| Monday, September 17, 2007 |
| Pictures from Germany |
I found some time finally to search through my tones of pictures and to select the best ones from my internship in Germany. Just check this out !
http://picasaweb.google.com/APetrut |
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| Sunday, September 16, 2007 |
| My Cool Life in Romania |
Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
Now for updates about my life in Romania and how it is going.
Due to some IE problems, it is a long time that my Hotmail cannot be used...Usually I only log into my gmail account: zhangpengnjust@gmail.com That's why I rarely update MSN space and reply some of you so late!:(
Life is so interesting, funny and full of adventures! I am doing a traineeship in Romania now! It is located in Eastern Europe, with neighbors of Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine, and Moldova. As a brand new member of EU, Romanian economics is thriving but still everything here is not that well organized.
But It is a really green country, very worth to visit and travel around. I am always feeling that I'm so closed to the nature, especially when I am on the traveling to the other cities during weekend. Even though I will only stay less than 8 weeks here, I will make full use of this long distance trip :).I traveled around the country every weekend, from Cluj to Iasi,from Iasi to Suceava,from Tagau mures to Sighisoara,from Brasov to Sinaia...from Sibiu to Timisoara.Hmm, I am planning to travel to Bucharest and Constanta in the rest weeks.:)))
Key words here: Hitchhiking; Green country with full of medieval castles and old churches; Not punctual; Low salary but high expense; Kind of Leisure life; Nice @ers are everywhere in Romania.
Hitchhiking is always the most popular way for us to travel, cheap and excited! Local Romanians even consider our foreigners crazy...coz it is not usual for them at all. But it is really cool! We only need to split the gas or even get ride for free! We met a Romanian driver with an extremely old Dacia(a car brand in Romania),less than 60km per hour...what a slow! We met a rich German businessman but crazy driver with a okay Passat.That guy drove 120-150km/h on the Romanian bumping road!!!...Along the way, he told us that he ever crashed a Gypsies' horse cart and hit a huge bear accidentally by car at night! We were so worried about any accident coming to us...We met an amazing and cool lady with Hungarian and Romanian nationalities who went to work in Germany alone when she was 16,and still work there. She only knows basic English but fluent German. She spoke German to my friend and he replied English to her though...Interesting communication... Hehe,Even though we know that, as foreigners here, we are taking some risks, but we had fun! And we are still alive after so many hitchhikings!!! That's enough!:)
Romania is a green country with full of medieval castles and old churches.Bumping country roads aside with grasses,plains,green hills,cows,horses,sheep
,dunkies... We traveled between cities in Romania with this funny road!:) There are even cow traffic jam on some rural roads.
SIBIU:culture capital of Europe,2007.It is one of the most beautiful cities in Romania. A typical German style city!:) Nice square, buildings, walking street, attractive concert, fancy Medusa, historical and romantic lie bridge, cool ice cream...:) That great AIESEC event in SIBIU let us had a fantastic time there! Treasure hunting and global village were so impressed!!!
IASI:a city of forest in Moldova region of Romania!haha...There are so many nice parks,including the biggest one in Romania, in the city. The first University, first National Theatre, the huge old palace...
SUCEAVA:The medieval castle and Five famous monasteries around. The medieval castle is more like a ruin...just so so...but the world heritage-Cinci Manastiri Bucovimei(five most famous monasteries in Romania) is so amazing !!!!!!You'd better click into my picasaweb to see those pics, I don't think my limited English could describe the great sceneries.:) They are so famous that there are always many visitors, but the tickets are kind undeliverable cheap! One Lei(around 0.3Euro) for each student! They are located separately in different places around Suceava. Even though we have a car,(Vlad(a nice friend from Cluj)drive us there),It's a pity that we still didn't have time to visit all the 5 monasteries, only visited Humor and Voronet.
Because of nice Vlad, my travel to Iasi and Suceava is the only one without hitchhiking up till now...:) But still we went back Cluj so late as usual as other hitchhiking trip...We finally arrived Cluj around 4 AM Monday...It took us at least 15 hours on the road back and forth. Actually, I cannot imagine if I traveled there by hitchhiking...I had my neck and back hurt when I got back my apartment, what a exhausted trip!:( But it is really worthy!:)
BRASOV: Well-known for its Black Church and Castle Bran.The Piata Sfatului is so nice!!! Unfortunately, we arrived in Brasov late. When we got to the Sfatului square, the black church was closed...We tried to reach the peak of mount Tampa,but unlucky again, the man responsible for running the cable car left work also...
