上班族必備軟實力

[Living in Taiwan for almost 20 years now, Richard still likes a good exhibition.]

Once I went to see a mammoth, the Pleistocene mammoth. It was huge. It looked like an elephant, but it was much bigger and hairier. It was once numerous and widespread in the cold regions of the Northern Hemisphere-both in Asia and in North America. The hair was red, and sometimes it was known as the woolly mammoth. It was dead. The last mammoth died many thousands of years ago, but they are sometimes found frozen in ice and well preserved, like the baby one that I saw at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall.

You never know what wonders you will find inside.

[Richard was married in Taiwan 17 years ago.]

A Taiwanese wedding is a lavish and intricate affair. Before the wedding, couples usually have wedding photos taken. These are taken by professional photographers, and involve many clothes changes in various scenic locations. It is all put into a lavish photo album that they can show off and cherish the rest of their happily wedded lives.

The main part of a Chinese wedding is the banquet. It is important. Family and friends are seated at large tables, and delicious food is added continuously to the daisy wheel. If people don’t finish the first courses, then they will have trouble fitting subsequent dishes onto the table. It can be quite a battle, moving stuff around and emptying plates. They usually start with appetizers and go through soup and several main dishes that might be lobster, sashimi, boiled fish, beef, stir-fried meats and veggies, pork, and much more. The last few dishes will be some sort of cold sweet bean soup and various fruits.

[Richard drives a scooter if he has to.]

You need to do it. Everyone does it. Driving a scooter is a natural part of life in Taiwan. Scooters are everywhere and almost everyone has one. On a scooter you can move through traffic when a car cannot, for the roads are overcrowded.

There are laws: laws that are meant to be broken. The law says to keep scooters to the right, near the curb. In reality, they are all over the road. When the lights turn red on a busy street, scooter will weave through the waiting cars, going besides, between, and around any obstruction. There is usually a space reserved for scooters at the front to wait for the red light to change.

[Richard, from America, gets money for “working”.]

I try to access my bank through the automatic teller machines (ATM) as much as possible. That way I don’t have to fumble around trying to communicate with a person.

ATMs in Taiwan have an option to use English, but most do not follow the standard rules of English grammar. The English instructions are confusing. Sometimes they say the exact opposite of what is intended. For example, if you withdraw money from one of the machines in 7-11, the machine will, instead of asking you to remove your card, it says “Card Taken”, which means “We have taken your card”. In many other ATMs, if you do not want another transaction, you are expected to choose the “Cancel” option. You think, “I don’t want the machine to take my card.” and “I don’t want to cancel my transaction.”

**Richard is a foreigner in Taiwan and therefore requires special care.

Foreigners come to Taiwan to live, work, travel, or to escape justice. If we all work together, we can maintain a tidy, safe, and happy environment. These simple rules will help.

1 Look but do not touch. Do not feed them or give them water. If foreigners become accustomed to being around local people, it may alter their behavior.

**An American in Taiwan. Richard would love a quiet country morning.

Taipei is noisy and noisy is loud. From the time in the morning that the alarm clock wakes me up with a beep beep beeping, to the time I set it again at night, I am assailed by noises. From the crack of dawn to the screech of dusk, it makes people, including me, crazy. Concentration and tranquility go to pot.

I go to a restaurant and there are many people there. All the people are having fun and talking. The music is being played over the speakers and the people have to talk louder to be heard over the music and over the other people talking loudly over the music. Dishes clatter and silverware clinks against plates and bowls. Now it is hard to tell what anyone is saying, because the sounds are reflected off of bare walls and cement ceilings.

*Richard has lived in Taiwan for a long time, but he has never been able to get off of Santa’s naughty list.

At home, Christmas decorations go up immediately after Thanksgiving and come down after New Years. In Taiwan, Christmas decorations are generally not put up until Christmas is a few weeks away and they are not taken down until after the lunar new year. The lunar new year doesn’t happen at the same time every year, so you may end up having your Christmas tree up for a very long time. Some businesses have Christmas lights up year round, but then I guess they are not considered to be Christmas lights even though that is exactly what they are.

Have a Joyful Christmas!

*Richard is a Cardinals fan.*

The first time that most people in the USA hear about Taiwan baseball is when the Taiwan team does really well in the annual little league tournament. Taiwan’s little league teams are legendary throughout the known baseball world. They have won the world title more than any other country and always seem to be one of the best teams.

*Richard drives a car in Taiwan, which takes some courage.

ETC stands for Electronic Toll Collection. It is the relatively new system of collecting fees for using the three north-south highways in Taiwan. After a few years of being optional, it is now mandatory and they have taken down all the toll booths. Now there are scanners placed at intervals on the road to detect cars and charge money to their ETC accounts.

It is supposed to make things better for touring, travel, etc. So far I would say it is doing a good job. If you travel across the island, one source of traffic slowdown was always at the toll collection places. Now that the toll booths have been taken down, nobody has to stop anymore. They don’t have to pay people to man the booths either.

Lately there has been a lot of commotion about oil in Taiwan. It is a big scandal. Some company has put oil that was intended for animal feed into food eaten by humans. Many products have been taken off the store shelves.

There have been people arrested for the crime. It makes you wonder what kind of person would do something like that. The motive, of course was money. We all know that. I wonder how they would feel if we put some kind of substandard substance into their money? They wouldn’t like it.

