Farewell, My Musical Taste

I arrived on the island with an older CD with several albums of MP3's burned on it. While I won't try and say that I don't listen to a lot of crap, I think I have a little bit of integrity when it comes to music selection. That all went out the window when my car rental agency called to say they needed to switch my car. I know I was supposed to be in a smaller class car, yes, smaller than a Toyota Corolla, but they gave me an upgrade due to availability. So I had to go meet the "new car" out at the curb one morning and didn't realize I was looking right at it because it was the same exact car, same color, just with a bit more mileage. They had someone come along willing to sign a one year lease so I had to switch into an older vehicle. I would soon realize that the real downgrade would be that this car's stereo could not read MP3's.

Now I'm stuck listening to iCRT, the local English language station. It actually has decent news, but the music and D.J. banter is quite awful. I am not exaggerating when I say on every segment I drive, I hear Lady Antebellum and Rhianna, and am embarrassed to say that I can't get either song out of my head. I decided I needed to do something about this and came across an upcoming performance of Farewell My Concubine performed by the Taipei Chinese Orchestra at Zhongshan Hall in Ximen. The first challenge was getting tickets.

I went online to their website and for some reason, on the Englisg version of the website, this particular performance did not show up. If I switched to Chinese, then it showed up. So I tried to work through it using Google Translator and got stuck when I needed to create an account, I forget exactly why. But being concerned that I wouldn't even be able to get them in the mail or select "Will Call", I thought it better to try and get them in person. They broker through the Eslite Bookstore so I stopped there on my way home from work.

I went to the main store in Xinyi and went down to the customer service desk in the basement. Not knowing what the language barrier might be, I printed out the webpage for this event in Chinese so I could at least show them what event I was looking for, then worry about selecting tickets. They ended up speaking English very well and I chose a seat in the 4th row orchestra, pretty close to center, for $15! At this point, I was wondering how cheezy this might be as you'd be lucky to get into a crappy Matthew Maconahay movie in NYC for 15 bucks. And there was no nonsense service charges on top a la Ticketmaster. Fifteen bucks out the door.

The ~1100 seat theater is located a couple blocks from the MRT station. The program was 5 pieces, the last of which was Farewell My Concubine but it had a very interesting build to it. The first thing that struck me during the first piece was that the orchestra was predominantly Chinese instruments. That may seem like, duh, but I've never seen an entire orchestra composed in such a way. I've seen that lone guy in the subway playing a "Chinese violin". The first piece showcased a woman, Kemei Jiang playing the jinghu and she was amazing.

For the second, Wu Wei, a Chinese guy from Berlin was playing the sheng, which is a handheld instrument with vertical pipes and 27 valves. I was so close I could hear the percussive sounds of his fingers tapping the body of the instrument. Wu Wei was often smiling and jumping around on stage, really getting into the performance, not like my experience with classical musicians.

The third piece was the most interesting as it featured Huun Huur Tu, a quartet of Siberian "throat singers". I couldn't even attempt to describe it other than to say their instruments looked like they were made 2,000 years ago, held together with rope. You'll have to see for yourself. They were playing a solo gig the next evening so they were worked into this program but they meshed really well with the orchestra.

There was an intermission after which a Finnish cellist, Anssi Karttunen took the stage for a Stravinsky-esque concerto for cello. Maybe he was just sandbagging, or maybe Finnish classical music isn't my thing, but his performance here paled in comparison to the climax, Farewell My Concubine.

This piece is meant to be a duel between the male and female characters of the opera. Kemei Jiang rejoined the stage to battle it out against the Finnish cellist and it was fantastic. He really came to life in this performance and it served as a great climax to the entire night. I'm very excited about the opportunities to see world class musicians within minutes of my home for the cost of a pizza. Now if I could only find a pizza here worth $15.

Maybe I should have gotten the Attack

I've been trying out different flavors of ramen every time I pick up some supplies at the quickie mart and on my last trip, I found myself heavily debating the "kimchi" flavor vs. the "Spicy". I already had the kimchi and it was good. I figured I'd try something new with the spicy and that turned into an experiment gone awry.