SINAIA:A small but amazing town !!!I love it! Especially the Peles, the best and luxuries Castle I ever seen,and Bucegi,the most amazing mountain in Romania. There are covering grasses without a single tree! You cannot find steps on the way to the top of mountain and so nature! hehe, luckily I chose to reach the peak by cable car. Otherwise, it would be a real problem to my energy and shoes...
CLUJ:A Romanian city with lots of Hungarians. It has beautiful Orthodox churches, Catholic churches, botanic gardens, a number of nice statues... and one of the best university in Romania. Actually it is also a student center of Romania. Since I am based here, go across the main street of the city everyday, I wasn't that excited when I visited each monuments here. It's one of the best developed cities in Romania though.
Not on time is so usual here...You should get known it before your coming, and absolutely get used to it within two weeks...10mins=30mins it happens... 2mins=1hour sometimes...it also happened... :( Our GM asked me to have a meeting with him on Monday, he postponed it everyday without feeling any sorry about it...finally we had the meeting after one week...I understand he is a really busy man to run this big company, but one week's late is a sort of long period time...My manager's late is even worse...She told me that she would have my virus infected computer re-setuped with the help of our partner IT company, and have my Romanian Keyboard changed to English one at the first day of my work, it hasn't happened yet...Frankly, I reminded her several times. Aha, in fact, those things are not a big deal. They are very warm, hospitable and always very nice to me. If I push much more, I am sure they could have all those done, maybe not that punctual, but at least done!:)That's Romanian! That's also my kind of culture shock here :)))
Low salary but high expenseHigh expense:Compared the prices here with in China, things are much more expensive.For instances:0.5L coke,0.7-0.8Euros here.0.25-0.3Euros in China. Bus ticket, 0.4Euros here,0.1-0.2Euros in China.Rent for one room(sharing app) is around 130Euros without utility expenses.But if you drink bear or coffee in pubs or cafes, the cost is similar to China or even a little bit cheaper sometimes. And traveling to the places of interest here is much cheaper than China. Hmm, strange~:))) Low salary:As far as I know, for new graduates, only a small part of them could get paid more than 250 or 300Euros per month here (The payment for new gradates with bachelor degree in China ranges from 200Euros to 1000Euros, most top university new gradates usually get paid around 300- 700Euros). And experienced employees in big trading companies can only get paid 350-400Euros per month in Cluj. Only sales could get lot of bonus which are much more than their fixed salary if they perform well. But that's just for sales, and I think it is the same for sales all over the world. Anyway, there are a big gap between the rich and the poor...
Kind of Leisure life: Generally, they work from 8:30 or 9 AM to 5PM or 5:30PM.Everybody leaves office just on time! J No extra working time is required! I can not see any prosperous CBD in the big cities here. The tallest building may be less than 30 floors in most big cities. Compared developed huge cities around Changjia (Yangzi) Delta and Zhujiang Delta in China, big cities here are more like small towns. But it is really peaceful and nice. Pubs and cafes are everywhere. They are extremely popular places after work. Many families have a car (Although some of them drive old Dacia, I don't think that's a car…), a number of families usually have a short vacation to the countryside during weekend. Lots of my colleagues prefer to have vacation abroad, to Greece, to Spain, to Paris, to London, to Tunisia, to Istanbul, Izmir...It's nice :) In fact, it is not very expensive for them, since they are not that far away from Romania, some of them are quite closed to Romania,but really quite far far away from China...we can use the flight ticket to buy 2 old Dacia:)))
Nice @ers are everywhere in Romania. :)))
In Sibiu, we had an amazing adventure. All the trainees in Romania were gathered in Sibiu.The tour of Sibiu night, the well organized creative treasure hunting and non-prepared funny global village… @ Sibiu offered us a fantastic weekend!:).
In Iasi, Marius and other @er friends spent a whole day to show us around the city and explained us the histories of famous places of interest which they know well. We went to Cinci Manastiri Bucovimei and Suceava together the next day!
In Brasov and Sinaia,I cannot imagine without Radu,Mara and her sister's kind guiding what our weekend there would be. They are so helpful and hospitable; we were together nearly all the time!
In Cluj, @ers' Romanian dinner and BBQ in the "wild forest" were incredibly great!
We are invited to participate LC meeting every week. We have traineebodys here,who are very willing to communicate with us and try their best to solve us all the daily problems. With Ioana, my traineebody, and other nice @ers' help, Up till now, my life is pretty cool here.
