Back in August, I had the opportunity (if you can call it that) to spend a month in Taipei, Taiwan supporting the Republic of China's Airtraffic Control Automation System (ROC-ATCAS). During my stay there, I had the opportunity to experience a culture that is very different than ours here in the United States. I returned to the U.S. with the realization that most of us, myself included, don't know how good we have it here.
Anyhow, what follows are some excerpts from email that I sent to my friends and family while I was away, as well as a few other observations thrown in. ALthough some of this may seem to have a negative "spin", most of that is purely due to culture shock. Most of the email excerpts are intended to be humorous, as I felt that if I could not laugh at my situation, I'd probably go nuts over the course of a month.
The trip from door to door (Maryland suburbs to the Grand Hyatt Taipei) took 26 hours, including a three hour layover in San Francisco. The Grand Hyatt is an excellent five-star hotel with every amenity that you can imagine. It's also a place that I could never afford to stay at, even with the discount rate worked out with Loral.
My first images of Taipei were extremely wet. We flew in on the tail-end of a typhoon. I forget the name, but it didn't matter, it was a rough landing, and pouring down rain. I split a limo (actually just a plain old Mercedez here in the states) with a guy I met on the plane. It was a tad more than the hotel bus, but not nearly as crowded. I knew things were different from the moment we took off for the Hyatt. Traffic was heavy, much like that on the beltway here during rush-hour. The only difference was that this guy was driving at about 65 MPH down the highway weaving through traffic. The road was four lanes wide, but there were six rows of cars going down those four lanes. People pass on the right, left, and right in between other cars. If there is room, they will pass.
It took almost a week to get over the jet-lag. The first night I went to bed at midnight (noon in the states) and woke up at 4:30 in the morning. I managed to get to bed by 10:00 or so the rest of the week, but still woke up at 5:00 or so in the morning. It was not until the weekend that I forced myself to stay up late and then sleep in that I had completely adjusted to the time shift. Consequently, going to bed early meant that there was very little time to experience Taipei in the evenings.
If you thought driving in the states was bad, you should see Taipei. First, there are NO lanes on the roads (well none that people pay attention to). Next, is the motor scooters. They are everywhere, going the wrong way down the streets, riding down the sidewalks, all over. Also, they weave through traffic when the lights are red so they can get up to the front of the line. Then as they see the light from the other side turning yellow, they all take off into the intersection. Nobody here lets anyone else into traffic. You just go, and pray that nobody hits your car. Cars and scooters have the right of way. I've learned to cross with the natives, getting myself in the middle of the pack so at least the cars and scooters will take out some of their own before taking out me.
Most of my time at work was spent at the Taiwan Area Control Center or TACC, but on several occasions, I had to go out to the tower at Chaing Kai-Shek International Airport (hereafter referred to as CKS). The trip to work was probably 2 miles or so, and normally (if the cabbie took you the quick way) took about 10-15 minutes. However, if you ended up with a cabbie that "knew" where he was going, the trip could take anywhere from 15-45 minutes. Such was the case on my second day in Taipei when I decided to go it alone to the TACC. BIG MISTEAK! It took 35 minutes to get there. The cabbie took the "shortest" route. Unfortunately, traffic was SOOOO bad that it took us 5 traffic lights to get through an intersection when we were only 8 cars away!
I found out that the bathrooms at the TACC don't always have toilet paper. Fortunatly someone told me BEFORE I had to go. I now keep one of those small packs of Kleenex with me at all times! The pollution is unbelievable. People all over walk (or ride) around with little masks on to filter out the air.
Zino Hu and Holmes Liao, two co-workers (Taiwanese) living in Taiwan for the next two years, took me out to "the mall" for lunch my first day. "The Mall" consists of a bunch of outdoor, well you might call them cafe's, but that would be a tremendous overstatement. Anyhow, while we were sitting at lunch, they said that they could see the "culture shock" in my face. It is truly amazing how far behind the rest of the world some places are. Lunch was good but I did end up with a mild case of "Montezumas Revenge".
Ate dinner at Pizza Hut one night. Here they have Shrimp Pizzas, Fried chicken, WonTon Soup, and all kinds of strange stuff. The small pizza cost $12 U.S. Things are VERY EXPENSIVE here.