It was very hot. Maybe a bit hotter than typical Thai or Vietnamese broths but I managed to put it down with a handful of tissues at my side. About 10 minutes later I felt like I was going to vomit. Fortunately that subsided and I was able to get to bed early as I have a long day planned for the morning, that is, until I woke up in gut wrenching pain! I had some antacid tablets and quickly choked one of those down with some yogurt drink and put the TV on because I knew it would take a while for any relief to kick in.

I found an English language Taiwanese news station and they ran a story on laundry detergent and how they have  found harmful levels of nonylphenol ethoxyltae in various brands on the shelves in Taiwan? A doctor came on to explain that it is potentially "harmful to the testicles". So I'm watching them yanking the stuff off shelves in the stores and it looks like the same stuff that I have! Keep in mind, other than the fact that it comes in a Tide-orange bottle, I cannot accurately identify any similarities or lack thereof.


At least the doctor on TV didn't say, "After the testicular damage, you will immediately experience gut wrenching pain." Then I would really have a problem.


Time to fold laundry...

57 Channels (And Nothin' On)

I am moving into my permanent place on Monday and will likely be without TV. My intent is to live off internet based media and just connect my laptop up to the TV since it has HDMI out, not that my TV will be here before August. I get a lot of questions about, "What is TV like in Taiwan?" and it actually IS an interesting question, or interesting response.

I have cable TV including about 100 channels in my current place. I'm not sure if I have the "foreigner package" or anything like that but I'll starting with English language TV, I get CNN, BBC, HBO, Discovery (sometimes dubbed in Chinese), Nat Geo (sometimes dubbed in Chinese), and several mediocre American movie channels, like "Hollywood". I haven't watched much beyond CNN and BBC and have come to the conclusion that there really is only 20 minutes of marketable news on any given day. BBC is just as bad as CNN in running the same stuff over and over. And it's not even the Headline News version, has our collective attention span gotten that short?

So on to Taiwanese TV. The great thing is it is very predictable which means I can get great bog material any time of day. The following programming is available 24/7. I kid you not, I just took all of these snapshots in sequence and I knew I would get each and every one of them.

1. Baseball - Baseball in on all the time. I couldn't get Yankee baseball back home through Dish Network nor MLB.com because of blackout restrictions and Steinbrenner family vendettas but I can always get the Yanks here. Live on up to 3 stations and replayed throughout the day. You can also get local Taiwanese pros, aka CPBL (See my previous post on Tian Mu Stadium). They also show the Dodgers and Red Sox quite frequently.

2. Annoying women selling stuff - It usually revolves around skin whitening cream or some weight loss supplement or non-cardio fitness type thing, like that vibrating band that shakes your whole body into weight loss. No joke.

3. Puppet Shows - I can't tell you how many attempts with a cell phone camera it took for me to get this shot as the puppet shows are all about crazy fight scenes which resulted in a pink and purple blur. Think Final Fantasy but with puppets.

4. Monk TV - Not the OCD detective, Buddhist monk TV. At least 5 channels at once. They all look like they are filmed in someone's basement. Think Wayne's World, but with monks.

5. Stock Market TV - There are always at least 4 or 5 financial channels and they all involve some printout of box plots with hand written notes and a guy holding a pointer. It really is that cheezy. For a society that is supposedly so high tech, there are a lot of anomalies. 

6. Cartoons - There are several adult-ish oriented cartoon channels and even a Chinese Cartoon Network with Japanimation. You can also catch Sponge Bob dubbed in Chinese and subbed in Japanese. As you can see in the photo, Sponge Bob himself is not subbed because he's always too stoned to say anything intelligible.

7. Corny soap operas with crying dudes - this comprise about 20 channels at all times of day.

OK, so there was one thing that is not on all the time. I only saw it once and scrambled to grab the camera:

Japanese Women Wrestling - This is not like the women's wrestling that I grew up with nor any Chyna like nonsense. These women are nuts, extremely athletic and brutal. In this pictured move she grabbed the other by the legs and spun here around like a helicopter about 10 times, getting faster each time and then just let go and hurled her like a rag doll. Insane!