In Timisoara,there will be another huge @ event in a few days. How great would it be? We will see!:) Looking forward to participating in it.
Oh...my god. what a long email! hmm,I should mention something about my work nowJ :
Doing products' research, contacting Chinese suppliers, negotiating with export managers.it is not a very challenge work at all. But since I am Chinese, I could be well "used" here...Well, I could learn international trading skills and get some importing experience for sure. Expectantly, there would be some possibility to have further cooperation with some buyers here. Who knows, I will see...
Routine procedures: Post wanting, ask for general quotations, collect and compare all the nice quotations and negotiate with them for the prices...Price is always one of the key point:) hehe. Up till this step, half work has been done. To follow up, I should ask the suppliers to send samples to us for quality inspecting. It takes some time to achieve...coz my company doesn't want to pay anything for the freight charge and sample fee...The suppliers usually only agree to send the samples for free when they feel that there are big chances to finalize this deal and build a reliable partnership in the near future. Each side wants to earn more, lose less and take less risk...hehe what a basic but daily game theory! Fortunately, I work it out with my assemble English, fluent Chinese plus a bit business sense...After having discussed with our sales team who knows more about Romanian domestic market than importing team, they select few samples afterwards, then I have to give the responses to all the suppliers asking for better price (usually we ask both FOB and CIF) again... and move to the next steps ----Terms of Payment, the duration of production delivery, as soon as I get prompt reply from them. huuu, final step is to sign the first contract with our supplier after having gone through the tough procedures above...looking forward to setting up the long term cooperation as well.
I have attached many pics I took in cool cities in Romania,in Serbia and in China!!!Click the link below and enjoy it!:)))
http://picasaweb.google.com/zhangpengnjust
Bye and let me know how it is going with you guys.Labels: working and traveling life |
| posted by Peng Zhang @ 11:56 PM |
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| Sunny days in Athens |
Finally, after one month in Athens I mange to share some thoughts with you @rs! I always thought exchange would be a grate experience, but the reality my expectations!
Firstly, I will tell you about…the sea. It is amassing to live in the center of the city and also be able to go each day for a swim! It takes less then one hour to get to the beach…so in the very hot days (imagine 44-45, for a “maramuresanca”) it is the perfect cooler.
Not to get romantic, I will start telling you about the ppl. First cultural shocks: girls with huge hair, in really short shorts, and really small tops in the center of the city; crazy old ppl, who start talking with you on the street, in supermarkets, on the beach (one of them stole my hat while I was swimming). In the first 2 weeks something strange happened to me each day, I was constantly wandering: what is the matter with this ppl? Now: I am crazy for buying Greek cloths, I have fun with the olders (I would love to have such a grandma), and I enjoy admiring hansom Greeks :P I have discovered soon that Greeks have mainly 2 things in mind: how to have more fun and…I’ll let you guess the other on :P There for it is impossible to get bored around here!
The word with which I would describe the city is: divers! Depending on the mood and money one can do anything here! There is the ancient part of the city with acropolis (from where at night the view of the city is beautiful!), a lot of little sweet streets, some nice parks, the crowded and dirty center, luxury neighborhoods, just perfect for walks at night. Also a lot of bars, taverns, cafes and mpouzoukia, my favorite divertissement! At first impression Greek music reminded me of our ”manele” and when ppl start crying on some “cantece de dor si jale” it was a bit funny, but generally I enjoy shaking my hips :P
I will finish this lines, whit another favorite subject: uzo! It is so good! I promise to bring some for you too!
A lot of kisses and hugs! |
| posted by Carmen @ 1:09 AM |
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| Monday, September 03, 2007 |
| Greetings from Bamberg, Germany |
Hey, AIESEC... How are you guys and girls ?
I spent already a month here in Bamberg, Germany in my internship and time flies very fast. I try to catch but I miss it all the time... I've got so much to do every week: I work 8 hours per day, but I stay longer because I don't have any internet connection at home and sometimes I forget to go home... only my boss comes and tells me it's a little bit late and he has to close all the doors... :) But I love it ! New team, new young people here at the company, new faces...
Every week-end I travel by train in other cities... So far there were 2 reception week-ends for all the trainees from Germany and it was very cool !
Stüttgart, Nürnberg, Berlin were the first cities that I visited already and Frankfurt is the next to come !
