Jonathan Biddle – Made in Taiwan

Blog

  • 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…

  • Taiwan Elections

    Taiwanese politics is usually better known internationally for its petty fist fights in parliment, but this week saw the Legislative Yuan voted in (I understand it as the equivalent of the Senate in the US). Michael wrote a much better piece on the subject and spent time taking lots of photos. Therefore, I will point you towards his site instead! Enjoy.

    Michael’s Election Pages

    Images of the Election

    Another week, another fist fight

    Electioneering, Taiwan-style

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Feline Fine

    My cat-related theme is continuing this week, it seems. Whilst shopping for blinky techno things I got sidetracked by this bag that someone was carrying … and it had a cat in it (hard to appreciate, I know). They were of course very proud of their little moggy, though I am not sure what the cat thought…



    Especially for Bianca…

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • The funniest people in Taiwan

    Some of the names of people I have met, names I have heard, or names I have seen are simply astonishing in their originality and vision. This is a summary of my favourites:

    Adolf

    Angle

    Asterix

    Audi

    Ball

    Bighead

    Bluck

    Bossism

    Cupid

    Dodo

    Dog

    Dolphin

    Dracula

    Dreck

    Ear

    Echo

    Electric

    Element

    Eleven

    Elfex

    Enigma

    Forever

    King Horny

    Lover

    Loyal

    Marijuana

    Moses

    Mountain

    Mouse

    Muscle

    Penguin

    Pop

    Popkiller

    Porch

    Poseidon

    Prairie

    Putin

    Shadow

    Style

    Sweet

    Sword

    TiTi

    Unicorn

    Urania

    Variable

    This is a work in progress, so expect it to develop over time!

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Familiarity Breeds Contempt

    I simply had to take a photo of a cup of tea I had the other day. As you can see from the top it says: “Familiarity Breeds Contempt” …



    Familiarity Breeds Contempt – I think they thought it meant ‘content’

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Street Walking

    Feeling slightly worse for wear from the previous night, I met up with Lorenzo. He was in a very relaxed mood, so we decided to street drink our way across some new parts of town. It is kind of like skateboarding, but with beer. The idea is that you save lots of money that can be spent on food and blinking products, you see more and in general strange things happen.

    This time we went to the Shanglian area near to Main Station and had a look around. This is more or less the old area of town and it has an amazing character too it – more like Hong Kong, or perhaps a littl feel of NYC, Milan or London. Anyway, a bit more run down and relaxed with itself, rather than inmost places that are straining to be something higher class. We got some great chat off the street vendors and and some of the girls on clothes stalls.



    Shanglian Market – underground world



    Astonishing old bike



    Evil cat, mounted in a harness on this lady – apparently she goes out to the night market every night with it.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Glas Vegas

    Robin Smith from 4C Design in Glasgow visited for an evening – an old friend off my university course, PDE at the Glasgow School of Art. He was doing business in Taichung and swung by on his way home. It was a real pleasure to see him and we had some good fun.

    He had visited Taipei before, visiting Tim (also from Glasgow) when he was designing here. I persuaded him to wear his kilt and we headed off to Shilin night market. We got some good food (although we got shouted at for not finishing i!t – food is seen as more precious here) and had plenty of photos taken of us, or at least Robin, as young girls came bouncing up to have their tourist photos taken with him.



    The Glen of Tranquility

    Many people were pretty amazed by the kilt, but I think there are so many whities in Taipei these days that they are less fazed. Still, cool to have these girls running up to us! No complaints.

    Markus had his Betel Nut party which was great fun. Plenty of fun and drinking and Robin got a great reception. Markus had done an amazing job of decking the place out and had put little packages of presents in Betel Nut packages – very cute. Our Taiwanese colleagues were on good form, though they really regard Betel chewing as a lower class activity – only Fukan admitted that his dad ate them. I think there is a real desire to move up the class structure, in the same way as 1950s Britain, perhaps.

    In typical Weegie-style Robin challenged Mike and his friend to a Ryder Cup of drinking – USA V EU, downing pints in a small boat race. Anke started our team off, but did not realise we had started so we had alot of ground to make up! Luckily, she did her job, Robin did a strong middle leg and I managed to deliver a victory, with enough time to see the Americans choke on their juice. What can I say? Those years of training have paid off.



    Fallout



    Yi-Ju and I rocking out with face paints



    Anke ‘Betel Pimp’ Schabuschabu, Jonathan ‘Coughing Tiger’ Biddle, Mike ‘The Lethal Grin’, and Lars ‘Strike a Pose’ Torkhul



    I can see you!



    Robin and I went out later on the hunt for a late bar or club, but we got dumped in the middle of nowhere by an embarrassed cabbie, then we could not get into Luxy (though it was 4:30 in the morning!). Here is me with my street drinking Bar Beer.

    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…

  • Chilin in Shilin

    I had a quiet weekend (relatively speaking) and saw the Bienniel at the Contemporary Art Museum. I was quite impressed, and I plan to go back to catch the permanent exhibits as well. The building is pretty mental, in a modern Taiwanese mentally modern way. I’ll take some shots and you can judge for yourselves.

    On the way home I swung by Shilin night market and took some shots of the food area. It is an amazing place, truly, and at the heart of Taiwanese culture (ie: food) . My favourites tonight inclide this mini shrimp fishing zone. You may have seen my first shrimp fishing effort… if not, go here.



    As before, the general idea is to tempt the shrimps with tasty morsels of liver and shrimp babies, then you whip ’em out, ram a stick up their back-side, and burn them alive until cooked well.

    Doing a quick zoom in on the background you can see the kid fishing for something a little different … turtles. They each have a paper clip attached to their back (held on with some alarmingly-coloured tape) and the guys ‘fish’ for them with magnets … not quite sure if this is in the spirit of things, or if good old dynamite would be fairer. I will have to ask the guys at work on Monday if people eat the things… after going to Longshan market I know they do quite a bit more.



    Ninja Turtles



    And a quick one of a lady cooking oysters in a sort of Omelette – quite tasty.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • The worst coffee in the world

    This coffee was so bad it was worth taking a photo. It was completely undrinkable. You can see the Hundreds and Thousands sprinkled on the top, which I have no real problem with. No, it was the white sugar slime that is usually found on top of cheap cakes in the 1970s that was so terrible. But I liked the cup.



    Officially the Worst Coffee I Have Ever Had



    A fairy keeps watch in the Ximen district



    Wufenpu clothes market in the east of the city – an amazing place to shop, since this is where the other night markets buy there goods from

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…