Jonathan Biddle – Made in Taiwan

Month: January 2005

  • The Chinese New Year Party (to end them all)

    Asus held a truly astonishing Chinese New Year party for every one of its employees from all the sites in Taiwan. Figures ranging from 4,000 to 13,000 were mentioned – I am not really sure myself, but it was really cool to be lumped in with senior management, the Thai factory girls (some of which were frighteningly attractive) and so many Chinese people celebrating. It was held in one of the local schools near my house under a huge tent, and the cooking logistics were frightening.

    It is traditional to have a large number of prizes given away. We had about 6 cars, dozens of notebook computers and other Asusish things plus quintillions of NT$ worth of Carrefour vouchers. Can you imagine winning 100,000 NT$ in supermarket vouchers? That is about 3200 US$ ! Lots of Brie.

    This went on for some … time. In between the bedlam of people winning prizes, there was plenty of entertainment on tap, including our directors singing some songs in Drag, dressing up as a boy band, a truly awful German magician (who is for some reason head of Fujitsu Taiwan) and lots and lots and lots of Thai dancers with feathers and lasers from the factories.

    The food was not too bad, but of the soup and steamed things variety. The highlight of the evening was the lobster. I am sure that in Europe we would dress the lobster with, say, a nice crunchy salad, or maybe a light sauce. Here? Here it is dressed with tri-colour LEDs …. !


    “Zulus … Thousands of ’em” (and check out the bamboo roof structure)


    Truly impressive levels of investments in the employee’s entertainment


    The locals are so easily entertained


    The food, ready for delivery


    The lobsters, ready to roll (and notice the school running track and steam cookers in the background)

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Biking Yang Ming Shan

    I finally got to go mountain biking after waiting 2 weeks to get on the thing, due to company commitments. I headed out with Lars, who is not a cyclist, but who is very fit – fitter than me! I was also suffering from one too many Belgian beers from the previous night, so Jonny Armstrong was not quite on top form. Still, we had a cool day and I got to try my bike out a little on some back woods trails (until we hit steep steps).

    The coolest bit was happening upon a golf course, rocking up and demanding a session in the driving range. Since we were paying good money and the place was mostly empty they lest us in, surrounded by slightly strange looking locals in lots of brand mame Pringle and Lacoste. We fitted right in, with red faces and muddy legs.

    My swing started a bit badly, but I got into a quite impressive series of long distance shots with incredible amounts of slice. I almost cleared the fence a couple of times… but to the side. Still, the auto-dispensing machine and the crack of the balls flying off into the distance was very entertaining, and great after a hard bike ride.


    Nike Poobahs and Astroturf do not mix


    Clubbing

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Taiwanese Packaging

    Just to make you laugh and me cry…. I was just in the shop reaching for some orange juice. I reached ‘wrong’ and one of the 250ml dropped to the ground. Shit. So I made my apologies and paid for the juice (even though it was clearly an inferior bottle . plastic, i ask you!) but since I was still in the mood for the OJ I bought a nice big 1000ml bottle. Yum yum breakfast in my tum. Okay so I get home, but my motorbike helmet down, and then life turns into slow motion. My sixth sense realises that the big bottle of orange juice is slowly drifting towards the floor. Even my kung fu ninja samurai skills are not enough and sure enough 1 fucking litre of orange juice sprays itself evenly over my bastard floor. DO YOU KNOW HOW STICKY THIS STUFF IS? I have washed the floor twice now and yup I still get my shoes doing the sticky sticky walk walk thing (but I have to admit that when that does happen in a supermarket, when some kid spills fruit concentrate on the floor, walking accross it is immensely satisfying). So fuck the orange juice and fuck the floor. I am sitting on it now typing and when I get up I will get that same satisfying feeling as my arse peels itself from the surface.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Punishment

    The Taiwanese God of Torture was clearly in a humourous mid-winter mood. He (and it must be a he) made sure the weather was perfect for doing all the things we really wanted to do – like cycling, going to the beach or just chilling out in Taipei – and that we were instead subjected to a series of ridiculous tasks that would cause only to heighten the considerable pulsing pain in our heads.

    Round 1: Breakfast / Zao Fan

    Precisely what I did not need was precisely what I got. Taiwanese breakfast. I really do consider myself an adventerous eater, but not at breakfast, when all I want is the things I grew up with. What is it? Rice soup with fried offal, a fried egg, some stewed tofu in a spicy MSG sauce and if you are lucky some mechanically seperated pork meat (AKA pork floss, my nemesis).



    Don’t mess with the J-Man

    Round 2: Strawberry Picking

    Miaoli is famous for its Strawberry picking. Now, ordinarily I would be quite excited about this and would be looking forward to running around the local fields targeting enormous juicy red taste bombs in the quest to find the perfect one. What we got instead was a field smaller than the car park meagrely stocked with pale, tasteless fruit in neat, shrink-wrapped rows.



    Anke – you seem disappointed in the taste of the strawberries



    D&G; Winter 2005 – “Strawberry Chic”

    Round 3: Pottery

    For the second stage we went around a traditional Taiwanese (read: Japan / Dutch / Spanish) pottery. This really would have been okay, normally, but I really was not in a creative mood and had no temper to mess around. We did get to play with some clay at the end, though, put they gave us newspaper to build on, the newspaper absorbed the water and disintegrated and the newspaper neatly and evenly distributed itself through the clay.