In my plan to get TV/movie entertainment there is a big hurdle:

Most legit web based video content restricts access to those in the United States. I'm not sure if Guam gets in on the action but Taiwan can't access Hulu, Netflix or even Scrabble on Facebook. There is a loophole: you can log in to a proxy service which will route you through a U.S. server to make it look like you are in the States. I was using a free (advertising based) service that worked for a few days but Hulu just caught up with them.

There are pay services which are supposed to be better and stay one step ahead technologically against Hulu. I may give that a shot once settled in; I wonder if it will work. I'm willing to pay Netflix and just use the video on demand service rather than pirate movies but that is also restricted to those that can convince the Netflix servers that they are in the U.S. There is so much other stuff to do here, I'm hoping to divorce my TV. I always liked this T-shirt:

Foraging

 I've heard a common complaint among the Westerners at work that coming up with a strategy for dinner can be difficult; it all depends on what you are looking for. Luckily for us, lunch is free in our cafeteria. The first day I ate in the cafe was a Friday and I did what I find myself doing often, and stood off to the side to watch someone else go through the drill. There was a counter with women behind it putting food on plates, assembly line style, and our employees would just walk p and grb a plate. Then off to the soup line which had two choices and some fresh fruit. Then they went and sat down.

I scanned the room for a cashier. Nothing. Was there a separate exit through which you were charged? Nope. People seemed to just eat and go. There must be some high tech mechanism. Do you scan your badge somewhere? Not that I can see. Maybe my office chair has a strain gauge in it and at the end of the month I get billed based on my weight.I grab a plate, you have 2 choices of a set meal and it tends to be a mix of Asian/Western. Like a chili-garlic chicken breast, or teryaki salisbury steak. After eating I followed someone out, no option to pay. I was embarassed to ask anyone, as if it is free, I don't want to be the one to suggest that someone would be willing to pay for it, and potentially ruin it for everyone else. Maybe the boss forgot to install the cash register in the master plan.

So I waited until Monday and asked a colleague which whom I can confide who replied, "Yes Mike, there is such a thing as a free lunch!"

So, what to do for dinner in Taiwan?

My goal is to never go to McDonald's unless I'm legitimately craving Chicken McNuggets, assuming they even have them here. If the menu at McDonald's vs. the USA is anything like Starbucks vs. the USA, I may be missing out at McDonalds as I've found the food at Starbucks in Taiwan and Japan to be much better, though they no longer have the Raspberry Crepes they did a few years ago. So here are some approaches that I've taken since I've been here:

• If you go out with a local and you like a particular dish, have them write stuff down in Chinese or grab a take out menu and translate over the top. You can later come back on your own and use your written translation.

• Restaurants that have an English name out front like, "Mango Tango", probably have Enlish notes on the menu and there are probably a few employees with decent English skills.

• There are a lot of Vietnamese/Pho places. If there is not an English menu, there will at least be a Vietnamese menu. If you never imagined that you could read a Vietnamese menu, such things will seem quite simple once you are struggling through traditional Chinese as Vietnames is at least romanized so you can read the words. Look up a Vietnames menu online and you can write down about 15 vocabulary words to get you through the menu. Beef/Pork/Chicken/Shrimp/Crab - Rice/Noodle/Soup is about all you need to know to get a great meal at pretty cheap prices.

• Photo Menus - there will be a lot of places with photo menus; this saved us in Japan. It can be a challenge to tell what you are really looking at, especially in a bowl of soup or if something is breaded/fried like Tonkatsu, which is popular here. If you are feeling slightly brave, just point and eat.

