Jonathan Biddle – Made in Taiwan

Tag: Travel

  • iF China Design Awards & Hangzhou

    Latest update on the Pudong transformation.

    I seem to be travelling to China a lot recently.  This time, mixed in with some supplier visits and research (oh, and picking up an iF China design award for my wee Vostro V13), I decided to whisk Nikki off for a weekend in the big smoke.  Since she had not been to China before, the main aim was to give her a chance to see a quick cross-section of the place.

    Looking at China, and especially Shanghai, through the lens of a Taiwanese person is a really interesting experience.  In some ways, it’s like an American person visiting London for the first time, but in other ways the comparison falls apart.  China is not a small island separated from it by thousands of miles of ocean, the roles of economic upstart are flipped in favour of the ‘homeland’, and of course the political status of the ‘settled’ land is far from clear.

    Most of the time when I am with Taiwanese people in China it is for visiting the multitude of factories that supply components for Dell; themselves mostly run by Taiwanese bosses.  In these times, they are excessively protective and mollycoddling, and I will find myself being whisked around the Yangtze river delta plain for hours on end in shaky VW Santanas, in order to wait in dimly lit rooms for hours more, only to have a twenty minute-long meeting about something they should or should not be doing.  If you choose it to be, it is the purest description of boredom and frustration, and for this reason I travel solo whenever I have the opportunity; thus, working out the train system.  It also means I avoid the round-table dinners when I need a night off, scheduled as they are with heavy drinking, heavier food, uncomfortable conversation and thinly-veiled sliminess from the sales guys.

    It also makes travel with Taiwanese in China on personal time that much more pleasant – curiosity, modesty and politeness from the Taiwanese, in a sea of nail clippings, car crashes, shouting, and general rudeness is at once touching and heart-rending.  It’s like being reunited with an old friend that seems to have gone off the rails (but that is driving a flashier car than you).  Looking at China through their eyes, I at once see them staring in wonder at the history and the stories, in mild shock at the pace of development compared to Taiwan, and in disbelief at the chaos that is ensuing.

    So, I installed Nikki into the local scene for a few days.  Hooking up with Gerhard and the crew, we rattled around the bars, restaurants and night-life that makes Shanghai, Shanghai.  We saw the sites, and while I was working for a couple of days, she had time to get to grips with the city.  I think she enjoyed it, but one or two excessive nights (I blame Oktoberfest) brought home the fact that while Shanghai is a great place to visit, it’s not the best place for your health.

    Jump!

    Admiring The Bund

    Nathan Road lights

    In the French Concession with one of the many groups of newly-weds getting photographed

    Wide-angle Shanghai action

    Inevitable consequences

    A trip to the more sedate city of Hangzhou (if 8,000,000+ people can be called sedate) was just what I needed.  I had been there before, but it was obviously Nikki’s first time.  My previous experience on the Kunshan rail system had obviously spoiled me; just turn up, buy your tickets and you are done.  We had to wait in line for what felt like an eternity, only to be told that the ‘fast’ trains were fully booked; I should have just got the hotel to book it for me (in fact, that makes so much more sense than going to the station myself to get tickets).  Three hours on a stinky, slow, packed train, quickly became three and a half hours, and we were beginning to wonder if everything was okay when suddenly everyone alighted.  We had clearly arrived.  Not quite recognising the station from my previous trip, we made a beeline for the taxi rank, and virtually had to shout at the drivers to persuade them to take us to the hotel.  How can they be so stupid?

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    Almost, but not quite.

    Well, it perhaps turns out that we were stupid. Somehow, we had ended up at Hangzhou South Railway Station.  It actually displays ‘Xiaoshan’ Station, so you can imagine the confusion trying to work out where we were, and profuse apologies to the taxi driver as he drove us the 45 minutes it took to get to our hotel.  A little research goes a long way, Jonathan, especially when it is late at night in a dark corner of Zhejiang Province.  Ironically, the high-speed rail service between Shanghai and Hangzhou opened only days later, shortening the journey to a mere 45 minutes.  No matter, on the way home we got the hotel to buy the tickets, and it took us about an hour and half on the train that I originally wanted to take.

    Shanghai South Railway Station roof

    Boarding the slow train

    Watching the world go by

    Spirits remained high!

    Sun setting …

    Waiting some more, and contemplating life

    Confidential doodling

    Are we there yet?

    No really … are we there yet?

    Onto the design awards!  The V13 has been a big success for the team, and has been steadily picking up design awards along the way; G-Mark, Red Dot and an iF China ain’t bad.  Oh, and the fact that it’s been selling at 300% over original projections.  It was a nice opportunity to bump into a couple of colleagues from Asus, make some new friends at Philips and have a chin wag with the bosses at the iF organisation.