    Rough, but laughing through it!

    But seriously… we really do enjoy these trips. It is just that us Euros enjoy more complaining about it! These are the times when we often see the true cultural differences, and we are pretty priveleged to be able to catch a ride with it.



    The clay is on my head, see…

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Team Building

    We had another company trip last weekend – this time, only the ID dept. After the previous experience I knew what to expect a little more and to sit back and relax when 6 cars, all armed with allarming levels of GPS, head off in different directions completely lost.

    This time, we headed to Miaoli for an afternoon strategy session, a brutal night of drinking and a punishing day of strawberry picking and pottery to rub salt (plus tequila and lime) into a badly wounded head.

    At one point in the evening (I am not entirely sure when) the restaurant owners brought out a big wooded bowl full of rice and two large hammers. A harsh lesson was delievered to the poor soft grain, as teams of two pelted the bowl with blows hard enough to vibrate the floor. The resulting pathetic lump of squidge gradually became more and more glutinous until eventually the ref called time and announced humanity winner. I was quite surprised, therefore, that they turned the bowl out into a dish and let the team pull and rip at the rubber-like substance, filling their mouths until it was all gone and we started over again. This is the traditional method for making and consuming ‘Mah Ji’.



    Kyle wields the ritual rice torture mallet



    The crowd demands blood



    Diego delivers the fatal blow

    After the ricicide, a trip to the hot springs and running around the river a bit, drinking games brought whetever dignity we had left firmly to its knees. The main game involved a set of 4 dice. I would like to describe the rules, but the only one I cared about at the time was that I always seemed to drink on every round. We rapidly dispatched the beer and began on the Mexcal (Tequila’s rough older brother), and I was surprised to discover the Taiwanese keeping up and staying up much later than usual.



    Destruction passes through the local Taiwan Beer population



    Hello Nasty



    Markus and Michael laugh heartily at one of my many jokes of the evening

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Giant NRS G / AKA my new bike

    I am a happy bunny today. I bought a new mountain bike and it is simply perfect. Most Taiwanese frames have 16.7 million colour painting, but this one is matt black with silver line art Giant logos (the manufacturer). It is a great frame (worthy of a £1500 bike) but with middlish components that I will upgrade when I need / want to. And I got the whole lot, plus accessories and helmet for £500. Very happy indeed.

    I’ll stop being geeky now

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Pigs Might Hike

    I had a very pleasant walk today with Anke, Lars and Alex (Aussie dude). We planned for a 6K hike, which was slightly waylaid due to ignoring the wrong things in the hiking book, but the result was a splendid wee series of random events that made us all laugh over the Pizza in the evening.

    The star of the show was certainly Ah Fu – the Chinese pig that thought he was a dog. He was the coolest thing to be walking with and much calmer than most dogs, and had the amusing habit of eating the plants as he went his oinking way. A definite hit with the other walkers, a source of total bemusement to the other dogs (“hey, you are supposed to be dinner!”) and was truly full of character.



    Ah Fu investigates



    A loyal pig, it really liked walking between its owner’s legs



    We stumbled across a few amusing things. The Taiwanese are masterful at turning public spaces into community spaces. You can see what I mean here – at a break in the path we found a small medicine cabinet with some supplies in it, and alongside it were tethered 3 pots of various balms and lotions – one of which was Tiger Balm.



    Alex and Anke dig the whiffs

    As a hilarious post-script to the walk, we came up against an army check point, complete with guns, guards and bunkers. We wondered how to get past or around it when the station commander came storming out claiming we were on army property, and ‘what were we doing there?!’ Somehow, we had breached the defences of the back door to the base so we actually came to the gate from the wrong direction … Taiwan eh! We gave the guards a quick nod, but on second glance we could see them laughing as well, in on the joke.



    Special Agent Anke cracks the security at the maximum security check point … with a stick

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Counting Sheep

    I had an absolutely fantastic final weekend with my family away in Wales for a weekend. We stayed in the village of Llanwrtyd for a welcome break – hiking by day… eating at the in-house Michelin Star restaurant in the evening. The food was simply exceptional – the finest possible ‘British Cuisine’.

    Llanwrtyd is home of the World Bog Snorkelling Championships and the Man V Horse V Bike race, plus it is Britain’s smallest town. A bizarre little place in the middle of the mountains … with a world-class restaurant.



    Bog Snorkeller in Action

    Stranger still is the World Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling Championship. I think the name explains the concept, but this is the result:



    The wheels are lined with lead, by the way

    Anyway, onto the hiking. We managed to happily side-step the torrential floods effecting much of the rest of the country and enjoyed 2 days of glorious weather. The navigation was more than a little difficult (I blame the Forrestry Commission for insisting on moving the woods every few years) but the scenery was breathtaking; especially so as a result of the astonishing winter light that drowned the hills with beautiful glowing tones all through the day.



    Casting a shadow on the mountainside – and contemplating which of those trees had moved



    View towards the lowlands, over the sheep / dinner



    Me and my old man

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…