I enjoy every week-end and I barely get bored here . When this happens, I go in the kitchen and try to cook something. So far I cooked : papanasi fierti, tochitura olteneasca and I still have to work for making the best mamaliga. The first one was a total failure, but please don't tell this to anybody ! :P
I send you some pictures, but I have tones of them ! And videos ! It langs too much to put all of them here !
Waiting for other postings from you !
P.S. : 1. The picture is from the first Global Village that I attended in Berlin, last week. I can sincerely tell you that everybody liked my special home made spirit : TUICA and also some dry wine from Cotnari ( even the girls ! ) 2. I send to Dora greetings from Iuliana Stancheva ( I met her here in Bamberg, now she left the town for Stüttgart). She told me that she met you in Poland this year at some conference. I don't remember the name of the conference, but anyway... Hope that you will remember :) 3. How many trainees are now in our LC ? I'm really curious about that. |
| posted by AndreiP @ 8:22 AM |
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| Monday, July 30, 2007 |
| A new start! |
Welcome!!!
Let's write more pages in this History Book of AIESEC Cluj Napoca!
If interested, send me a e-mail at teochetan@gmail.com to receive an invitation to be able to write on this blog!
Let's make things happen!!!
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| posted by Dora @ 6:16 AM |
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| Thursday, March 01, 2007 |
| Great experiences for the future |
| Incredible LCC...2 days of powerfull feelings...with the incredible results: a new EB elect: Dora, Ilinca, Vladutz, Dey, Alexandra, Adela, Ale. For me personally, 26th of February was more powerful than the New Years Eve. I feel that really, this is the start of a new year...and so it shall be. For my dear LC, this is also a change...but also normal and expected step in our LC's stage. The election of a new EB. What this year will be for us, is not yet for us to know. This year, is for us all to build...I believe in having the power to build our dream...make our puzzle!!! I believe in a great year for AIESEC Cluj-Napoca! Let's have it together! |
| posted by Ale @ 12:10 PM |
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| Wednesday, February 07, 2007 |
| Love and loneliness in Taiwan |
(A translation of an article stated in a Dutch newspaper (Trouw,
http://www.trouw.nl/deverdieping/letter-geest/article375747.ece/Liefde_en_eenzaamheid_in_Taiwan), translated to English by Mick Katerberg for the purpose of Taiwanese people who are interested on how westerners view Taiwan as a country and the culture of the people who live there. Mick is not a qualified translator and is not be held responsible for the content of the translated part, the newspaper that originally printed the article does not allow any reproduction in printed form on the internet or printed newspaper, it is however permitted to print this article and translate it for individual use and direct related people, for reprint on the internet or in any newspaper the writer (David Signer) has to give his consent, the address of the writer is known to the editor of the newspaper)
The original article is written by a Swiss anthropologist David Signer)
Twenty years ago Taiwan changed from a dictatorial country towards a democracy. This process speeded up to a fast modernization of the country. Nowadays we see the strong Confucian working-moral besides gay-clubs and piercing studios. Colorful Taoist temples along side big glass skyscrapers and supermarkets that are open 24 hours a day. The Swiss anthropologist describes a mixed up society where everybody works as hard as possible and where love and sex seem to be of no importance.
(By David Signer)
How is Taiwan? There is no country in the world where the people make so many working hours as in Taiwan – 2282 hours a year. Over 30% of the people work more then 62 hours a week. Taiwan is the second densest populated country in the world. Only in Bangladesh live more people per square kilometer. Although Taiwan is smaller then Switzerland it belongs to the 20 most successful industrial countries; Taiwan is market leader in notebooks and there is no country that has more mobile phones (1,14 per citizen of Taiwan). Furthermore there are only three countries that have less sex then the Taiwanese, and according to the French magazine “Elle”, Taiwanese women are the unhappiest women in the world. Taiwan has also the most near sighted people. So how does this all relate to each other?
Twenty years ago Taiwan changed from a dictatorial country to a democracy and speeded up the modernization in a fast pace. And now we see the strong Confucian working-moral besides gay-clubs and piercing studios. Colorful Taoist temples along side big glass skyscrapers and supermarkets that are open 24 hours a day. Since Tsjang Kai-sjek, the rival of Mao, fled to Taiwan in 1948, Taiwan was seen as a rebellious province. Taipei as capital, with all direct surrounded sub cities, has a population of around 8 million people and is in a sense a post modern version of Peking.
