minute walk to Carolyn's office,
a washer/dryer combo,
shower (no tub),
a species of pygmy refrigerator,
one-burner electric range,
coin-operated dishwasher (flip a coin to see who gets to do the dishes by hand),
and someone to push the elevator button for us.

All in all, we think we'll be happy with the apartment. Mostly, we're excited at the prospect of getting out of this tiny hotel room and into a place the size of two tiny hotel rooms.

To repeat the standing offer, anyone is absolutely welcome to hang their (5-gallon Stetson) hat at our place if you're in our neck of the world. Cheers!

Anthony

P.S. You may be wondering why the spacing is goofy in this and other posts. Me too. I'm working on it, but if I start having to actually edit the HTML, these posts are going to get a whole lot shorter.

You are (probably) NOT the last person to know

2009-11-07T23:03:00.008+08:00

You're in the loop. While we indeed created this blog about one week after we arrived, we're just now sharing it. There are a couple reasons for this.

First, we couldn't come up with a suitable name. Carolyn's ideas were all lame (The Brewers in Asia!), and Anthony's were mostly unrepeatable. We agreed to reflect on what this move to Taiwan had meant to us, our friends, and our families, and realized that the common thread seemed to be the need to double check Taiwan's location on the map. Hence, Tai-where? was born. Even should you notice that, on Canada Day the title block reads Tai-eh?, or perhaps Tai-arrrg? on Talk Like a Pirate Day, our actual web address shall remain tai-where.blogspot.com.

Secondly, we were able to backdate the entries to give the blog some continuity, so there was no hurry. There was, however, a hurry on a lot of other stuff in our first couple weeks, so we focused on those things. You can read about many of these things in - yup - the blog.

Thirdly, Carolyn wanted Anthony to wait for her to write some posts of her own before he proliferated the blog to everyone. It took a while for Carolyn to get around to writing her promised posts, hence there was a delay. "Working" and "Having a job" were just a couple examples of the excuses she provided.

Anyway, we really hope this blog serves its purpose by sharing our Taiwan experiences, entertaining you, and - most importantly - making us all feel like we're not that far apart after all.

So, start at the beginning (the post on October 26th), and enjoy!

Much love,

Anthony & Carolyn

Snapshot

2009-11-06T15:08:00.003+08:00

On this third sunny day in a row (!!!) here in Taipei, we thought we would share the view from our hotel room. We've placed an offer on a unit in a modern, two-level, beige building in the right side of the frame.

(Click the photo to make it full size.)

The distortion and black areas are the result of having stitched together several photos to make a single panoramic shot - our view is not really through a fish-eye, weirdly shaped window.

Enjoy!

Mipple House

2009-11-05T21:45:00.003+08:00

Ok, so upon further review, we may not be able to afford the perfect place for entertaining company in the neighborhood in which we want to live. But never fear...

Mipple House is here! The great thing is, "Mipple" appears to have been repeated on their webpage at every possible opportunity: Title block? Mipple House. Watermark? Mipple House. Footer? Mipple House (TWICE!). Website address? www.mipple.com!

Mipple.

There's no shortage of funny Engrish to make fun of over here (and we intend to provide similar fodder for the Chinese speakers very soon), but we thought we'd go ahead and things rolling with... mipple. Smirk.

A&C

Our first earthquake in Taiwan!

2009-11-05T18:07:00.004+08:00

No need for alarm - normal occurrence here - but we just experienced our very first earthquake since arriving in Taipei! Since Kansas was a complete bust in terms of seeing tornadoes, I'm pretty excited about this.

I was in a small trembler back in Little Rock in 2000/2001, but this one was a pretty different experience. First of all, it was probably a little further up the Richter scale. Second, and probably most dramatic, was that Carolyn and I were both in high-rise buildings at the time, so there was a disconcerting amount of swaying going on. Slightly nauseating, similar to being below decks on a rocking boat.

Anyway, nothing jumped off the tables or anything up here on the 20th floor of the hotel. So, probably no consequences in the Taipei area. From what we've read on our expatriot forums, it's roughly a monthly occurrence: 500+ post thread entitled "Earthquake 2009".

