Photo Essays from China

Long Time, No See (好久不见)

2009-06-02T21:55:00.004+08:00

So in case you were wondering. I'm still alive and I'm doing fine. Shortly after arriving here, I pretty much completely stopped writing these blogs. It's been getting harder and harder to find time to actually write because:

1) I'm working ~65 hour weeks. (Six days a week X 10~12 hours a day). It's not fun. Trust me.

2) I'm working out 4 days a week. So after a long day of work, I get home and head straight for the gym. I'm determined to not come back to the US fatter than when I left.

3) I'm still going out every weekend, but now Hong Kong and downtown Shenzhen are an extra hour away. Making the trip is just exhausting, but I refuse to hang around my Dongguan all weekend. Ugh.

So basically I'm having trouble keeping up. You just keep putting it off and it never happens.

In any case, I've got about 2.5 weeks before I come back to the US. Yay!

Comparisons: The Old Job vs. The New Job

2009-05-06T23:24:00.004+08:00

6 days down ... 55 more to go ... (I know it's way too early to start counting down days, but I can't help it.)

With my first week of work drawing to a close, it's time to decide whether things have overall gotten better or worse:

Environment: Old Job

I was spoiled at my old job because we didn't really align with the company culture. I think our department was too small and new. In hindsight, things were a bit more lax than at the other factories. During my first day at the new job some random person came up to me during lunch:

Guy: "Are you a Taiwanese worker?"

Me: "No, I'm an American..."

Guy: "Well tuck in your shirt. It's a company regulation."

I wasn't offended, just surprised that it mattered enough to come up to me and mention it. Before at my old job no one really cared about that kind of stuff. Some days, I would just show up to work in a t-shirt and jeans. Now I have to wear my tucked-in company polo shirt uniform everyday. I didn't think it was possible, but I things feel more prison-like here. (And not having internet is definitely killing me. My cell phone is racking up those internet data charges. And my computer at work is still running Windows 2000; it seriously crashes on me like 3 times a day)

Cafeteria Food: Old Job

Old job's cafeteria wins hands down. You know, I used to eat at a V.I.P. buffet that offered 6 types of dishes, 2 types of soup, salads, fresh fruit, and some deserts. (They had this special restaurant because of all the customers that would come to visit that factory.) I may not have liked every dish, but I could always manage to find something.

Now when I first got to China, we all joked about how I was going to stave because I'm such a picky eather. I've managed to survive for the last 10 months, but I don't think I can handle the food at this new place. My first meal here was breakfast. From that point on, I decided to just eat breakfast at home every morning and I haven't been back since. And as for lunch, let's just say that I'm drinking a lot of soup and eating a lot of rice to fill me up. UGH. It's gross.

Coworkers: Old Job

This is probably a really unfair comparison. After all, I spent 10 months bonding with my old coworkers. I should give it more time, but I just don't exactly feel like I fit in very well here. I'm not integrating very well because no exactly knows what my role is within this organization. So I'm not actually working with anyone here and people just kind of ignore me. Plus, we moved into a new building and my desk is in the very front of the office with no one next to me. This all would be a lot easier if my Chinese were better so I could make small talk. (I think my US boss told them not to speak any English with me.)

Work Assignments: Old Job

This isn't really a comparison at all since I actually don't have any assigned work. At least I had responsibilities and work at my old job. (I may not have enjoyed my work, but at least I had something assigned to me.) I'm supposed to have a training program at this new job, but no one's really approached me about it. Everyone's busy with their own work, so training me isn't exactly the top priority. I've basically been spending all my time hanging out in the production lines trying to learn as much as I can about PCB design and manufacturing. I've only been at work for a week, so I also should also give it some more time before deciding that I don't like my work.

Dormitory: New Job

My new room is at least twice as big as my old room. But that's not saying much considering how tiny that old room was. It's nice to actually be able to walk around my room. And I've got a window with a 16th floor view! So even though I live in an apartment with 3 other guys, it's still an improvement on before.

Housing Neighborhood: New Job

At first I was sad about having to move here. (I'm now living in a town called Chang'an in a city called Dongguan. It's located just past the border between Shenzhen and Dongguan.) After all, I'm about 30 minutes further inland away from downtown Shenzhen and Hong Kong. And I used to go downtown or to HK every weekend.

However, despite all that, this new neighborhood is my favorite part about this new job. I'm living on a pedestrian road with plenty to do and see! Malls, stores, and restaurants line the both sides of the street. In fact, there's a Wal-mart and McDonald's located right downstairs! Plus, Chang'an Square and Chang'an Park are both located within walking distance of my apartment. But the real reason that I love this place is that I found a gym within walking distance. The equipment is like ancient but I don't care; that place is still like heaven.

All in all, it seems that my initial impression is that everything has gotten better but work. Good thing I only have 55 days left...right?

"Apartment" Restrooms

2009-05-02T16:25:00.002+08:00

If you haven't read my entry about "public" restrooms, then you should check it out here first.

So there I am, standing there in my apartment building lobby waiting for the elevator. Standing in front of me are two woman and a young boy. (He was probably like 5 or 6 years old.) All of the sudden the mom pulls down the kid's pants, and lifts him up in the air to let him pee into the trash can...

I'm dead serious. I've been living in China for 10 months now, but that was mind-blowing.

Meanwhile I'm awkwardly standing there trying not to stare. But I just can't help it. I mean for chrissakes the woman was helping her kid pee into a trash can! Inside the lobby of the apartment building!

~shakes head~

Starting Over

2009-04-30T23:31:00.002+08:00

It's getting late and I'm burning out, so I'll make it short and sweet:

I only had to go to work for 2 hours to take care of a few things. It was nice to just have some time off to finish packing and stuff.
I said my goodbyes to my coworkers. I'm terrible at goodbyes. It was totally awkward.
I'm working in a town called Songgang (located in Shenzhen city), but I'm living in a town called Chang'an (located in Dongguan City). They're only about 10-15 minutes apart from each other.
The apartment complex seems nice. The surrounding area seems to be a step up from the area where I was staying before. There's a McDonalds and Walmart located right downstairs.
It's Labour Day tomorrow, but I still have to go to work :( Come on, it's China. If anyone was going to be big on this whole Communist International Workers' Day thing, it should be them!

That's it for now! Tomorrow I'm moving again to another apartment upstairs. Then I can unpack and take some pictures. (They only have a squat toilet here...UGH)

Some Things Always Change

2009-04-30T01:26:00.002+08:00

Some things ~~never~~ always change. That pretty much sums up my chaotic life these past two months. Every morning I come into work and immediately check my email, hoping for some sort of update. People have been making decisions for me and my plans have been changing on a near daily basis. I’ve had to learn to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances. Needless to say, it’s been really hard to stay motivated and keep working in this constant state of uncertainty. But all that is about to change…

If I haven’t talked to you recently or you haven’t been catching up my blog, then you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. So let me get those of you up to speed:

My product division has merged with a new business group (BG). The problem is that my old BG and the new BG both decided to let me go. (As an American worker, my salary is just too costly, especially compared to local Chinese and Taiwanese workers.) Now that doesn’t mean I’m being fired; I’m just getting reshuffled and sent off to another BG. And so my HR department has been scrambling to find a next assignment for me. So I’ve been busy interviewing, touring facilities, and waiting for job offers.

But like I said earlier, all that is going to change very soon. Yesterday I received and confirmed a job offer from a new BG. Today the logistics were finalized for transferring to this new group. Tomorrow will be my last day of work at my old group. And the day after tomorrow I’ll start work with my new group. Safe to say it’s going to be an insane week.

So what’s up with this new group?

They basically manufacture interconnections and PCB for cell phones and other consumer electronics.
I’ll need to move to a new dormitory and work in a different location, but their factory is still located in Shenzhen. (They’re just about 30 minutes further inland.)
The new training plan will have me work about 1-3 more months in China. After that I’ll head back to the US and I’ll be working in Santa Clara.
I’ll be working as an FAE (field applications engineer) with a long term plan to transfer into sales or account management in a few years.

Anyway, on one hand, I'm kind of sad to be moving on. It sucks to get settled and have ten months of training under your belt, only to be reassigned to a different group. Tomorrow I have to say my good-byes to my coworkers. But on the other hand, I'm excited about having a new assignment and an actual training plan that has me return to the US.

P.S. If you heard rumors that I’d be home next week, I’m sorry to say that plan’s been scrapped. My contract guarantees a training break every six months, so I’ll probably see you all in early July? I’m hoping to home before my birthday :/ Please don't ask for an exact date; if I knew, I would tell you.

Molecular Gastronomy

2009-04-26T15:22:00.005+08:00

Yesterday I spent the day in Hong Kong attending a public lecture on Molecular Gastronomy as part of the Le French May Arts Festival (法国五月). I know it sounds like a pretty random way to spend your Saturday afternoon.

To be honest, I'd never even heard of Molecular Gastronomy before. I was scanning through the Hong Kong Event Calendar trying to find something to do because I sure as hell didn't want to spend my entire weekend hanging around Shenzhen. I came across this public lecture titled Can Science Contribute to the Improvement of Culinary Art? Science + Cooking? Sign me up!

I should probably explain what the hell that even means. Molecular Gastronomy is like the study of how cooking works from a physical and chemical point of view. That probably sounds like some sort of pseudo-science, but I have to admit that there's a great deal of actual science and mathematics there is to it.

The lecturer was Hervé This, a French physical chemist who actually helped officially create the field of Molecular Gastronomy. It's kind of funny because the guy doesn't consider himself a cook. He said that he's a chemist first and foremost. His work has mostly been investigating old wives' tales and exploring existing recipes. But it's more than just experimenting; it's also about discovering the why. Here are some of the experiments he talked about:

Boiling an Egg: He studying boiling eggs at different temperatures. The consistency of the egg depends more on the specific temperature than the cooking time. The heat causes the proteins in the egg to denature (i.e. fall apart and unwind). But what's really interesting is that he helped discover that there are multiple proteins that all denature at different temperatures. Thus buy controlling the temperature, you can greatly control the consistency of the egg. (Apparently this knowledge can also be used to "unboil" an egg.)

Color of Carrot Soup Stock: One of his students is working on how to determine the color of carrot soup stock. As you boil the stock longer and longer, the color will change from orange to brown. The interesting part is that they discovered that the process depends on lighting conditions. The process speeds up if there is more light. And they actually looked at the biochemistry to find the component that causes this effect. Yay for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).

Roast Suckling Pig: Oh this one was my favorite. There's an old wives' tale that the skin of a roast suckling pig will crackle more if you chop the head off right after roasting. Now here's the level of detail that goes into these studies. To ensure that the pigs brought up in the same environment and had similar genes so they had to raise a family with four pigs. And also conducted a blind taste test with over 300 participants. (Oh and the saying is true by the way.)

All in all, it was really interesting. I know it sounds really frivolous and kind of pointless, but I feel it has practical applications. I just want to quote his partner in crime Nicholas Kurti,the other co-founder of Molecular Gastronomy:

"I think it is a sad reflection on our civilization that while we can and do measure the temperature in the atmosphere of Venus we do not know what goes on inside our soufflés."

Maybe I need to re-think my major and career path.

Neck and Neck

2009-04-21T20:19:00.002+08:00

So for the entire week I've been mulling over my offer from Group C. (You know, the long term assignment where I'd probably be placed in China for years?) Anyway, outta nowhere Group B has re-entered the picture. Suddenly things have gotten even more complicated.

Today I had my second round interview with one of the Senior Directors of Group B. From my research, the guy has had a very distinctive career in sales for the electronics industry. At the young age of 37, he won a top sales achievement award while working for HP! Anyway, to make a long story short:

I'm probably going to get the offer. They can't guarantee it, but he said it was very likely. Decisions will be finalized in a few weeks.
The interview was mostly conducted in Chinese. Geez, that was tough. By US interview standards, I did pretty horribly. I'm still not sure why he said it was likely that I'd recieve an offer.
This group manufactures flexible printed circuit boards and interconnectors for mobile and computer applications. I have some fabrication lab experience but I don't know much about PCB manufacturing. It was still pretty cool though.
Their factory is also located in Shenzhen, but further inland. We're talking about ~50 km away from downtown. (As opposed to where I live now, where it's only ~20 km away from downtown.) Their factory is basically in the middle of nowhere.
The plan for me would be work for about 3 more months in China. I would learn about the technology and develop my business, sales, and account management skills. After that I would return to the US and work as a FAE (field applications engineer) for a few years before transferring to sales or account management.

Anyway, the final offer won't be made for a few weeks. That puts me in a awkard situation because I'm supposed to head back to the US on April 30th. I was hoping to have this all finalized before then, but it looks like I don't really have a choice.

My current plan is to:

- Continue working in China until April 30th

- Take off about a week to visit Shanghai and Beijing

- Return to the US

- Finalize my decision for my next assignment

- Return to China for work

Dates obviously still need to be nailed down.

I Think I'm Turning Chinese

2009-04-20T20:46:00.001+08:00

Today, I realized that I've been in this country for way too long:

"I see that you've been studying Chinese people."

"Hmm? I get it..." (Did I hear that right? Man, I really need to work on my Mandarin.)

"Oh, never mind."

"Okay..." (Unless he meant...oh shit.)

Without even realizing it, I had just spit right in the middle of the street. I'm turning into a local.

I'm not sure if I've written about it before, but people here spit anywhere, anytime. My favorite example would have to be at the last year's annual end of the year banquet. People were spitting on the restaurant floor. That's just dirty.

Spitting is a disgusting habit and I remember how much it grossed me out when I first got here. So I'm kind of sad that I've picked it up. I'd hadn't really realized how natural it had become until my coworker pointed it out. I really need to break this habit before I get back to the US.

Although, at least I'm not peeing/pooping in public.

"Public" Restrooms

2009-04-20T20:44:00.001+08:00

*4/20 8:44 P.M. - Post now updated with picture!*

Yesterday I got home from work early, but I left my messenger bag at work. So without my keys, I was forced to sit in outside in the courtyard and wait for my apartment-mate to come home. Now I had about an hour or so to kill before my coworkers would come back. I decided to sit on a bench just people-watch the housewives and their children walking around.

I'm sitting and I notice this cute little boy hobbling down the path. I look down at his pants...

"Is that...a crotch hole? What the hell!?"

There was a big hole in the crotch of his pants. We're talking full frontal nudity here. [I'm dead serious.]

I quickly diverted my eyes away and noticed a mother and child squatting awkardly. The mother was squatting over a drain and the child was sitting on her lap. I'm staring at them trying to figure out what's going on. And right then a golden stream gushes out into the drain.

The crotch hole allows kids to easily pee in public.

Now obviously we're talking about really young kids. Still slightly distrubing though. There aren't a lot of public restrooms here, so I guess when young children gotta go, they just go.

That's not even the craziest thing I've seen. During my first month in China, I saw a mother helping her child take a shit ... in public ... in the street. And then after he finished, she wiped for him. Now that was mind blowing.

And in case you don't believe me, here's the picture proof. I caught this yesterday at Guangzhou as I was coming out of a metro station:

Enter Group C

2009-04-18T16:42:00.002+08:00

For my previous interviews with Group A and Group B, see my previous post.

In less than 24 hours, I had two last-minute interviews with Group C. The first interview was with one of their department managers the other night at 10 P.M. You can imagine my shock when I received a call from him that afternoon asking:

“Are you free to interview tonight?”
“Yes, that will be fine. What time?”
“Well I have a business dinner with customers, so around 9 or 10 P.M. Is that too late?”
“No…that’s fine…” {Meanwhile I’m wondering what the hell is going on.}

Talk about being eager to meet with me. Then the guy called again the next morning asking if I was available to meet with his boss. And as if that wasn't enough, after that interview they asked if I wanted to join them go to KTV with some customers. (I had to politely turn down that offer; I presume that they were bringing the customers to special KTV.) It's obvious that they really want me to join their group; I basically have an unofficial offer on the table.

To be honest, their offer is extremely tempting. I'd be working sales and project management for stand alone television and monitor displays. They anticipate another 3-6 months of training in China, and after that I'm on my own. After training, I'd have an incredible amount of flexibility to travel and visit different customers around Asia and Europe. It's an unbelievable opportunity to quickly move up the corporate ladder and get some valuable experience.

Sounds pretty awesome right? But there's still one major problem that I just can't look past:

I'd have to commit to working in China for an indefinite period of time.

They currently don't have any customers in the US, so I wouldn't be able to return back to the US and work from there. I'm still not exactly sure how I feel about that. "Indefinitely" is a long time to be away from my friends and family in the US. When I initially signed my contract and agreed to take this job I figured, "Okay Alan. It's just 6-12 months abroad. Work hard, put in your time, and then you can come back home."

I wonder whether I can ever learn to call China "home." I've been living and working here for these past 9 months, but I still feel like a foreigner. I may be Chinese-American and this may be my ancestral homeland, but I don't really feel like I fit in or I belong here. You know, this is the first time I've been in Asia, let alone China. I wasn't born here and my parents weren't born here either, so I wasn't exactly brought up in this culture.

We've already began some discussions regarding the terms of the contract and it's seems like they want me bad enough that I can almost get whatever I want. I'll still be able to recieve my relatively expensive American worker salary without a pay cut. My housing costs will still be covered by the company. And most importantly, I'd get to come home for about a week every three months. In fact, my boss would be flexible and open to the idea allowing me to move dates around and come home when necessary for special occasions.

One of my best friends told me, "Alan, you should take it. If you asked 100 people, 99 of them would take it in a heartbeat." For me, there's a long list of pros balanced by one significant con. I still need to spend more time considering the offer. And let's not forget that there's still a number of other groups that I've been interviewing with as well.

Hopefully that all made sense. I'm thoughts have been a bit scrambled lately.

Re-Interviewing

2009-04-15T22:12:00.002+08:00

And so the search for my next assignment has officially kicked off. In the last two days, I've interviewed with two new groups. I'm really surprised by how quickly things are moving along.

For the first interview I got a call at 6:00 P.M. asking if I could interview that night. Talk about being hot to trot. I wasn't able to interview until 7:30 P.M., but they were willing to wait! And if that wasn't crazy enough, the entire interview was conducted in Mandarin. Granted he only asked me a few, simple questions (like "Tell me about yourself." and "Where are you from?"), but still it was pretty unreal. This group, which I'll call Group A, manufactures cases/enclosures for a major desktop and laptop computer company.

This morning I had an interview with one of the customer account manager located in the US from Group B. We chatted in Chinese for a few minutes before he learned about my background. When he learned that I'd been in China for 9 months and my parents never taught me how to speak Mandarin, he just laughed. And then he said, "You know we can just continue the interview speaking English, right?" Anyway, this group manufactures PCB and interconnectors for all of the major mobile phone suppliers.

I'm probably still have another round of interviews before actually getting selected by either of these groups though. I'm just hoping someone hires me before I head back to the US. It would be nice to have a job to come back to.

On an unrelated note, my supervisor wants me to stay in China until April 30th. So I guess I won't be back in the US until mid May. Again, still subject to final approval, etc.

Mosquito Bites? Sure are Fun to Scratch!

2009-04-14T20:15:00.009+08:00

Warm nights are great except for one thing: It's brings out all the mosquitoes. And recently I've been under relentless attack. I must have really delicious blood or something because I've always been especially prone to mosquito bites. Growing up, my family would always go camping the Labor Day Weekend before school started. I hated showing up to school that first day and having to explain the bumps all over my arms, legs, neck, and face. Damn my delicious smelling human body odor.

Anyway, I've just finished an un-intensive and unscientific evaluation of bites from the last two nights and I've compiled the following data and conclusions:

Conclusion #1: Mosquitoes in China are much more likely to feast upon my arms than any other section of my body.

Conclusion #2: Mosquitoes in China are twice as likely to feast upon the right half of my body.

Conclusion #3: Mosquitoes in China are rather indiscriminate about which part of my right arm they prefer to feast upon.

Silly or not, it's true. And I'm serious about all of those bites occurring within the last two days. The worst one are the bites on the bottom of my foot and the bottom of my palm though. UGH. Luckily, I found and killed one of the buggers this morning. It was rather disgusting just how much blood was in that little mosquito.

I've actually been getting so many bites that I haven't had a good sleep these last two nights. I kept waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of something buzzing in my ear. And then I think every once in awhile I'd wake up, scratch, and then go back to sleep. Talk about "sleep scratching."

I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this. One solution is to just stop exhaling (Apparently mosquitoes use exhaled breath to track victims down, especially when sleeping or exercising.) Somehow though, I don't think this is a viable optional. At least for now, I'm going to try leaving the air conditioner on while I'm sleeping.

I guess I should be thankful that the mosquitoes here don't have malaria...mosquitoes can't carry SARS or avian flu, can they?

Breaking the News

2009-04-12T21:50:00.002+08:00

In many ways, today was a pretty uneventful day. I didn't have any crazy adventures. I didn't go sightseeing. And I didn't take any pictures. I just went to play basketball and have dinner in Hong Kong. And yet, today was also one of the most difficult days for me.

In case you haven't heard, there is a very good possibility that I may be heading back to the US sooner than expected. (And I say "possibility" because nothing is ever promised tomorrow, today. Plus there's a lot of decisions that still haven't been finalized.)

I have a little over a week left to get ready to leave Shenzhen. The most pressing matter for me right now is informing my friends and coworkers here in China. I've always known that this day would come, but I never imagined that it I'd be leaving so soon and so suddenly. I just haven't had time to mentally prepare myself to break the news to them. I'm still trying to process everything myself.