In many households the man and woman both have a job, they not only make long working hours, but also even in different cities. They only see each other in the weekends. The children are often raised by the grandparents who display a worldview that has almost nothing to do with current reality. For Taiwanese there is almost nothing more important then good education for their kids, therefore they are overloaded with courses and extra classes after regular school often till late in the evenings.
In Taipei I visit a surgeon at his home. His 6-year-old daughter is taught English at school, but she has extra classes English in the evenings besides painting, dance and piano lessons. With proudness she plays classic piano parts without music paper. In August the whole family goes to the USA to improve her English even more at a summer camp. I ask the father if he is not afraid that the pressure on the kids might be too high. From Japan more and more stories are heard of children who commit suicide because of the shame of failing an exam. “Yes, sometimes all the effort is for nothing,” says the surgeon. “Sometimes the musical wonder kids play virtuously when they are 14, but when they become 25 the difference fades between the kids who started only at the age of 10”. The father also mentions the competition between the parents that cannot be avoided. And on top of that there is the 1 child policy – in Mainland China obligatory, in Taiwan based upon choice and quite common. So of course there is more money and energy spent on the child to stimulate it even more.
The emphasis upon educating and performance of the kids is characteristic for all Confucian countries like China, Japan, Korea and Singapore. But in Taiwan the people want the world to show that they are the better China. From 1895 till 1945 Taiwan was occupied by Japan, after that period it belonged to China. After the Second World War when Mao’s army defeated the nationalistic army of Tsjang Kai-sjek, they fled with 1,5 million citizens (mostly of them high developed and upper class), 500.000 soldiers, and the national treasure to Taiwan. Mao as well as Tsjang Kai-sjek saw themselves as the one and only representation of China. The official name of Taiwan is still “Republic of China”. The USA armed Taiwan as a buffer against communistic China and Tsjang Kai-sjek never gave up his goal to conquer China again up to his death in 1975. Taiwan nowadays has a population of 24 million people, China 1,3 billion. The island country is economically a world power but politically isolated. Taiwan does not even have the status of “observer” in the UN and is only recognized as a country by 27 other countries like Palau, Kiribati and Swaziland. This is because China refuses any political relations with countries that recognize Taiwan as an independent country, and who does, especially today, want China as an opponent?
Continuously Taiwan experiences the presence of China like a big brother you want to push off but always keeps the lead no matter the distance. Taiwan always stipulates that it respects human rights, nobody will die from starvation, there is freedom of thought and press, Taiwan is progressive, democratic, liberal, cosmopolitan, post-industrial and post modern; the better China. But is seems like the citizens of Taiwan situate themselves in a jumbo jet: if the pace slows down below a certain speed, then it will crash.
Sheena Chang is editor at the China Times. Her daughter of four is having extra courses in English. Sheena is keen on getting her daughter to a national University. These are better then the private universities and even cheaper. This leads to the fact that especially children born from highly educated and rich parents, who can afford the extra courses, can enter the ‘better’ Universities. The fee is low there and children of the lower class have to pay extra for the ‘lesser” Universities.
Sheena Chang comes with another Taiwan-record: nowhere in the world kids sleep less then in Taiwan. She calls people like her ‘pm-people’, coming from post meridian. ‘I am going to work at 2 pm (14:00) and return at 10 pm (22:00)’. Most people working in the IT business work at night, because their customers in Europe and the USA are then in their daytime. The children of these ‘pm-people’ stay up till midnight with them: they eat together, watch TV and play computer games. But the kids in contrary to their parents have to get up at 7 am to get to school.
She tells the story so business-like that I carefully ask if that does not hurt the health of the kids. ‘Maybe so’, she says, ‘but it makes them also stronger. This way it makes them stronger to cope with pressure later. The biggest concern is the grandmothers who spoil the kids. They only stuff them with food, but don’t teach them anything.’
One evening I meet a psychiatrist in a hot spring spa ( besides visiting karaoke bars one of the favorite free time fun activities for Taiwanese). At 10 pm he says he has to go home to help his daughter with her homework. ‘At this hour?’ I ask surprised. ‘Sure, tomorrow she will have chemistry exam, and I will take over the theory with her once more.’
A Swiss woman who lived in Taiwan for a long time says: ‘the only thing that counts for these people is food and making money. Love and sex are not important. If somebody says ‘I love you’, then it means nothing, but if he gives you a big piece of his meat then you know you are important for him.’