I've found the local 7-11 and Circle-K stores within walking distance of the hotel. At least there I can get Diet Coke for about .60 U.S., much cheaper than the $3 per CAN in the mini-bar in my hotel room. I can't find skim-milk (or at least I can't read the carton if it is skim milk), so I haven't had any milk in three days. I also found the local grocery store about a half mile from the Hyatt. It's a tough walk with all of the pollution from the scooters, but there are pedestrian bridges over the main intersection making travel a tad safer. Grabbed some grapefruit juice as I still can't find skim milk, and nobody in the store speaks enough English to help me out. I have decided, though, that an American can get around much better in Taipei speaking no Chinese, than a Taiwanese speaking no English could in the states.
The mosquitos at the TACC are quite numerous, and quite large. Morning seems to be the worst time for them, usually netting an average of 3-4 kills per hour. Our group here at work has decided that the mosquito will be our mascot. The current office pool is betting on how long the dead mosquito will stay stuck to the wall next to the door. It's been there two weeks already. I've put my dollar down on September 1.
Right down the street from the Hyatt is the Taipei Municipal building, a city hall type of place, which is the site of frequent protests. On Wednesday, the cabbies were protesting trying to get higher rates. They blocked off eight (8) lanes of traffic with their cabs in front of the building. In doing this, they blocked off the entrances and exits to the city employees parking lot, thus keeping the employees from getting home.
I had the most expensive Big Mac ever on Wednesday. I originally planned on going to the Hard Rock Cafe, and took the $8 U.S. cab ride there. The only problem is that on that particular day it was Taiwan's Valentines Day, and there was a 1 hour wait to get in and an $14 U.S. cover charge. Rather than wait and pay that much just to eat, I wandered down the street to McDonalds and got a $2.50 U.S. Big Mac. Another $8 cab ride back to the hotel brought me a grand total of $12.50 U.S. for a Big Mac. The ride back to the hotel was another experience. The cabbie had to make a U-turn to head in the right direction. As the light was red at the intersection I was at, he mad a U-turn while the light was red across 8 lanes of traffic (I guess he figured that was the only time there would be no cars to compete with). Now to put this into perspective, this would be equivalent to a cab in downtown Bethesda making a U-turn across Wisconsin Ave., from one right lane to the other, while the light was red!
Meanwhile, back at "The Mall", the owner of the restaurant we were eating in had to chase a dog out. I was happy to see the dog again on Friday as that meant it wasn't part of Friday's lunch (JUST KIDDING!).
I had an amusing experience answering a phone at the office one day. I picked it up and said "Hello" a couple of times with no answer. I then said "Whay", which is how the Chinese answer the phone (it loosely translates to "I am here"). The guy on the other end started rattling away tons of Manderin, and I had to keep saying "Holmes is not here!" 4 or 5 times before he would stop.
On the way to dinner on Friday I saw something you would never see in the U.S. Walking down Keelung Rd., between a little cafe (that's probably an overstatement) and a flower shop is a dentists office. The chairs were right in front of the windows. You look in the storefront window and there were two people having dental work done. The amazing thing is that there was a line of people waiting to see the dentist at 9:30 on a Friday night!
For my first full weekend in Taipei, I went to the Sun-Yat Sen memorial on Saturday morning, and wandered around seeing some of the local sights near the hotel. In the evening myself and one of the other guys went down to Snake Alley. It's pretty much a tourist trap, kind of like a carnival midway. They also have snake charmers, and some places where you are not allowed to take pictures because of what they do to animals. Most of the stuff there is overpriced. One of the merchants that spoke pretty good English said that the list prices are for Japanese tourists. For others, they knock off 10% before they start bargaining.
On Sunday, Zino and his wife Deborah took me to the National Palace Museum. This is a collection of things that were "removed" from mainland China during the revolution. Two large ships were loaded up with national treasures and sent to Taiwan. The collection is stored inside a mountain so as to be safe from any attack. The museum has so many pieces that they can change the displays every 5 years, and would not repeat a display for a century. If you're ever in Taipei, this is a MUST SEE. It's even better if you have a tour-guide like Zino that knows what you are looking at.
