Category: Taipei

1. My friends
2. Frankies Prime Rib & Seafood –
359 Boston Post Rd., Westbrook, CT 860-399-5524
Prime rib & seafood. Upper deck view of the harbor & Long Island Sound. Banquet facilities, catering. Parking. Near exits 64&65 on I-95 in Connecticut. River Valley area.
3. China Grill – Calamari Salad
4. Pacific Coast Highway
5. French Paul & Russian Paul: 5 minutes @ Washington Sq. Park
6. Veselka’s
7. Fall scenery
8. CA Wine Valley
9. Duckhorn Vineyards
10. White Camry DL 1987
11. Shadyside Art’s Festival
12. NYC during Christmas and New York holidays
13. Real seasons – especially autumn in New England.
Drives like this.
14. Dunkin Donuts and its coffee
15. Carnegie Hall, NYC
16. NY Philharmonic
17. Real NYC bagels, bialys and scallion cream cheese
18. Montague Hot Bagels
19. The Promenade
20. Freshly manicured lawns

Woooo … so I got to live through one of these things. It’s a hurricane by another name. Island wide shutdown and it hit pretty good.

Funny thing is, back home, this wouldn’t have registered that much panic or concern. I think it was a category 3 hurricane. We’ve had some 20+ typhoons this season which is close to a record I believe. Japan got hit pretty bad during this season.

Typhoon came a lot of rain and wind. Last time, it was just mostly wind in Taipei. We got both this time. Taiwan has like 7 different all-round news stations and it was neat remoting through them to see the latest disaster area and zone. Several reporters got swept away during the typhoon and at least 1, maybe 2 fatalities as a result.

Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau

NYT has a lot of great articles the past few days. Too bad I’ve not been able to read them and blog here :(. On a side note, I’ve been made a moderator on Forumosa. I’m the moderator of the Dating and Relationships Forum ;).

Be well,
=YC

I saw this ad posted on Forumosa today. Pretty cool I’d say!

NY Broadway production company scouting for performers for a new Chinese production of RENT touring China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macao. THIS PRODUCTION WILL BE PERFORMED ENTIRELY IN Mandarin-Chinese.
All ethnic backgrounds welcome.Proficiency in Mandarin a plus.

You don’t need to know Chinese, just be up for the challenge.

Please mail headshots and resumes
And demo CDs if available) to:

Creative Productions International
c/o Matt Neufeld
1501 Broadway, STE 1313
New York, NY
10036

Please also send an email to jtl243@nyu.edu to let us know that you are sending us the requested materials.
—–
Those NYU’ers :).

Another interest site about languages in SE Asia and a bit of the Chinese diaspora history can be found here.

Been super busy since coming back from Malaysia. I’ve been very bad at writing up my trip history and following up with FC’s journal. I hope to in the next couple of days and the weekend. I was supposed to be in Bangkok and Pattaya, Thailand this week on the company outing but had to stay back to take care of some Taiwan immigration stuff related to military conscription service issues :o.

Thanks again FC for uploading the pics, wanted to know if they’ll go on snapfish in the album? B- just finished uploading 300+ pics from the wedding photographer’s lenses so would like to share that with you. The photog’s VCD is almost done. So let me know how you’d like to see it.

Hope you folks are doing well there.

=YC

I caught the live speeches on CNN tonight (your morning). Hurray! About time she was open to the public again.

=YC

So, it seems kinda bad there on paper. How bad is it? Next going to be the Chrysler building? Empire State? Citibank? Met Life?

What’s the mood there?

What I want to know is that since 9/11, how the hell could anyone penetrate our ‘defenses’?

Bush must go.

=YC

This short article was posted on one of the Forumosa forums for discussion. Not sure what to say about it but offer it as an interesting juxaposition between the Asian American experience in the US and the Asian American experience in Taiwan.

You take the people from a AA forum like Model Minority who see the world with tunnel vision who are no better than the “ugly” Americans they like to blast away for their “plight”. Then, you have the author of

I AM NOT KOREAN OR JAPANESE, REALLY!

, who gets insulted by his treatment because the natives here can’t believe some one like him can exist. “Marginalization” is indeed color-blind :|.

Unfortunately for the author, his article devolves into a poorly sarcastic rant which takes away from the opportunity to do something with it. On the other hand, if I were in his shoes, what exactly would I say about it? I mean, our uniqueness, is something that can’t easily be explained or described. Being an ABC in Taiwan makes the world even stranger. At least the Angry Asian American[tm] has status in the US, whereas the status in Taiwan is lower. The one way to avoid that is to position yourself as a “meiguo huaqiao” and you gain immediate status. However, that’s not always easy if you don’t have someone “in front” of you to make the necessary introductions.