Today, I told my friends the good/bad news. I didn't want to put a damper on the whole day, so I waited until after eating to make the announcement. I answered the usual bajillion questions about my situation. It was difficult, but it had to be done. It makes me sad to think that this may be the last time I see some of them.

I don't have a lot of friends here in China. When you can barely speak enough Chinese to hold a conversation, it's hard to get to know people. And when you're working six days a week, it's hard to get out and meet people. Thus, it was really unique that I was become friends with these people grew up and went to school in the US. I may have only known them for about a month and a half, but I have come to trust them.

I remember the first time I met them: I was at this Shenzhen Young Professionals exchange event with one of my American coworkers. We both felt so out of place because the average age was like 30. Everyone else was networking and exchanging business cards; we didn't even bring any business cards. Two of us are standing there getting ready to leave when we spot these other two Asian guys across from us. We're all looking at each other probably thinking, "You don't look like a local Chinese person. Are you American?" It gave us the courage to introduce ourselves, and the rest is history.

Tomorrow, I have to tell my coworkers. Imagine having to tell people you that you've seen 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, for last 9 months.

Heading Home

2009-04-11T07:05:00.003+08:00

I know that I've been ignoring this blog lately, but things have been busy. I've been working through editing Macau pictures, setting up my website, and doing some writing on the side. But there's been a recent development that I just have to blog about...

I will (probably) be coming home at the end of the month!

In case you haven't heard, my product division has been undergone some recent restructuring and merging. My old group and the new group both do not have plans to keep me. (Labor costs are apparently too high for American workers in China.) To drop me from the payroll asap, my groups in China want to send me home right away. If I wanted to, I could probably leave as soon as early next week. The company still wants to retain me, so I haven't been "fired" per se: My HR is just in the process of looking for alternative opportunities and placement.

My tenative plan is as follows [Note that all of these dates are still pending further approval and finalization]:

I'm going to stay on in China until April 20th to help wrap up an important customer visit. (I'd feel kind of bad if I left before then and bailed on my coworkers.) After that, I'm going to take some time off (maybe 10 days or so) to just travel and see other parts of China. (China's an enormous country and all I've seen of it is Guangdong in the south). Then I'll head home and I should be back in the US around May 1st.

Again, nothing has been set in stone; it's not like tickets have been booked and dates have been set. So to be honest, I'm not sure exactly when I'll be coming home. Plus, shit happens.

Plan B, eh?

2009-04-07T22:31:00.002+08:00

"It is very difficulty for me to write this mail to you. I have to inform you that [we] can not continue on this program, even I can see your potential to become an excellent PM to US/EURO customers ... I valued the time we spend in PGM. Hope someday we can work together again."

"I am sorry that we have to let you go eventually. I hope you have gained valuable knowledge and experiences during the past 9 months ... Thanks for all the assistance in the past 9 months!!"

"Now that this picture is clear we will quickly move to plan 'B'. We have your profile, we will work on the timing of your repatriation to the USA and next role."

Wow, talk about bombshells. After a wonderful three day weekend of sightseeing, gambling, binge eating, and working out in Macau, I came back to work today well refreshed. I turned on the computer, opened up the email, and then found that my fate has been determined:

My new group doesn't want me. My old group doesn't want me.

So where does that leave me? Honestly, I have no idea. Now that the picture has become clearer, my US HR department is going to execute plan "B," i.e. find some other group that will take me. Other than that, I'm not sure what's going to happen. At this point, there's really no telling when I'll be reassigned. In the meantime, I just have to keep working. It's hard so hard to concentrate though when I know that I'll be leaving soon. It all feels so pointless.

Right now, my worst fear is that I'll get another extention in China beyond July. If I get reassigned to another group, maybe they'll want to re-train me. They might want me to stay in China longer to study/work at their factories and learn about their product lines. Working in China is a grind and I never imagined myself having to be here beyond 6 months, let alone 1 year. Coming home once every six months just isn't enough for me I suppose. I'm not sure what I'l l do if they want to keep me another six months/one year.

Then again, maybe have an immediate need for me and send me back to the US early! [Yeah right, I'm doubting that one, but it's nice to pretend like it's going to happen.]

Palace Randoms

2009-03-29T10:31:00.002+08:00

Continuing from the last entry, here are some random pictures that I wanted to post:

The Blue House is like the South Korean version of our White House: it's the executive office and official residence for the President of the Republic of Korea. It's Korean name Cheongwadae literally translates to The House of the Blue Roof Tiles. (The only reason threw it together with these places pictures is because it's located accross the street from Gyeongbokgung Palace):

Yeongyeongdang is a private house located within Changdeokgung Palace. Built in 1828, this house was built "in commemoration of the honorific title Prince Hyomyeong gave to his father [King Sunjo] in order to praise his kingly virtue." However, the tour guide made it sound like the prince built it to help his dad adjust to a "regular normal life" as the monarchy began to lose its political power. So this house is where the king could get away and live like a typical aristocrat. Thus the architecture decorations are relatively bare compared to that on other buildings in the palace grounds. This is the main gate to the house:

This is a western wall along Jagyeongjeon, the living quarters built for the Queen Dowager Jo in Gyeongbokgung Palace. This wall is decorated with blossoming plants and Chinese characters to wish for health and happiness. I just like the colorful bricks and decorations. Different is good. (Can you tell I really thought the palace architecture got repetitive?):

Seonjeongjeon Hall is where the king dealt with state affairs at Changdeokgung Palace. In fact, the meaning of Seonjeong is "to carry out good politics." The building is also notable as the only remaining building on the palace grounds with a blue-tile roof. (Parts of the palace have been rebuilt many times because of numerous fires and invasions.) Sadly, this was about as close as I could get; the area was closed off for preservation purposes:

And this is Seokjojeon from Deoksugung Palace. (No, that wasn't a mistake; this is some of the interesting Western architecture that I wrote about last time.) This stone building was used for receiving foreign envoys during the Great Korea Empire. Now it's used as part of the royal museum:

Jeonggwanheon is the resting and entertainment place of Deoksugung Palace. This is where King Gojong would come to listen to music, drink coffee/tea, and hold banquets for foreign envoys. It also has an interesting mix of Korean and Western features and it was actually designed by a Russian architect:

(You also may have noticed that all of my pictures from Deoksugung Palace were taken at night. The place is actually open till 9 PM. How cool is that?)

Finally there was the changing of the guard ceremony at Gyeongbokgung Palace:

They must have incredible stamina because I have no idea how they can stand still for so long. And at the same time, they've got to deal with endless obligatory photo ops with tourists:

Yay for windy days:

All of my photos from churches, shrines, and palaces in Korea can be found below:

Korea (Album II - Temples/Shrines/Churches)

Five Grand Palaces and a Shrine: The Korean Joseon Dynasty

2009-03-27T23:32:00.000+08:00

And so the final countdown begins. 4 more blog entries of Korea and then I'm done!

Much like with Rome, you could make the argument that Seoul is also like a outdoor museum. From the historic gates of the city to the temples and shrines, Seoul has a great offering of historical sites located right within the city. Of these cultural relics, the most frequently visited are the Five Grand Palaces of the Joseon Dynasty.

As the last royal and imperial dynasty of Korea, the Joseon Dynasty has had an significant influence on modern Korean society. Go figure, more five centuries of rule (from July 1392 to August 1910) ought have that kind of effect. With consolidated control of all Korea, the country reached the height of classical Korean culture, trade, science, literature, and technology.

It was also during this time that Hangul, the native alphabet of the Korean language, was established so that commoners could also learn to read and write. (Prior to this, Chinese characters were used and trust me, Chinese characters are not easy. FYR, literacy in China is defined by someone who can read/write 1,500 Chinese characters. College graduates are required to know 7,000 to 10,000 characters. Think about that.)

Anyway, the Joseon Dynasty built Five Grand Palaces within their capitol of Seoul. I guess that when you're the King, you can never have enough places to live in. Out of these five, I only had a chance to visit three of them sadly. I'm not sure how I spent a week in Seoul and wasn't able to see all of them. Anyway, it's not really a big deal because all the palaces started to look the same after awhile anyway. Rather than writing about each palace individually, I decided to give a basic overview using pictures from all three places:

The Gate

Every palace has to have a main gate right? The main gate in the following picture (called Geunjeongmun Gate) is from Gyeongbokgung Palace. This palace served as the main royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty and it's considered to be the grandest. There's a lot to see there considering that the National Folk Museum and National Palace Museum are also located on the palace grounds. I ended up going here on Lunar New Years Day. Yay for free admission!

The Throne Hall

Located not too far from the main gate is the throne hall used for official ceremonies, such as celebrations by royal subjects and receptions for foreign envoys. The throne hall in this picture is Injeongjeon Hall, the "greatest building" of Changdeokgung Palace (at least that's how the brochure describes it.) Now if you compare this building with the main gate from above, you might notice a striking amount of similarities in the architectural style (double tiered roof, same colors, etc). Pretty much every building in every palace looks like that:

Now if you look closely at the previous picture you might notice two rows of stones markers on each side. These are the court stones that indicated where important officials were supposed to stand during meetings of state affairs. One row was for the civil officials and the other was for the military officials. The closer you stood to the front, the more important you were. Below is a close-up of the 6th court stone (taken at Deoksugung Palace):

Deoksugung Palace was actually my favorite of the three that I visited. It's really interesting because it's the only one of the Five Grand Palaces in corporate Western architecture. (I'll have more pictures of that later.) Anyway, this next picture is a close-up of the facade of the throne hall:

The Throne

These next two pictures are of the interior of the the throne hall. The throne is always located in the rear central part of the building between the pillars. And they sure love that yellow/red/green paint job, huh? Apparently this color combination was reserved for royalty:

Now behind this seat is a folding screen with a picture of the sun, moon, and five mountains. (And this was the same picture at each palace.) I've read that it's symbolic of the king "becoming the pivot of a balanced universe," because when the King sat in front of the screen, he literally became the central point of the composition:

The Shrine

Okay, so I've thrown an extra one in here. In addition to the Five Grand Palaces, there was also a Jongmyo Shrine, a site dedicated to the memorial services for the deceased kings and queens of the Joseon Dynasty. Jongmyo is the supreme shrine of the state where the "spirit tablets" of the royal ancestors are enshrined. (The spirit tables are markers indicating where a person's spirit dwells.) When a king or queen died, mourning would continue at the palace for three years after his/her death. After then, these spirit tablets would be moved here to Johnmyo and enshrined.

Jongmyo is also known as the located of the Jongmyo Jerye, the Royal Ancestral Rite. This rite for worshipping the late kings and queens of the Joseon Dynasty in is held every year at the first Sunday of May. (That totally makes me want to go back and photograph the ceremony.) The rite is usually accompanied with the court music playing and dance.

This is a picture of the Jaegung Area where the king and crown prince made their preparations for the Royal Ancestral Rite. They would enter through this main gate and stay here to purify their minds and bodies before heading to the main hall of Jongmyo:

And this is Jeongjeon, the central building of Jongmyo where all the spirit tables are enshrined. As you can tell, the overall architecture here at Jongmyo is simpler. There isn't that same lavish adornment seen in the palace architecture. I guess it's supposed to exhibit the dignity and solemnity of the place...or something like that. Anyway, this particular building is the longest independent building in Korea. And obviously as the number of enshrined kings and queens grew, they had to keep expanding the facility. Currently there are 19 spirit chambers with a total of 49 tablets:

Anyway, that's it for now. I've got one more entry about palaces and then a couple about Lunar New Years in Korea!

Why I Love Photography

2009-03-23T22:56:00.002+08:00

Yesterday, I went to the Hong Kong Flower Show. Spending a Sunday around orchids, tulips, and cosmos may not sound like an ideal weekend adventure, but I enjoyed myself in spite of the unfavorable conditions:

After a long night of drunken singing at KTV for my friend's birthday, I was left exhausted the following day. I'm still not sure how I managed to wake up so early and get myself out to Hong Kong for the flower show.
The event was smaller than I expected and jam-packed full of people. That's what I get for going on the last possible day of the show. And I'm a guy who despises being stuck in crowded areas.
The weather wasn't exactly uncomfortable: it was incredibly hot and humid. Wearing a t-shirt and shorts didn't do much to keep me cool. It probably didn't help that I was lugging around about 10 pounds worth of camera equipment.
Despite being there for about 5 hours, I ended up not even having lunch. Come to think of it, all I had while I was there was some sports drink. None of the real food looked appetizing to me so I just didn’t eat.

Like I said, I had a great time despite all of that. Things have been pretty stressful lately and it's been taking a toll on me mentally and physically. Photographing the flower show on Sunday was the type of break that I've been needing. I won't deny that it was also great just to get out of China and head to Hong Kong. But mostly, I've needed to get out and spend some serious time shooting. In those five hours of taking pictures of flowers, I was re-reminded of one of the main reasons why I love photography so much.

Taking pictures just takes a load off my mind. All the crap that I've been dealing with at work and in my personal life just temporarily disappeared during those five hours. When I get into the zone and start hitting my stride, there’s no better escape. And when it comes to macro photography and flowers, it's even better. Flowers don't move and you can't give them direction or tell them how to pose. It’s pretty much just going to sit there prettily. So it takes more concentration from the photographer because you can't control the flower, but you can really control the camera. Thus for me, it requires me focus even more to figure out the right angle, composition, depth of field, exposure, etc.

And that's one of the main reasons I love photography. I love that I can become so totally engrossed in taking a picture that I forget about what's bothering me. I know it's not a long lasting permanent solution, but sometimes all I need is a break, even if it's only for five hours.

Dear Summer: "Welcome" Back

2009-03-22T19:52:00.004+08:00

So I ran into an old "friend" today. I don't like the guy and I've just been trying to avoid him lately. I've knew eventually I would have to face him again, but I didn't think it would happen so soon. I was getting off an MTR (Mass Transit Railway) train in Hong Kong and there he was. Before I even had a chance to react, he said with a devilish grin, "Glad to see me again?" It was like taking a swift punch to the gut.

DAMN YOU HUMIDITY! (The humidity is supposed to be at 90~95%. Seriously.)

During the last couple of months, it's been great; the weather has been pretty cool and dry. Shenzhen is in the subtropical part of China, so we don't have freezing cold, snowy winters like in Beijing. But lately it's just been getting hotter and more uncomfortable here. I've had to turn on the AC in my room everyday this week; I can't remember the last time I had to use it before then. I know that Spring/Summer are coming, but it's only late March! Come on, gimme a break.

That means it's time to start rolling up those sleeves and stop wearing jeans. It's back to showering twice a day so I don't feel disgusted with myself. The hardest part is going to be re-teaching myself to just accept being sweaty and feeling sticky. There's nothing you can really do to escape the humid, hot summers.

Natually Blond

2009-03-18T21:05:00.002+08:00

"So why isn't your hair yellow?"

Yellow? Did I hear that right? I'm pretty sure 黄色 means yellow. Unless she meant ... but, but ... there's no way she meant that...

"You mean like golden colored, like ... blond?"

"Exactly! You know because Americans all have blond hair. Did you just dye yours hair black?"

I can't believe this girl just asked me that. She actually thinks that my natural hair color is blond. I don't even know how to respond to that. Where do I even begin?

"Um...well I'm Chinese. I was just born in America."

"Oh you're Chinese!? I thought you were an American all this time."

Ugh, to be an ABC in China. I really need to figure out how to say "Chinese American" in Mandarin. It would make it a lot easier to explain my background.

"Well I'm American too. My parents were born in America and my grandparents were all Cantonese..."

"And your grandparent's parents and their parents and their parents were all born in America?"

Man, this girl just doesn't understand. I guess people don't understand the concept of being Chinese American (or even Asian American for that matter). I guess you're either one of us or one of them. How can I convince her that I'm still Chinese?

"Well actually my grandparents were all born in Guangdong [aka Canton]."

"Oh I see."

This is just getting awkward now. Time to ABCsee myself out of this conversation

"Well, I'm going to head back to my office now. Bye."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's a real conversation that I had with a security guard at work today. In her defense, the entire conversation was conducted in Mandarin (so maybe I didn't fully understand what she was saying).

But still, me with naturally blond hair!? Gimme a break. Did she think my eye brows were dyed black as well? And that I wear color contacts?? And she's thought this the last 8 months that I've been here???

Hands down, this is the best question I've been asked so far. Waaaay better than the question about whether all black people can slam dunk.

The $450 Photo

2009-03-15T20:06:00.002+08:00

Take a look at the photo below and tell me what you think:

It's pretty huh? I don't wanna toot my own horn, but I like it. In fact, I'd love it if not for the fact that this picture cost me $450. It's probably best I explain from the beginning...

I spent the day at Splendid China, a miniatures amusement park in downtown Shenzhen, China. It's similar to Window of the World, only this place focuses solely on China. This park is filled with miniature versions every major tourist attraction in China: Great Wall, Forbidden City, Terracotta Warriors, Tiananmen Square (without any tanks), etc. They actually had a sister theme park in near Orlando, Florida too, but it closed within a year of opening.

Anyway, I'm there sitting beside this miniature Alishan, trying to take pictures of some blooming lotus flowers. (FYI, Alishan is a mountain in Taiwan famous for its hiking trails and high altitude tea plantations.) So imagine me sitting on the ground, leaning over the water's edge, carrying a sling bag full of lenses. Now my macro lens is somewhat short (105mm), so I really have to lean over to get close to the flower. So I stretch out my arms and reach forward, just a little further...

FWOMP! (Did I mention that my bag was partially unzipped?)

I immediately look over and watch something roll down and plunge into the pond's murky depths. Air bubbles rise to the surface as my telephoto lens takes it's last gasps for breath; I've just sent it a watery grave. I thrust my hands into the muck and blindly fumble around, searching for my lens. I manage to find the lens and I quickly rip off the lens cap, back cap, UV filter to survey the damage.

So how bad is it? Well the back cap seems to have sealed out any water pretty well, but there's still a shitload of water stuck inside the front element of the lens. See for yourself:

I'm most worried about how dirty that water is. The bottom of a lotus pond is known for being incredibly murky, smelly, dirty, and mucky. (Thus it's rather inspiring that such a beautiful, successful flower is able to make its way out of this muck.) Unfortunately though, my lens just so happened to crash land in this muck. So even if I find a way to dry out the lens, there's still going to be a lot of dirty and gunk in there.

Check out my snap-on lens cap. It's fully dried out, but it still makes grinding sounds when I squeeze it. In fact, you can still kind of see the dried specks of mud:

I tried to dry the lens right away by leaving it out in the sun, but I think I made it worse. It seemed to just evaporate the water and make it spread through out the lens even faster. And since the lens is weather-sealed, the water is pretty much stuck in there. As you can see, it spead to the to the focusing distance window:

It seems like I'm going to have to take it to a Nikon service center...except there aren't any in China. Which means I'll have to take it to Hong Kong one...except they aren't open on Sundays. DAMN YOU, 6 day work week. Think they'll let me take a day off? I'd say this counts as an emergency!

Good (?) News?

2009-03-10T23:23:00.003+08:00

In case you couldn't tell by my rambling entry from yesterday, my mental state is rather fragile right now. I just have had a lot of pent up frustration with my work situation. This whole restructuring effort has put a big question mark on my future. I know it's pointless to worry about things you can't really control; in the end I'm just going to have to wait it out. It's just that amidst all of these organizational changes, no one is really looking out for my best interests. I currently don't have a concrete plan, and that worries me since I'm supposed to go home in July. My worst fear is that they'll say, "We're going to have to extend your training. We just don't think you're ready yet. Given all this restructuring, we think you need more readjustment time here."

Speaking of a possible extension, I actually got some "good" news today. I was chatting with a fellow coworker who came over with me from the US at the same time. Apparently they want to extend his training beyond a year and so he's been dealing with China work visa issues. There's a requirement that you need a minimum 2 years of work experience to qualify for a work visa. And that's a problem since he just graduated last year. (So in a way, we're in the same boat: if my training ends up getting extended, I'm going to have to deal with this as well.)

It's funny because all this time we've been staying here legally, but working here illegally. I mean we don't have a work visa; we just have a tourist visa. Technically we could be deported at any time! (And I didn't realize this until today when I took a closer look at the visa in my passport, LOL.) Thus it seems like extending or reapplying for another tourist visa is not a viable option.

So what does this all mean for me exactly? Well I'm assuming this means that I won't be able to acquire a work visa and thus my training won't be extended beyond July! I know that my friend's situation is not a guarantee, but I'm going to pretend like it is. Deep down, I just want to believe that my training won't be extended. I know this approach is nonsensical, but I need to pretend like it's the case to ease my mind. And at this point I'm willing to forego logic to cling on to something as simple at this.

Some Things Change, Some Stay the Same

2009-03-10T21:31:00.005+08:00

I was reading through some old blog entries and I came across this tidbit:

"I know that when I come back in December I'll have NO regrets about my decision to take this job and come to China. I have no doubts about that. Right now though, I'm having trouble seeing through the fog and I'm just overwhelmed."

(Coming back in December? Yeah right! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine my training being extended another six months.)

The reason that I quoted from this old blog entry is that I'm amazed by how I find the last sentence to still be so relevant ...

Eight months ago it was tough...real tough. Honestly it was probably the hardest time of my life thus far. Fresh out of college, I was dealing with being an adult, living on my own, and taking care of myself. For a lot of people this transition is hard enough, and I was doing it in a foreign country where I could barely form a sentence! And at the same time I was trying to deal with some serious homesickness, culture shock, and loneliness.