• Street Food - Taiwan is well known for its street food. In the evening, propane fueled carts roll out to the street side and crank out some amazing food at rock bottom prices. Pho looks like an extravagance compared to cart food. In Japan it is considered bad ettiquitte to stroll the streets eating food but it Taiwan there is no such rule, not even remotely. Here's the problem with street food: the cart vendors typically don't speak a lick of English, and it can be quite difficult to tell what they are cooking. I once ordered something that at first glance looked like grilled chicken on a stick and the guy was basting it with a teriyaki sauce. I ordered one and in looking at the price ($1) was thinking, even in Taiwan, no way can chicken breast be THAT cheap. I am pretty confident it turned out to be Tofu, but I'll never know for sure. Dumplings are very good as long as you ar enot too concerned what is inside them. Pork, chicken and vegetarian seem common and I haven't run across anything exotic at the dumpling stands. So, speaking of exotic...there will be many stands containing grilled, basted, umm...innards, I guess? One of the guys at work has a "food survival guide" of sorts and he explained that there is a Chinese character that is a predecessor for anything that includes innards, so once you learn that character, you can be on the lookout. I inadvertenly had pig's feet and intestine in Japan, both of which were quite good, neither of which I would have ordered voluntarily.

• Traditional Taiwanese Restaurants - this is a big challenge so far. Local restaurants typically do not have English menus nor English speaking staff and if you want to have a nice, cool, sit down meal, you will have to learn to navigate these waters. A guy on the train taught me to say in Chinese, "I'll take your best dish". He said to call the boss over and ask for "the best" if I don't know what to order. I'm still a bit untrusting to do this, maybe, only because if I'm the boss and a Westerner strolled in and did this, I'd be tempted to see what I could get this poor sucker to eat. So, I'm hoping to get some help from folks at work in both written and spoken Chinese to be able to navigate the menu a little. I think this is the one thing that will force me to study some written language rather than just spoken. One option is if there is a local place by you, grab a take out menu and bring it in to work to be translated, then go back with your personal menu in tow.

• Buffet - there are some nice buffets here and this can be an easier way to get mroe traditional local food without dealing with Chinese. Some charge by the weight if it's more of a cafeteria style place but there are also some nice restaurants where you can pay one price andit's all-you-can-eat. Some of these are stashed away on the second floor of a mixed use building so ask the locals or check guide books to find out where they are.

• If you really get stuck there is also KFC and Pizza Hut in most high traffic areas and you can seek out a TGI Fridays or Outback steakhouse for something better.

I wonder what vegans, vegetarians or people who avoid pork and/or shellfish do. That can't be easy. I did eat at a place called Minder Vegetarian in the Taipei Main Station that was very good, buffet style. Any other vegetarian recommendations would be highly appreciated.

As for prices, at the local place by my temporary home, a combo fried rice (chicken/shrimp/pork) goes for $2.20. A big tofu egg drop soup meant for two is $1.90 and a Taiwanese snack that I love, scallion pancake, is $1.90 or $2.50 if you want it made with roast beef, which was awesome.

At the Vietnamese restaurant near the office, we usually end up paying less than $10 each for many plates to share including spring rolls, salad, soup and stir fry.

At a fancy Thai place in downtown Taipei, rice, seafood stir-fry, lemongrass iced tea and a beer was $21 including tip.

My experience is tipping is not customary in Taiwan except at fancier restaurants where they automatically add 10% to the bill. So you can just pay whatever it says on the bill and you are good to go. Prices include tax. The guy on the train said it is much cheaper to eat out than it is to buy food an cook yourself. Having no real cooking supplies here, I haven't crossed that bridge yet. There is an open air market right outside the door of our permanent apartment so I am looking forward to moving there, getting our kitchen stuff shipped over, and cooking with locally bought ingredients rather than big box supermarkets back home that ship everything in from South America.

I also notice a lot of Shabu-Shabu and Mongolian Grill type places which will be great to try once Shirley arrives or if I can get a group to go out but doesn't work well dining solo.

Hygeine can be an issue that you will have to get used to. I have eaten in some really dingy looking places and have yet to see a cockroach, which I did see at a really nice restaurant. Right now, I am writing this at Starbucks and am watching a monster cucaracha sitting on top of an empty chair across the aise. There are 4 people in close proximity, I'm wondering who will notice it first...if anyone.

Gangsta's Paradise

I have a bank account! I feel like I'm somebody!

One of the HR reps came to my office yesterday to deliver my ATM card and gave me some instructions. I must go online and change my password for online banking within 30 days. I must also go to a First Bank (my bank) ATM within 30 days to change my PIN. Deal. I immediately logged in to the website and changed my password. I also tried to find a list of branch locations but that did not exist.

