Jonathan Biddle – Made in Taiwan

Tag: Life

  • Rain, Rain Go Away…

    3 weeks of constant rain is getting everyone down at the moment – especially as our office has no heating. It’s funny, I lived in Scotland for four years, but somehow the cold combined with the humidity means nothing ever quite dries properly. Still, it makes a great excuse for excursions to hot springs. In the past week, I have made sure to pay my local spa a visit in XinPeitou and yesterday went down the coast the JhaoSi with Anke and Lars for a decent session, and language exchange with 7 year olds, fascinated by my hairy arms.


    Rain in Ximen


    Warmth in XinPeitou

    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…

  • Nearing Christmas

    I have not really written much in the last two weeks. I have found Taipei quite hard in the last fortnight because of work, and because of a that life seems to sway too much between that hard graft and rebellion at the weekend. However, several of the big projects I was working on have now drawn to a close and I can concentrate on Christmas, spending time with my family and reflecting on 6 months. I believe that when I come back in January things will be rather more in focus. Judge for yourself.

    Anyway, far be it from me to bring down the festive tone! I have had some very nice nights out recently. On Saturday, I met up with my design friends from several other companies and we enjoyed a boozy sushi session at Jogoya.



    Free wine free wine!

    After, Gerd took us to a local bar called Cream but it seems that it had become a private members club fronted by a bathroom sales showroom. Undeterred, we headed around the corner to find ‘So Nice’… it wasn’t, so we ended up in the Irish Pub! (first trip to Irish Bar in Taipei – it must surely be a record for a European visitor)



    Tanja and I at the Christmas tree near Taipei 101 … from the inside (now you know how it feels)



    View up the middle of the tree



    If this doesn’t make you want to drink Jaegermeister nothing will…

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Model Shop Boyz

    I visited the model shop today to get my phone model ironed out. As ever (and this only seems to happen to me) it turned into an episode that of course everyone in the office found hilarious. It brought back delightful memories of my previous visit to Sun Li – which you can see here.

    So I rock up to meet Adam at Che John Models (who is alarmingly non – Taiwanese in immediately expressing his views without holding back) and we cruise out to a really rather nice wee Italian restaurant where I have the very best Lasagne I have eaten in Taiwan so far (ie: bad). We shoot the breeze for a while and go back to discuss business. Before we got into it he showed me around and introduced me to the team of model shop workers, who immediately took an intense interest in me and fed me a pile of betel nuts. These things are common place on the streets of Taiwan – the “betel nut girls” post is a post for another time, though.

    Anyway, they fed me a couple of these things. You bite the end off, chuck it in your mouth and chew away. You spit out the horrific blood-red expectorant and continue chewing, and after a while you get a pretty strong hit of nicotine and this coincided with beginning to discuss the details of my proposal. A spinning world does not help in this and I think I approved all the short cuts they suggested – very smart of them, eh. They then presented me with a large pile of porn and suggested I take it before also giving me a book of fake blank Taxi receipts that I could make some nice money from. I managed to escape at this point with only sporadic feelings of weightlessness and gentle involuntary acrobatics.

    Perhaps I will make the following week my ‘Betel Nut Special’ – Markus is planning a Betel nut party for his birthday – it promises to be… blinky.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Taipei Tourist – The Return

    I am at the 6 month point out here, and have reached a transition point somewhat. Work has felt like a drag of late, I am getting a bit tired of not being able to meet people so easily (what with my 4 year old’s Chinese skills) and in general I am at the bit between knowing the place and feeling comfortable, but not having the infrastructure of friends and scenes to be part of.

    This weekend and the last I have lurched from some slightly irresponsible behaviour and have come back down to earth. I have started looking things with curious eyes again, have some of my more typical vim back (and vigour at work I hope too!) and overall am a bit more happy. So that’s nice, for all you folks back home. Anyway, I took some photos this weekend of things that interested and amused me – esp. while looking for art museums with my friend Luisa. The Taipei Artist’s Village was a bit of a let-down (no exhibits) we lost the Chang Foundation of Fine Arts (it must have been really fine) and wandered to the Hua Shan Arts District to see some slightly mediocre environmental art. Next week I will check out the more controversial Bienniel and hopefully walk away more impressed.



    Near to Main Station there was frantic activity where they had recently finished building an attractive small temple. What I did not understand was why they were preparing to wrap this in steel (see the frame). Will it be in glass? Bricks? Concrete (most likely).



    Bored on the job – an enthusiastic policeman near Sogo + laser sword



    Some cool stripes that caught my eye in an underground car park near to the Breeze Centre (another over-priced shopping mall)

    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…

  • Some Notes on Corporate Life

    Good days in the office mean I find the frustrations and difficulties in the office an amazing learning experience. Bad days in the office mean I get totally wound up by being subjected to ‘The Taiwanese Way.’ I think it is important to remain philosphical and remain in the former camp.

    This week has been very interesting. I developed some designs for a set of cell phones. This project was very conservative but it allowed me to develop a design that was more like a fashion item rather than an item that was designed for the user with a rigorous approach. This was more like graphics design, and in fact I really enjoyed it – my Art School tutors I think would spin on their chairs to hear this though!

    Firstly, I have realiased that the efficiency of working out here is incredibly low. In Europe, people come in at 9:00 and work hard and intensively with the aim of leaving on time at 5:00. Meetings are as quick as possible and generally people get on with the work. Here is different. We start at 9:30, and it is not unusual for people to still be in the office at 11:00pm at night. I usually stay to 9:00pm myself. I can certainly say that I do not get any more work done in this time. Because everyone stays so late, almost as a duty, you also feel duty-bound to also stay. What this means is that instead of leaving when the work is done, you stay, maybe surf the web for 20 minutes, check your e-mail, do some low intensity work, and then it is suddenly 10:00 at night. The locals in fact usually have a sleep in the afternoon for half and hour, sometimes play a computer game or watch a DVD. This makes me mad, but I understand that if you live with your family (as most do) it is not such a bad idea to make your living room your desk. From now on, I am concentrating on working hard, fast and leaving early, and grabbing some of my lufe back in the evenings.