And somehow, working six days a week at the factory didn't make things any easier. It wasn't even really about the 60+ hour weeks. It was the fact that I have NO idea what my job actually was. I didn't even really understand what my hell my department manufactured. I couldn't understand why they sent me half way around the world because I felt like I had no purpose here. Everyday I would dread coming to work; I was always worried about not finding enough tasks to keep me busy. And I didn't even know what my long term plan was, i.e. when I'd be coming back and where my final placement would be. It really was like being lost in a thick cloud of fog.

I've come a long way since breaking down and crying in that bathroom stall. I feel like I've matured considerably since then. (Except for losing my wallet,) I've been able to take care of myself fairly well here. I'm learning to depend less on my parents and even manage my own finances (even if my Roth IRA mutual fund has dropped 12% since opening the account). I've also become quite accustomed to the lifestyle, food, and culture of China. In fact, I've reached a point where I can get around the city on my own with local transportation using only Mandarin. And as for work, I'm beginning to understand my responsibilities and role as a project manager. The best part is that I'm actually being given work. Although it's not much and I still have to find stuff to keep myself busy, it's better than nothing I suppose.

But at the same time I wonder about how much things have really changed. Sure I've become accustomed to working and living in China, but I still feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. And while I may be used to the lifestyle here, that doesn't stop me from going to Hong Kong just about every weekend (because it's "Western" and they speak English.) And while the homesickness is nowhere near as bad as when I first got here, but I still can't help but cry sometimes. (It's my catharsis to purge and release any pent up bad feelings.)

And then there's that whole work issue that I've been dealing with. Thanks to the recent restructuring effort, I feel like everything has been reset. At one point I was content with work, but now it's remerged as a point of frustration. I feel lost again without a purpose. And I still don't know when I'm going home or even where I'm going to end up! At this point people seem content with giving it all more time and letting it work itself out.

It's funny how some things never change...

DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) - Part II

2009-03-06T22:44:00.004+08:00

And continuing from part one:

The Third Tunnel

After I nearly missed the tour bus, we were off to our next point of interest: the Third Tunnel of Aggression. (That's what I get for wondering off in search of food, haha.) The Third Tunnel is one of a handfull of underground tunnels that cross the border of North and South Korea. This 1.1 mile long tunnel was built by North Korea for launching a surprise attack on Seoul. It didn't seem that big, but it's estimated to be large enough to move 10,000 soldiers per hour. Here is a layout of the tunnel to give you an idea of what it looks like:

The tunnel is located 240 feet underground, so you have to walk down this long, steep walkway just to get to the entrance. (I didn't think it was that exhausting, but our tour guide told us about how one of her tourists couldn't make it back up the path.) It made me really sad that we couldn't take pictures inside the tunnel. I'm not exactly sure why it was such a big deal. Maybe it was a matter of national security, to ensure the North is unaware of the renovations that have been made to the tunnel. Or maybe it was just because the tunnel was small and crowded. (I like the former reason; it's more scintilizing even if it's not true.) In either case, here is a picture of the entrance to the walkway. Beyond this point you're not allowed to take pictures :(

Now when this tunnel was discovered by South Korea in 1978, North Korea actually tried to downplay the incident. In fact, they flat out denied building it, claiming it was a South Korean tunnel. But based on the slight incline of the tunnel (that drains water back towards North Korea) and the direction of the dynamite blasting, it was clear that North Korea had build this tunnel. So then they changed their story claiming that this was just a coal mine. They even went so far as to paint black "coal" on the walls!

Since I can't show you the "coal," here is a picture of the camera feeds from various places around the tunnel. It's hard to tell, but the images on the top row are from inside the tunnel!:

Dora Observatory

After almost missing the tour bus again, we were off to Dora Observatory, the northern most point in South Korea. Located atop Mount Dora, from this observatory one can look across the DMZ.

For security reasons, they had this "photo line," i.e. you're not allowed to take any pictures past the yellow line. From standing at this line, it's impossible to see the DMZ or North Korea (well unless you're Yao Ming or something). Again, I'm not really sure why. Maybe this kind of intel could be valuable to the North Koreans for planning attacks across the DMZ? In either case, the soldliers were serious about the rule and they were ready to confiscate memory cards:

Dorasan Station

Finally, there was Dorasan Station. This railroad station has become a symbol of the hope for reunification. The Gyeongui Line that runs through this station at one point connected Seoul to Pyeonyang. An effort has been slowly underway to recconect this railway with tracks having been built across the DMZ. Test runs have been completed and there's even a once a weekday frieght train that travels between North and South Korea. Obviously though there's no regular passenger train service ... for now. Anyway, this is the sign for the passenger trains to Pyeongyang:

And because tourists love pictures with soldiers in uniform, they had two people standing guard. It must seriously be the most boring job in the world. For one, there's nothing really to guard. And secondly they have to deal with annoying tourists/photographers (like me!) who want to take pictures of them all day. That's probably why this guy looks so heated:

On a final note about the DMZ, it's interesting to note that no human has entered the DMZ in the last 50 years. Thus it's become a de facto wildlife/nature reserve and environmentalists hope that if reunification occurs, the area will be preserved. It sounds like an awesome idea except for the fact that this was a battlefield littered with mines.

DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) - Part I

2009-03-03T13:14:00.006+08:00

The DMZ was probably the most fascinating historical place I visited in South Korea. Before coming, I actually didn't know that much about the history of the division of Korea. (That's the great thing about traveling: you have the opportunity to learn all sorts of neat things about someone else's history, culture, language, food, etc.)

From current my understanding it seems like Korea got screwed over by the US and the Soviet Union. After decades of colonization and annexation by Japan, Korea had the chance to form their own country at the end of World War II. But the US and Soviet Union were unable to agree on whether to implement a democratic or communist government. So they decided to arbitrarily divide Korea along the 38th parallel. Independent elections were held in the US-backed south, while a USSR friendly provisional government was set up in the north. And to this day, Korea is still divided into North and South Korea.

So what is the DMZ then? Well after being unified for more than a millennium, the idea of a divided Korea was unacceptable to both governments. And the Korean War occurred as a natural result of this conflict. After the war, a 2.5 mile buffer zone was established between North and South Korea. And this area is what is known as the DMZ. (Interestingly enough, since no peace treaty signed after the armistice agreement, the two countries are technically still at war.)

Anyway, enough with the history. For my trip to the DMZ, I decided to go along with a tour group. Honestly though, I hate being in a tour group because I hate feeling like a tourist. Plus I'd much rather explore at my own pace. I hate feeling like I need to keep up/slow down for the group. But with a coupon from my hostel, I decided to make an exception. And I will admit that it was nice having someone else plan everything. Plus my tour guide was hilarious.

Freedom Bridge

The first stop on the tour was the "Bridge of Freedom." This bridge connects North and South Korea and it was used by refugees from the north. However, it's probably most famous for being the site of a POW exchange during the war:

And this fence blocks off the bridge to keep people from entering:

The South Korean entrance to the bridge is located in Imjingak. This park that was built in 1972 with the hope that someday unification would be possible. With the division of Korea, there are a lot of people who will never be able to return home to see their friends or family. It's rather sad actually:

As a result, people will often come to this site and hang ribbons with their notes/prayers. You know, things like, "No Divided Korea." Usually something more serious than, "PEARL JAM RULEZ!" (Not that I disagree with that message):

Anyway, that's it for part one of my DMZ tour. I ended up splitting the entry into two parts because I ended up having written so much content. I'll have part two posted tomorrow!

N Seoul Tower

2009-03-03T13:09:00.004+08:00

During my last night in Seoul, I made my way over to N Seoul Tower, a communication tower located on Mt. Namsan. The structure measures 777 feet in height from base to tip, but since it's on a mountain, the total height is 1,574 feet above sea level. N Seoul Tower was an item on my "Seoul To-Do List" that I ended up putting off until the last possible moment. And with my hostel at the base of Mt. Namsan, I really really should have gone earlier. So on my last night, I braved the cold and caught the Namsan cable car up to the peak.

I didn't really make it a priority because other tall buildings just pale in comparison after you've visited Taipei 101. I ended up going N Seoul Tower anyway though for two main reasons. One was the nighttime view of the city...

...And the other was the "sky restrooms." Imagine peeing to this! (Well for guys anyway. I'm not sure about the design of the women's restroom.) It's funny that you can enjoy a great panoramic view in the bathroom. And obviously the fact that it's a bathroom didn't stop me from taking this picture. You should have seen me hanging around the restroom, waiting for the place to clear out, pretending to wash my hands, etc. Taking pictures while guys are peeing would have felt too weird and creepy:

As for the rest of the place, it's exactly what you'd expect: lots of glass windows, overpriced cafes, plenty of souvenir shops and a fancy expensive restaurant on the top floor. I did like the "window guides " that pointed out famous/historical/touristy sights of Seoul. (It's that writing is on the window):

They've even got little dots and lines on the window to give you a general idea of where the landmark(s) is located. The line in this image demarks the Han River and the various bridges that cross it. (And I'm pleasently surprised by how well the bokeh came out):

After I'd had enough of nighttime city views, I headed back down the plaza level. Walking around, I noticed a whole lotta' these little locks attached to every gate and fence:

So what's the deal? Apparently couples love to come up here and chain their everlasting love with a little lock. (Did I mention that these are locks of love?) I'm curious about where they get such cute little locks though. Look at this one, it's got little hearts on it!:

But my real question is: "What happens when you break up?" I mean you don't want leave up a lock that belongs to your ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend. I suppose that why they have this sign:

And I imagine all the pimps and players out there must spend a small fortune on locks!

Cheonggyecheon

2009-03-03T13:01:00.004+08:00

Next up is Cheonggye Stream, a 3.7 mile long stream that runs right through the heart of central Seoul. Historically, the steam served as a waste water drain for the people living in Seoul. (Thus it's rather ironic that Cheonggyecheon translates to "clean stream.") The garbage and waste situation became considerably worse after liberation from Japanese colonial rule and the Korean War. It became the symbol of poverty and slovenliness and as a result it was eventually covered over with concrete. But in 2003, the city of Seoul began a massive urban renewal and beautification project:

Two years and 249 million USD later, the project was complete. Since then, it's become quite the popular attraction among local residents and tourists alike. Paths were made on both sides of the stream for people to take leisurely walks. If you ever get a chance to check it out, you'll understand why it's such a lovely place to visit:

They even made the effort to beautify and modernize the bridge underpasses. Under this particular bridge they installed rows of lights under the water:

Actually, there's a total 22 bridges that cross Cheonggyecheon. At this underpass, they made an photography gallery! And of course every work on display is a photograph of the stream. (Sadly, not every underpass looks as cool as this one):

And this is the waterfall at the beginning of the stream (Yay for blurred moving water photos!):

They even went so far as to include some digital, public works of art. This first piece is Digital Garden a work by Mexican artist Miguel Chevalier. According to the official blurb:

"The artist takes you on an unforgettable journey through a digital 'garden of the future' that even includes a captivating presentation of a variety of three-dimensional flowers."

And here's a video of Digital Garden:

The other public artwork they have is Digital Canvas, a piece created by French artist Laurent Francois. The show basically consists of laser beams reflected of a screen of water mist. I can't quite phrase it as eloquently as the official blurb:

"The artist's use of lasers to project various elements of nature on the water fountains of the Cheonggyecheon is truly an amazing sight."

Is it "truly an amazing sight?" You'll have to decide for yourself after watching this video (And did I forget to mention that all my videos are in HD. You've just got to click that little button that says "HD" near the bottom right):

Hwacheon Sancheoneo (Mountain Trout) Ice Festival

2009-03-02T23:48:00.000+08:00

Oh the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival, clearly one of the highlights of my travels in Korea. Every January, crowds of people come to the Hwacheongang River for this unique festival. It's named after the sancheoneo, a rare type of mountain trout that's abundant in the streams of the Hwacheon region. Below is a giant ice sculpture of this type of trout:

But the festival is about so much more than just fishing. During the wintertime, this 490 foot wide river completely freezes over, making it perfect for ice soccer, skating, tubing, and even ATV driving! (At about 12-16 inches thick, the ice is more than thick enough.):

And of course there's ice sledding too. This traditional Korean sled is made of a small wooden board with metal blades attached to the bottom. Using these metal-tipped, pointed wooden sticks, you sit on top of the sled and propel yourself along. You can actually get up to some pretty high speeds. Too bad I was way too big for the sled :( I had some terrible leg cramps afterwards:

They also had some amazing ice sculptures on display. This picture is from the interior of one of the ice tunnels. It was pretty cool because there were strings of LED lights frozen into the side walls. So as you walked along through the tunnel, the lights would change color!:

But obviously, the main attraction is the mountain trout fishing. For the truly fearless, like myself, there's bare-handed ice fishing. I just had to do it.

I remember standing in the warm comfort of the staging tent, waiting for them to bring the group outside. I'm nervous as hell because all I'm wearing is a t-shirt and shorts. I step outside and manage to keep warm thanks to the adrenaline running through my system. But it wears off rather quickly. There we are standing around the edge of that pool, barefoot I might add. At the sound of the whistle we jump in the water; it's time to go fishing. Let's just say I've never been so cold in my entire life. Bare-handed ice fishing was like trying to catch as baseball pop fly with with two 2x4s. I could see the fish, I could feel the fish, but I couldn't grab the fish. My hands were just frozen solid.

And of course I'd be stupid enough to try it:

Sane people usually just go ice fishing. You can buy a cheap ol' plastic rod from the numerous vendors along the banks of the river. There are hundreds of holes dotted across the frozen river and you're free to take your pick. Kind of makes you wonder how anyone catches anything when the place is so densely packed:

So how did I do? Well check out this video and find out for yourself! (Yay for videos!):

Yup that's right, I actually caught something! Actually, I managed to catch two fish in the span of about 45 minutes. Not too shabby.

Some guy offered to take this picture of me with my catch of the day. I must have looked like a weirdo when I was taking pictures of the catch. There I am carrying a fishing pole, with a bag of lenses on my back and a big ol' camera around my neck. I was trying to set up this picture of the fish near the ice hole: trying different angles, placing the fish in different positions, etc. That's probably why he offered to take my picture. It must have looked especially weird when I was holding up the camera to take that video of me catching a fish. Haha. Anyway, he was a nice guy and I ended up giving him my fish:

The really cool thing is that you could barbecue your fish there at the festival. It'll probably be the freshest fish you ever eat! Barbecues lined the bank of the river and you purchase charcoal and cooking utensils there. They even had a slicing and filleting service available for you. Supposedly, the trout has firm, chewy flesh with a nutty, slightly sweet taste. I wouldn't know though; like I said, I gave all my fish away:
!

What Does The Future Hold?

2009-02-27T21:59:00.002+08:00

I realized that it's been awhile since I've actually written anything about how work is going. (Or even anything about China for that matter.) So let me give you an update. It's a tale of the good, the bad, and the ugly:

The Good: I have real work!

Two weeks ago, I had a meeting with my manager and he finally started giving me real work. Enough of this, "Oh, just figure out your training by yourself because I have no real plan for you." He's decided which group he wanted to place me with and I was given some real assignments. I mean presentations and factory tours for customers are important, but they don't occur that often. I was left twiddling my thumbs in the time between visits. Now though, I'm much more involved in project development and management. More than anything, it's just nice to contribute to the group. I was beginning to enjoy work and find stability until...

The Bad: I might be going to Finland?

I had another talk with manager about final placement after China. I mean we had planned for me to complete training in China by this July; that leaves about 4 months until I'm leaving! I just had to bring it up. I've known for awhile that my choices were either with the "A" Company in Northern California, or the "N" company in Finland. (Yeah, I know. That's a huge difference!) He had made the decision that working in Finland would be a better fit and a more viable option.

Hearing the news upset me for awhile because I had always planned on coming back home to US. I wasn't sure if I was ready for another 1+ years abroad, away from friends and family. I wasn't sure if I had the heart (both mentally and physically) to endure another tour of duty in a foreign country. I really tried not to worry about it so much, but I couldn't help it. Now some might consider this offer a good thing. It is another once in a lifetime opportunity and for that reason alone I probably would have accepting the offer. I'd probably seem like a fool to turn it down. I would have accepted it until it was seemingly taken off the table...

The Ugly: WTF is going on?

And then today some more bombs were dropped on us at work. In an attempt to consolidate and improve overall efficiency, my business group was dissolved. (Damn you global economic credit crisis and you sub-prime mortgages!) My group is to be restructured/split up/absorbed by other larger groups. It's all my coworkers have been talking about all day. (In fact, two people just came over to have a discussion about the situation.)

So how does that affect me? The basic low-down is that I have four options at this point:

Switch groups and stay in my current location
Stick with my group and move to a different factory
Stick with my group and move to Taiwan
Quit

Now there's still a lot of details that need to be hammered out. There's a lot of stuff that's still up in the air. And given my recent history with unexpected change, who knows what will happen next week. But regardless, I'm trying to figure out what will be best for me. I'm really worried about having to start over in terms of settling into day to day work, getting to know co-workers, restarting my training, etc.

Would I be a coward/idiot for quitting and coming home, hoping to find a new job in this economy? (I've signed a contract, so I'm not even sure if it's theoretically possible.)

Myeongdong

2009-02-24T23:47:00.000+08:00

Now just down the street from the Namdaemun Market is Myeongdong, one of Seoul's main shopping districts. It's one of those dense, pulsating, crowded shopping areas. Myeongdong translates to "bright village/district," and the name makes sense considering the density of brightly-lit signs and neon lights. This is where you can find international brands, department stores, smaller trendy shops, and street vendors (This is also the place where I almost broke down and bought that North Face down jacket, haha):

Speaking of the cold, it would suck to be a street vendor on those cold, snowy, winter nights. I mean they had portable space heaters to keep warm, but that ain't gonna keep snow off the merchandise (That's where feather dusters and big tarps become handy):

I only wish that I could have seen the place in it's fully glory. The wind chill and snowfall make this open-air market less than ideal for nighttime strolling. As it gets later and later, the streets begin to clear out and shops begin to close up relatively early:

I'd frequent Myeongdong for two reasons. For one, it's literally down the street from Namdaemun Market and my hostel. (Although those 5-6 blocks seemed endless in a flurry of snow. I should have just paid to take the subway one stop.) And the other reason was I wanted to get some awesome pictures of the architecture of Myeongdong Cathedral:

Located on the fringe of the sprawling shopping area, the Myeongdong Cathedral is the center of the Catholic Church in Seoul. The main building features a steeple bell-tower that's 45 meters tall. That's about 147 feet high! Here's a wide angle picture of the the steeple. (Notice the pointed arch, the defining characteristic of Gothic architecture?):

Completed in 1898, the cathedral was dedicated and consecrated to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. I'm not Catholic or anything like that, but I just wanted to document some of the architecture:

Actually, what I really wanted was take pictures of the interior. Problem was that every time I'd visit, there would be a mass going on. I went back multiple times, but I suppose it wasn't meant to be. It would have felt rude/weird to be taking pictures while people were praying. So I settled with this picture of people leaving the cathedral after mass:

Namdaemun Market

2009-02-24T21:32:00.000+08:00

Ah, the Namdaemun Market, the place I most often frequented during my stay in Korea. Located conveniently across the street from my hostel, I'd walk through the market everyday. It's a cool place just for walk around in, even if you're not in shopping mood. It's general wholesale market with just about anything: clothing, kitchenware, handicrafts, food, military supplies, etc. (Yeah, the military equipment seemed a tad out of the ordinary until I realized that there's a mandatory 2 year conscription.) Anyway, having officially opened as a government chartered market in 1414, it has the distinction of being one of Korea's oldest continuously running markets:

I still remember arriving in Seoul and getting off the bus stop adjacent to Namdaemun Market. I headed straight for the hostel to drop off by luggage, packed up my camera gear, and headed right back to the market. It was time to just get lost in the market and just absorb the environment. This is, after I had a steaming bowl of kimchi jjigae for lunch. This is picture of the exterior of the restaurant with all their dishes on display:

After lunch I went out to go explore some more, but after awhile the cold got to me. I couldn't take it anymore, so I ducked into an underground shopping area. People must have been thinking the same thing, because the place was packed. And it didn't help that the stalls were so dense and that the aisles were so small. After I'd warmed up sufficiently, I braved the cold on mission to find earmuffs. Ah, my lifesavers.

The highlight of the day had to be this particular vendor. Notice anything strange?

You know, like that bra on his head? Or the shimmery, sparkly coat he's wearing? Haha. I spotted a crowd of women sifting through this pile of clothes and decided to check it out. And then I noticed the eclectic vendor. He was quite the entertainer though, joking around with the customers and the crowd. It's too bad every vendor wasn't like this:

Usually, (i.e. when it's not freezing) the market stays open until the wee hours. However, everynight I'd walk through the market on my way home and vendors began to close shop at arouond 8 or 9 PM. I guess I can't blame em. It's cold enough out there at night that puddles freeze over and you have to watch your step.

Actually, as the sun begins to set during the winter nights, people start setting up these makeshift tented restaurants. They'll set up their clear plastic tarp tents right in the middle of the roads/pathways. With the plastic walls, helping to keep out the cold, they'll set up some heaters around the tent to keep everyone warm. And there will be this huge spread of vegetables, meats, seafood, skewers etc. available for ordering. You pick what you want and they'll cook it on the grill and bring it too your table. Pretty nifty idea. I should have tried some.