Websites here are absolutely terrible. Even if it's in Chinese, via Google Translate I can tell it's terrible. And by that I simply mean function not aesthetics. For example, a bank that doesn't allow you to search for locations. So I went out for dinner tonight into a busier section of town and figured, on the way home I'd keep a look out for a First Bank ATM to change the PIN.

I saw every possible bank known to man. Take a look a this table below. If you pick one from column A, one from column B, and one from column C and call that the name of a bank; I saw it.

Then right as I was about to come to the end of the strip of businesses and turn down a pretty vacant road toward my building, there it stood in front of me, a First Bank branch! I wrote down the default 6 digit pin on a Post-It Note (actually a patent violating residue free sticky paper - more on that in the future) so that I could change it at an ATM. I was hoping the card reader on the machine was one that you just swipe and not one that sucks the card completely into the machine because I was sure that would be the end of my card.

Unfortunately, the ATM had jaws, in went the card. The first screen asked me to select a language, Chinese or English. OK, this is off to a great start. Then I see the most amazing thing I've ever seen at an ATM:

The screen says, "Attention! The gangster may use the English operation interface to cheat you!" I have no idea what this means, but now, not only am I neurotic about losing the card in the machine, but I'm looking over my shoulder for "The Gangster". I don't think they mean Steve Miller's Gangster of Love. I'm actually more worried about getting cheated by this ATM than I am about the gangster.

I went to the "more options" section of the menu and found the choice to change PIN. Now, if you've read any of this blog you know there is no way this is going to go down smoothly; I am not going to feel a sense of success walking away from this ATM. It's either going to eat my card, or something else will go wrong, right?

This ATM card is a VISA Debit card with 2 technologies built in. It has a normal magnetic strip, and an RF IC device that you can just wave by a sensor at some cash registers. So when I say I want to change my PIN it asked if I want to change the IC PIN or the Magnetic PIN. Clutched in my hand I have a 6 digit default PIN. As I attempt to change the magnetic PIN, it only allows me to input 4 digits and soon after I fail to change the PIN. Luckily, it doesn't eat my card and allows me to switch over to change the IC PIN which is a success. Where the heck do I get the magnetic PIN?!?!

Upon returning to the hotel, I find the original printout from the bank that the ATM card came in and it's in Chinese except for the PIN # and it appears to me like the default magnetic PIN might be 1234. So when I'm in the city tomorrow I may try that if I can find a First Bank. Watch, this time the card will get eaten.

Not that it really matters. My account balance is $0.00. I'm just glad I was able to get the account opened before the first payday as I could just imagine what the process is to recover from a failed direct deposit.

Brass Monkey, that funky monkey

There is a web forum focused on ex-pat living in Taiwan called Forumosa, I have been reading it extensively for the past 8 months or so, ever since I started thinking about coming to Taiwan, so perhaps even longer. Within the postings you can find answers to everything and people are really quick to help answer your questions, as long as they haven't already been asked a bunch of times and you are too lazy to use the search function. Pretty much like any other forum.

Through the forum the moderator announced that there would be a happy hour meetup of the "Forumosans" (as they call themselves) at the Brass Monkey, which happens to be on the MRT line which runs past my building, well, withing walking distance of my building, as long as you can walk far. So I decided to be the new, friendly Mike instead of the old, Connecticut Mike and show up, even though I wouldn't know a soul. There is something a little freaky about the whole thing, OK, a lot freaky about meeting "virtual" people in person but I think that is the wave of the social future, weaving online interactions with personal interactions, much like my meetup last week with the blog readers.

I get the sense that there is a network of local bars and ex-pat bars, the latter of which the Brass Monkey falls into, can't you tell by the name? I showed up and it was a near ghost town. I met the manager of the bar, Matt, who was from Boston and had a good chat about the place and how he ended up in Taiwan. Thats the ubiquitous first topic that always comes up, but it is very interesting to hear of the different paths that people took to get here.  There were a handful of "Forumosans" there. In walking up and introducing myself I felt kinda like Dorfman in Animal House when he says, "Excuse me, sir, is this the Delta House?" While there were no Blutos there, at least not on this night, I did feel like it was a "Sure, come on in..." welcome.

