Personal Dork Assistant

Party Time

Wasn't planning on going anywhere on Saturday, which was why I drank with uncle on Friday night. Good booze and tasty peanuts plus a solid revenue number. But you understand why I might not have been a sprightly camper on Saturday morning. Turned out that the girl's mom wanted to take everyone to YangMing (陽明) Mountain to see the views and for lunch. This was after we spent most of Friday night together for movie and coffee at The Spot (台灣光點). The movie was part of a Japanese film festival, which was suprisingly interesting considering it was a not-well-preserved black-and-white movie made in 1941. It was cool to see what Japan was like at that time (movie was set in the mid-30's), with the traditional houses combined with Western conveniences. The men wore suits and the women wore kimonos, except for the one character who was working on her own, lending a surprising feminist voice. There was also the external irony of a Chinese audience seeing the prodigal son go off to find his fortune in China during that timeframe. It was also good to go to a place that wasn't a one-shot tourist deal. Unlike this trip, which was why I wasn't terribly enthused about it, but respect for one's elders and all that. Should've dug in my heels and bailed out, since the girl was at a conference all morning, and was going to Tom's (Aunt Dai's son) Christmas party later. Brought the iPod as a silent protest, and as something to do on the long car ride to the outskirts of Taipei, since I wasn't exactly in shape for chipper conversation on the twisty (albeit well-maintained) ride up the mountain.

We were only a little more than an hour away from Taipei, but the mountainous terrain hid away the city and the narrow roads gave a rural feel. It's been a resort area since Japanese colonial times, and I could smell the sulfur in the air from the hot springs nearby. There were lots of roadside stands selling the famously fresh produce and baked sweet-potatoes from the area. Stopped at a little spot nestled in a picturesque valley. Most of it was taken up by neat rows of vegetable fields. The restaurant was neatly landscaped with a little pond and some squawking geese. The interior was more like a street-food stand, though, with plastic-covered tables and plastic stools. The food was tasty country food. It's nice to actually eat Taiwanese cuisine in Taiwan, as opposed to Shanghai food in Hong Kong and Japanese food in Taiwan (could've had a burger in China, too, but demurred). The best thing was actually the stir-fried veggies with garlic. Let's hear it for fresh ingredients. The cold-cut chicken was good, too, but we've had lots of good country free-range chicken lately thanks to our trips to ZhuDong.

Drove back into the park area, and took a token hike of about a kilometer or so to a little waterfall. There were some good views of Taipei below, of the cancerous-looking carpet of apartment buildings spread across the valley. Oh well. Took some pictures, but they'd brought a nice Nikon F-body film SLR... that neither of us had a clue how to use besides tripping the shutter. I'm good with button-pushing gadgets of all sorts, but the tiny, unlabelled things on the camera totally stumped me. I can see how it would be great in the hands of a pro, though.

Meanwhile the moms were sitting in the relatively warm car chatting away. Her mom wanted to drive around for more scenery, but the views were misty anyway, and I was not in the mood for more switchbacks. So they dropped us crazy kids off at the nearest MRT station. Tom (or rather Mrs. Tom) was doing a Secret Santa gift exchange, and we went down to Taipei Main Station for some cheap gifts. I'd originally declined to go to the shindig (my natural reaction to any get-together with strangers), but then I found out that the a-mah's weren't involved, and I felt bad for getting her dragged out to the countryside, so escorting her to the function seemed fair enough. Meant that I needed a present, though. Walked by a Body Shop in the underground arcade in the TMS. There's the backup plan. She wanted to get a CD or two, and I thought FNAC would be a good place, as it had books, music, and electronics. I'd been there the last time I was in Taipei, but I'd hit upon it wandering around, which was not a good plan here. Well, that was the only plan I had and predictably, I had no luck. Good thing there were plenty of record stores around anyway, not to mention yet another Body Shop. She got the Les Miz soundtrack and I picked up a CD of French lounge music with a little electronic groove. Got a couple of CDs for myself, too, and some more foamies for my earbuds, after I tore the first set I bought trying to put them on the headphones (they weren't as elastic as I expected). Ended up getting some melon-scented body wash from The Body Shop, too, since there was supposed to be a preponderance of females present (their extended family is kinda opposite of ours, gender-wise).