Lotte World

2009-02-19T19:49:00.004+08:00

Welcome to Lotte World, home to the world's largest indoor amusement park. If the brand Lotte sounds familiar, then you probably have heard of them before. They're a gigantic conglomerate with ties to a number of diverse industries such as hotels, department stores, beverages, and are perhaps most famous for their candy. (I just can't get enough of those adorable/delicious Koala's March cookies!)

Anyway, Lotte World was one of the things that I just had to do while I was in Seoul. (Just because I'm 22 doesn't mean I can't still have fun at a children's amusement park.) I know that I just said it was an amusement park, but it's much more than that. The building is like a huge recreational complex that also includes an ice skating ring, shopping mall, movie theatres, and hotel built on the floors beneath the park.

Here's a picture to give you an idea of what the place looks like:

The place is deceptively big. You may not realize it from just looking at the picture, but there are actually four floors worth of rides and attractions. I had fun there, but it was a little strange to be at an indoor amusement park. You look up expecting to see the sky and all you can see is a giant glass panel ceiling. (I did enjoy the nice even, smooth lighting as a photographer though.)

This next picture was from the line for the Flume Ride. It's like the generic log ride you find at every amusement park. Looking up, you can see the monorail and "hot air balloon" ride that take you on a trip around the park:

And thank goodness they were using clean water for the log ride. I was worried there but a bit, but I feel at rest now:

Next up is The Adventures of Sinbad ride. I guess you could think of it like a Pirates of the Caribbean type of ride. Imagine sitting in a boat and watching animatronic robot characters playing out the story of Sinbad. Now imagine that the robots all speak Korean, haha. I had no idea what was going on. Something about Sinbad and a genie and his Sinbad's girlfriend:

Oh and then he had to fight a skeleton. It's probably better not to question why:

My favorite ride had to be the Outlaw in the Wilds ride. It's this awesome ride that incorporates the video game elements of a shooter game. Everyone sits together in this room in the style of an old Western saloon with a big screen on the wall. Your chair is a mechanical horse that jostles around as you aim your gun at the screen. The best part is that at the end of the ride they show pictures of the top 3 high scorers and the lowest scorer on the screen. They must have cameras mounted somewhere to take your picture and display it on the screen next to your score. (I missed 3rd place by 2 points :(, but at least I wasn't the lowest scorer):

As for the food, they had a diverse selection of restaurants: Korea, Chinese, Mediterranean, Spanish, etc. The Mexican restaurant is called La Paloma, and according to the website, it's one the few "authentic" Mexican restaurants in Korea. Check out the dish on the bottom left: mmm, tacos with fried rice. It's like having the best of both worlds!:

Now when I said Lotte World was the world's largest indoor amusement park, I was only telling you half of the story. Lotte World is actually two amusement parks! There's the indoor Lotte World Adventure and the outdoor Lotte World Magic Island. And unlike Disneyland and California Adventure, you can get into both places at Lotte World with one ticket.

Now as for the outdoor Lotte World park, I can't say that much about it because I hardly spent any time there. Unfortunately, I picked the coldest day of my trip to go to Lotte World. (Don't believe me? Take a look at the picture from my previous blog.) It was seriously the most snow I'd seen while in Seoul.

The good news was that the lines were incredibly short. I got to go on my favorite outdoor ride, the Atlantic Adventure roller coaster like 3 times! The bad news is that I had to take off my earmuffs during the ride. Imagine speeding along on a roller coaster at 80 km/hr in a snow storm without earmuffs. Now that's cold. In fact, the ride is supposed to be combined roller coaster/log ride, but the water was frozen over:

My favorite thing about the ride is that it begins to accelerates from the very start. I wish someone would have told me this because I almost injured my neck. As the ride started I was looking down, adjusting my gloves and then WHAM. Next thing I knew, the g-forces were pulling my head down. I guess I should have listened to that sign that said "Keep your head up during the ride." Haha. I've been feeling good since then. That means I don't need to find a Chinese acupuncturist, right?

Seoul Culinary College

2009-02-18T22:44:00.004+08:00

Yesterday was all about eating Korean Food...today is all about cooking Korean Food.

Take a cooking lesson had to be one of the most worthwhile things I did in Korea. As soon as I found out there were Korean cooking lessons for foreigners, I knew I had to do it. I mean I love cooking and I love Korean food; why not put them together?

Here's a pictures of my teacher and the teaching kitchen. She didn't speak a whole lot of English, but she was really nice. We stood there at the counter facing each other as we prepared the food. I would follow her along as we went step by step through the recipes. (Ugh, a little too much distortion with that ultra-wide.):

First up on the menu was the bulgogi. I was actually surprised by just how easy it was to prepare. I know it's easier to just buy the pre-marinated stuff, but I still want to try doing it myself when I get back. This picture was from after we had seasoned the beef:

And this picture is after grilling. Interestingly enough, rather than grilling the meat over an open flame, we just pan-fried it. Nonetheless it was still delicious:

Next on the menu was the Korean cucumber and fried fish. For the fish, we used pollock. This picture was after we had sliced the ingredients and sprinkled some sea salt over it. (The salt helps season the fish and dehydrate the cucumbers):

After a dip in a beaten egg/flour, the pieces were pan-fried. I'm not a fan of fish, but the fried cucumbers were really good:

And finally, there's the kimchi of course. Here are some of the raw ingredients (watercress daikon, leeks, and celery cabbage):

After preparing the chopped vegetables (minus the cabbage), we got ready to combine them with the spices/seasoning. Then we would mix them all together and stuff them inbetween the layers of the cabbage:

And here's the finished product. Honestly, I can't ever see myself actually making kimchi. There's just too many steps involved and it seems like way too much work. It would take me a good number of test batches to get it right:

Anyway, I had a lot of fun cooking Korea food. In fact, I was inspired to go out and buy some Korean cookbooks and ingredients. That's why I'll be lugging a big bag of dried Korean chili pepper powder with me back to the US. Haha.

Korean Food FTW!

2009-02-17T22:41:00.003+08:00

Gotta keep moving along with these entries...I took way too many photographs...

I want to dedicate today's entry to Korean food. Like I said before, the food in Korea was amazing. It was definitely went above and beyond my expectations. Honestly though, I had pretty low expectations based on my experiences with the food in China. I figured the food in Korea would be more of the same. Anyway, let's take a closer look the kinds of meals I was enjoying:

First of all, note that every meal comes with a full spread of these small side dishes called banchan:

And there are all kinds of banchan. Just in this picture there's spinach with sesame oil, garlic, and soy sauce; stir-fried squid seasoned with chili pepper paste and garlic; seaweed kelp with sweet vinegar and salt; and obviously a couple of varieties of kimchi.

Speaking of which, I don't think I'd ever really enjoyed kimchi until I'd had it in Korea. I'd mean I'd had it before in the US, but I'd never been the biggest fan. And then I came to Korea. I still remember sitting there at my first meal, feeling obligated to give it a try. It went down easy and I thought, "WOW, this is good. Good thing they left me with the entire tub!"

As for dishes, first there's the kimchi stew. It's always been one of my favorites and it was probably the dish that I most often ordered. It's a basic stew made with kimchi, scallions, onions, diced tofu, and pork. It goes perfect with a bowl of rice:

And speak of which, Korea might be the only East Asian country that uses a spoon in addition to chopsticks. As per proper etiquette, you're not supposed to pick up the bowl of rice off the table; you should use your spoon to eat the rice rice. There's no need to "shovel" rice into your mouth.

Next up is the kimchi fried rice. It's exactly what it sounds like: rice + kimchi + egg (sunny side up) = deliciousness:

And as for this next one, I'm not sure if it's a common Korean dish. One night I found this restaurant serving chicken bulgogi fried rice. They start out by cooking the marinated meat along with some onions, scallions, leeks, and butter. As the meat begins to cook, they add the rice, paste/seasonings, and seaweed. Mix it all together and voila!:

And of course, how could I go to Korea and not have Korean BBQ? I must have had some the first or second day I arrived. Actually, during my first experience, I walked into a Korean BBQ restaurant and ordered bulgogi, a type of marinated beef. I'm sitting there at the table, drooling as I watch everyone around me eating. And then the waitress brings me my order. It looked like a bowl of beef soup. Turns out there are two types of bulgogi: the grilled type and the soup/broth type. Nonetheless, it was still one of the best meals I had in Korea:

(On a separately related note, you might have noticed that the chopsticks look different. Korea chopsticks are flat and made of metal. And they're like that at every restaurant. I was there for about a week but I could never really get the hang of it. The chopsticks are just too thin and heavy for my big hands.)

Now as for the grilled Korea BBQ, they also bring you a tray of lettuce and some Korean peppers. You're supposed to make lettuce wraps with the meat!:

Inside the wrap you add chili paste and a clove of garlic. Now I love garlic, so I was all for it, but it's not for the faint of heart. The good news was that I didn't have to worry about vampires for a few days. But seriously though, the fusion of all those strong flavors was intense...in a good way:

And of course, there's the actual meat. Korean BBQ was surprisingly expensive compared to the other dishes:

And here's a finished product on the grill. (The type of meat from the last picture is different than the type of meat in the picture below.) This is the grilled kalbi from my last dinner in Korea:

Coldest Winter

2009-02-16T23:18:00.004+08:00

As I mentioned before, it was numbingly cold in Korea. But then again, I've pretty much spent my entire life basking in the California sunshine. And then there's the fact that I had become accustomed to the hot, humid Chinese summer. In any case, I was in for quite a shock.

I still remember looking out the window as the airplane descended into Incheon International Airport. As the runway came into view, I began to wonder, "What the heck is that white stuff on the ground." And then it hit me: "NO WAY...that's snow..." I was in such shock; right after I got off the plane, I took this picture:

I couldn't help it; I was just mesmerized by the snow. It's not like I've never seen real snow. I mean I've been skiiing/snowboarding before. But somehow, this was different. I was going to be living here with the snow for the next week. I just had to take more touristy pictures in the airport:

I was panicked because I didn't bring the right type of clothes for this kind of weather. For some reason, I figured jeans and a polar fleece sweatshirt would be enough. After arriving at my hostel, the first thing I did was buy some earmuffs. Thank goodness I had the foresight to bring gloves.

I remember one particular night when I almost broke down and bought a down feather jacket. It got so bad that I walked into The North Face store, determined to buy a jacket. Price was no object; I was just tired of freezing my ass off. I'd had enough of the cold, I just wanted to be warm and cozy. Finally, I found the jacket, but then I looked at the price tag: ~$250.

"Hmm....I guess I can just be cold for just a couple more days. I'm only here for a week anyway," I thought to myself. So I sucked it up for that week and just dealt with the cold. (Heck, $250 can go towards a lot of other things, like camera equipment.)

Speaking of cameras, it sucks to take pictures in freezing cold weather for two reasons:

1) Photographers often like to stop and take pictures. And at least for me, it's usually not a quick snapshot. It's more of a, "Let me set up the picture. I gotta find the right composition. Maybe take a few images of the same subject from different angles and vantage points. And of course, get the correct exposure." And that's fine if you've got all the time in the world. It's a problem when you're freezing your ass off. I don't even want to think about how long it took me to get this picture with the blurred streaks of snow:

2) And secondly, have you ever tried to operate a DSLR with a pair of leather gloves? I might as well have been wearing mittens. I had such a hard time pressing buttons, rotating dials, and switching levers. I had no choice but to take the gloves off and deal with frozen hands. It's doubly bad because not only are you freezing, but you're freezing without gloves to keep your hands warm.

Anyway, maybe I'm making it out to be worse that it actually was. I'm sure it's pretty comparable to weather on the East Coast. During the day it was about 30°F and during the night it was about 15°F. (For comparison, it's about 80°F where I am currently in Shenzhen, China. Talk about a change in temperature.)

And acutally it only snowed for the first few days. The other days, it was just cold period. No snow, just cold. The worst flurry of snow came at Lotte World amusement park:

I just remember thinking, "Wow, this is real snow. And not like 'I'm at a high altitude in the mountains' snow. This is like a 'I'm walking around the city and it's snowing' type of snow."

Again, I couldn't help but try to once again capture the snowfall:

Welcome Back

2009-02-15T20:58:00.008+08:00

After an incredibly long haiatus, I’m back to blogging. I spent two weeks traveling around South Korea and Japan during my Lunar New Year vacation. With everything going on, I just got too lazy to blog. You see, I’m one of those carpe diem types of tourists: I'm all about trying to make the most of my travels and see/do as much as humanly possible. That means waking up at the crack o' dawn and hitting the hay well after midnight. I know it’s not good to burn the candle at both ends, but traveling to a foreign country is such a rare and unique opportunity. Might as well take advantage of it while you're there. You never when (or if) you'll be back.

So how was it? Let me give you the summary and in the coming weeks I‘ll starting writing up entries, editing photos, and uploading video. (Yeah that’s right, I started taking some video!):

South Korea:

Coldest Winter: Korea was COLD. That’s what happens when you spend your entire life in the California sunshine. Seriously though, I’ve never known winter could be so cold. After landing I looked out the the window of the airplane, and thought to myself, “What the HELL is that white stuff on the ground!?" The first thing I did was buy some earmuffs.
Korean Food: I knew that the Korean food in Korea would be good, but I never, ever imagined that it would be that good. And I‘m not just talking about the barbeque. (By the way, I'd take Korean BBQ over Hot Pot any day of the week.) I also have a new found love for Korean food and cooking. I even took a cooking lesson at the Seoul Culinary College and bought some Korean cook books/ingredients.
Palaces, Palaces, Palaces: Within Seoul, there are Five Grand Palaces of the Joseon Dynasty. I guess that when you're the King, you can never have enough palaces. I only got to see 3 of 5 palaces, but I got the basic idea. Honestly, the buildings begin to look the same after awhile since they've all the same design and paint job. I made sure to see the more destinctive/pretty ones.
Ice Fishing: I spent a day in Hwacheon at the Sancheoneo (mountain trout) Ice Festival. Along the Hwacheongang River, people gather to come for ice fishing, lure fishing, and bare-handed fishing. Yeah that's right, fishing with your bare hands while wearing just a t-shirt and shorts. (And of course, I did it.) But they also have sledding, a giant ice castle, ice sculptures, and ATV riding on ice.
DMZ: The DMZ is the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea. As part of a tour group, I went to check out some of the super touristy sites in the DMZ. This included the northmost point in South Korea, a train station that links to Pyongyang, and a massive underground tunnel intended for launching a surprise attack in South Korea.

Japan:

Sumo Retirement: One of the major highlights was seeing real sumo wrestling. I attended a retirement ceremony for two of the professional wrestlers. During the retirement cermony a wrestler gets his top-knot cut off and it's supposedly a big deal. Trust me though, it sounds way more exciting that it actually was. In any case, I was just happy to see people actually wrestling, although I expected they'd be bigger.
Ghibli Museum: The Ghibli Museum is a commercial fine arts museum featuring the anime work of Studio Ghibli. You may remember them from such movies as Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, etc. It was a really cool museum with this sprawling, maze-like behavior. Too bad they didn't allow pictures inside :(
Photography Heaven: If I died and went to heaven (*knock on wood*), I'd imagine it would look something like a Japanese electonics store. Imagine an entire floor or building devoted to photography equipment: camera bodies, lenses, 35mm/medium format, monopods/tripods, lighting equipment, etc. And you could test all the camera bodies and lenses. I think I almost drooled on that D3X. It's really too bad the pricing was more expensive than in the States. (But that didn't stop me from picking up some cheap old manual focus lenses.)
Akihabara/Shibuya/Harajuku: And then there were the some funky districts of Tokyo. Akihabara is like nerd paradise: maid cafes, endless electronics stores, adult videos and sex toys, video game arcades, and 24 hour private rooms for watching TV and playing video games. Shibuya is for the hipsters. It's one of the fashion centers of Tokyo and it's a major nightlife area. And Harajuku is where you'll find the extreme youth subcultures. You've got the Gothic (not vamp) style, Cosplay (costume-based) style, Punk style, and hip-hop/skater style. I swear I saw two women walking around dressed-up as princesses.
Lost Wallet: The worst part was that I lost my wallet. (Some of you are shaking your head thinking, "Alan lost his wallet again!? First it was in Spain, and now this?") The crime rate is so low in Japan that I probably didn't get pick-pocketed; it probably me being careless and stupid. The worst part is I'll never see it again; I'd have to pick it up in person in Japan if they ever find it.

Now that I'm back in mainland China, I've got nothing but time to write and edit pictures. So look forward to entries again!

Leaving for Korea

2009-01-24T07:46:00.002+08:00

Geez, I almost donked it again today. This was my planned schedule:

6:00 Leave for Airport

6:30 Arrive at Airport

7:40 Plane Boarding Starts

8:10 Flight Departs

Sounds good right? Well I forgot to set my alarm this morning. I went to bed at 2 AM and my brain had stopped working. I got a phone call this morning at 6:00 AM. Groggily, I rolled over and reached for my cell phone. Mashing buttons, I tried to turn it off...until I realized it was my room phone. I hurried down the stairs (there's a lofted bed at my dormitory) and found the phone.

I thought to myself, "Who the hell would be calling me? Man, I hope it's not 6 AM right now."

I pick up the phone: "Your shuttle is waiting for you."

"OH, I'll be right down."

I threw all my crap into my suitcase and headed out the door.

Thankfully everything is okay and I made it to the airport with time to spare.

It's kind of crazy that I'll be in Korea in about two and half hours. How exciting!

I Miss My Old Dorm...

2009-01-20T21:37:00.009+08:00

Note: This note was meant to be published while I was in Taiwan last week. I would have posted it, but I had problems getting the video to upload. Anyway, I'm now in Korea and the uploading works. So here's a post I wrote last week about my dorm. (I'll have more posts on Korea soon!):

Ah, so I caught my flight this time. I guess the second time is the charm. I'm actually surpised I was able to make my way from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to my dormitory. It took two bus rides, a ride on the MTR subway, and a taxi cab ride, but I made it on my own (without having to use any English!)

Anyway, they put me in a new dormitory here in Taiwan. Sadly, it's not nearly as nice as the old place. In fact, it's pretty much inferior in every possible way:

There's no gym/entertainment facilities.

Use of laundry machines is no longer free (and they don't provide detergent).

There's no convience store built into the dormitory.

I have to wake up earlier to take a shuttle to work (as opposed to walking to the building over)

The closest MRT subway stop is now 15-20 minutes away.

As for the actual room itself, it's about the same size, maybe a little bit smaller. I hate sleeping on just a mat though. I miss a real bed. I'd even take a hard Asian bed over sleeping on a mat on the floor. Anyway, prepare for another video tour of my place:

The one big plus is that I have completely unrestricted internet! Thank goodness, I'd probably go psycho if I had to deal with that again.

Some Things Never Change.

2009-01-17T23:47:00.009+08:00

It's funny. In the two weeks that I've been back in China, I've managed to revert back to the old forgetful, absent-minded, irresponsible Alan. We're talking about the Alan whose locked himself out his car, house, dorm, apartment, etc, multiple times. In fact, it's all happened so many times that I've just stopped counting. My family can vouch for me on that one. (My personal favorite incident was the time I left my keys in the ignition and locked myself out of my car while at Lake Tahoe.) You know, people asked me how I was going to survive in China; it certainly didn't help any that I could hardly speak the language when I first got here.

It's been rather amazing that I made it through the last six months perfectly fine. Not once did I lose something, get lost, lock myself out of my apartment, or forget something at home in the US. I felt that living on my own in China had made me a more responsible, mature adult. And I had a nice little streak going. Note "I had a nice little streak going."

Yes, in the last two weeks, I've managed to do all of those above mentioned things. I left my ATM card at home in the United States. I lost a Chinese language book of mine on the plane. [It's been two weeks. Something tells me they aren't going to find it :( ] I got lost last week when I got off at the wrong bus stop and I had no idea where the hell I was. But today/yesterday takes the cake; I don't think it could have gotten any worse.

Yesterday I was supposed to fly from Hong Kong to Taiwan. My flight was to leave Hong Kong Airport at 4:05 P.M. Now I don't actually live in Hong Kong; I live in a city in China just across the border called Shenzhen. The travel time from to the airport is about 1 hour and 40 minutes. That means I would need to leave my place by at least 1:30 PM (that would get me to the airport about 1 hour before my plane departs.) Piece of cake right? It's not like I had to go to work or something. I had the whole morning to pack and relax.

And that's where it gets bad. I'm actually kind of embassed to write it, so I'll just throw it out there:

I locked myself out of my apartment, forcing me to miss my flight, slept in the airport, and took the next available flight the following morning.

I wish I was kidding about that, but here I am at airport.

So how did I lock myself out of the apartment? Well I left to eat lunch and when I got back, the door was locked. The door can only be locked from the outside with a key, so I couldn't have locked myself out; someone else must have locked the door after I left. Since I was the last one to leave, my maid must have come to clean and locked the door while I was gone. And of course I didn't bring my key because I figured the door would still be unlocked. I tried some MacGyver stuff using just a shovel, the neckstrap of my camera, and two rose stems, but it was no good. (I was able to open the inner door, but the locked outer door was still no good.) I went searching for a locksmith, but they didn't have the certification to unlock my door. I called my housing manager but he had already left for home for Chinese New Year.

It came down to my apartment-mate coming home from the factory just to open the door for me. (Note that it's about an hour drive from work to my apartment.) He came home as fast as he could and I left right away. It was about 2:30 PM at that point. With a travel time to the airport of about 1 hour and 40 minutes, there was no way in hell that I was about to make this flight. I got to airport at exactly 4:05 PM and my flight left exactly at 4:05 PM.