The USGS just released some data on it (that was quick)! Magnitude of 5.7.

Here's where they're reporting the epicenter:

View Larger Map

Again, no cause for concern - we're just one step closer to being seasoned Taiwaneers!

-A

2009-11-02T23:22:00.007+08:00

My first day of work can be summed up with one picture:

Yeah, totally kicks the butt of the typical U.S. branded coffee mug gift.

So it was a good day! I met the rest of my new team, totalling 28 people plus 6 staff who rotate through every six months. MUCH bigger than my team of 5 in KC. And everyone has been really great thus far!

There have been a few surprises, mostly administratively. I’d heard horror stories that there were really long hours in all of our Asian offices, but it turns out the Taipei office has a really structured schedule. The office opens at 9:00 AM, closes at 12:30 for lunch, opens again at 1:30, then closes at 6:00. Obviously everyone works outside those hours when there’s a pressing client deadline, but outside of specific needs it’s a set schedule.

My second surprise was how serious they were about closing the office for lunch. At 12:30 the lights are turned off, and everyone either leaves or whips out a pillow and takes a nap in their cube! Some do just go prepare their lunch and come back to their desk, but the mass exodus my first day caught me off guard. Apparently they used to even turn off the phones over the lunch hour, but there was enough complaining from employees who wanted to make phone calls that they now leave them on. I think I can learn to embrace a daily naptime! Cultural adaptation and all that.

One of these days I’ll take a couple of pictures, as the colorful nature of the office will make some of you smile. KC was done in beige and grays. In Taipei my cubicle is lime green and purple.

It’s going to be an interesting 18 months :-)
Carolyn

"I Went to the Woods"

2009-10-31T16:26:00.001+08:00

I went deliberately in search of a Taipei-area hike I had read about online, and found quite the playground for someone who likes to get outside and stretch his legs a little without having to leave the city:

Thar be monsters

The Four Beasts are a set of smallish mountains rising southeast of the Xinyi (Hsin Yi, or Sinyi, depending on the transliteration) District of Taipei, where we are currently living. There's Tiger Mountain, Elephant Mountain, and a couple others that I don't recall seeing translated anywhere. Elephant Rock is a favorite vantage point for the prototypical sunrise/sunset/anytime panoramic photograph of Taipei 101 dominating the city's skyline (title block of this blog, QED).

It was already 3:00 p.m., so I had to make tracks to get my hiking fix, get back, and feign-presentable for a 7:00 p.m. dinner with Carolyn's coworkers. With this in mind I - pathetically - caught a cab to this walking-distance hiking venue and started going up. "Up" is the keyword here; I'll put you guys to sleep with Taiwan's geologic background once I do a little research, but, suffice to say, when there is an elevation change here, it is precipitous. Oh, and I'm out of shape - something about international move preparations and gym visits don't mix. Fortunately, the route leading to Tiger Peak was nicely paved:

A quick, steep climb and I panted up to a pavilion and one of those workout areas you see along jogging circuits - a pull-up bar, sit-up thingies, and other stuff I never use but probably should. There were a few locals up there, none using the contraptions, but rather doing this low impact arm-swinging exercise that seems common here. I continued down yet another paved path leading to a separate peak where a sign admonished me to "grasp the belay" and apparently accused me of having a huge head and skinny body:

Having a "belay" would have been sufficiently reassuring had the path not abruptly changed from concrete steps to being paved only by a mix of scrap lumber, rebar, and good intentions. All bizarrely covered by pieces of carpet, so there was no way to visually judge a step's integrity before mounting it.

The belay itself was quite the assorted weave of electrical wire, steel fencing twine, PVC pipe, rebar, etc. Here is a close-up of just one unique section of the railing:

I have to admit, this tangle seemed quite sturdy as I climbed, and I never needed any of the several backup plans I had cooked up before entrusting it with my weight. Another shaky spiral or two and I was atop the next peak, called Hushan, offering the ubiquitous view of the Taipei County basin. I took some unremarkable photos, not worth sharing.