The Taiwanese eroticism is not easy to understand. The people are prude; besides the city center of Taipei you hardly see any couples hold their hand or exchange other tender behavior. But at the other hand if you look at the sales girls of betel nuts, they sit in their bikini in a glass box, which you can recognize easy by the green neon-star along side the road. You stop your car, she comes out, bends over in front of the window so you can have a good look at her décolleté, she walks wiggling her bum to the get the order and gives you the nuts with a tempting smile. The euphoric feeling and the sweating that comes after chewing the betel nuts, makes the happiness complete. These nuts cost two times as much when bought from these girls then normal, but especially the taxi and truck drivers don´t care to pay the difference. These sales girls are mostly found in the countryside; the mayor of liberal Taipei tries to ban them from the city center.
Also traditional healers sell their wonder medicines accompanied by sparsely clothed girls. But the most funny is the performance of these ‘sexy girls’ at weddings and even funerals. You can see a long row of cars and trucks; on one of them is the coffin with the deceased, on another there are the hired mourners, and on a third you see the dancing ‘sexy girls’. It seems that the audience, including children, experiences no conflict between the table-dance atmosphere and the mourning about the deceased. ‘The surviving dependents pay a lot of money for such performances in order to have a lot of people attend and honor the deceased’, so people tell me.
By the official prude it is hard for love couples, and even spouses, to find a private space. One of the favorite places to get some intimacy was the MTV, cabins where you can watch movies. But at a certain moment the police intervened, the cabins could not be closed anymore and a guard could at any moment intrude the cabin. So the love couples changed to the parks and the KTV’s: buildings with lot of rooms where you can sing karaoke as a couple or as a group. But also here a waiter could enter any time. At least each room has a surprising big closable toilet. Nowadays the motels are doing good business, they are quite cheap, 20 euros for three hours. But there is one disadvantage, they are mostly situated outside the center, so you need a car.
It’s easier to find a nice restaurant. In Taipei there are thousands of food facilities. Even on the top of the chimney of the garbage burning installation you can find a rotating restaurant, called ‘star tower’. Apparently there is a close relation between food and sex according to the Taiwanese. Continuously you hear what good the different dishes will do for, in general, men. Especially local dishes like: cow eyes, bee larvae, swallow nests (the spittle of birds), grasshoppers, dried elk penis, shark fin, sea cucumber, mushrooms, dried human afterbirth, unborn chicken from the egg (raw), ginseng, bear bone, duck tongue, sea horse, but above all snake. On the Huaxi night market a market salesman hangs a still living snake on a rope and cuts it open in full length, he catches the blood in a glass and offers the audience to have a taste. After that he also removes the gall bladder and squeezes it out in a glass. The gel slimy substance is said to work extensively on the libido, as the salesman demonstrates by moving up and down chopsticks between his legs.
The women however will not get happier by it. For instance take Chang Mei-Ling. She is in her mid thirties, studied French litterature and works for a French company. She is single. Everything that would be in man´s favor is in her disadvantage, a good education, good job, high income, all in her disadvantage. And besides that she is taller then average. A man in Taiwan wants to be better educated then his wife, have a better income, and to be at least one head taller. She herself would like to have a husband like that. But there are not many that will meet these criteria, besides the fact that she has hardly time for a relation.
Chang Mei-Ling has been married before. She wanted children, he did not. He said that he wanted to earn a million first. They hardly saw each other. When she noticed he had a love affair with a colleague she divorced. ‘Everything you do here is for the purpose of making a career’ she says. ‘Most Taiwanese men are like that. Some try to change for their woman, but after a while they get fed up by her because they have the feeling that the woman has taken away something from them.’ Her parents were always out for business when she was a kid. Mostly the oldest daughter took the responsibility for the younger kids. ‘That is why we are so clever and independent’, says Chang Mei-Ling. ‘Because we grew up alone’.
When she goes out she only attends business dinners and karaoke nights with her customers. She does not care about shopping nor expensive brands of clothes; she spends her money on traveling – last year she went with her mother to a 5 star hotel on an island in the pacific ocean - and her collection of plushy pigs. She says ‘you think that our society is so colorful and free but it looks like that because we don’t have roots. Our parents were immigrants, they were lost when they came here and nowadays they don’t understand anything anymore. We are all orphans, and our children will be like that as well.’ She also says ‘Many people don’t work till 10 pm because they have to, but because of inner emptiness. They dream to have earned to retire at the age of 50, and when they reached it they die of boredom.’