My only option was to wait in standby. Now note that next week is Chinese New Year. It's the world's largest mass migration of people during this time of the year. Everyone, including the everyday laborers, get to go home for about a week. So basically, my chances of catching a flight on standby where zilch. My number was 140. You should have saw my face when they announced they were called number 35. Ugh, a complete nightmare.

Since I already had a ticket, I just had to re-booked for the next available flight with an open seat. Turns out it was the following morning at 10:35 AM. So why did I have to sleep overnight in the airport then? Well the shuttle service I take from Shenzhen to Hong Kong Airport doesn't start until 9:00 AM, and there was no way in hell that I was missing my flight again.

Sleeping in the airport was interesting, and by interesting I mean bad. Thankfully Hong Kong Airport has these free "Lounge Areas" with recliners. Check it out:

Trust me, it's more comfortable that in looks. I tossed and turned all night because I couldn't find a comfortable position. I must have woken up every hour. The recliners are made of this like semi-hard plastic material. And the worst part is you can't control how much they recline. It's set at this weird angle that's not sloped enough to sleep in. Plus, it was freezing with all that air conditioning. I would have killed for a blanket. I don't know how that "The Terminal" guy did it.

All is good now though. My flight leaves in about 2 hours and I'm definately at the airport. At least there's no chance of missing my flight again.

Alan Wong: World Traveler Extraordinaire

2009-01-14T22:27:00.002+08:00

I'm finally about to do some major travelling around Asia. (It'll be nice to finally see something other than Southern China.) Here's a look at my travel intinerary for the upcoming month:

Jan 17 (Sat): Departing for Taipei, Taiwan

Jan 24 (Sat): Departing for Seoul, Korea

Jan 30 (Fri): Departing for Tokyo, Japan

Feb 4 (Wed): Departing for Taipei, Taiwan

Feb 15 (Sun): Departing for Shenzhen, China

So what's up with the sudden travel plans you ask? Well my factory will be closing for an entire month for Chinese New Year! Unfortunately, I won't be getting a whole month of vacation. Since I already had my two week holiday in the US, I'll only be getting two more weeks. The other two weeks of the Chinese New Year break will be spent working in Taiwan. I'm not bummed out at all though. It's still going to be really exciting to work and sightsee in another country, even if I've already been there before.

And as for Korea and Japan, I figured I might as well do some traveling around Asia rather than heading home again to the US. I mean how often do you get a free 12 day vacation after you start working? (Note that I'm not burning up any of my personal leave or accured vacation time for this!) And since I'll already in Taipei, Taiwan, it not that expensive to head a little more north to Korea and Japan. I've never been to either of those countries before, so it'll be fun.

I'm currently in the process of planning out my sightseeing. Any tips, suggestions, or other input are more the welcome. And if you have any requests on what you'd like for me to bring back, just let me know!

Manners and Etiquette? Never Heard of Them

2009-01-12T22:12:00.007+08:00

I've been back in China for about a week now. Today, I was initially going to write about some random musings from this past week. However, after I started writing, the post took on a life of it's own. So I decided to just go with the flow.

I know that I shouldn't bad mouth my mother country (esp. considering that the Gr3at Fi12ewall is monitoring my internet), but the etiquette here never ceases to amaze me. It's crazy what will pass as acceptable here in China. Having just come back from the US, I'm finding a lot of these things particularly shocking. Here are some examples from just this week:

1) There was a banquet for the entire department this week. It was alright. Everyone was drunk, the room reeked of cigarette smoke, the food was barely passable, and they were raffling off red envelopes for Chinese New Year [in a raffle that I couldn't take part in :( ]. Sounds like a winning combination right?

Now there were two things in particular that bothered me. The first thing was I saw a girl pour out a full cup of beer onto the floor. I'm dead serious. She needed a cup to drink out of, so she took the cup and just poured it all out onto the floor. I'm not sure, but maybe this is just a lack of common sense.

The other thing was that people were just spitting onto the floor of this indoor restaurant. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with spitting. In fact, I'm unfortunately beginning to pick up this bad habit. But I would never spit on the floor of an indoor establishment. It's called a napkin, use it. Heck even a rice bowl or cup would be more acceptable.

2) Also, on the walk home today, I saw a mother helping her toddler pee in the middle of the street! I was walking down the sidewalk when I noticed her squatting there in the parking lot. She had her child sitting on her knees with the boy's legs spread apart. At first, I couldn't figure out what they were doing. It struck me as weird, so after I passed them, I turned and did a double take. Low and behold, after they got up, there was a wet pool on the ground. At least he wasn't defecating...that makes it okay, right?

Speaking of which, I did see a mother helping her child poop out in the open in public. There he was squatting in the middle of the walkway. And his mother even wiped for him! I feel bad for the poor worker who has to come along and clean up the streets. It's a shitty job, but someone's gotta do it.

Now don't get me wrong, I know that I don't have the best manners. In fact, when I was a kid, my parents used to theaten to send me to an Etiquette Program/Cotillion School. (I wish that was a joke.) And every time I walked it front of someone to get around them, my mom would ask, "Did you say excuse me?" But still, I just can't help but cringle a little when I see things like that.

Eh, in six months I'll be used it. As long as I'm not pooping in the street when I get back to the US, it'll be fine.

My New Apartment

2009-01-08T21:31:00.004+08:00

So in case you haven't heard, when I got back to China they had me move into a new apartment. It was a bit of a pain, but I've been here for a few days and I'm starting to get used to the place.

In fact, here's video tour I made with my new camera! Check out the diggs:

Homesickness: Take Two

2009-01-06T23:44:00.002+08:00

Welcome Back

2009-01-05T06:54:00.003+08:00

Back in China.

Being home was amazing.

Got to see lots of friends and relatives.

I just woke up for work.

I can't believe I woke up at 6:30 A.M.

Ugh I need more snooze.

I'll be back in the US on July 1st

Now Taking Requests

2008-12-19T21:12:00.003+08:00

As you all know, I'll be heading back home soon for the holidays. I've just got about three days left here in China before I head home. Soon I'll be on a flight headed for LAX. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do when the plane lands and I'm back on American soil. I might have to get down on my knees and kiss that beautiful (yet dirty) floor.

Anyway, I'll be in LA during most of that time, but I'm planning to head up to Northern California for a couple of days. It'll probably be sometime between Christmas and New Years. If the timing/scheduling works out, it be nice to see all my friends and family.

And one last note, if you want anything from China, just let me know. I've got a couple of days left where I could do some shopping for you. Keep in mind that there's a real limit to how many bootleg DVDs I smuggle into the US. And no I will not bring pack any poisoned toothpaste/pet food or any melamime laced daily products.

A Sunday in the (Lychee) Park

2008-12-17T21:51:00.002+08:00

Last Sunday, in addition to checking out Shun Hing Square, I also went to Lychee Park in downtown Shenzhen. The park takes its name from the beautiful groves of lychee trees. And even though I was just there, I still have no idea what a lychee tree looks like. (Oh, and for those of you who don't know, lychee is a sweet tropical fruit native to southern China.)

When I got to Lychee Park, I didn't know what to expect. I couldn't find a lot of (English) information available about the place. It's not huge Shenzhen tourist attraction by any means. I pretty much just found it on a map and decided to check it out. It turned out to be a park for the locals; I don't think I saw any other tourist there.

Anyway, check out this great entrance sign. Apparently, you're not allowed to do anything even remotely entertaining at the park. It's a good thing I didn't bring my "skid-board":

This is a picture from the palm tree grove. As I took this photo, I thought to myself, "Man, this would be a cool place for portraits." I looked over and saw some couples having their wedding photographs taken. It felt good to know that I've still got "it":

This is from the pond of gated lotus flowers:

Nothing really special here. I just liked the reflection and extreme contrast between the sunlight and deep shadowy areas:

Ah yes, the "Chinese hacky sack" players. Apparently it's called jianzi. It's supposedly very popular in Asia, but this was the first time I'd ever seen/heard of it. It's like playing hacky sack with a heavily weighted shuttlecock. The shuttle cock has four large feathers fixed into a series of plastic disks. There were some crazy overhead kicks:

I also came across this group of musical performers. As you can see, they drew quite the crowd. They had musicians playing the keyboard and the banjo while others sang. I'm not really sure what kind of music, but they must have been well known songs. Everyone in the crowd already knew the words and they just joined right in:

After waiting about 20 minutes or so, I found an opening and made my way to the front. It wasn't until that moment that realized just how tall I am here in China. I felt really bad about it so I ended up squatting most of the time. It was alright though because I got this picture. Kids just make pictures better:

Then there were the dancing. I guess you could call it Dance Dance Revolution for old folks. They'd have a boombox playing some music and there would be a "lead dancer." Everyone would watch the leader and just try to follow along. The routine was pretty easy to learn because it was simple and it repeated over and over again. This dance group was a little more elaborate with their decorative handkerchiefs. There were some other bizarre ones blasting Chinese techno music:

Finally, as I was exiting the park, I came across this. I'm not exactly sure how to describe it. For nominal fee, your child could sit in a cart pulled by a "robot child." During the ride, speakers would blast Chinese children songs. There's a U-shaped handle that the child could rotate to steer the robot. There was something kind of freaky about a small robot child pulling kids around:

Shun Hing Square

2008-12-15T21:16:00.003+08:00

This weekend I had a chance to check out Shun Hing Square. Commonly known as the Diwang Building, it's the tallest skyscraper in Shenzhen. The name Diwang (地王) roughly translates to "earth king." At 1,260 feet tall it ranks 9th tallest building in the world and 5th tallest in China. (As a comparison, the current tallest building in the world Taipei 101 is 1671 feet tall.)

Having visited Taipei 101 must have spoiled me because this place felt totally lame. I'm not sure if I'd call it a let-down...maybe just plain strange is a better description. This is the description from the brochure for the Meridian View Centre (MVC) at the top:

"Standing at the MVC, which is the first high-rise theme sightseeing and entertainment scenic spot in Asia, you will be amazed by the enchanting view of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. So many things are great treated to you in MVC including a thrilling and stimulating movie, a splendid short film on Shenzhen and Hong Kong's history, a funny animal show, exciting stereoscopic film and stimulating game, a robot guide worth a million RMB, colorful shopping space, and quite and romantic cafe, and so much more."

Trust me, it sounds like a lot more fun that it actually was. Their English may sound a little awkward, but they sure understand marketing. Oh and that million RMB (~$200,00 USD) robot guide? It wasn't even on. Ugh.

Anyway, after arriving at the top, I walked out the elevator and came upon this display. It supposed to be Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher discussing the hand over of Hong Kong back to China. The whole Hong Kong/China relationship was a main theme:

And along the walls of the walkway were small displays describing history of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. You know: historical pictures from the past, scenes from famous events, photographs of celebrities, etc. I guess this one is supposed to illustrate children playing back in the days? I'm still trying to dechiper the meaning of "Tall slide provides entertainment:"

So, "What do you think if don't have MRT now?" (I really don't mean to be a jerk, but all the really awkward Engrish drives me nuts.):

Remember that "exciting stereoscopic film" that the brochure mentioned? Well it was some sort of hourly pirate themed movie/experience. I didn't see the pirate show, but I can assure you that it wasn't rated ARRR. And I still don't get the relationship between pirates and skyscapers:

Obviously though, the main reason anyone comes to this place is for the view. (At least I hope no one comes for the "high-rise entertainment spot.") For 2 RMB (͌͌͌͌~$0.30 USD) you could use these telescopes to take a closer look at the city:

Unfortunately, I picked a really crappy cloudy day to visit. That explains why the whole top half of these pictures vanished into thin air:

My original plan was to catch the sunset, but I got there too early. I really tried to hang out and wait for sunset, but I just ran out of stuff to do. Entertainment scenic spot? Yeah, right. And with the cost of admission at 60 RMB ($8.75), it's safe to say that I won't be heading back there again.

The rest of my Shenzhen pictures can be found here.

6 Months Later...

2008-12-14T10:21:00.002+08:00

So this is what my hair looks like after 6 months without a haircut....

The real question is:

Do I let it grow out even more? Or do I get it cut when I'm at home?

The Blacklist

2008-12-13T20:56:00.002+08:00

Yesterday, the blacklist was released at work. For weeks, rumors had been circulating about who's on the list and when it would be released. Only upper management knew the true contents of the list. With the blacklist taking effect today, the office definitely felt emptier than usual. The reality of layoffs have slowly began to take hold.

The last 24-48 hours have been kind of a downer because I was pretty close to two of these coworkers that were laid off. They were people who I interacted with on a daily basis. They spoke English and they had done a lot to help and look out for me. I had been working with them since the first day I arrived in China. We had a farewell dinner for the both of them last night.

When I heard the news, I didn't know what to say. How do you comfort someone in a position like that? Can you really tell them that everything will be fine when the economy is going to hell? Imagine working in another country and then suddenly being laid off. With housing provided by the company, they've probably got a couple days left before she having to move out. My fellow project manager's last day of work was spent de-authorizing system accounts and clearing her laptop of sensitive material. All these extra hassles sound like insult to injury.

The really odd thing is that part of me wishes that I was laid off. I thought about how "convenient" it would be to be laid off; I'd be able to head home for good without feeling like a quitter. It's not that hate my job, but it's not like I love my job either. It's really a love/hate relationship and I understand that I need to give it some more time before making any judgements. Wanting to leave probably sounds crazy given how unstable the job market is in this economic recession.

The scary thing about all this is that I'm not out of the woods yet; this is just the beginning. Rumors have already begun circulating of a second round of layoffs after Chinese New Year. Honestly though, all I can do is put out my best effort. No point in getting worked up over things I can't control.

Mark Your Calendars...

2008-12-12T23:20:00.005+08:00

And so the countdown begins. In ten days, I'll be on an airplane headed for Los Angeles, California, US of A.

Back to Normal

2008-12-10T22:39:00.003+08:00

The highs from giving a presentation couldn't have died any quicker. I came into work today feeling just about as bored and lost as I when I first arrived in China. It was back to sitting in front of the computer catching up on Google News and reading random Wikipedia articles. It's funny how quickly things can change.

I've always been the type that required lots of stimulation. Take my my senior year of college as a case in point. During that year, I had about a half dozen part time jobs and I was working over 40 hours a week:

Tutoring at the Residence Halls
Supervising the math tutoring program at the Residence Halls
Tutoring at the Student Learning Center
Teaching a bi-weekly study group
TA for a undergraduate physics lab class
Photographing for the Daily Californian
Private Tutoring

And that was all in addition to my regular courseload and other student group obligations. I was busy nearly every moment of the day and I'd often get home at about 10 or 11 PM. Google Calendar was my life saver that year. Somehow though, I was able to juggle all of those responsibilities. But it was more than that becauase I actually enjoyed having too much on my plate. In fact, I thrive off that kind of pressure. I just crave that kind of stimulation.

It's funny because I was talking with my father and he mentioned that I have always been like that. Even when I little kid, once I had figured out a toy, I'd get bored of it quickly. I'd have playdates all the time because I prefer playing with other kids than by myself. Growing up, my parents were always taking me basketball practices/games, golf camp, art classes, etc. I never realized that I've always had that in me.

The question for me now is: How do I get motivated/stimulated at work?

Chairing a Meeting

2008-12-09T23:04:00.003+08:00

"The next step in the process flow is chemical strengthening. It's used to greatly increase the flexibility and hardness of glass."

"Psst, Alan. A bunch of inaudible Chinese words I can't understand."

"Huh?"

"Oh, can you introduce the other PowerPoints for me while you're at it?"

"Uhh ... sure, I guess."

And that's how my one hour presentation turned into chairing the entire four hour meeting. Originally, I only supposed to present a general overview of the organization and lead the factory tour. But I ended up with the whole enchilada, having to make an additional three PowerPoint presentations.

Overall, I managed to pull it off, mainly because I reviewed and fine-tuned every one of those presentation PowerPoint and Excel files. (That's what happens when you're the native English speaker. It's your job to correct bad grammar, awkward phrasing, and misspelled words.) Being the PowerPoint repairman, I had a basic understanding of the presentations and I managed to sound somewhat knowledgeable. It would have been helpful if they asked me earlier so I could have actually prepared. In any case, even if it wasn't my best performance, it was definitely decent.

The sad thing was that my boss didn't show up. I had been busting my ass all week to do a really bang up job and he wasn't even there to see it. But my boss's boss was there and I think he was impressed. He had a few minor suggestions for me, but overall he was happy with how it went. Hopefully, my boss will hear all about it. There's room for improvement, but I guess I'm satisfied. I've only been with the company 5 months; I can't really expect too much.

The best part was the dinner! Gotta treat the customers to dinner, ya know? And guess who gets to tag along: Me! It was a delicious Western-style steak dinner. And it was free! (well kind of anyway.) The price I paid was having to make lots of small talk. When you're the only native English speaker, you're expected to chat it up with customers. I ended up just asking a lot of questions that revolve around themselves, their family, and their home. People love talking about that kind of stuff.

After dropping them off at the hotel, I ended up getting home at 11:30 P.M. Exhausted, I immediately went to bed.

Shenzhen International Garden and Flora Expo Park

2008-12-05T22:10:00.003+08:00

I'm long overdue for a photo entry, so here are some pictures from my adventures at the "Shenzhen International Garden and Flora Expo Park." (It's quite a name isn't it? It's another one of those instances where the Chinese doesn't translate that efficiently.)

It was actually quite the adventure because I ended up getting lost for the first. Usually I prepare for my outings: do some research, jot down some notes, and draw up a map. But not this time. I which subway stop to get off of, but that was about it. I just assumed it would be easy to figure out the directions but there weren't any signs. I ended up wandered the streets of Shenzhen until I figured it out. However, getting lost worked out for the best because I arrived at the perfect time. Yay for golden lighting and sunsets.

I have no idea what this building because I didn't really take any cutline; I was just trying to explore as much of the park as possible before it got dark:

I ended up just walking around the place taking pictures of things that looked cool. This was some sort of geodesic dome structure:

And them I stumbled upon a group of kids playing on this half dome. Turns out that the dome was really a large map of Shenzhen and Hong Kong:

It's kind of ironic that I went to a garden/park and I didn't take any pictures of plants. This picture of sheet metal flower sculptures was the closest I got to an image of a real flower:

As I was walking up the main staircase, I came across these statues. These statues of children racing up the stairs were bolted down into staircase. How funny/cute!:

Finally, I ended the day with a hike to the pagoda. I actually had to run up the hill just to make it there before closing time. By the time I got there, the sun had already set. I ended up having to walk back down the hill in the dark:

The Presentation (Part 3)

2008-12-05T01:49:00.003+08:00

And so the cycle continues...

This Monday, I have another presentation. Maybe this time, the tour won't get canceled. Oh, that reminds me! I never told you how last week's presentations went. Well, they all got cancelled. I guess when you're upper upper management, you can cancel at the last minute. Argh, all that preparation for naught :(

Anyway, I've been busy this week preparing for Monday's customer visit. It's an important one, but I'm not that worried. In high pressure situations like this, I remind myself that I've already given two of the biggest speeches of my life. If I can make it through those, then I can make it anything. For those of you who weren't there or don't remember, I'm referring to:

1) High School Graduation: As stressful as it was at the time, giving a speech at my high school graduation has one most valuable experiences of my life. Speaking in front of a huge crowd of classmates, friends, and family takes guts. And unlike most schools where the valedictorian is required to give a speech, I had to audition to speak. I don't know what possessed me to do it; it sound like the type of thing I'd be interested in. Maybe I just wanted to sit on the stage at graduation. Haha.

Looking back on it, I'm actually embarrassed by my speech. Last year, I saw a video of that speech for the first time. It all just sounded incredibly corny and cliche. There was this one line that sounded like: "I can't wait to be done with tests and finals!" What was I thinking? Did I forget that I was going to college that fall?

2) Scott's Funeral: I'm only 22 years old, but I can honestly say that giving a friend's eulogy will always be one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I think back on and it and I don't know how I summoned strength to do it. I never even properly prepared for the eulogy: it was never edited and I never asked for a second opinion. And I definitely never practiced giving it out loud.

The most poignant memories from that day were those moments right speaking. I remember sitting on that pew next to my friends with a pocket full of tissues and the eulogy in my hand. After being introduced, it was my turn to speak. With my heart racing, I made my way down the aisle to the podium. I was so nervous: I just looked straight ahead, wondering how many eyes were fixed on me. I walked past the coffin and turned to face the audience. And from there, I don't know what happened. I just started speaking. Never mind that I didn't really prepare; it all just flowed so naturally.

I didn't meant to get all serious there. I just wanted to make point that with these types of experiences under my belt, come Monday, I'll be good to go. I've got nothing to worry about.

Cell Phone Alarm FTL

2008-12-02T22:23:00.005+08:00

Knock, knock.

Arrrgh. What the hell is that?

Knock, knock.

“我醒了。怎么了？” (I'm awake. What is it?)

I crawl out of bed and go open the door. My roommate is standing there looking at me.

“现在几点？” (What time is it?)

“7 o'clock.” (Note that the shuttle leaves at 7:15 A.M. and it's a good 7 minute walk away.)

Shit. You've got to be shitting me. I must have slept through my alarm this morning.

I quickly grab my cell phone and look at the time: 15:45 (i.e. 3:45 P.M.). I realize that I forgot to set the clock on my phone last night. Whenever the battery pops out, it resets the time and date.