    Yay!

    What was even more interesting was to bump into a few designers from the local Hangzhou design scene; it’s no surprise that it exists, and it sounds like they are in the same position as Taipei was perhaps ten years ago; quantity trumps quality, and intense price competition makes for compromised solutions.  But they are making strides, and I would say Hangzhou would be a great location for a design centre; the culture, the considered pace, and the proximity to nature makes for a more creative feeling.  Perhaps Hangzhou is to Chicago what Shanghai is to New York.  Something to keep an eye on.

    Hangzhou as a location?  I have to say I am quite smitten with it, with Xihu Lake forming the centre-piece for the city.  I suppose I was a little carried away with the image of China, so I was a little disappointed when Nikki said ‘well it just looks like Lake Constance‘ … looking at the pictures now (though I have never been), I can see what she means!  Probably the same number of Chinese tourists as well.

    No matter, we had a thoroughly pleasant day meandering along the lake shore, and taking in a few cafes and tea rooms in the setting sun.  Magic.  With the light fading, we headed for the aforementioned train back to Shanghai, and the amusements awaiting us.

    I hope it was a good introduction!

    Nationalism from an early age

    There is an entire sub-class of my photography that includes monks carrying high-tech equipment.

    Peeping Tom

    Mountains in the distance … there must be good mountain biking around here!

    Flag-waving.

    Watching the world go by.

    Hangzhou locals

    Oh what book are you reading?!

    Tea time.

    Okay, put the book away – we get the picture!

  • Hong Kong Babies

    Congratulations to Michael & Tanja!  Newest Mum & Dad in Hong Kong!

    Massively proud, and delighted to be able to drop-in on you before the big day … but not the most punctual baby in the world, might I add?

    See all of you soon!

    There is probably a rule about pregnant ladies not being allowed ice-cream.

    Michael practices photography on some other babies.

    WAS THAT IT?!  Ready?!  EMEGENCY!!  What?  Oh okay.  My nerves were on-edge, as I imagined myself helping rush Tanja to the hospital with Michael.

    Rules about giving up seats to those in need simply do not apply in Hong Kong.  I am positive someone would give up their seat if challenged, but it’s not really good enough, is it?

  • Yangtze Rail

    Kunshan station at sunset.  Along with the track hardware, the stations are impressive in their design intent.

    Beyond the Expo, the biggest impact to my China experience on this trip was the incredible improvements in the transport infrastructure, and in particular, the trains.  Most of our suppliers are located in the Yangtze River Delta region; an unimaginably dull expanse of land stretching west of Shanghai for several hundred kilometres.  Just imagine The Fens in East Anglia, but many hundreds of times larger, and packed with factories relocated from Taiwan.

    Getting around usually means relying on suppliers to send cars out to your hotel; the distances involved and the vagaries of travel in China leave you with little choice.  This does rather put you at the mercy of your vendors, though, and usually results in unwelcome round-table lunches and forced conversation, invariably discussing positive aspects of life in England, shortcomings of life in Taiwan, and which local Chinese town has the most famous foodstuffs.  Any way to prise this control away, and return the day to me is most welcome.  For this reason, the new rail networks being installed throughout China are a breath of fresh air, and offer as formative a change to my life as the Taiwan High Speed Rail.  It really opens up the area to exploration, allows increased connection to local travelers, and means I no longer need to stay so close to the vendors in Kunshan; a town of few features beyond the walls of the Swissotel.

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    The Chinese high-speed rail network is expanding at an exasperating pace; the Beijing-Shanghai line was started in April 2008, and will be completed in Summer 2011, with trains operating at 380 kmh (240 mph).  Britain, I am embarrassed to write, has plans for high-speed lines to be completed in 2025, operating at a meagre 250 kmh (155 mph).  Our peak speed, Eurostar excepted, has not increased since the Mallard in 1938, when it set a record of 125 mph.  Does anyone in Whitehall understand what is going on here?  China is going to blow us into the weeds, at a rate that we cannot even begin to comprehend.  Britain, time to wake up.

    But this isn’t about the British Rail, this is about the newly completed Shanghai-Nanjing Huning Line.  Opened in July this year, it connects the major cities along the Yangtze; Shanghai-Kunshan-Suzhou-Wuxi-Nanjing, and several other cities you have never heard of before with populations over 4 million people.  But know these city names; they will enter common parlance as the reach of China extends.