Compared to the hypermodern state of Taiwan, Europe looks ancient. Half of Taipei has a wireless Internet zone; even in the MRT you can check your email. The mayor of Taipei wants to make Taipei the first wireless city in the world. Many people have a GPS system on their mobile; they might feel lost but they can at least localise themselves geographically. In many taxis you will find screens in the headrest of the front chairs, so you can follow the news during your trip. This efficiency you experience everywhere. A Taiwanese lady told me that she was once at a German wedding. She experienced it as awful, it took ages. Even a wedding is supposed to happen fast.
There are restaurants where every table has a screen where you can watch hundreds of programs while eating, and in a lot of hotels there are rooms where the room and bathroom are split by a glass wall. Not to watch your spouse taking a shower but the other way around, so you can even watch television from the bath.
Another technical wonder is the 508-meter high skyscraper “Taipei 101”; it has the fastest elevator in the world; at 60 kilometers an hour you are taken up to the 80th floor in a few seconds. But you hardly notice it; the cabins are under regulated pressure.
The ‘Taipei 101’ is constructed according the Feng-Shui principles; that is the traditional knowledge of architecture that adjusts to the invisible flows and ghosts at a certain place. According to this knowledge it is forbidden to have the entrance exactly facing the exit; otherwise you take the risk that the visitor of the building will enter it and immediately will exit it. According to the Feng-Shui principles it is bad for the inhabitants of a building if a street directly points at your apartment block. To deflect these bad influences an 8-cornered mirror will avoid the bad influence. It will reflect back the negative.
‘Taipei 101’ is build up from 8 segments, and each of the consists of 8 floors; 8 is the lucky Chinese number. Four is the unlucky number that is why there is no 4th floor. The 101 looks like a piece of segmented bamboo. Bamboo – flexible and easy to bend, but still strong – is an old symbol for resistance and fortune. ‘Taipei 101’ is build with a 660 tons steel sphere as a damper within, so that in the case of an earthquake the building will not break but swing only, like a bamboo stick in the wind.
Another surprise you can see in this hyper capitalistic society – more and more I hear ‘Only the one who is to lazy or has to many children is poor’ – is the burning of money. However it is not real money, but ‘money papers’ that are specially made for ritual offerings, produced and sold for that purpose. The owners burn it in metal cans in front of their stores and pray for good business. For environmental reasons nowadays there is also “money” available that does not smoke that much, but it is somewhat more expensive.
In the middle of the IT city of Taipei you can find an overload of Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist temples that serve as oracle places. For example there is the City of God temple; in large numbers, young women with Gucci or Louis Vuitton handbags put flowers and fiancée cookies on the altars on Saturday morning before shopping. Here the god of marriage is residing, and the young women use oracle sticks to ask questions about their upcoming spouse.
One night I visit a temple. In front of it there is a movable shrine on wheels. ‘God can be placed in there and moved around, for example on someone’s birthday’, people tell me. ‘Now God is in China, but tomorrow he will be back and there will be a procession.’ The procession is a big spectacle with lots of firecrackers, red bangle torches, riding light organs, fireworks, drums and screeching loudspeakers. The ‘God’ is a colorful painted wooden figure in a chair with long bars that is carried around the neighborhood rocking up and down on the shoulders of the bearers. And all this in an atmosphere of bright neon light. The stars in the procession are Hsie and Fan who are normally the guards of the temple annex statues. Hsie has a black face, Fan has a down hanging tongue as long as the man who wears the costume, and he looks through a hole in his shirt. Everything from the torso up the performer wears on his head. The appearance can be explained by a legend. Hsie and Fan once wanted to meet on a bridge, Hsie was somewhat early and was watching the water below the bridge and fell over in the water when he lost his balance. When Fan arrived he found his friend dead and Fan strangled himself with his bare hands. That is why his tongue is so far out of his mouth, while Hsie became black in the water. In Taipei people say that the spirits of the two roam the Manka region with heavy chains and eat the tramps and thieves. And yes in the Manka neighborhood there is less crime then in the other regions of the city.