My second week in Taiwan brought one of those infamous "good news/ bad news" situations. The good news was that the U.S. Dollar is very very strong against the New Taiwan Dollar (NT). It's gone up quite a bit while I've been here. The bad news is that the reason the dollar is so strong is that Mainland China was preparing to do more missile tests over the Strait of Taiwan starting on Tuesday. We've already seen warnings of this over the Air Traffic Control system that I am working on. I also saw a typhoon warning on the system on Friday. Fortunatly, that is pretty far south of here. Only the souther tip of the island got hit with any substantial rain, and they needed it pretty badly.
Sometimes, things just get lost in translation, other times they just plain old get lost. In my case, it was a little of both. I took my laundry to a place down the street from the Hyatt (it's where all the Loral folks get theirs done). Dropped off a bunch of stuff on Friday, and was told it would be ready on Monday. Monday evening, I head over to the laundry, and lo-and-behold, shirts and pants are there, but no underwear, undershirts, shorts, t-shirts or socks. The owner tried to get me to take someone elses laundry, figuring that if she just kept giving out laundry to the Americans, eventually they would figure out what belonged to whom. Eventually, the said to come back on Tuesday and they would try and find it. Meanwhile, I'm out of underwear. Amazingly enough, 7-11 is like a mini-department store (almost), and yes, they do sell mens and womens underwear. I got the disposable kind, hoping that's all I would need. On Tuesday evening, I finally got all of my laundry back! This was good as I didn't want to make any more trips to the 7/11 store. I also learned that a blinking "walk" sign at an intersection means RUN! Almost got taken out by a taxi going to dinner.
Wednesday through Friday had me out at CKS airport for work. This makes for a long work day as it means at least an hour drive in the morning to get out there, and at least an hour and a half in the evening to get back to the hotel. Going out to CKS airport is like going from Union Station in downtown Washington to Dulles airport. And the roads are about the same too. Initially, you have to go through the city until you get to the freeway. The problem is that the freeway traffic here is consistently like I-95 from Potomac Mills to the "Mixing Bowl" in Springfield during rush hour. If you get up to 40 miles per hour, you are doing real well. Even on Saturday morning when I left to go to the airport at 6:30 in the morning, it still took about an hour.
Friday evening, I went down to Snake Alley with one of the guys to pick up some watches. I got a "Rollex" for $40 U.S. Almost everyone here from the U.S. has one of these things. Pretty nice watch even if it's not the real thing. Had the taxi ride from hell on the way back to the hotel. I knew we were in trouble when we got into a taxi with a rear air spoiler and mag wheels. Anyhow, we were going down Sing-Yih Rd, which is one way going north except for a single bus lane. Well ole Mario Andretti decided that the bus lane would make a good travel lane for himself, so off we went the wrong way down the street. Next thing I see is two headlights coming at us, and no room to get over. With about 50 feet to spare, the driver whips back over to the right and continues down the street. I said to Clarence (the guy I was with) "Damn, that was close." The cabby replied, "That's not so close, I had two more cars I could pass".
As Saturday was a work day (Taiwanese work 44 hours a week, four of which are on Saturday) out at CKS, the whole day was shot. So I decided to make up for it at night. There are several good night-clubs within reasonable taxi distance to the Hyatt. I headed out for an evening of blues and jazz at a place called N.T. Being married with two young children, I don't have the chance of going out very often at home, so I've been out of the "club-scene" for quite a while. N.T. reminded me a lot of Blues Alley down in Georgetown, but a bit more crowded. As I was by myself, I called it a night by midnight. Little did I know that Taipei is a city that doesn't get started until midnight or so.
Sunday I spent some time at the Chaing Kai-Shek memorial. It's similar in size to the Lincoln Memorial, but has much more inside. Aside from the status of President Chaing, in the basement there is a display covering all of his life. President Chaing is held in extremely high regard here. Here in Taiwan he is like George Washington to the people. One of the displays in the basement of the memorial is of his old presidential office, complete with a wax figure of the president. As young children came into this display, they would all bow three times to the wax figure. There is also an opera-house and concert hall here. I did not have a chance to get inside either of these, but they looked extremely ornate. The CKS memorial is another of the "must-see's" if you are ever over there.