 Safe food is important.

*Richard is an American who lives in Taipei and drives a car when he has to.

Traffic jams can get on your nerves, and with so many cars on the road every day in Taipei, a few snarls are inevitable. So you have to take it easy. Rush hour traffic is slow on a good day, but if it is raining or if there has been an accident, then traffic can quickly slow to a stop or a crawl. We all have to keep our cool or go crazy wild and mad.

**Richard is 183 cm tall and ‘big-boned’. He has been living in Taipei for over 15 years.

When I was little, I was not much exposed to Asian people. My family liked to eat chow mein. It came in a can and I hated it. I thought is was too slimy and it had bamboo shoots in it. I’m not sure I would eat it today. We never went to Chinese restaurants.

I was kind of cute.

[Richard is an expatriate in Taiwan and an on-again, off-again smoker.]

I quit smoking. I do it all the time. I should be very healthy for all the times I have quit smoking. I can almost feel my lungs repairing themselves.

                                                                         The Smoke Hole

*Richard has great respect for the Taiwan taxi driver. He really does.

If you ever need a taxi in Taipei, then you are in luck. Cabs are cheap and plentiful. Most of the time, all you have to do is wait by the side of the road and flag one down. The drivers are almost always very polite and nice to their customers. They are also nice to those of us who don’t speak Chinese. We always have fun talking about this and that and where and why. They are good people.

On the other hand, to the other drivers on the road, taxi drivers are rude and dangerous. They will endanger anyone on a scooter or in a car. It is as if human life means nothing to them.

**Richard can drive a scooter. His helmet doesn’t have a cartoon character on it.

If you ride a scooter in Taiwan, helmets are mandatory. They will keep you safe as you make those illegal left turns and as you weave through traffic jams.

Helmets can make a fashion statement. They come in many designs and many colors. Kids will love the really cute Spongebob helmet, and for adults, you can also wear the Spongebob helmet.

Your helmet says a lot about who you are.

**Richard has been parking in Taipei since the late 1990s.

When you take a driving test in America, parallel parking is the hardest thing to do. People learn how to parallel park to get their driver’s license and then quickly forget how. In Taiwan, you need to learn how to go backward and forward on an “S” curve. After you pass your driving test in Taiwan, you will never have to go backward and forward on an “S” curve again.

How to Parallel Park: First, pull up to where the back end of the car is just a little past the car in font of your space. Then back into the space and try to keep the side of your car close to the back bumper of the car in front. Turn the wheel as far as it will go and swing into the parking space. It’s just that easy.

And then there’s the way not to do it. It’s hard to park correctly when everyone is honking at you. You need to relax and take a deep breath. Don’t let the honking and cursing make you nervous.

How to do the S Curve: It has been a while since I have taken the test and I don’t remember the specifics anymore, but it went something like this: drive into the curve until you cannot go further. Stop and turn the steering wheel three times clockwise. Back up about three feet. Turn the steering wheel six times counterclockwise…, and it goes on and on like that. You only have to memorize the moves. It has nothing to do with the skills needed for actual driving.

*Richard is an American who is quite settled in Taiwan and not as anxious to get away as he used to be.

My hometown is on the other side of the globe. Vacations must be planned carefully. Tickets must be bought in advance. Time away from the office must be approved and coordinated. Relatives in America must be notified. It’s a huge, expensive, and complex undertaking.

I enjoy it, because my family and childhood friends are there, but the trip is a titanic voyage—13 or more hours in cramped airline seats, looking at movies, and having the air pressure pop my ears. Sitting in that cramped seat, waiting for them to bring my next meal is boring and tedious and it is too uncomfortable to sleep very much.

**Richard has been in Taiwan long enough to know how the system works.

Taiwan has many places that use the take-a-number system, but the system is international. Most people in the world understand it, because it is self-evident. There is usually a digital readout that tells which number is up, so you do not need to know what your number sounds like in Chinese.

Go into the bank and take a number. The number tells you when it is your turn. You will sit down and be quiet until your number is displayed on the big, overhead TV screen. When your number comes up, go up to the bank teller and try to pantomime what you need. It usually involves showing how to take things out of invisible boxes.

*Richard has lived in Taiwan for more than 15 years and now never goes anywhere without his Easy Card.

The Youyou card (pronounced like yoyo) has the official English name of “Easy Card”. It is used to pay for public transportation, buying stuff at convenience stores, and paying for parking. There is also a discount when using the card to ride the subway. You also get a discount when you transfer from the subway onto a bus or vice versa.

You can buy the card at any convenience store or at one of the dispensing machines at the MRT stations. The cost includes a small deposit that you can get back when you turn the card in. It makes riding the MRT so much easier, because you don’t have to know exactly which stop you will get off at. You only need to keep enough of a balance on it to cover the cost. Machines for adding money to your card balance are at all the stations and are easy to use.

*Richard is an American who does it his way, on country roads. Take me home.

Years ago, I lived in Japan, and when I would go into a snack bar, someone would usually come in and sing badly and loudly until I got a headache. That was called karaoke, and it is extremely popular in Taiwan.

A karaoke machine connects up with a stereo and a video screen. It has inputs for several microphones and controls for pitch and reverb. Some machines contain hundreds of songs that can be chosen remotely out of a booklet that lists all the songs and assigns numbers to each one.

You can find karaoke anywhere in Taiwan.