A little path finding, and I stumbled upon part of the route I had read about online. It quickly went off-trail, but, someone had helpfully inscribed little squiggles onto mossy rocks to mark the way. For all I knew, the characters were warnings not to proceed any further, but just knowing that people had come this way more recently than the moss had regrown was reassuring:

In another abrupt transition, the route went from quite steep to nearly sheer. Fortunately, there were ropes. Unfortunately, I had no idea who had affixed them, and to what. Needless to say, I didn't take many photos of this segment, as I'm generally a three-points-of-connection kind of guy on my first date with a trail. However, the steep grade and my healthy skepticism are pretty well captured in this shot:

The next pitch had plenty of natural hand holds, but was nearer to vertical than the first couple. Furthermore, I had a suspicion that certain of the local fauna liked to inhabit the same nooks in which I would be finding purchase with my fingers - I got my first bee sting in years while opening my car door the week before we left, and I think I'm still paranoid from it. Anyway, it was somewhere halfway up this pitch that I started to become concerned about my ability to downclimb quickly and get back in time for dinner. I gambled that I would top-out soon, intersect a major path and be able to get down more quickly and safely that way.

After a strenuous but uneventful climb, I flopped myself over a lip and was relieved to see that I was at the top and had joined a walking path. For my efforts, I was rewarded with an even better panorama of Taipei than is viewable from lower peaks. You know how sunsets are sometimes poetically described as "the sky set afire" or whatever? Well, from my new vantage point, it really looked like an industrial block at the mouth of the Danshui River had a catastrophic accident (oops, no more RAM for 2009 derivery):

This was also my clue that I was seriously behind schedule and I'd be hurrying in the dark very soon. I couldn't find a main, paved path that went the right direction, so I picked a narrow dirt trail that seemed like it went both down and vaguely toward the 101 building. As it turned out, it was probably not the quickest route at all, but I'm so glad I took it... a road-less-traveled-by kind of serendipity. The path wound its way down into a fantastic ravine, peppered with temples and shrines. It was a Friday night, so the temples had some sort of ceremonial activities going on, and chanting and the smell of burning incense wafted up the ravine walls. The calorie draining, oxygen-depleting, sphincter-clenching physical exertion, along with the sights, sounds, and smells of the ravine, might have made for a mystical, quasi-religious experience if I hadn't been late for Mexican food.

Why I chose to stop and document my trespass at the only shrine that included statues of fighting monks shall remain a mystery. Fortunately, my stupidity went un-pummeled and I eventually made it down before my legs completed their transformation into J-E-L-L-O.

So, in case you can't tell from this post, I'm ridiculously excited about the prospect of living somewhere with a compelling natural setting. No offense, Kansas, but you're only good for staring at from the rocking chair on the front porch. This little excursion in our first week in-country serves as a great marker for the presence of hikes on a bigger scale. If you still need convincing that Taiwan has fantastic outdoors, here is my favorite Taiwan hiking blog: http://hikingintaiwan.blogspot.com/ - well-written accounts by a local travel author of some of the best hikes in Taiwan (excellent photography, too).

With love (and two scraped knees),

Anthony

Orienting

2009-10-30T13:19:00.004+08:00

We kicked off our social lives in Taipei at a happy hour thrown by a young professionals group called Oriented last night and met a few interesting characters. Some of these didn’t have a label until Carolyn’s new boss shared it with us over dinner: LBH. That would stand for Losers Back Home.

Great for IDing that subcategory of people (primarily male) who believe that relocating overseas will wipe their slate clean, and provide them with enough talking points that they are propelled into a higher social strata. This frequently does not go as planned.

We also met plenty of actually interesting people, and made our first Taiwanese ‘small world’ connection. Carolyn was chatting with an American who works at the U.S. Embassy equivelant (Taiwan isn’t officially recognized by the U.S. as a country, so we don’t have a real embassy) when he asked about who she works for. Turns out his wife started her career in Kansas City in the tax department of the same firm! This department currently has around 80 people in it, so we’re talking about a pretty small circle of people.

Any bets how long it will be before we bump into someone we know over here?

