Coming up for air after Taipei

Friday, Oct 1

Amazing but I survived the 2 weeks in Taiwan. Our assignment turned out to be extremely complicated and we were working hard all the way until I had to leave for the airport today. It’s been 2 weeks of working until 1am and getting up 5 hours later to do it all again. Sounds bad but I learned so much and feel more ready for France next week. You know what they say, what doesn’t kill will make you wish you were dead. Just kidding. This is the best way to learn, by going through it.I wished I had more time to write to capture the little things I want to keep in my memories.

The people of Taiwan are lovely. They are soft spoken and polite and very sweet. They are very proud of their country and culture and work hard to make sure you walk away impressed. The colleagues here have been beyond hospitable. If they catch wind of you liking something the next thing you know it’s there for you. As Rene said, it is the character of the people of Asia that they pay very close attention to your wants and make sure you get it.

Last night I had the most memorable meal EVER! After our closing meeting the local Taiwan team took us out to a special dinner. One of the famous land mark of Taipei is a building called Taipei 101. Guess how stories the building has? Yep, 101 stories. We ate at a restaurant on the 86th floor that serves traditional Taiwanese food. The President of Hkl Taiwan (Paul) ordered food for our group of 14. Let’s put it this way, our meal lasted 3 hours. The food didn’t all come at once. Instead they would bring out one dish at a time so that you can slowly eat and savor. First came a cold dish of meats – slices of goose, fresh chicken(taste like the Vietnamese freshly killed chicken in a very light fish sauce), an mullet roe which they explained to me is fish egg. I didn’t believe them because it didn’t look like the fish egg I knew. Instead it looked like slices of tuna fish, at least the look and color. The taste is unique and quite good. It was explained to me that they dry the fish egg and then bake it. Other courses were sliced squid cooked in a clay pot with ginger and whole garlic, savory shrimp, fried oysters, sautéed melons (just like the Vietnamese muop), baked fish in a “seed from the tree” sauce, roast pork, crispy slices of taro, fried squid balls. At one point they brought out a huge touret of shark fin soup. We were told that this used to be just for the king. I’ve had shark fin soup but there’s usually a little bit of it in a bowl and it’s in small pieces. The shark fins in our soup was huge, at least the size of an oyster mushroom. We finished the meal with a bowl of hot almond milk which was also delicious. The strangest thing – we all had a glass of wine for the meal and ofcourse had a toast in the beginning. However, throughout the meal one by one the Taiwanese colleagues would call out my name to catch my eye and raise their glass to toast me, some would do it more than once. They would do this throughout the night to the 4 of us. I have never seen this before.

One of our favorite lunchtime meal is the traditional beef noodle soup. It’s very popular here. It’s a beef broth with chunks of super tender braised beef. The shop by the plant make their own noodles for the soup and it’s fantastic. Each time the guys would also order my favorite veggie, sautéed water spinach (rau muon), just like the way my mom makes it. I really love Taiwanese food. It’s similar but different from Chinese food.

The language here is Cantonese. Not a lot of people speak English here which is very different from Philippines. If I had a dollar for every time someone speaks Chinese to me thinking that I was Chinese I would be rich. They tell me I look Chinese. I got tired of interrupting them with “sorry, English please!” It’s too hard to learn the language, all I could say was thank you and hello. Even the cab drivers don’t speak English.
Last Sunday I decided to make time to do a half day tour to see the country. I worked late the night before and early Sunday in order to do an afternoon tour. This was a 4 hour tour of the northeast coast of the island. It was wonderful. We had a nice sunny day and the coast was gorgeous. This part of the island is more rocky with cliffs which made it better for pictures. The western side of the island is more sandy. We stopped to look at The Beach of Two Colors which was basically a mix of ocean water and river water that was dense with copper from the mining town right next to it. We spent an hour at a really cool mining village high up in the mountains. In the village there’s an old street that’s at least half a mile long. It’s a narrow cobblestone street with shops on either side. There were red lanterns hanging over the shops. It was super crowed with tourists, mainly asian. There were so many storefronts that were cooking traditional food. I met an American girl name Laura from Colorado so we hung out together. She was not liking the few stores that had displayed in small sections seasoned chicken hearts, gizzards, chicken feet, blood pudding, you get the idea. Other shops made the sweet soups with various tapioca balls and sweet beans. Some shops had grilled meats and ofcourse there were tea shops. All of this was a feast for the eyes, I was so fascinated. The guide let us wander the street on our own for an hour. At the end of the street we all met at one of the oldest tea house in the village. They had individual tables with a hole in the middle where a teapot is boiling over hot coals. You choose a type of tea from the menu and the tea lady would come to prepare your tea. We sat on the patio which was perched on a cliff on the mountain. The view was awesome. Our guide was a Taiwanese guy named Frank. He got my name mixed up and kept calling me hampson. Laura and I sat in the back of the van with a Japanese professor in between us. We had some interesting conversations about Japan. I was trying to remember the name of Gary’s favorite show (Ninja Warrior) which is filmed in Japan, Mount Fujimoto?

The traffic in the city is horrendous. Luckily our hotel is less than a block from the main office so we don’t have to worry on the days we work at the office. Half the time we are at the plant which is an hour west of Zhonghe city. After about 20 minutes we leave the busy city and driving in the lush country side. If it wasn’t for the lack of white people I would think we were in Hawaii!

I really enjoyed working with the Taiwan team. They are so nice. Back in germany I coordinated with Paul the president of the region. His voice and mannerism reminded me so much of my brother T. He is so nice I think he set a good example for the rest of his team of 127. I love the HR mgr Meifei. She is a beautiful lady with white pale skin, long black hair and a very gentle disposition. She was so interested in what we did. When I came to say goodbye today she gave me a big hug. I was frantically working until the last minute to send the report. As the assignment leader I was responsible for gathering pieces of the report from the other 3 team members, putting it together and sending it out. I didn’t have time to say goodbye to everyone properly.

I already told Gary this place is worth a revisit. We have good reason since our friend Heather is from here and she comes home to visit. I want to come back to see more of the country. The most beautiful part is in the south with the high mountain ranges, hot springs, gorges etc. Actually most of the population of 29 million people live in the northwestern third of the island where it’s flatter. The highest mountain peak is 12,000 feet in the middle of the island, that’s no small change.

I realized I circumvented the globe in the last 2 months. I left Phx end of July, heading east to germany. Then I head east to asia. Then I headed east to Phx to complete the circle. Cool.

One week in AZ to recover, get clean clothes, replenish the freezer for Gary and head to Paris on Oct 9. The best is getting some Gary time. We discovered Skype in Taiwan so it’s free to talk to each other every day. Can’t believe I didn’t get into it earlier. So far we are doing ok with the situation.

Now I need to freshen up on my French which was poor at best.