Jonathan Biddle – Made in Taiwan

Tag: Funny

  • One night in Taipei

    I think this sums up Taiwan, Taipei and some of my experiences so far. One crazy night in Taipei.

    T.H., the president of our division, deemed that he would generously give us all in the department a meal out and a night out at Ministry of Sound in recognition of the fact that we have won some IF design awards for our corporate book shelf. Very nice.

    So, we went to Jogoya near Taipei 101 which is an all you can eat sushi place. On the way there I bumped into Tanja and Michael. Walking through Main Station we were marauded by a flock of school girls demanding to talk to us in Chinese for their homework. This was absolutely hilarious and it completely brightened up what was otherwise a bit of a shitty week.

    All you can eat sushi; I think my standards have shifted as the sashimi ain’t really all that good, but the chocolate is exceptional, and worth it for that alone. Henry and Cesare – two designers from our department – had their standard eating face-off (ridiculous quantities of food) and all the Taiwanese got very drunk and rowdy in typical style.

    The time came to head to MOS, so we piled into taxis and cars and promptly all headed in completely different directions to make sure that we all got as lost as possible. Some people arrived relatively directly and phoned us to inform us the queue was about 500m long and stretched around the block. Luckily we had planned ahead and booked a private room. Except, I think everyone believed it was like a restaurant and it would be possible to get a room with two hours notice. Yes, they phoned at 5:00pm, only to find out it was not possible. Well done. You fucked up again.

    Instead, we piled into our cars again (we were still driving as we headed off in the wrong direction down the motorway, and were trailing the main crew) and went to Holiday KTV near to my place in Shilin. Luckily, we managed to get a big enough room, and the Taiwanese set about populating the play list with hundreds of Chinese songs ensuring it was impossible for us to get a look in. I find that rather strange – little sense of team work between our two groups sometimes. Anyway, between us realising that, settling in to drink and leaving two hours before our songs came up we got hammered, and it ended up with Markus and I serenading eachother with a song I can’t quite remember.

    Roman, an industrial designer visiting from Munich, was clearly totally bemused, but I think it gave him a good impression of what we are up against. We want to build a world-class brand and we cannot even organise a simple visit to a night club!



    Elvis has left the building

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Model Shop Romance

    When we get models made, since we do not have our own workshop (gripe no. 274), we outsource it to one of a number of model shops in the local area. When Aken, Sandie and I went along we met with the boss and chief modeller and went about explaining our concepts with diagrams and explanations and gesticulation. However, although Sandie was doing a perfectly good job of translating for me, as soon as the boss (Lau Ban) found out I was English and studied at Cambridge he insisted on getting his daughter to translate for me. This was not too bad, until he kept interrupting with random and rather derailing questions such as… “do you like Taiwan?” …. the model conversation would continue…. “do you like Taiwanese people?”…. “er, yesss….” he pauses again….. “do you like Taiwanese girls?”

    I freeze in terror, with his daughter puppy dog eyeing me, the boss probably expecting to break open the family scotch, Aken with his hand on my knee asking the same questions earnestly and Sandie in the corner almost tearing herself in two with laughter… and then there is me, stuck in the middle, unable to work out what to answer – answer “yes” and I probably need the next flight out of the country, or answer no and insult everyone (including the tough looking modellers) in the room. I opted for silence and squirming, only escaping to leave to go back to the office.

    There was no escape.

    We were offered a life in the boss’s wife’s car… and of course our friendly (and now rather creepy) daughter jumps in, eyeing me in the mirror. I am still waking up in cold sweats, expeciting her pathetic face at my window with glowing eyes.

    And of course Sandie made sure my whole office knew all the details, which of course continued the torment!

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Birds of a Feather

    Just a strange photo of a bike carrying pigeons – surely on the way to slaughter!

    The range of strange motorcycle – related vehicles you see over here is incredible. Everyday the ride to work yields another permutation on what is seen as possible to carry on a 150cc bike. I’ll gather together the images over the next few weeks and show them off… they even extend to mini sized Harley Davidsons.

    I have heard a story from one of my friends that he saw a scooter with a passenger on the back holding a medical drip in the air as they rode along – with the ambulance in the background syuck in traffic. It is common to see gas cylinders attached to motorbikes being transported to customers, families of 4 (plus dog), food vending stalls mounted on the back…. and so on. And of course the fork lift trucks on the motorway. Anyway – here is the first of the images:

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Essential Beer

    Some great products around the place…. “Essential Beer”…. yes it is.

    And the ubiquitous Hello Kitty brand… it gets EVERYWHERE. Any product you can think of has been infected with the pink disease…. but this one is quite cool. It’s a CD player.

    An amazing smoke mask that is somewhat more melodramatic than usual in Europe!

    The local condom brand “Stonker Donker”

    … and even numbers sprayed onto the side of crates become interesting:

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Cha

    Klara and I scoot off to the tea rooms in the mountains to the south of the city. Here is a quick view of what it may feel like to be a on a scooter… The awesome power of 150cc’s.

    At the tea room, and here is the tea set we are presented with. It is a real pleasure to hang out and look out over the city. The green tea is very delicate in flavour, though it is surprisingly difficult to get the taste really good, due to over brewing, under brewing, the wrong temperature, too many leaves… and no doubt a multitude of more spiritual factors related to the stars or feng shui.

    And here is an image over the city where Taipei 101 actually looks good and tall for once (it is the tallest building in the world, and yet it looks like a stack of American Chinese Take Out boxes stacked on top of one another.

    On the way back we went to Ting Tai Fung – one of the most famous restaurants in Taipei. It serves the most delicious Shanghai dumplings, and the queue outside to get seats is about 40 minutes. However, they are truly a special flavour. They cook each set in a bamboo basket that pile up into a steam chimney. Quite ingenious, I think, and the food stays warm for ages. Here is the kitchen:

    Klara and I in the Shi Da district of Taipei. Near here is a quite splendid ‘Shaved Ice’ cafe – they create what is effectively a pile of snow and top it with sweet, delicious mango. mmmmm….

    And here is the coolest dude I have ever seen (below, not above – that’s me). This is the absolutely standard pose of people in photos in Taiwan. I have no idea why… but if a camera appears, this is the effect.

    And here is the offending Shaved Ice… this time in fact at a place in Shilin food market. The expression explains things I don’t understand….

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…