Quick Rundown

2009-10-28T08:58:00.141+08:00

Just a quick, low-color rundown of our departure and trip over.

The week leading up to our departure was the predictable mad dash to get it all done. Last doses of vaccinations, wrapping up work projects, loads of transitional paperwork, etc. Thanks to some timely advice from one of Carolyn's contacts, the Jimmy sold to the first prospective buyer for a fair price. Probably most time consuming was making the tough choices of "to store", "to ship", "to pack", or "to carry-on" for every single thing we own. To those options, we added "to sell/donate" and "to pitch", as there were plenty of things we've accumulated over the years that we really don't want to see come out of the storage unit in 18 months. Anthony mostly ended up handling the movers, while Carolyn did a great job coordinating with the shakers (the company mobility people, spread over several time zones).

It mostly got done in time for us to attend a casual going-away party over at the Velvet Dog. It was really great to have an opportunity to say goodbye, for the time being, to a lot of our friends. We crashed in a hotel that night, due to the minor detail of having no bed in the condo anymore.

We caught a 7 PM flight the night of October 23rd, going through Dallas/Fort Worth and then connected to a 2 AM (PST) EVA Airlines flight to Taipei (TPE) via Seattle/Tacoma. EVA is a well-reviewed Taiwanese airline, and we were pretty pleased with the service. (China Air is the other Taiwanese option, and it tends to receive rather low marks.) The food was alright, but we recommend just sticking with the Western food option if you want to play it safe - Carolyn had good luck with an Asian fish dish for dinner, but Anthony struck out with an Asian breakfast porridge. We're looking forward to flying Singapore Airlines at some point during our stay, as everyone seems to rave about their service and food.

We arrived at 5:30 AM (GMT +8), a bit ahead of schedule, collected the most luggage we have ever traveled with (4 huge bags, plus carry-ons & personal items, to tide us over for the 10 weeks the shipping container will take) and shuffled through customs without incident. Carolyn's company kindly sent a car to meet us and we took in the rather nondescript drive into Taipei, straining all the way to spot Taipei 101 before the other (the result is in dispute).

We're holed up in the Pacific Business Center, only a couple blocks from Taipei 101 and Carolyn's office. The Pacific Business Center is quite comfortable and we can highly recommend it for the price. Here's a scene from Google Streetview - you can tool around our neighborhood if you want (PBC is the striped building on the right, and Taipei 101 is in the background):

View Larger Map

Hopefully, this post has gotten everyone up to speed and we can devote future posts to more interesting stories from Taiwan!

Lots of love,

A&C

A few random observations after our first day of exploring

2009-10-26T13:14:00.001+08:00

- It's muggy here- we knew it would be, but WOW is it muggy!

- There will be very few tangible things we'll miss from home (obviously we'll miss all of you!). Not only have we spotted classic American cuisine like Pizza Hut, Long John Silver's, Burger King, McDonald's, and Starbucks, but the 7-11's on every corner (just the convenience part- they don't sell gas) carry Snickers, Peanut M&M's, chips, and even the Kinder Bueno bars we enjoyed in Europe but can't find in KC! The makeup/toiletries section of the Watson's we popped into looked almost identical to what is carried in the States, with the exception of their facial cleaners which all contain bleach.

- We received quite a few stares on the streets- we don't think it's terribly common to see a western couple together. While there are many westerners in Taipei (we encountered around a dozen while walking), most of them are in relationships with locals. And there's always that height thing :-)

- There are literally scooters everywhere. And they apparently have very different traffic rules than cars, i.e. red lights don't apply, sidewalks are open season, and instead of making a dangerous left turn in front of heavy traffic they go straight, then swerve to the right to stop at the front of the vehicles waiting in the cross street they wish to be on. There are special boxes at intersections for the scooters to wait in, which have an amusing line painting of someone on a scooter.

A Blog is Born

2009-10-26T11:54:00.000+08:00

Disappointingly few monkeys.

You gotta start somewhere, and sometimes you have to start over again somewhere else. The former describes this blog entry, and the latter is what we're up to. Hence, monkeys.

We haven't seen a one since landing.

Cheers,

Anthony & Carolyn