I throw on some clothes, pack my bag, brush my teeth and head out the door. I'm looking like a hot mess because I didn't get a chance to shower. I'm combing down my mad scientist hair as we power walk to the shuttle stop. We made the shuttle but I go to work starving; there was no time to buy any steamed meat buns for breakfast.

Oh, how I hate that cell phone of mine. Maybe I should just buy a real alarm clock. After all, here in China, the price is definitely right.

(And seriously, speaking Mandarin was my first instinct after being woken up by that knock on the door. I guess that total immersion really is working after all.)

Thanksgiving in China

2008-11-27T00:01:00.001+08:00

Thanksgiving in China passed just like any other day. No deep-fried turkey, stuffing, or pumpkin pie. No Black Friday to look forward to. And worst of all, no family gathering at home.

Lately the homesickness has been sitting on the back burner, but today it flared back up. I was really bummed out throughout most of today. I've known all week that Thanksgiving was coming up, but I wasn't sure how I would handle it. At first I held it all in, but I ended up breaking down and crying eventually. In the privacy of a bathroom stall, I cried my eyes out as I flipped through family/friend photos loaded on my iPod. And afterwards I felt so much better. Crying really is so theraputic. It's been months since I've felt that homesick.

Anyway, I want to make a special post today. The following was originally written around the end of September. At the time, I had some reservations about posting this entry. But since today is Thanksgiving, I figure now's as good a time as any:

"Have you talked to your mother yet?"

That's the first thing my dad asks me. (I was talking to him on Skype during my lunch break.) I immediately think to myself, "Ugh, what did I forget to do this time?"

He tells me that my brother had a serious automobile accident. He fell asleep at the wheel. The car rolled five times. It was completely totaled.

My brother walked away from it. No concussion. Only one cut on his head. He didn't even need stitches for it. He's lucky to be alive.

It took awhile for the gravity of the situation to sink in. When it finally did, I was actually pretty shook up; I couldn't stop crying. It was the first time I've ever had "tears of joy." I've experienced tears of grief, brokenhearted tears, and homesick tears, but never "tears of joy."

It's events like this that make you count your blessings. It's the type of sobering experience that puts everything in perspective. Suddenly, all the crap I've been dealing with in China didn't seem that problematic anymore. Homesickness? I'm just happy to have friends and family to come home to.

So everyone, please take care of yourself. I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to deal with losing another close friend or family member. (I still haven't forgot about Scott or my grandfathers.)

On a more lighthearted note, my brother had my Nikon D700 and 14-24mm f/2.8 lens with him in the car during the accident. One of the first things he did was check if my camera was okay. (It was fine.) As my friend said, "You've got to admit that's cute." It's touching. Now I have another thing to be thankful for!

The Presentation (Part 2)

2008-11-24T23:49:00.000+08:00

WOW! Talk about an anti-climatic day. No one showed up, so there was no presentation. To quoteth David Letterman, "I feel like an ugly date."

Tomorrow there's supposedly another presentation, if time permits. Let's see if I go 0/2. I'm just hoping that all my preparation isn't for nothing.

The Presentation (Part I)

2008-11-23T22:31:00.002+08:00

Sorry for the complete lack of posts these last couple of days. I've been extremely busy with work these last couple of days. In fact, I had to work on Saturday! (I was one of only three people working in the entire building.) I've been asked to give some presentations this Monday and Tuesday. But these aren't your normal presentations; as one of my friends said, this could possibly be the greatest 30 minutes of my young career.

On tomorrow's agenda, I'm leading factory tour. Oh and did I mention that some big senior vice presidents from Nokia will be in attendance? They're are flying from Finland. Accompanying them are some pretty high upper management guys from Foxconn as well. This includes Mr. $5.5B himself: Terry Gou , the CEO.

And on Tuesday, I have another important presentation for Nokia. We're trying to get the deal to produce a new product. The head of this team from Nokia will be coming out to survey the facilities. As the person with the best English skills, guess who got the job? The craziest thing about all this is that I just found out about this project last week.

I'll have more dish tomorrow. (Do you think I should ask for an autograph? Or is that tacky?)

Double Ten Parade

2008-11-19T22:13:00.004+08:00

Last month on 10/10, I got out of bed early, hopped on the MRT, and made my way into downtown Taipei. After all, October 10th is the National Celebration Day of Taiwan. (You can think of it like Taiwan's birthday, similar to our 4th of July.) I was just happy to get the day off work. The plan? Photograph the annual Double Ten Day parade.

And boy did I take some awesome pictures. The great thing about having a huge professional camera is that...well...you look like a professional photographer. I was able to make my way into the restricted area without any credentials. In fact, security didn't even question me! I had complete access to the staging area of the parade and I was able to freely walk among the floats. It was awesome.

Let's see the results:

Here are some people dressed up in native Taiwanese clothing. (And by native Taiwanese, I mean the indigenous peoples of Taiwan.) I was trying to take a candid but people just love to pose:

Next, I came across a group of children acrobat performers. This kid was trying to balance that ball as he spun the parasol. (I should have used a slower shutter speed for the motion blur :/ ):

Sounds easy? Well try doing it while walking on stilts!

Since I was being mistaken as a professional photographer, I tried to play the part. I spotted a group of children and asked them to pose. Then make a little small talk, show them the picture, you get the idea:

For this next one, I actually tried to go incognito with the telephoto lens. Even though it didn't work out, I still like it. (Oh and she's wearing some sort of lion/dragon costume that can be pulled over her head):

And finally came the mounted police. If you couldn't tell, a lot of these pictures were taken with my new ultrawide angle lens. This event was the first time I really got to play around with it. For this picture, I got really close to the head horse. I was scared it was going to lunge foward and break my lens/camera. That's how close I was:

In the end, security eventually figured out I wasn't supposed to be there. I supposed it's my own fault that I got caught. After the parade started moving, I didn't know where to go, so I started walking along side the floats. I must have walked out too far because a guard asked me what I was doing. It would have been pretty cool if I was allowed to march in the parade!

Anyway, by that point, I didn't really care about getting kicked off. I had already gotten my shots. :)

A Sunday on the Town

2008-11-18T22:34:00.003+08:00

Okay, so yesterday I lied about staying in the entire weekend. I actually went out to downtown Shenzhen on Sunday. Given my recent illness, it probably wasn't the smartest idea. In fact, it's probably made my flu become drastically worse.

But nothing was going to stop me from going out this weekend. I had plans to go out and I couldn't stomach the idea of spending a third weekend in a row bumming around my apartment. It was time to seize the day!

The day started off with a nice lunch at Parkhaus. It's a lovely Western-style restaurant/coffee shop/wine bar. I immediately spotted two foreigners (i.e. non-Chinese) chatting away in English at the table across from me. That's how you know it's a good place for Western food! This is in the interior of the restaurant:

It was a nice change of pace because I was getting tired of eating Chinese food damnit. Yay for REAL Western food. This was an orange citrus and smoked ham salad:

That was followed up with some pan-fried pork steaks with fried potato wedges and seasoned vegetables:

After lunch, I headed off to the Shenzhen Book City. It's apparently the world's largest bookstore in terms of area (at 43,900 square meters). You can think of it as a huge three-floored "book shopping mall." But there's more than just books; they have a restaurants, antique shops, convenience stores, art galleries, etc. They books though are obviously the main attraction. There's an imported bookstore, 24-hour bookstore, and a huge main bookstore that also sells music and videos. This is a picture of the central bookstore:

My favorite though was the antique bookstore bar. We're talking about a real bar where you can sip on wine/coffee/tea/etc. and just read. And all the pieces of furniture were hand selected by the owners. You can curl up with a good book in an antique bed from the Song Dynasty!

Anyway, I ended up buying some Chinese books to help me study Chinese characters. You know, time to work on that reading comprehension. I found a great series of books for native-English speakers like myself. The stories are written entirely in Chinese with footnotes at the bottom of every page explaining new vocabulary.

Oh and the stories are just classic. With titles like Can I dance with you? and Two children seeking the Joy Bridge, how can you lose? Just check out the description on the back cover of I really want to find her....:

"She is really beautiful. Just one look at her photo and three guys, Dai-wei, Jie-fu, and Qiu-tian, are all determined to find her! The photo was given to them by their professor before he died. And nobody knows where in China the girl is. How can the guys find her? And what happens when they finally see her?"

We're talking about Pulitzer Prize winning stuff here. I just had to buy the whole collection:

Right now I'm working my way though Whom do you like more?, a gripping love story. (I'm actually just suprised that I can understand this many Chinese characters.)

Trifecta of Pain

2008-11-17T22:28:00.004+08:00

Geez, it's been a rough couple of days. I haven't really had a chance to update because I've been dealing with the trifecta of pain:

1) Twisted ankle: First off, I twisted my damn ankle. (At least I think it's a twisted ankle; I've never actually had one before.) It got really bad last Friday after work. I gave a tour of the factory and so I had to stand all day. That's probably what made the pain go from bad to worse. It got to the point where I just went out an bought a freakin' ankle brace. I spent most of Saturday in bed trying to keep my weight off it.

2) 拉肚子 (AKA diarrhea): Then there's the restless bowels that I've been dealing with. It's funny because in English, diarrhea is a bit of an embarrassing topic. It's not the type of thing people talk about openly. And there aren't really any good euphemisms for it either. "Upset stomach" just doesn't do it for me.

But in Chinese, we have 拉肚子 (Pronounced: "la du zi.") Literally, it means "pull stomach." It carries the same meaning as diarrhea without the stigma. And people are relatively more open about discussing it. They have no problem with asking if you have it or mentioned that they've got it. My coworker and I have been trying to figure out what the hell we ate this week.

I'm starting to get over it now, but last week was rough. I was on the Pepto Bismol, Imodium, and some Chinese medicine. (I guess that's what I get for going out and trying "local food." Let's just say they don't have the same health/sanitation standards as in the US.)

3)Flu: But the worst so far has been the flu I caught this weekend. It started Saturday. By Sunday, I developed a fever, headache, and a runny nose. Now it's full blown and it's moving down into my throat. It got so bad that I asked my boss if I could take a half day today. I got home and just napped a good four hours or so.

This is the first time I actually got sick in China and it sucks. Damn, these Chinese super-colds. My weakened American immune system just can handle it. I guess I should just be thankful I didn't catch SARS or the Avian Flu. ~knock on wood~

Taipei 101 Gallery

2008-11-13T22:38:00.003+08:00

Still making my way through those Taiwan pictures. Here are a few of my favorites of Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world! And if you missed it, you can click here to find my entry about visiting Taipei 101.

This picture was taken in front of the entrance to the Sun Yat-sen (SYS) Memorial Hall. I tried to use the building's roofing and columns to frame Taipei 101. It was taken shortly before sunset, so there was still a good amount of light out:

After visiting the SYS memorial, I made my way over to Taipei 101. It's well within walking distance and it's easy to find. I mean how the hell do you miss a 101 floor building? Anyway, as you can see, nighttime was beginning to set in. I must have camped out at this spot for a good 20 minutes or so waiting for this shot:

And this is a late night picture of the main entrance to the shopping mall in Taipei 101. It was actually taken on a separate trip to Taipei 101. I had plans to go to the outdoor observatory on the 91st floor, but my camera was running out of batteries. (So stupid of me!)

You can find the rest of my Taipei 101 pictures here.

Toilet Paper, Really!?!

2008-11-12T23:05:00.009+08:00

So I'm sitting at my desk when my coworker walks in the room carrying an eight-pack of toilet paper. She rips open the packaging and begins handing out one roll of toilet paper to each one of us. I ask her what's going on. She informs me: "It's part of the 'cost-down' plan."

They're seriously reducing costs at my factory by rationing the amount of toilet toilet paper. I wish I was kidding about this. Apparently everyone gets one roll of TP a month. (At least it's two-ply though; that's really like two rolls right?)

The situation is so absurd that I couldn't help but laugh. I mean really now, who came up with this brilliant idea? But on a more serious note, it illustrates how China is effected by the global economic downturn. Demand is going down, manufacturing is slowing down, and the company is losing money. At first, I hardly noticed it, but the changes are becoming more and more evident. It's getting worse and worse though:

There are weekly "cost down" meetings.

They've laid off about 30% of their workforce.

Production has completely stopped on Fridays and Saturdays.

Paid overtime has been suspended indefinately.

Honestly, I'm thankful to be still employed. Oh and I'm also just thankful for getting toilet paper! (Before I left the factory today, I made sure to lock up my roll in my drawer. In these dire times, there's no telling who might steal a roll of toilet paper. Classic...)

Singles' Day

2008-11-11T22:00:00.007+08:00

"Alan, do you know what today is?"

"Uh, ... Tuesday?"

"It's Singles' Day! It's 11/11."

That was the exchange I had with my coworker this morning. Little did I know that today is Singles' Day in China, an unofficial holiday celebrating the single life. (I guess they need another holiday to balance out Chinese Valentine's Day. It's that whole yin and yang thing.)

Obviously, it got the name Singles' Day because the date is made up of four "1s." It looks like four single people standing together, hence its Chinese name "光棍节," meaning "bare stick holiday." From my research, it seems like this holiday developed out of the university culture of the 1990s in Nanjing. As these college students graduated and entered the "real world," they carried on the tradition.

There's also a legend about the holiday's origin. The story goes that there were four single men who used to sit around all day playing mahjong. They were all single guys (no wife or girlfriend) and they all lived rather boring lives. Well on this particular day of 11/11, they ended up play mahjong from 11 AM to 11 PM. And even wierder, no matter who won, the winning tile of each game was always the 'four columns' card. (A card depicting four independent, parallel columns in two lines). To commemorate the day, they nicknamed it Singles Day.

To me though, Singles Day seemed like a pretty regular day. I didn't notice anything particularly special or out of the ordinary going on. Some single people have dinner together and go out to a bar or club. Some people go on blind dates or make vows to not be single next Singles Day.

Plus, you're supposed to eat four sticks of youtiao and one baozi for breakfast. The deep fried sticks of batter are supposed to represent the "1s" and the steamed stuffed bun is supposed to represent the "." in the date 11.11 It kind of makes you wonder how crazy Singles' Day will be on 11.11.11 (I don't think I could eat that many sticks of youtiao!)

(Oh and happy Veterans Day you lucky people in the US who got a three-day weekend. I still miss my two-day weekends.)

CKS (Part 3): Military Marches

2008-11-10T20:07:00.006+08:00

And so today's blog finishes up my series of entries on the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Square. By now, you're probably wondering how one person could have amassed so many pictures from the same place. Honestly, I wasn't satisfied with my pictures from the first time, so I back...twice. (It was at that point that I realized, "Maybe I'm getting too deep into this whole picture takin' thing...")

Anyway, I got really lucky with these pictures. I mean talk about being in the right place at the right time. Needing a break, I just happened to take a half-day off of work and head to CKS on that particular day. Boy was I excited to find groups of soldiers out there practicing in the square.

I mean look at this! Definately not the type of thing you'd find there everyday. I really lucked out:

They look just like toy soldiers, standing in rows. I had to go low and get up really close to them for this picture. Talk about awkward:

They were even practicing spinning their rifles. How cool!:

And we're talking about real friggin' rifles with bayonets. Some crazy woman wasn't paying attention and she walked right through the lines of rifles. It scared the crap out of all the soldiers. Classic:

It actually took me awhile to get comfortable around them. They looked so stoic with those rifles; it was intimidating. By this picture, I was comfortable with inching out closer and closer. At some point some guard told me to get back though:

And they weren't just standing in place, but they went a marchin' as well. It was kind of fun following them around, running after them, duking it out with other photographers. Reminds me my days at the Daily Cal....sigh.

Anyway, that's all folks. As always, you can find the rest of my CKS pictures here.

Tomorrow I'll have another entry about life in Shenzhen.

CKS (Part 2): The National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

2008-11-08T23:38:00.007+08:00

Today is yet another installment of my adventures in Taiwan. Last time, I wrote about Liberty Square, a large public plaza in Taipei. Today, it's all about the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall that flanks the square.

As I mentioned last time, within the last year or so there was a big controversy over the renaming of the CKS Memorial Hall. I'm not an expert, but it sounds like it was a huge waste of time and money. A big fuss over nothing. It began when the former president of Taiwan decided to unilaterally rename the structure the "Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall."

The situation is kind of complicated because of the differing views on Chiang Kai-shek. On one hand he's seen as the popular first president of Taiwan who was a champion of anti-communism. After losing the Chinese Civil War, he lead the movement from the Chinese mainland to the island of Taiwan. However, during his reign, the government was a single-party state consisting of non-Taiwanese mainlanders. Martial law was enforced and dissidents who supported Chinese communism or Taiwan independence were jailed.

Some saw the renaming process as an attempt to dilute his image and eliminate Chinese influence. It led to legal challenges and protesting. Arguments developed between the central government and the Taipei city governement. Ultimately, the next president just restored the hall to its original name, inscription, and purpose.

Anywhoo....here's the memorial hall. I was there during the Double Ten Holiday, so they had Taiwanese flags all over the place. (Yay for windy days and motion blur!):

A lengthy 89 step staircase leads to the main entrance of the memorial hall. These 89 steps represent Chiang's age at the time of his death. Couldn't they have done one step for every 2 or 3 years of his life? Talk about tiring:

The main entrance opens up into an spacious main hall with an elaborately deorated ceiling and a gigantic statue of Chiang Kai-shek. Yay for the wide angle! (I actually came back to CKS after I got my new camera/lens specifically to take this picture.):

Aparently this archictural feature is known caisson ceiling. They are common in the East Asian architecture of temples and palaces. This particular caisson is decorated with the emblem of Taiwan:

However, the main hall is pretty much dominated by the large bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek. It kind of reminds you of the sculpture at the Lincoln Memorial, huh?

He's shown smiling, seated and wearing traditional Chinese dress. (Okay, well maybe the same as Lincoln except for the whole Chinese wardrobe thingy.)

Oh and finally, sunset time at the memorial hall:

So what else is in the memorial hall? Well the ground level houses a museum documenting his life. It's got all sorts of personal artifacts like his clothing, car, etc. That kind of stuff. Oh! and a Wooly Mammoth exhibition. Gotta love those woolys.

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Again, you can click here to see more pictures from my trips to CKS.

CKS (Part 1): The Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Square

2008-11-07T22:22:00.007+08:00

Today I'm going back in time...to the days of my stay in Taiwan. I've gotten back on the horse and I'm starting to edit photos again. Right now I'm in the midst of working my way though my Taiwan photos. These next couple of entries will be about one of my favorite places in Taipei: the Chiang Kai-shek (CKS) Memorial Square and Memorial Hall. (For those of you who don't know anything about Chinese/Taiwanese history, Chiang Kai-shek was the first president of Taiwan. After losing the Chinese civil war to the Communists, he and the remaining KMT forces fled to the Taiwan.)

The CKS Memorial Square is also known by its current name Liberty Square. This expansive public plaza is flanked by the National Concert Hall to the north, the National Theater to the south, and the National CKS Memorial Hall to the east. A number of parks and ponds surround these memorial and cultural centers. The place is very popular site for mass gatherings. Just from my own experience, I've seen protests, soldiers practicing drills, dancers rehearsing, and people out for a jog.

Anyway, enough history, onto the pictures:

This is the main entrance to the square. It's a good ol' night time shot. Pretty!:

And for comparision, here is a daytime picture. (Note that the flags were added as part of the Double Ten Day national holiday of Taiwan):

And here's a close-up the sign that currently reads "Liberty Square" ("自由廣場"). Back in December of 08' there was a huge controvery over the renaming of the plaza. It was originally called the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Square. And that sign used to read "Great Centrality and Perfect Uprightness" ("大中至正"):

This is the main gate and the National Concert Hall at around sunset time. (Used the ultra-wide angle lens and put the camera on the floor. There was this cool circular stone pattern in the flooring):

And this is a refection of the National CKS Memorial Hall in a puddle of water. I wish I could claim this idea as my own, but I didn't come up with it. I saw a bunch of photographers sitting on ground next to this puddle. For the longest time, I couldn't figure out what the heck they were taking pictures of:

Finally, here is another view of the memorial square. This picture was taken at the top of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall staircase.

Click here for more pictures from the CKS site.

First is the Worst, Second is the Best...

2008-11-06T21:58:00.014+08:00

The votes are in and the results are out:

2008 ACP Photo Excellence Awards
Environmental Portrait: Second Place
Alan Wong, Univ. of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, Calif.

Yeah, this was part of the results from that contest I mentioned in a previous entry. It's crazy how time flies; that post was from two months ago!

Honestly, after looking at the competition, I'm surprised that I won second place. As I've mentioned before, I've never thought this was a particularly outstanding picture. But the judges did! And that's all that really matters in a contest. I guess beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

Regardless, it still feels pretty good to win an award. Technically, I can now claim to be an award-winning photojournalist! Wow, I'm surprised at how nicely that rolls off the tongue. The sad thing is that it's probably going to be first and only photojournalism award.

My brother asked me the other day, "So you didn't win some sort of prize? I guess you could put it on your resume." I could add it to my resume...if I was trying to break into that field. (And that's a huge if.) Don't get me wrong: I'd love to work for a newspaper and be a photojournalist. I miss the thrill, the chase, the high of it all. I miss getting assignments. I miss seeing my pictures actually published. I miss having VIP access to basketball/baseball/tennis/etc matches. I even miss having to talking to people for quotes and cutline.