Taipei has different monuments for their country heroes like Tsjang Kai-sjek and Sun Yat-sen. One of these places is a huge memorial hall with a more then living height statue, guards in official uniform and a lot of free space around the immortals mark the distance between them and every day life. It’s amazing how the people of the city interact with these places. If you go there at 5 in the morning, when the city is still silent, you will be surprised by a grotesque carnival. From many loudspeakers you will hear all kinds of music at the same time, marching music, hip-hop, Chinese classics, country, tango and new-age noise. Hundreds of people are gathered. Some performing taichi, others do sword fighting, some dance in the morning mist. A man and a woman of age throw over a pink frisbee. There are people in kimono, in cheerleader look, a rapper with oversized trousers and a shirt with hood. Many people there are of age and ask, “how old do you think I am?”. Mostly they are twice as old as they look. You can also see younger people dancing Salsa. All this happens at the foot of the ‘Taipei 101’. Businessmen in suit and tie hurry through the kungfu fighters and shadow boxers. Nothing of this is organized, a lot of people come regularly, but the groups change constantly. At 7 o’clock the guards appear in parade marching steps. They raise the national flag and the national hymn starts. In a split second everybody stops with what he is doing and takes the formal pose when the national hymn is heard. It takes a few minutes and then everything goes on as nothing happened: Chinese ballet, aerobic, rock-n-roll and chi-gong. And meanwhile in the park Sun Yat-sen, ‘the father of the nation’, one time in bronze another pose in stone, looking straight forward to all the fuzz.
Peng Wu Chih is one of the most famous taichi- and kungfu masters in the country. He was the last apprentice of the famous martial arts master Liu Yun-Qiao (who was the head of security organization under Tsjang Kai-sjek). He took care of Yun-Qiao in his last months of his life, when he was so weak that he only could lecture using his chopsticks.
One of the specialities of Peng Wu Chih is ‘rapid taichi’. He claims that taichi originally was not, as nowadays, done in a turtle slow movement but fast. In between the main course and desert at a restaurant he gives a small demonstration. It only takes a few seconds. Dr. Peng loves speed in general. Before we step into his car he says, “buckle up, because I drive like James Bond”, and he does not exaggerate. He talks about ‘chi’, the life power and says: “meditation is not to withdraw from the world environment, but being present in it. Get to your opponent in half a second where others need two seconds. Never lose your midst, not even when you are busy.’ One time he holds my wrist, not firm, but I feel an immense power. He could kill me in a split second.
One of his apprentices says: ‘during the first lesson he said to me: I will kill you, and he did. During the teachings I died inside; he destroyed my value scale. The most important in martial arts is awareness, and therefore you have to get rid of your past.’
Peng Wu Chih ends the meeting with a short anecdote: “two people die and god asks them what they wish in a next life. The first says, “I want to get lots of money”, the other one says “I want to give lots of money”, the first is reborn as a beggar, the second as an millionaire.”
On the 1st of May I am in search of demonstrating people, but in vain. Taiwan does not know of demonstrations of workers. Taiwan is the dream of every neo liberal: up to a short time ago there was nothing like income insurance (for that matter, officially there were no people out of a job), no sickness insurance, no pension insurance, no social service. Everything is insured from private arrangements or by family. Some workers even give holidays to their company as a gift. Furthermore it seems that there are no building regulations; Taipei is the dream of every architect but also a nightmare, everything is possible (highlight: a building formed like a woman’s handbag).
During the visit of the Chinese president Hu Jintao to the USA Falun Gong people in Taipei organised a demonstration. This spiritual movement is forbidden in China. Lately a doctor witnessed that he had been in a Chinese concentration camp. He says that tenth of thousands of Falun Gung people have to do hard labor. He also records that these people are operated on and taken away organs, while they are alive, and sold for transplantation purposes. Anti-Chinese propaganda or not, such news remind the Taiwanese over and over again that their welfare is highly vulnerable; like a small garden on an overhanging rock. Up to 10 years ago Taiwan still had higher expenses on their military defense system then China, while nowadays China is spending triple the budget of Taiwan. 600 rockets are pointed towards Taiwan, and every year another 75 are added. A politician who mentions the taboo word “formal independence” in Taipei - and in some place in Peking someone might push the red button.
Even lately China paid the small island nation of Nauru in the Pacific Ocean the amount of 150 million dollar to change their diplomatic affairs from Taipei to Peking. Taiwan can hardly cope with this process. Taiwan can only try, behind the political scene, to keep them indispensable in economical way. But that takes a lot of energy and is a lonely task.
On the last day we drive to a “children’s recreational center”. It looks like an Asian Walt Disney park. A luxurious place, however there were no children, not one. ‘Nowadays they prefer to play at home on their computer’, a supervisor tells us; another supervisor says “most kids have courses at night”; and the guard at the entrance says: ’The parents don’t have time to come over here with kids.’ On the way back I see a scenery while driving: an empty playground where a man in suit is making a phone call while the rain starts dripping. |
| posted by Michelle Chen @ 6:25 PM |
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