    The second interesting thing this week was the review of my phones. We went to see one of the most senior guys in the company and everyone is absolutely petrified of him. Our managers (also directors) quake in their boots and if he comes to the office everyone runs to their desks like rabbits running back into their holes. Meeting him was therefore a small event for me. However, although he is certainly serious and business like and very concerned with details he did not seem so intimidating to me. I can only conclude that the relative respect in heirachy compared with the UK is the major reason for this strange behaviour. It is something I will keep an eye on, but until my Chinese improves there is not much I can do about it.

    Speaking of which, Chinese is very enjoyable at the moment. The first sparks of the language igniting are occuring… but there is plenty of work still to go until I get rolling.

    Right. Some more photo – based posts on their way. But I am also trying to put down more words as my Dad wanted some more descriptive comment and analysis.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Thoughts

    I had an interesting couple of chats with 2 designers who are working out here. They have both been out here for a number of years and they were asking me how I was getting along, and more specifically what my first few days were like.

    It seems like such a long, long time ago that I arrived. I only arrived in May, so I have been here for getting on for 4 months. That’s longer than I have ever been away from home for (the longest before that was 3 months in USA, Mexico and Central America). It was really nice to go back to this blog and see my thoughts for those first few days – it was not something that you can remember easily, since the first few days are so intense. They could not, sadly, remember a thing about their initial emotions as they have now been here for so long and the things that are exotic and strange quickly become commonplace.

    One nice thing was that we all seemed to notice very similar things on those first few days. The Beetlenut girls by the sides of the roads, the first song that we heard on the radio in English and the state of the driving! I am very glad to have those thoughts down – I can never tap into those feelings again! Especially as any subsequent trips to other Asian countries I think will have less impact for me now (although I suspect there are plenty of surprises up its sleaves!).

    So, four ish months in and how is it going? Life is certainly not easy, but it is fun and interesting and everyday has special moments. Even small things.

    The other day, I got to my scooter and found that I had a puncture. Now, in the UK this would be a really dull and boring chore to get it fixed. No sooner had I got it past the front gate on the way to the main road the security guards ran over and started chattering at me in super fast Chinese. They virtually grabbed the bike off me and one ran back with a pump. He starts pumping like hell, sweating for his life when a senior engineer comes over and tells me in absolutely perfect English that “I shouldn’ kill myself by pushing it all the way there…” and he rolls up his sleaves and starts fondling the tire looking for the hole… all the time I am standing there bemused watching the security guards pumping air (this was probably the most exciting thing that had happened to them in weeks) when they all start pointing and shouting and tell me to get on and ride as fast as I can while I still have some air left and have a chance to make it to the scooter shop (if you throw a stone in Taipei in a random direction it will either hit a 7-11 or a scooter shop). I make it there and it costs me 80 Nt (about £1.20) to fix it. I had a sudden thought to buy some Coke for the now worn out guards so I run to 7-11 and scoot back to give it back. I virtually have to thrust it into their arms to make them take it, but the next day I get a very offical salute from them as I enter the gates – something that is usually reserved for the Directors. So, a dull job made fantastically fun.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • And then it rained

    Two typhoons playing silly buggers in the pacific mean RAIN for Taiwan. Let me just point out some things here. The UK is a rainy island in the north Atlantic. Taiwan is a rainy island in the north Pacific. Yes, it has a baeutiful sub-tropical climate, but I tell you, when I was walking around today looking for a place to live all I could think of was Glasgow…

    And this is all I have been doing for the last 5 days… looking up at buildings trying to see these signs… the symbols on the left are the key. They mean “you don’t have a flat and we do! ha hah!”

    If you can imagine a funny looking white guy completely drenched looking up in the air taking completely random photos and then coming along the other side of the street doing the same thing – well that’s me. Great ambassador!

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Downtown

    Woke up pretty hungover and headed downtown just wanted to get the measure of what it was like. However, wasted about an hour walking around totally lost, convinced I could not read a map and utterly confused. When I eventually worked things out it all became clear… the exit signs on the station were marked North, South, East and West. Okay. Logical? You would think so… The North exit is in the south. The south in the north. East in west and west in east! WHAT?!?! You crazy, crazy people! I had to get a coffee and sit down at that point because my brain hurt. And of course it pissed it down raining. Ha. And the coffee shop sold ‘Yorkshire Tea’ which made me chuckle.

    Also went around the equivalent of Tottenham court road. Whooooaaaa. TECHNOLOGY. Lots of fun, and I bought a calculator for doing sums as dividing everything by 60 to get the GBP equivalent was getting dull.

    Again, I ate sushi. Needed some fresh veg and I think it is a good way to eat healthily. Fish, rice and fresh crunchy veg. All the chinese stuff that tastes good I am sure contains large amounts of bad stuff. Everyone eats together in the evenings in the canteen, so I expect my veins to burst with cholestorol within weeks. In fact, I am eating together with them tonight. Makes sense, as it is free and I can enlist some help looking for flats and so on.

    Went to the cinema with Anke off the team. Supposed to be more of them but they bugged out. Was really nice to be in there as the Taiwanese audience really gets into the film and everyone laughs their socks off at the slightest joke.

    Went to a convenience store for food last night. Another world. Went round grabbing random things. New experiences in convenience food – will be testing out final phase on the toilet in the morning.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…