    I still remember my first trip to Shanghai in 2006; at the weekend, I turned up at the train station wishing to buy tickets to go to Suzhou.  Huge queue, wall of people, unhelpful staff, crap Chinese, no dice.  Defeat.  Several more trips, and late nights, friends and all manner of distractions mean that I still don’t manage to escape.  Yes, I manage to make it to Hangzhou with Anke and Lars – but nothing under my own steam, as it were.  That is why, turning up to the station, facing the automated touch screens, punching in the coordinates, and receiving those tickets felt so good; I was finally free of the shackles.  Kunshan?  17 minutes.  Suzhou?  24 minutes, sir.  Nanjing, over 300 km away, is dispatched in a mere hour and ten minutes.  All your stations are belong to us.

    The stations match the track hardware in intent, matching or exceeding the architecture in Taiwan, and certainly better than the great majority of stations in the UK (though they ain’t no St. Pancras).  On that note, it was also amusing that at every opportunity China Rail made a point of including Taiwan on their network maps; cheeky, eh?  You can see the map here.

    With internet ticket sales apparently around the corner, these new tracks really open up this corner of China to exploration; something I really look forward to in subsequent trips.  Here are some photos of my first adventures.

    Kids hang outside Kunshan station on their rides

    Enjoying the sunlight

    Fading light

    Symmetry

    One of the regional trains.

    … and the more Shinkansen-ish high-speed trains.

    Transport cops on alert during Expo – all stations had x-ray detectors.

    End of the line in Nanjing.

    Threads on display outside the station.

    The Chinese ability to make pointlessly large displays of flowers is unmatched.

    View from near the station over to Nanjing downtown.

    … and venturing further away … workpeople at rest.

    Novelty petrol stations on the route to one of our vendors.

    Amusing views from the car.

    Team photos – a common sight.

    … but no matter how good the transport system, with 1.3 billion people wanting to travel some people are going to have to wait.  And wait they do, for painfully long periods of time.

  • Zhouzhuang – Water Town

    After several years of trying (admittedly, probably not trying hard enough), I finally made it to one of the ‘Water Towns’ in the Jiangsu province, near to Shanghai.  The whole country had come to a stop to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, which I understand indirectly commemorates overthrow of Mongol rule (although I have never quite understood the full background of the story).

    Zhouzhuang is proudly titled ‘Venice of the East’, though it should be noted that along with nearby Tongli, Wuzhen and Zhujiajiao, seventeen places also make the same claim.  According to Wikipedia, seven places also call themselves Paris of the East, but since Casablanca is actually further west, I don’t think these claims hold much water.

    The massive expanses of coastal plain around Kunshan and Shanghai are perfect for mega-scale manufacturing sites, but you can forget escaping it with the same ease that one can in Hong Kong or Taipei; places like this are normally bulldozed to make way for factories, well, making parts for computers.  So, while the weather was suffering as a result of a Typhoon hitting Taiwan, and there were a couple too many tour groups led by leaders with loudhailers and flags, it made for a thoroughly pleasant break from the grind of factory visits and sitting in offices waiting for parts to be spat out of a machine.

    A girl poses beside one of the bridges.

    While the towns are increasingly pure tourist centres, some people are evidently still going about their daily business, and there are still signs that people still live there.

    One of several temples in the town – the number of temples and religious establishments here are dramatically less than in Taiwan; indeed, one Chinese person quipped to me ‘Taiwan has too much religion.  And too many dogs.”

    Falling in line with my Rules of Graphics Design: there is no logo that cannot be improved with lightening bolts.

    Mirror evidence I think of some subtle Fengshui at work.

    Boats on the river ply their trade (of tourists).

    Hide-out.

    Back garden.

    My obsession with shooting windows and doors continues.

    Toys on display on the street.

    Modification of the roofs for modern conveniences.

    Super shapes.

    Laid out bare.

    I watched for a while this mysterious hand sell traditional toys on the street.

    This shop, as far as I can tell, sells round things.

    More roof details.

    I got a serious earful from the lady on the left before, during and after taking this photo.

    Ladies wot lunch.

    Monkeying around.

    Portraits of eminent leaders … but can you spot some of the others in the background? …

  • 474m, 100 Floors, 500 Posts

    And what better way to mark it than with an introduction to the skywalk in the Shanghai World Finance Center? While I had been there before, I had not had the chance to experience a death-defying encounter with a 474m drop, in the world’s highest observation deck (higher, even than the Burj). All I can say is ‘sweaty palms’; I was not in very good shape, and all my natural instincts to ‘fight or flight’ kicked in at the same moment. Humans, I am convinced, are not supposed to walk on glass floors, half a mile in the sky …

    Just a normal day at work – wave at the funny foreigner with the camera.

    Nothing can phase those guys.

    My hotel – the Renaissance at Zhongshan Park – is the building at the middle-top.

    A split personality.

    Just watching the world go by.

    I was really pooing myself.

    An impressive sight!

    Window cleaners.