In the meantime, I have learned my lessons and come up with my own survival rules. Survival Rule No. 1 is: let people know you are a meiguo huaqiao! Survival Rule No. 2: don’t ever be mistaken for a Korean! Survival Rule No. 3: use English only! In order to come across as a meiguo huaqiao, it is necessary to speak English as much as possible even if it causes cognitive dissonance.

When I first came to Taiwan, my cousin here insisted that I follow these exact rules to enhance and perserve my “status” to the locals. Only in this way would I be able to successfully position myself for business opportunities. The minute I deviate from this formula, I would be “lowered” in the business person’s eyes.

Side note: Cool website for spelling

=YC

This is hot topic here. People are starting to get into the thick of the action. I catch snippets of it on CNN Worldwide. Getting the European or HK flavor to American political coverage.

I regularly hangout with some guys on Friday and last night was no exception. We did a fair amount of Bush bashing and critiquing the DNC. On a Taiwan expat community forum, there’s a lot of hopes and fears attached to the DNC and Dems chances this year. A straw poll of the community has more than 85% people saying they’d vote for Kerry-Edwards. Most people think Bush is a boob.

Have a nice weekend all.

=YC

Just wanted to drop a note. I’ve really enjoyed the recent writings the past couple of weeks. Sorry I haven’t been able to join in.

Thing have been quite busy with work. I’ve had to travel to Hsinchu, Taichung and just all around craziness with MIS support issues at local Taipei branches. Meanwhile, things have been heating up with setting up a local business here. Ramping up with the formalities and also doing a lot of business development Taiwanese style.

A lot of business is still done old-style in Taiwan. That means entertainment, food, drinking and lots of face to face discussions over tea or coffee. We usually meet at a “friendly” restaurant or eatery to discuss. What does “friendly” mean? It depends on whether one is affiliated with the KMT (Blue party), Kuomingtang Party, or the DDP (Green party), Democratic Progressive Party. So we’ll go to one of “their” places to chat. That doesn’t mean that Blue and Green members don’t do business together but there is a definitive line that isn’t crossed unless lots of money is involved. Nevertheless, there is a serious split in the country and it’s paralyzing the country.

As a result, my schedule is that I’ve got a day job and an evening job which makes for 16-18 hour days. It’s fun though, I’m really looking forward to the opportunities here and being more and more comfortable with life in Taiwan. This country is quite beautiful. Very lush and green. It is very tropical and many many things to do outdoors if one can take the heat and humidity. The people are quite friendly but underlying the friendliness is a strong pride in “Taiwanese-ness”. This has a lot of political implications which I won’t bore people with here but I can see the country down the road as Malaysia 15-20 years ago.

Anyways, keep on posting and bringing a bit of NYC to me out here :-). I feel more and more removed from the City which has never happened to me since I left in 1999. That doesn’t sound like a long time ago but it sure feels a long time :|.

Cheers,

=YC

On the second day of the Hsinchu trip, we went to Leo Foo village. It’s a small Taiwanese version of Disney. We were getting the tail-end of typhoon Mindulle so there was heavy winds and rains. Ended up taking the bus back to Taipei.

That night we went out to have Taiwan steamboat, half spicy (ma-la) and half regular with herbs. Walked around the Zhongxiao Dunhua and Fuxing area. Picked up a papaya drink from Taiwan Milk King, a chain that sells specialty fruit drinks. Taiwan the land that gave us Bubble Tea has a lot of different kinds of drink products.

I also picked up a cold but have recovered.

=YC

One of the neat features of working here currently is that the company sponsors a yearly outing for individual branches. It just so happens that B- is here with me for a couple of weeks and just in time to join me.

The branch where I’m stationed decided to go to Hsinchu (新竹). This weekend also happened to be the passing of Typhoon Mindulle which passed to the south of us. We in the North and Northeast was pretty lucky and was unscathed. The typhoon warnings didn’t deter the group and we set out via train (Taiwan Railway Administration FYI). The express took 1 hr and we headed over to the Howard Plaza Hotel Hsinchu. Hotel is nice, comparable to a Westin or Marriott – a 5 star business class hotel for Taiwan. Free broadband in the rooms. All and all, very nice accomodations.

Once we checked in we headed to Neiwan, another hour by train. It’s this remote village in the middle of the hills which is just a tourist place. Almost seems it was just created for that because it is so remote. Walked around, sampled the local eats, like sausages, stinky tofu, bubble tea, watermelon slushy and wrapped sticky rice. The weather was cool thanks to the typhoon. Came back and headed straight for buffet dinner.

B- and I are having a great time, it’s nice to see colleagues in a different light. Helping gain acceptance of me as a new person to the company and also as a overseas chinese. Good practicing my spoken Mandarin and starting to become more fluent conversationally. Not to bad for this dude who hated learning Mandarin as a kid and who didn’t speak it for many years as a form of rebellion against the folks.

Tomorrow, another breakfast buffet, visit to another place and then back to Taipei.

Happy Independence Day peeps.

=YC