But honestly, I don't think I have the heart for it. It seems like a tough life. It's really something you'd have to do for the love of it because I don't think the pay is spectacular. Plus newspaper readership is plummeting as people go online for their news. And with the way things are going, I'm not ready to dive into video. That's a completely different animal. (Although, I could buy a D90 and start working with video now...)

As it stands, photography is still #3 on my list of what I wanna do for a living:
1) Engineering
2) Teaching
3) Photography

Who knows what will happen down the line. But for now, it's just a backup plan for my backup plan.

President 奥巴马

2008-11-05T23:24:00.006+08:00

"How do you say Obama in Chinese?" I asked my coworker during lunch.

“奥巴马。” [Spelled "ao ba ma" and pronounced OW (as in when you hurt yourself), BAH (as in the sound a sheep makes), MAH (as in ma like the mother]

I couldn't help but laugh; that's a spot on transliteration of Obama into Mandarin Chinese. All this time I thought my coworkers were speaking English when they referred to him. Turns out that's how you actually say Obama in Chinese.

Anyway, people didn't seem to make a big fuss over the US elections here. I'm not qualified to speak for the entire country of China, but as far as I could tell, it was like it never happened. At most, I overheard coworkers mention Obama during lunch because there was a segment on the news about the election. However, everyone's lack of enthusiasm didn't stop me though. It was a slow day at work, so I spend most of the day on CNN.com clicking refresh to get my live updates. (Ironically, I didn't even vote.)

Honestly, I'm not sure how the Chinese people will react to Obama winning the US presidency. It's not like I can speak enough Chinese to carry on a conversation about US politics. At most, I had some Taiwanese coworkers ask me if I was excited about him winning. (And I am! I'm not a fanatic, but I would have voted for him and I'm happy he won. Now it's time for the Democrats to get to work though.)

From what the international news that seen and read, it seems that people generally prefer Obama over McCain. But it's not like they're out rioting in the streets. A lot of people here have other things to worry about...like melamime poisoning from eggs, cookies, chocolate, and milk.

Anyway, on a side note that the characters in his name don't actually mean anything. They don't create new Chinese characters when new words or names come along. Thus, they have to use the same ol' characters. Often these sounds of these new words are translated directly into Chinese. (Another example, hamburger is "ham bao bao")

Halloween in China

2008-11-03T22:15:00.003+08:00

"Do they celebrate Halloween in China?"

I've had a couple of people ask me this question lately. I don't think they do. Last Friday, no kids knocked on my door shouting, "Trick or Treat." I didn't see any jack-o-lanterns (or even any pumpkins around for that matter.) And there weren't any scary movies playing on state-controlled China Central Television. Plus, the Chinese have the Ghost Month! That's like a whole month of Halloween...well minus the candy trick or treating part.

Anyway, I was kind of bummed because Halloween was the first major US holiday that I've missed here in China. (Sorry, but I wouldn't exactly call Labor Day a 1st tier holiday. Although, I do love the 3-day weekend!)

A couple of my coworkers mentioned that they were going to downtown Shenzhen to go ice skating for Halloween. Apparently, every year this one ice rink has a Halloween "party." I decided to tag along because it sure as heck beat sitting home alone on a Friday night.

Here's a picture of the rink. Interestingly enough, it's an indoor rink inside one of the most upscale malls in Shenzhen. Man this would be the place to be in the summertime:

At least they tried to make the place seem festive. All the televisions were playing the music video for Michael Jackson's Thriller. The people working there were all dressed in costumes. And they even had a haunted house that you had to walk through to enter the place. Here's Bonesy:

As you can see, it it wasn't really much a party. Only a few people were wearing masks and costumes while ice skating:

And here is a picture of cute girl wearing a mask. (This was shortly before they kicked me off the rink. Apparently it's unsafe to take pictures while skating. Who knew?):

The funny thing was that they had this Halloween promotion: if you were wearing a mask or costume, admission was half price. (That is, 30 RMB instead of 60 RMB.) Being in opportunistic China, they were selling these cheap masks at the ice skating rink. But the cheapest mask was 30 RMB. So it didn't matter if you didn't have a mask or bought a mask, admission was the same price. It was a way for the place to make even more money because most of the masks costs more than 30 RMB!

All in all, a good night.

Extension

2008-11-01T20:39:00.008+08:00

Lately, something has been bothering me. I recently received some unfortunate news...

My boss wants to extend my training in China.

It's been a few days since I've blogged because I needed some time off. There were some feelings/emotions to process through. I'm finally ready to talk about it.

Originally, the plan was 6 months abroad in China. Now, my training has been extended indefinitely. I've always known that it was possible for them to extend my training; I just hoped it wouldn't happen. Ultimately, my contract agreement says that the training is "anticipated to a last up to one-year." It's not a guarantee, but hopefully one year is the maximum amount of time I'll be abroad.

At this point, my boss feels that I'm not ready. And as much as I hate to admit it, he's right. You see, I'm going to be the first person from my business unit to work in the US. Since I'm going to be flying solo, I need to be really well prepared. Mostly, that means I need to be able to communicate in Mandarin. And honestly, there's no better place to learn Chinese than in China. The whole total language immersion thing has been doing wonders.

At this point, I've come to terms with my extended tour of duty. I'm not upset; I understand why I need to be here longer. I'm feeling more motivated at work because now I actually have goals to work towards. But obviously, I'm still a sad because I was really looking forward to coming home. Working abroad for so long is really draining, physically and emotionally.

The bright spot in all this is that I'll be coming home for Christmas and New Years. (Well, that's still pending human resources and finance department approval. But my boss said it would be fine with him!) So in about 7 weeks I'll on an transcontinental flight headed for LAX!

In n' Out

2008-10-29T23:00:00.005+08:00

It's been less than a week, but I'm moving...again. Just like that, my 5 weeks of training in Foshan became 5 days of training. On one hand, I'm super annoyed; I just unpacked all the stuff from my luggage. And I was getting settled into my dormitory too. On the other hand, I'm excited because my real training is about to begin.

My work is something that I never really addressed in these 100+ blog entries. Frankly, I haven't because I'm not sure what I'm allowed to talk about. Well today I'll give you the basic run down. These are the things I'm sure I'll allowed to mention:

I work for a company called Foxconn. For people in the United States, it's probably the biggest company you've never heard of. Foxconn is the largest manufacturer of electronics and computer components worldwide. We mostly manufacture products which are ultimately branded and sold by another company. This includes products such as the PlayStation 3, iPods, Kindle, Intel motherboards, MacBooks, etc. Do you remember that iPhone girl? That happened at my factory. (And no I've never met her. Have you know everyone at your work?)

Anyway, my business group works with optical mechanical components. Things like projectors, camera lenses, digital cameras, cell phone cameras, etc. With my love of photography, it definitely my kind of thing. I can't tell you how many times already understanding optics saved my butt...especially with the language barrier. Understanding MTF charts and optical distortion is hard enough in English!

The point of my training here in China and Taiwan is to get me up to speed with the company and then send me back to the US. That's why I've been moving to different factories and observing different production lines. My boss wants to make sure I'm adequately trained and vetted in the company before I start work in the US. Ultimately, I'll be working as a PM (project manager). I'm the middle-man: I work with the customers in the US and relay information to the factories in China, and vice-versa.

I'm excited about moving because I've been kind of drifting along during these past three months. The training thus far hasn't been super relevant to my future work in the US. However, the other day, my boss requested that I leave Foshan and move to Shenzhen for the rest of my training. He told me we need to start concentrating on getting me ready for my work in the US. Sounds good to me as long as he doesn't extend my stay here. ~shudder~

差不多 (Not Far Off)

2008-10-27T22:12:00.004+08:00

Before I left for China, I set a number of goals for myself. You know, things I wanted to accomplish before I came back to US. At the top of my list was Mandarin language fluency. Heck, with over a billion Chinese people on this planet, being able to understand Mandarin might become useful in the future. Now I wasn't exactly a newbie at it; I did study the stuff in high school. But after four years of college, I had forgotten most of what I had learned back then. Hopefully, by the end of my trip, I'd be able to reconnect with the language and become fluent.

Fluency. Hmm, that's an interesting concept. It's something that I've been thinking about more and more as my Mandarin speaking ability has flourished. This improvement shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone; I have been living in China/Taiwan for over three months now. Slowly but surely, I can tell that I'm becoming more fluent in the language. But this question still lingers in the back of my mind:

"How will I know when I'm fluent? And what does fluency even mean?"

I've decided that fluency is really about being able to communicate. There's no quantitative point or level at which you achieve fluency. It's not an RPG game with experience points and levels. (Although it'd be really sweet if that were the case.) When it comes down to it, fluency is about communication. Can someone understand the words coming out of your mouth? I don't care how terrible your grammar or pronunciation is. If you can get your point across and you can understand what the other person is saying, then you're fluent. Obviously, there are different degrees of fluency, but it still comes down to communication.

This concept is best summed up by the phrase "差不多" (Pronounced: cha boo dwou). Literally, this phrase translates to something like "differs not much." In essence, it means something like "more or less," "approximately," or "not far off." It was one of the first phrases I learned here in China. The person that was training me couldn't speak a word of English. He would always use "差不多" when I pretty much got the gist of the idea.

Really, fluency is about having to skill to communicate more or less. Doesn't have to be perfect as long as it gets the job done.

Surfin': Yilan City, Taiwan

2008-10-26T08:14:00.017+08:00

Alrighty then, it's time to start working my way through these posts from Taiwan. First up, surfing in Yilan City. Yeah, that's right: surfing. It's funny thatI was born in raised in sunny Southern California, but this was my first time surfing. And I live literally 15 minutes from the beach.

Usually, I don't even like going to the beach:

You get sand all over the place.

Only God knows how clean that water is. (You know people pee.)

Swallowing salt water leaves you with the most disgusting feeling.

Etc....you get the idea.

I figured I'd tag along with my coworkers though. It beat sitting in my room all day. Thankfully, I brought my camera along because the skies were beautiful that day. It turns out I wasn't the only one who thought so. There were about 20+ photographers out there with their tripods:

I decided to join the crowd and take some pictures before we started surfing. Just look at the sky and the reflection off the water!:

But I wasn't satisfied with just walking along the shore, so I decided make my way out into the water. I'd hold my camera up every time I saw a big wave coming at me. I took this picture as a wave passed right by me:

And since I was in the water anyway, I figured I'd take picture of people surfing. Go telephoto lens! 加油！(It's been collecting dust; I can't remember the last time I used it before this time):

Here are my coworkers posing for a picture. Look at those surfing pros:

Here's a picture of some random old guy surfing. I like this picture because the background is really clean. Plus he actually caught a decent wave:

By the end of the day, it started raining hard. It was the most surreal feeling to be surfing during a rainstorm. You're already wet, so a little rain isn't a big deal. Anyway, I really wanted to take a picture during the rainstorm. So equipped with the latest waterproofing equipment (i.e. a plastic bag), I made my way out into the water. (It's been converted to B&W because there wasn't much color in the image anyway. Plus it just looks more epic!)

By the end of the day, I got the hang of it. It took a lot of tumbling early on, but I finally was able to ride some small waves along the shore. I must say, I had a lot of fun surfing.

But I definitely paid the price for it. I didn't wear any sunscreen. That's right: 7 hours of direct sunlight without any suncreen. Talk about looking like a lobster. My entire body from the waist up was sunburnt. I spent the following two weeks peeling. We're talking about my face, shoulders, chest, back, and stomach. It's was painful and digusting. (I felt really bad for the poor maid who was cleaning up skin flakes that were all over the place.)

Alan says: Always wear sunscreen.

Anyway, here are more pictures.

欢迎回来到佛山 (Welcome Back to Foshan)

2008-10-24T22:37:00.006+08:00

五十九天。

59 Days.

That's all that stands between me and coming home to the US.

It's amazing how time flies when you're having fun. (Hmm...well maybe fun isn't the right word to use.) Rather, it's amazing how time flies when you're keeping busy. Today I left Taiwan and headed back to mainland China.

I know that it has been awhile since I last blogged. The whole internet situation in Taiwan was a royal pain in the arse. Now, I'm just happy to be back in mainland China. Ironically,the Gr3at W4ll censorship is more relaxed than the internet filtering at the company dormitory in Taiwan. (First things I did here in Foshan were to check my Gmail and sign into Google Chat. Suddenly, life feels complete again :)

Anyway, Taiwan was AMAZING. The work part of it, not so much. Everything else was cool though. Not being able to regularly post gave me a lot of time to explore Taipei. Now I've got plenty of backlogged pictures and entries to write about my time there. I'll slowly write about those stories during my time here in Foshan. (Heck, there's nothing to do around here. One of my coworkers in Taiwan said, "Oh, you're going to Foshan? I'm sorry. It's SO boring.")

I had really mixed feelings about leaving Taiwan. It felt really different this time. I felt sad because I realized that I may never see those coworkers again. Seriously. My work will be all based in the US and I'm more likely to return to the manufacturing sites in China than the R&D site in Taiwan. These coworkers are people who I considered friends: they included me, looked after me, and took care of me. (Being at least 4-5 years younger than everybody, I tended to get treated like a younger brother.)

During my last night in Taiwan, one coworker treated me to dinner. Riding on his motor scooter, we headed off to an all-you-can-eat, shabu-shabu style restaurant. It was the first time I had ever been on a motor scooter; it was so much fun! And just when I thought I was done for the night, I ran into another coworker after my workout at the gym. Even though it was 10:00 P.M., he insisted we go to the Banciao Night Market! I figured, "Hell, why not? Let's have fun!" It's so nice to just hang out with friends.

Now I'm in Foshan, heading into the 8 week home stretch. Last time I left Foshan, I didn't feel that sad. It wasn't like I didn't have friends. It's just that I knew I would be coming back and that I would see them again. When I leave Foshan again this time, I'm sure I'll processing the same feelings. In the meantime, I suppose I should make the most of my time here.

Anyway, expect regular entries again! I got nothing else to do here anyway.

Taipei: Yongkang Street Market

2008-10-07T15:58:00.002+08:00

Alright, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. It’s time to start making processing with my backlogged photos. Trust me, I’ve got plenty of em’. Today’s entry is about the Yangkong Street Market in Taipei. It may not be one of those famous night markets of Taiwan, but I liked the area. I’m not sure how famous the area is. Maybe it’s just known for its proximity to Din Tai Feng, a world-famous Taiwanese restaurant known for its juicy pork dumplings. (Actually, I went a location in Shenzhen, China, but I wasn’t that impressed with the dishes. I need to give it a second chance though. Maybe the food is more “authentic” here in Taiwan. The restaurant does have Taiwanese origins after all.)

Actually, my friend’s mom (Mama Yu) showed me this place. After a night of sightseeing at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Square, we headed to the Yangkong Street Market for some food. The area is a fine matrix packed with narrow roads. These are slender streets that can barely accommodate two lanes of traffic, especially with the crowds of people walking in the street. The nightlife seemed pretty active with foreigners and locals alike walking down the street., visiting the numerous clothing boutiques, convenience stores, restaurants, cafes, and street vendors.

Obviously, my favorite part was the eats. And I must say that so far, the street food is pretty damn good. (Although, I suppose I should reserve judgment until I visit the Taipei night markets on Thursday. I can’t wait to get me some 小吃 or street market snacks.) Anyway, let's get to the pictures!

The first stop was the well-known Ice Monster shaved ice shop. What a wacky, cool mascot! (Okay, go ahead say it. Alan's a dork.)

Anyway, here are some customers ordering at the counter. As you can see from the menu, there's an extensive amount of choices. You can choose traditional toppings such as taro or red bean, or just go with fresh fruit. And man, the place was so crowded. There was a long line with no open seating available.

And here is the pièce de résistance: the Fresh Fruit Mix shaved ice. It's shaved ice with freshly diced strawberry, mango, and kiwi. It's topped off with a scoop of mango sorbet and drizzled condensed milk. Delicious!

Across the way was this street vendor selling those traditional green onion "pancakes." Note that these were different that the type I had in Foshan, China. Apparently there are a bunch of types of 饼 or Chinese flatbread. This type was fried on a griddle. As the batter cooked, the vendor would thrash the pancake with two spatulas. Thus the flatbread became airy, crispy, and flaky. Comes optional with egg.

Also across the way from Ice Monster was this other street vendor selling "pepper buns" (also known as "hu jiao bing.") These buns are filled with spicy peppers, green onion, and pork. It's got a crispy, firm outside with a warm, moist center. It's my favorite snack so far!

I liked the food so much that I went back there again on my own! I'm really craving those pepper buns right about now.

Censorship in China? Say It Ain’t So Joe!

2008-10-05T23:56:00.001+08:00

This morning at work I came across an interesting article on the Skype blog. (Hey, I gotta find something to do for those eight hours at the office.) Apparently there's a security and privacy breach in the Skype software released by TOM, Skype's local Chinese partner. Don't get me wrong, it's not a completely different program. It's still called Skype and it has the same graphical user interface. Now it's been known for awhile that TOM has a text filter that blocks certain words in chat messages. And if it's really "offensive", the entire message is discarded. What's new is that TOM has been uploading and storing these offensive chat messages.

Now censorship in China shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. (Note that this censorship applies to mainland China, not Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macau.) It's been going on for many years now. And it extends way beyond just the internet; it includes all forms of media such as television, film, radio, phone calls, newspapers, magazines, literature, etc. The government has some control over all of those forms of communication. You know that whole Chinese milk scandal going on right now? Some of the Western media is speculating that the Chinese media was hushed up, prevented from reporting the recall during the Olympic Games.

Today though, I'm going to write specifically about internet censorship in China. (It's not like my Chinese was strong enough to understand what I saw on TV or read the newspaper.) Internet censorship is often referred to as the Great Firewall of China, though it's officially called the "Golden Shield Project." It's apparently prettty extensive. In addition to completely blocking certain IP addresses, some web pages are filtered, i.e. a China language Google image search of "Tiananmen" yields different results than an English language version of the same thing. And yes, there are even supposedly internet police who can monitor and manipulate information under fake names on forums. In Shenzhen, their mascot are these two cute cartoon characters called Jingjing and Chacha, (Their names are a play on words of the Chinese word for police 警察 or "Jingcha").

Personally, I wasn't really been able to tell a difference in the quality of internet in China. Maybe it's because I don't normally visit the types of websites they block. Honestly, how often do normally I go to sites about anti-communism, Tiananmen Square, Falun Gong, or Taiwanese independence? Actually, I did try to look up "Free Tibet" one time just for kicks. Many of the Google search results yielded a dead page. You know, some message like "Firefox can't establish a connection to the server..." The only blocked websites I cared about were certain personal or news blogs. (In fact, all wordpress.com blogs are blocked in China.) Honestly though, just give me my personal blog, Gmail, Facebook, AOL Instant Messenger, and Skype and I'm a happy camper.

I do have a couple of theories about why my Internet seemed alright. Maybe it was because I was unaware of what was filtered. How am I supposed to know what's been changed in a webpage when I can't compare it to the original? Or maybe it was because of the Olympics. Restrictions were supposedly more relaxed during this time for foreigners and journalists. Or maybe it was because I did all my browsing in English. I'm not sure if the search engines are set to censor certain English words as well. The list of blocked Chinese words is quite extensive.

Anyway, I hope that didn't come off as a rant. I try not to put too much of a slant on my entries. This is just something that I've been meaning to write for awhile. And now that I'm in Taiwan, I can write it safely!

(And yes, the title is a reference to last night's vice presidential debate. Even though I'm in Asia, I'm still trying to keep up with U.S. politics and news. Ironically, I'm not getting an absentee ballot for this election. So I guess I'm not allowed to complain about the next president for the next four years. Haha.)

Life in Dorms (Part 2)

2008-10-03T23:48:00.000+08:00

Last time, I showed you my room. This time, I'm going to show you my favorite part of my "dormitory:" the downstairs lounge. Honestly, if we didn't have that downstairs entertainment center, I'd probably go crazy:

Let's see. This first area is fully furnished with a foosball table, PS3, XBOX 360, and three arcade basketball machines! Now if the machines dispensed tickets that I could redeem for giant stuffed animals, then I'd be in heaven.

And here is an adjacent room with 2 billiard tables.

For all these pictures I snuck in late at night when the areas were closed. That explains the terrible lighting in some of these pictures. Hmm, maybe I should buy another external flash unit...

Of course there is a ping pong table. Heck, it's Asia after all.

Oh and here's my favorite part!: the gym. ~sigh~

It's complete with treadmills, bicycles, stair climbers, and ellipticals. The best part is each machine has its own television with digital cable. I swear it's almost like heaven on earth.

Finally, here's the weight room. I wouldn't call it a real "weight room," but it does the job. Plus it's like a million times better that doing bodyweight exercises in my room. Haha.

This makes living at a factory cool!

Taipei 101

2008-10-02T07:23:00.000+08:00

It's Tuesday night and I've already been in Taiwan for four days. I've watched one three-day weekend vanish like that. It was pretty uneventful weekend. I spent most of the weekend sitting around watching Chinese movies and Taiwanese dramas because of the typhoon. (It wasn't a total loss through; I discovered this one awesome drama called Miss No Good. Agh, why can't next week's episode come quicker?)

The most exciting this I did this weekend was visit Taipei 101. According to the "Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat," Taipei 101 is currently the tallest building in the world. And I wasn't kidding about that first part; there really is council that designates the "official" height of buildings. Even though it was foggy, it was still pretty cool. I'd totally be down to go back on a clearer day. Makes for better pictures :)

Anyway, onto the pictures!