    What made it even scarier were all the mirrors everywhere … when I walked in, I was actually a little disorientated to know what was floor, and what was glass.

    Said mirrors.

    Exit at the junction.

    Silhouettes.

    I think this captures all the main buildings!

    Quite a view …

    The first punchline …

    … the second punchline is that they sell a bottle opener of the building in the shape of a bottle opener!  Sadly, it was huge, metal and about thirty quid!  Get me a fake, please.

  • Land of the Rising Sun

    Well, it’s been a while, Shanghai, but it’s good to be back; a great night out with Gerhard and the Shanghai design mafia, and home in time to see the sunrise from the 49th floor.  I might regret this tomorrow!

    Before I head out.

    Macdonalds on the edge of Zhongshan park, punctuating the darkness.

  • Kinmen Tales

    After six years, I finally made it to Kinmen (金門)!  Nikki and I decided to break for the border (well, almost) and book a long weekend away from Taipei; our first trip away together.

    Kinmen (pronounced ‘Jin-Men’), is a curious historical anomaly, situated as it is a mere 2100m away from the coast of mainland China.  Indeed, administratively, its official title is ‘Fujian Province, Republic of China’, demonstrating very clearly the attitude of previous administrations towards the islet; they possessed a small portion of the mainland, and one day they were coming back for the rest. (more…)

  • Kenting 2010

    Kenting – summed up in a single photo!

    Though the departure was a little more hectic than I was originally envisioning, it was my pleasure to jump on the HSR down south and join Michael and Tanja for a weekend of summer sun in Kenting – south Taiwan.

    The guys had come through to attend a wedding, and as such were accompanied by a group of 20 German holidaymakers – and all on the same weekend as the largest music festival in Taiwan; Spring Scream.  As a result of poor planning on my part, I was actually supposed to be staying some fifteen kilometers away in Hengchun, but M&T offered me their spare bed in the amazing, but less than charismatically-named, Kenting Youth Activity Center.  I love that place.

    Situated on a peninsular east of the main drag, it is – according to their website – a ‘traditional Fujen(a province in southern China, also called Min) style building with red gate, white wall and red tile roof, and is often reputed as the Museum of Southern Min Style Architecture.’  I wish they gave more of the history, with a bit more explanation of the layout, but no matter; I would probably discover it is made of concrete.

    Square clouds … I could just soak this in all day!

    Detail view.

    Shots of night of the wonderful lanterns, lighting up the courtyard.

    Tiles done properly. Almost.

    Doors.

    The local walk down to the rocky peninsular.

    Cable management.

    Silhouettes.

    Details, bathed in warm morning light.

    Birds of a feather.

    Little Georg makes a run for it.

    Of course, we didn’t have the place entirely to ourselves.  As host weekend of the largest music festival in Taiwan, there were some pretty odd sights, and a funny mixture of people.  Beginning with obligatory trips down to the local nightmarket (copy and pasted from Taipei?), we then began sinking drinks, seeing some of the outlying stages, and finally ending up on the beach for what was a very nice, chilled out session the last time I was here.  Nope – not this time… a huge, thumping sound system, massive crowd and despite signs urging restraint, a barrage of fireworks arcing up into the sky (as well as other places).  I must at this moment apologise to all the people with car alarms that we set off, when some enterprising vendor sold us a box of mortars, at 4:30 in the morning.  Only in Kenting.

    Beer emergency.

    Walking the dog.

    Little Georg checking the icecreams – it was fun playing with them, though I wished my German had not corroded so far!

    Peugeot 106 … waffles.

    It was quite a culture shock to land from Texas, and dive head-first into full intensity Taiwan during ‘Spring Break’, all the while accompanied by German family members!  Absolutely fantastic to see the Helds on top form though.  See you guys again soon!

    Taiwanese cowboys – summing up my cultural transition?

  • Texas Neon

    The great thing about staying downtown in Austin is that I have a fantastic array of Americana on display …

    Key Drop

    Gringo Bingo

    Penis Hotel

    The Continental Club

    Allen’s Boots

    Parking

    Retro Truck

    School Buses

  • The Windy City

    The L-Line from above …


    I had a slightly sub-optimum flight plan into the USA this time – via Tokyo and Chicago, as opposed to the more conventional routes via LA or Dallas.  None-the-less, I grabbed the opportunity during lay-over to jump on the underground system and run downtown for a few hours of walking around and getting a whiff of the sights.  I have always, always wanted to go to Chicago, and I was impressed by the initial impression; funny people, a gritty feel reminiscent of Glasgow, and hearty Italian-American food.  Well worth it, although snow did delay take-off and scuppered any chances of getting stuck into the final Saturday night of SXSW.  Next time.

    … and from below.