Sunday evening I experienced a bit of Taiwan culture, and went out to see the Dragons play the Bears in baseball. I took out a scooter when we got to the stadium. The cabbie pulled over to the side of the road, and after paying I opened the door to get out, only to be greeted with a loud thud. I looked out the door and there was a scooter. He was trying to get around traffic by going between the parked cars, and the right lane of traffic. The cabbie told us to go on to the game as this was the scooters fault. Baseball is different here. They have very organized cheering that goes on. They also bang on drums, and hit these things that look like hollow plastic bowling pins together to make tons of noise. The stadium is more like an old minor league park in the states. Cement bleachers with no backs makes for a long somewhat uncomfortable evening. Another difference is that the entire infield is clay dirt. There is no grass at all in the infield, and there isn't much in the outfiled either. The outfield looked more like a practice field at a junior high, than something where professional baseball would be played. Anyhow, the Bears beat the hometown favorite Dragons 5-0 (or as the Taiwanese say, 5 points to none).
I've found one thing here that get's more attention than a 6'2" white American. That would be one of my co-workers here name Ralph. Ralph is 6'4" 250 pounds, and he's black. Where I get stared at at times, Ralph gets pointed at. At lunch on Tuesday, one little kid came up to him and started rubbing his skin. Ralph (who spent 15 months here earlier) told the kid, in Chinese, that the color does not come off.
Wednesday evening was the beginning of a two day Taxi war. War is the appropriate word here. Two rival cabbie organizations battled each other destroying 60 cabs in two days. They were using Molotov Cocktails, baseball bats, metal bars. Over the weekend, the police raided all four companies that are represented by the two organizations, and collected guns, knives, bats and explosives. Fortunatly, most of this has taken place just north of Taipei city. Wednesday also brought the start of mainland China's latest round of missile tests in the Taiwan Strait. People here are really on edge with regard to relations with mainland China. Many people here feel that they will be invaded in the not too distant future.
For my last weekend in Taipei, I was supposed to work on both Saturday and Sunday. Since I got most of my junk done on Saturday, I decided to blow-off Sunday so I could get some shopping done (souvenirs for the family and friends). Anyhow, after work on Saturday I headed back to the Hyatt to get a little rest before heading out for dinner and another evening at N.T. I was going to meet some other people I met earlier in the week there. After a few hours at N.T., it was time to head back to the Hyatt. I wasn't expecting the grief that I caught when I tried to leave at 2:30 in the morning. Seems that nightlife in Taipei is just getting started then. The clubs don't close until 5:30 in the morning!
Sunday I attended a trade show at the Taiwan World Trade Center, which was right next door to the Hyatt. It was their annual Air and Space Technology Exhibition. McDonnell Douglas actually had a booth there, so I spent a bit of time talking with some cohorts from California. When you're in Taiwan, talking to someone from California is like talking to your next door neighbor. After that it was shopping time, getting the last few gifts for the kids, and starting my Christmas shopping.
If you were to ask me "What's shakin' dude?" I'd tell you the whole damn hotel! We had an earthquake at 5:25 Sunday evening. I was was watching CNN when I felt the bed shake a little. This is not too unusual as the Grand Hyatt is very close to the approach/departure path for Taipei Municipal Airport, and planes frequently fly right over the hotel. What was unusual was the 10 seconds of shaking after the initial quake. The entire building swayed from side to side nice and slowly.
There were demonstrations the entire weekend trying to promote Taiwan independence. There was a huge gathering Saturday night at the Municipal Building across the street from the Hotel. Sunday, three major streets were closed for a parade. Of course, with my luck, they were all around the hotel where I was staying.
My last full day in Taipei was a long one. I ended up working until 7:30 in the evening, trying to fix the last couple of problems before I left. Once I had them narrowed down to code that my replacement wrote, the decision was made. Let the problem go for a day and dump it on him. I only had about three hours to give my cohort as much information as I could, so I tried to make it as valuable as possible. Knowing how brain dead he would be after the long flight made it that much more difficult to be technical without being too technical.