It was interesting to meet people with differing backgrounds sharing a strong common thread. I was surprised that it wasn't just teachers, but also people in publishing, restaurants, and software industries. Time blew by quickly and I had to rush out so as to not miss the last train home at midnight. If you live in Taipei and read Forumosa, you should come out to  gathering. One other surprising thing, most people I met had been in Taipei for years, some 15-20 years. I thought it would be more of a transient community. So there must be a lot of lurkers at Forumosa that haven't been out to an event. Come on out!

Take me out to the ballgame

It was only a matter of time before I made my way to a ballgame. My other travelogue pastime involves being part of a group of friends that has seen a game at every Major League Baseball stadium in the United States. It took ten years to accomplish and maintaining that status will be a work in progress as from time to time, new stadiums will be built and new stadiums must be visited. Publishing the stories is an incomplete aspiration but some of the experiences can be seen at Ballpark Roadtrip.

I had the pleasure of seeing a game at "the Big Egg" in Tokyo which was just insane. If you think baseball is borning, in a lot of ways you are right. But don't let that stand in your way of going to a game in Japan. The environment is more like a European football/soccer match than an American baseball game. I wasn't quite sure what to expect in Taiwan, but I headed down to Tian Mu Baseball Stadium to see the La New Bears take on the Brother Elephants. Also like Japan, the teams in Taiwan are corporate named.

So what is pro baseball like in Taiwan? Take the spirit of Japanese baseball and shrink it down to the scale of the Minor Leagues in the U.S. Tian Mu stadium holds 10,500 fans and there were about 4,000 in attendance for a Sunday evening game. The price of a ticket close to the field is 300NT ($10) and a bleacher seat can be had for 200. The food selection included fried mushrooms, grilled meat skewers, Taiwan sausages, some Pizza Hut thing in a box, and of course, hot dogs. The price of everything except the Pizza Hut box is about $1.50. What is also $1.50? A tall boy of Taiwan Beer. Even at the minors in the States, you can't touch a beer for under $5. Some will argue that Taiwan Beer is swill, but people pay $8 for an Old Style at Wrigley Field.

When you approach the ticket windows, you choose a line based on which team you are cheering for and the stadium is split down the middle with home team fans on the right, vistors on the left. This is the same as Japan. I wasn't aware of this in Japan and was amazed to see a sold out game, 50k+ fans in Tokyo, with the stadium precisely split right down the middle. I had a friend hook me up with tickets in Tokyo so I didn't understand how it happened, but it was obviously by design.

The fans in Taipei were equally as rabid as those in Tokyo, allbeit in smaller numbers. There were a couple guys waving huge flags right behind the dugout and a guy with a microphone leading the home crowd in cheers. There was a guy with a trumpet helping the cause and this later morphed into a 4 piece brass section. Everyone except me seemed to have some noise making device along the line of "thundersticks" with the Elephants logo on it. There was a specific beat to which they banged the noisemakers together in unison and there were Chinese songs. Though the visiting Bears used the melody of Popeye the Sailor Man as their theme.

Although they use the DH, from what I've seen on TV and at this particular game, it tends to be more of a National League style of play. They actually bunt, they actually hit and run. It's also a fast paced game, no acting like an OCD goofball in the batter's box. Just stand there and get ready to swing the bat! They have a halftime of sorts at the end of the fifth. The grounds crew comes out and the players clear the field and do some stretching and warming up in foul territory. It's probably a solid ten minutes. I haven't yet noticed what they do on TV during this time. They have a solid fence along the wall to screen you from sharply hit foul balls which was pretty surprising since their scooter use isn't quite characteristic of being risk averse. At the end of the game the players all lined up side-by-side along the foul line and bowed in unison to the crowd. Then a couple guys with purple mohawks and a guitar took the field to play a song and had a Milli Vanilli -esque audio malfunction, the crowd seemed neither surprised nor disappointed.