This is a picture from the interior of the state of the art elevator. This elevator can whisk you to the 89th floor in just 37 seconds. It also holds the world record for fastest ascending elevator speed at 37.7 mph. (I was just worried about my head exploding.)

With such a crappy view, I had to find other things to photograph. I decided to go with a good ol' stocker shot of someone looking out the window. (I'm still not exactly sure what there was to see outside.)

Taipei 101 also holds the record for the largest tuned mass damper. It's basically a huge 660 ton pendulum that keeps the building from falling over due to earthquakes or strong winds.

And I swear I've seen a picture just like this from some lower division physics book. Maybe from Giancoli, Physics 7A, the oscillations chapter. (Freakin' NERD. Haha.)

This damper is name the "Damper Baby." They even had a profile for the thing. Blood type? Favorite extracurricular? Classic.

This is a picture taken from one floor lower. The damper is partially held up by those high strength steel cables. Each cable is 9cm in diameter and contains more than 2,000 wire strands. Neato huh?

Being a major tourist attraction, you could buy a souvenir photo. Except these ones were Photoshop-ed pictures of in front of a backdrop. Hands down, this was the winner.

Lastly, this is a self portrait I took of my reflection in a window. I like the blurry city night scape in the background.

Life in the Dorms (Day 3)

2008-09-29T01:00:00.002+08:00

As promised, here are some pictures of my dorm room:

Here's a picture of my actual room. It's a little small, but it's pretty sweet. Everything looks really new and there's lots of furniture. Oh, plus it comes with a 32" hdtv, digital cable, and a fridge! The bed's a little short; why do I have to be so tall? :(

Here's a picture of the mosaic tile bathroom. Like at my apartment in Shenzhen, the shower still doesn't have a door. I'm not exactly sure the point of just putting in short wall of glass without a door. Water still gets all over the place.

Here's a picture of the lounge area outside the laundry room. Some of the lights are off because I took this picture at like 1 A.M. It's kind of embarrassing to walk around and take pictures with my huge camera.

Finally, here's a picture of my dormitory's swimming pool at night. I converted the picture to blank and white because the colors were all funky. (That's the problem with white balancing multiple colors.) If you look closely, you can tell that it was raining when I took the picture.

I'll try to sneak around later and get some pictures of the gym and play areas. :)

I Hate Typhoons (Day 3)

2008-09-29T00:54:00.001+08:00

Having been born and raised in the City of Angeles and I can tell that Tony! Toni! Toné! was right: It Never Rains in Southern California.

But here in China and Taiwan it's a different story. Not only does it rain way more often, but when it rains it pours. Since I've arrived in Asia, I've been greeted by nothing but this kind of typhoon weather. Before coming here, I don’t even think I knew what a typhoon was. And I'm still not exactly sure on the difference between a hurricane, typhoon, and monsoon. But, I can tell you all about earthquakes. Haha.

Right now, Super Typhoon Jangmi is making it’s way right through Taiwan. (Jangmi is Korean for "rose.") This typhoon is supposedly the most powerful one to hit Taiwan during this typhoon season so far. The weather has been pretty crappy since I arrived. I've never seen wind and rain like this before. The typhoon straight-up destroyed my cheap-ass $2 umbrella that I bought in China.

I guess the one good thing to come out of it all is that I don't have work tomorrow. But, it's not like I can do anything because the weather is so bad outside. Even if I braved it, all the tourist/sight-seeing places that I'd visit would probably be closed. So until this storm passes, I'm kind of trapped at my dorm.

Today had to be the worst though. At about noon, all my electrical outlets decided to stop working. It wasn't related to the hurricane, but I was stuck in my room without a working television or laptop because it was ugly outside. I spent the rest of the day just sitting in the lounge watching Chinese/Hong Kong flicks. They were good movies, but I just felt so trapped in my dorm. Hopefully tomorrow will clear up so I can go outside and explore some more!

Welcome to Taiwan: Day 1

2008-09-28T00:40:00.001+08:00

It's crazy to think that less than 24 hours ago I was in a completely different country. I've said my goodbye to Foshan, China and now I'm in Tucheng City, Taiwan. I arrived here late this afternoon so I haven't had a chance to explore anywhere except my dorm. (Although tomorrow I'm headed to Taipei to get a haircut, check out Taipei 101, and eat a delicious US steak dinner! Geez, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.)

So what's the verdict this place? Well, I have some serious mixed feelings about this site.

The Good:

They have this crazy entertainment area with a PS3, XBOX, pool tables, and those arcade style basketball machines. (Sadly you can't win a humongous, oversized, stuffed teddy bear there though.)

There's a swimming pool and gym here. Treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, and weights. (I've been here less and six hours and I've already hit the gym. This is like heaven.)

There's a "7-11" style convenience store downstairs on the first floor inside the dorm. What ever you need, they've got it.

And possibly the best part: I live right next to the factory. (I'm loving the idea of waking up 5 minutes before work starts and still making it to the office early.)

The Bad:

Unlike Foshan, I don't have daily laundry service :(. I don't mind doing it myself, but I seriously need to go out and buy more clothes. I only brought like 3 or 4 sets of clothes with me to Taiwan. (Although I guess I could just do two loads a week. It's free and they give you detergent!

And this one's the killer: my internet connection is connected to the factory's internet line. Thus I have internet restrictions worse than China's Great Firewall. I can't use skype, chat on AOL instant messenger, send/receive emai1s, upload pictures to Picasa, or write entries in my blog. (Although I've figured out a way to access AOL instant messenger using AIM Express to check my gmai1 account using g-lite. But I can only receive mail; I still can't compose or send any messages.)

So, for the next moth Facebook will be my only means of communication. (God, I've become a Facebook whore! ~Gasp~) If you send me an email, don't expect me to respond until the end of next month. Furthermore, my blog entries for the next month are all going to be posted as notes on Facebook, not on my regular blog. (For those of you who don't have Facebook, maybe I can find some kind soul to post them there for me.) I'm actually surprised that Facebook even still works (~knock on wood~).

I'll probably post some pictures of "quasi-paradise" tomorrow. (Oh and let me know if I should tag you so you'll know when I write new entries!)

Long Hair, Don't Care

2008-09-26T00:31:00.003+08:00

Of course I would put off packing untill the last moment... again. It's about 2:00 AM and I'm just about done. Actually, this time around I finished pretty early. The shuttle is picking me up at 8:00 A.M. to take me to the Macau Airport. That means I can still get in a rock-solid 5 hours of sleep.

For those of you who don't know, I'm heading to Taiwan for the next month. I would love to write an entry about my worries, concerns and hopes, but I'm just too burnt out from packing all night. (I'll probably get around to writing one tomorrow after I land.)

Anyway, I'm really excited about finally getting a proper haircut. It's been about three months since I've gotten my hair cut. That's a lot considering I usually get it cut every month or so. Check out these gnarly photographs:

And in case you forgot what my hair used to look like, here is a side by side comparison:

You're probably wondering why I've been waiting to go to Taiwan to get my haircut. It's not like people don't get haircuts in China. (Although, that might be the case with some Chinese people I've seen around.) I've been advised not to get my haircut here in China. I work mainly with Taiwanese coworkers and they've all told me to just wait until I get to Taiwan:

"Trust us, you don't want to get your hair cut in China."

So I've been putting it off for the longest time. But this Saturday, I have an appointment to get my hair cut. The funny thing is that now I want to grow out my even more! I've never had my hair this long; I'm curious what it would look like even longer. Then when I get back to the US, I'll just shave my head. I could film it and put it on youtube! That's a "top viewed" video for sure.

Anyway, I hope I don't end up looking like a FOB. It's still Taiwan after all; it's not the US. I'll have some pictures posted later this week.

Star Lake National Park

2008-09-24T23:00:00.005+08:00

Last weekend, I went to the Star Lake National Park in Zhaoqing, China. It's one of the top national parks in China and probably the most beautiful place in all of Southern China. It's main claim to fame are the Seven Star Crags. These seven crags are naturally arranged in the shape of the Big Dipper constellation. Legend says that these pillars grew from stars that fell from the skies. Ah, how poetic. What can I say, Chinese people love these kinds of stories and myths.

I thought it was a really cool place. I would totally love to go back, but I probably won't get the chance. It's a good 2 hours away from Foshan. It would take some serious organization to plan another trip like this. Furthermore, I'm leaving for Taiwan on Friday!

Anyway, now for my favorite part, the pictures!

The first place we visited was this bird island. The highlight was the red-crowned crane sanctuary:

(I got really lucky with this particular picture. Just as I was about to take the picture, it yawned for just a split second. It's way more interesting than the usual closed mouth picture huh?)

The red-crowned crane is an incredibly rare and important animal to the Chinese people. This species is the second rarest crane in the world and they are indigineous only to East Asia. In China, they are featured in myths and legends as a symbol of longevity and immortality. They're often called fairy cranes because immortals are depicted riding on them. They were going to be selected as the national animal of China but the decision was deterred because the crane's Latin name is "Japanese Crane." (Neato facto: The official logo of Japan Airlines is a red-crowned crane.)

Our next stop was the Thousand Years Ancient Temple in the Running Rice Cave. (Again, Chinese names just don't translate that well to English.) It was looked cool because they had tons of incense coils hanging from the ceiling of the cave. (Makes for a nice black solid background.) Check it out:

Here's a picture of an incense altar located outside of the cave. Yay for a fat Buddha statue in the background.

Now this is a picture of one of the bridges connected to the Thousand Years Ancient Temple island. If you look closely, there's a couple dressed up in wedding clothes:
In fact, there were a total of five couples having their wedding pictures taken here. (Note that in China, people often have their wedding pictures taken before the actual wedding. They'll go to some scenic place and get all dressed up in their wedding clothes.) Anyway, people came to this bridge because it's named "que qiao" meaning the bridge of magpies. It's a reference to this Chinese love story related to Chinese Valentine's Day. In the story, there are these lovers who are only allowed be together once a year on the night of Chinese Valentine's Day. On this night, all the magpies in the world fly up to heaven to form a bridge to unite the lovers. How oddly romantic.

On our way to the next stop, I got my telephoto lens out and snapped this picture. (There's something about using a telephoto lens to take candid shots that makes me feel especially creepy.) Anyway, as you can see Chinese people love taking pictures at scenic places like this:

The highlight of the day were the Seven Star Crags. We ended up only hiking up the Tianzhu Crag (天柱岩). At 114 meters, it's the tallest of the bunch. Tianzhu roughly translates to "Sky Column." Here's what it looks like:

It's funny because people here refer to this kind of hiking as "mountain climbing." I dunno, I always think of mountain climbing as involving ropes, harnesses, and carabiners. In China, the hiking can get pretty precarious though. Many of these staircases are very steep, narrow, and uneven. I can't even remember how many times I slipped. Check out this one:

And just when you thought it couldn't get any narrower:

It was about a 15-20 minute walk to the peak. The hike was worth though it because the view from the top was great! At the top there was this little pavilion where you could rest and take pictures. Here's the view of the Shishi Crag, an other one of the Seven Star Crags:

And here is a view of one of the lakes. The "y-shaped" grove of trees is actually a bridge walkway:

One of the park's other claims to fame are these stone inscriptions. Here you can find carved inscriptions made by historical figures in every dynasty since the Tang Dynasty. These inscriptions contain poems, travel notes, autographs, and depictions. Because the written Chinese language hasn't changed, people can still read them. (Well, I can't read them, but my coworkers could. Haha.) This particular inscription dates back to the Qing Dynasty:

Next, this is a picture of the interior of another temple at the park. That large golden statue is a Chinese deity. I'm not sure how kosher it is to take pictures of Chinese Gods, but hey, it makes fore a cool picture. Notice the interesting looking beam and ceiling architecture?

Finally, here is another water relection picture of some Chinese pavilions:

As always, you can find the rest of my gallery here. I was particually trigger happy on this day, so there are plenty more photos where this came from.

Foshan Month in Review

2008-09-23T23:38:00.003+08:00

Alright, enough of these wordy entries. It's time to get back to my love: photography. I just finished preparing a gallery of sixty images from this past month in Foshan. It's a Facebook gallery, but you don't need to have Facebook to see it. Check it out!

Alan's Facebook Gallery of Foshan

That gallery actually includes some new pictures from my adventures at the Star Lake National Park from last weekend. I literally spent all day editing and updating metadata for those images. I'd love to write about it, but I'm way to burnt out right now. I promise I'll have an entry about it tomorrow.

In the meantime, here's a little something to grab your interest:

Surname Battle: Huang vs. Wong vs. Wang

2008-09-22T23:59:00.004+08:00

My full name is Alan Michael Wong. That's the name I've always been called and that's the name that I'm used to hearing. Here in China though, sometimes people call me by my Chinese name: 黄仲贤 or Huang Zhong Xian. (Note that with Chinese names, the last name always comes first.) But wait, how is it that my last name is "Wong" in the US, but "Huang" here in China? And what exactly is the difference between Wong, Huang, and Wang?

It always kind of irked me growing up. I was never really sure if I was ever pronouncing my own last name correctly. Now that I've been here in China for about 2 months, I think I've finally got it figured out. (Well kind of at least.)

There are two main complications:

1) First of all, there are multiple ways to romanize the Chinese language. (By romanize, I mean represent the Chinese language with the Roman alphabet.) Let's face it, Chinese characters were never really designed for our alphabet. As Russell Peters put it: "Our alphabet ... is not set up for songs like that. There's never going to be a Chinese YMCA."

2) Secondly, there are many different dialects of spoken Chinese. Some of these can be as different as English and German. Sure they might have some words that sound alike, but no one would ever consider them the same language.

The largest of these dialects is Mandarin, which is the official spoken language of China. Even within Mandarin, there are different geographical accents. I guess it'd be kinda of like having a Boston accent or Southern twang. The other major language is Cantonese. It tends to be the main language in overseas Chinese communities in the United States. Cantonese is particularly popular in southern China and Hong Kong, so I've been hearing a pretty good amount of it. Luckily one of the Emperors of China had the foresight to unify the Chinese written language. (Ugh, I can't even imagine a world with multiple written Chinese languages.)

Anyway, two of the most common surnames in China are 黄 (meaning "yellow") and 王 (meaning "king"). (FYI, I'm yellow; I'm not a king.)

According to standard Mandarin romanization, 黄 is spelled as "Huang."
According to standard Cantonese romanization it's spelled as "Wong."

According to standard Mandarin romanization, 王 is spelled as "Wang."
According to standard Cantonese romanization it's spelled as "Wong."

(As a pronunciation guide, Huang is pronounced as "who-ah-ng" and Wong and Wang are both pronounced as "w-ah-ng")

So I guess the reason it's so damn confusing is because both characters are spelled the same in Cantonese as Wong, but differently in Mandarin. It gets even crazier because because of the romanization and dialect problem. For example, my last name 黄 can also be spelled as Houang, Hoang, Wong, Vong, Hung, Hong, Bong, Eng, Ng, Uy, Wee, Oi, Oei or Ooi, Ong, Hwang, or Ung.

Whatever, it's good to know that I haven't been pronouncing my name the "wong" way.

Got Milk?

2008-09-22T00:41:00.000+08:00

As part of my new "eat right in China" plan, I've been trying to cut starch from my breakfast. It's harder than it sounds. My breakfasts here usually consists of:

粥 (zhou) - A type rice porridge that's basically just boiled rice and water

油条 (youtiao) - A long deep fried stick of dough

包子 (baozi) - A steamed bun filled with vegetables and/or meat

馒头 (mantou) - Another type of steamed bun without any filling

You get the idea. (We also have soymilk and scrambled eggs, but I don't like those foods.) My only option has been milk and cereal. I know it's not the healthiest choice per se, but it's better than the alternative. But all last week, we didn't have any milk! Yesterday, I finally figured out why...

While taking a break from my writing my report, I started browsing through Google News. This one particular headline caught my eye: China seeks public trust after milk scandal. For those of you who didn't know, there's this huge tainted milk scandal going on here in China. Basically, some dairy companies were watering down baby formula and liquid milk. Furthermore, they were also adding melamine to the milk to rasie the protein levels. Melamine is a chemical used in making plastics. When ingested, it can cause kidney stones, which can lead to kidney failure.

The worst part is that a lot of cheap baby formula was tainted. Infants are particularly vulnerable to melamine poisoning. Thousands of babies are sick and a couple of babies have died already. I figure those numbers should start rising slightly though. A lot of poor familes really depended on this cheap baby formula to feed their babies. How sad.

Anyway, when I first heard about this scandal, they said that only baby formula was tainted. Whew. But as I started reading the article, they mentioned that it spread to fresh milk as well.

HOLY CRAP. Fresh milk?? I've been drinking a small carton of milk just about everyday here in China. And lately, I've been eating like two bowls of milk and cereal a day! The worst part was that I was chugging down on a carton of delicious(?) strawberry yogurt milk as I was reading the article. I wish I was kidding about that last part.

Kidneys, don't fail me now! I don't want to have to go to a Ch1nese hospital. They might take one of them to sell it on the bl4ck market :( JUST KIDDING

Photoshop Skillets

2008-09-21T08:52:00.001+08:00

So as I mentioned in my last blog post, my favorite picture took some major photoshop contrast adjustments. See for yourself:

Geez, they're like two completely different photographs! I think this is proof that I spend way too much time edit photos.

(I know this is a lame short post. I was burnt out from working out last night. BUT I'm going hiking today, so I'll have some new photos up in the coming days!)

Qinghui Garden (清晖园)

2008-09-19T23:26:00.004+08:00

I love 2 day weekends. As I mentioned earlier this week, I had this Monday off because of the Mid Autumn Festival. I spent the day with some coworkers at the Qinghui Garden in Foshan. I'm still not exactly sure how to translate it to English; the characters are 清晖园. Rough translated, it sounds something like Clear Sunshine Garden. What can I say, the names of Chinese places don't really translate that well to English.

Anyway, Qinghui Garden is pretty famous garden. It's one of the 10 major gardens in China and one of the 4 famous gardens of Guangdong from the Qing Dynasty. Plus it's got this really interesting history too. It was originally the mansion of Huang Shijun, a Zhuangyuan. For over 1300 years, Imperial China used this imperial examination process. This "fair and unbiased" process was used to make appointments in the Imperial bureaucracy. Anyway, as Zhuangyuan, this dude was ranked number one out of the entire country! More additions were made after it was later purchased by another successful candidate named Long Yingshi. (I'm still trying to imagine what that must have been like to have your entire life determined by one countrywide test.)

Anyway, onto the pictures!

The Qinghui Garden is located in the Shunde District of Foshan City. One of Shunde's claims to fame is that it's known as the original birthplace of dragon boating. For those of you who don't know, there's a famous festival here in China during May called the Duanwu Festival. (I've always called it the "Dragon Boat Festival" though; that's kind of what it's most notable for.) Anyway, they had a large exhibition there explaining about it's origins. Here's a model dragon boat that is half-sized. Wow!

This is a low depth of field shot of some willow leaves. I felt like being particularly artsy that day :p

This is picture of the interior of Liufen House, the tallest building in the garden. Etched into these blue stain glass panels are images of the Eight Immortals. The Eight Immortals are legendary figures from Chinese mythology:

This is a picture of one of the bridges in this expansive garden. Those kids were posing for a picture for their parents. I figured I'd take the picture of this bridge with them in the frame. Makes it more interesting right? That's what I tell myself so I don't feel like a creeper:

One of my favorite parts of the part of park were the koi fish. There were ponds spread throughout the garden filled with koi fish. For 3 RMB, you could buy a bag of fish food to feed them. This is a candid picture of a child feeding the fish. This picture's my favorite: (I had to do MAJOR photoshop exposure correction on the original overexposed picture; I was shooting on manual and I forgot to bump the shutter speed. Thank heaven I was shooting in RAW):

Here's a close up of the feeding frenzy:
Click here for more images of the Qinghui Park in my Foshan album.

Thousand Light Lake (千灯湖)

2008-09-19T00:30:00.002+08:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I spent last Sunday at Thousand Light Lake. It's this cool little urban park in the middle of Foshan. Parks are really different here in China. I guess in the US, I always think of parks as quiet and idyllic places. But here, they're always crowded, noisy, and bustling. Anyway, here are some pictures:

This is a a wide-angle picture of the lake. You could rent paddleboats and motorboats to explore the lake. In fact, some of the mini islands were only accessible by boat:

This is the first of my "creeper images." It was really crowded at the park this day because of the Mid-Autumn Festival. (Pretty much everyone has the day off.) I just wanted to take some pictures of people having fun and enjoying themselves. Photographs of people are always more interesting:

For this next "creeper shot" I actually took the picture with my camera held at my waist. I didn't want to make it obvious I was photographing them so I pretended to accidentally press down the shutter LOL:

People in China love to have their picture taken at famous or pretty places. You can always find vendors who will take your portrait. For a nominal fee, they'll take your picture and print it our for you on the spot! They even bring a printer and some photo paper. This is a picture of a sign advertising the service:

There were also other types of vendors there too. This guy was selling his artwork. I snuck between two people in the crowd to take this picture:

Here's a picture of the pedestrian bridge that crosses the lake. It's all lit up at night. How pretty! I should have had my picture taken on the bridge :(

Lastly, since I was at Thousand Light Lake on the day of the Moon Festival, I decided to try to take some sort of picture that involved the moon. Here are some Chinese pavilions with a full moon in the background:

Anyway, click here to see the full gallery with more images!