Had some time to kill before the party started, so we stopped by at the TMS food court for some sweet soft tofu (豆花), where we passed by yet another Body Shop (two in the station, one on the outside, for those of you keeping score). Got a chance to put the foamies on the earbuds, and the operation was a success. Whether that was due to my improved skills or superior Japanese foamies is unclear. It was a bit of a slog to get to Tom's apartment, as we had to MRT a couple of stations, switch to a bus for a few more stops, then walk another 10 minutes. Would've just called a cab except she wasn't sure of the exact address, the connections all went smoothly (only 7 TWD for the bus, directly deducted from the transit card!), and I could use the exercise anyway. The apartment was darn nice, as you'd expect of an up-and-comer at Lehman Brothers (after jumping ship from Merrill). It was also covered in toys, as you'd expect from the parents of an adorable and plenty-spoiled two-year-old daughter. They also have a two-month-old terrier who was surprisingly playful and well-tempered given the huge amount of attention he was getting from all the guests. Most of the guests were the various cousins of Tom, except for a couple of couples who were biz friends, a couple who had two daughters that were playmates of the kid, and I.

Last time I'd seen Tom, he was still in Cornell biz school, the wife was still the girlfriend, and no kid was involved, and before that was when we just moved to the U.S. and I wanted to play his video games. Still he's a nice guy and it was good to have someone who could handle a chat in English, and I think he was glad to have somebody there who could watch Road Trip with him and get the references. Well that and helping him sort through the pile of remotes to get the TV, DVD player, and receiver all on the same page. The little girls and the little dog were running amok and the adoring aunts were following them around ooh-ing and aah-ing. The Filipina maid watched over them to make sure they didn't do too much damage. Tom talked shop and sampled a nice-looking Chianti with his friends. The Mrs. put the final touches in the kitchen. The one male cousin and I flipped through the TV channels and stopped for an interlude when we scrolled by the Ultimate Fighting Championship, but couldn't really stick with it with the ladies and little kids around.

They'd decided to do a full American meal, with turkeys, mashed potatoes, gravy, and even canned cranberry sauce. Unfortunately the turkey was a little dry (even Tom admitted as much), which was too bad. The gift exchange went over better. My little package went to the oldest cousin, which works. Tom got some flowery soap from Crabtree&Evelyn, which doesn't work but was good for a laugh. I got two boxes of golf balls, which was totally useless for me, but at least made for a good gift for the host. The least-tasteful-gift award goes to the one male cousin, who brought a 3D jigsaw-puzzle of the World Trade Center, which he got as a gift a long time ago. It's probably a collectable item now, but it's definitely not cool to be showing it around to Tom and his friends, who are all in investment-banking and at least indirectly knew folks who died.

Anyway, we shrugged it off, and a good time was had by all. Timed our exit to arrival of the last MRT trains. The kids would've played all night had we let them. I was pooped by the time I got home. No single-malt tonight, thanks.

Importation

Top article in the Culture section of the newspaper the other day was an article about the rise in the sale of used schoolgirl underwear in Taiwan.

中古貨通常都要洗過，以示乾淨，但「二手貼身私物」相反，它強調：有人穿過、沒有洗過、保留氣味，等於是「二手物件、一手體味」。

為了證明它們曾經親近芳澤，拍賣者還隨拍賣訊息，刊載穿戴拍賣衣褲、襪子的照片，但見女體擺出撩人姿態，穿戴貼身物件，以取信購買者。

三年前，台灣開始有人引進「二手制服」營業方式，並且有不少客人，透過免付費二手雜誌成交，其中還不乏男同性戀者，指定只要男人穿過的衣物，且收購價格遠高過異性，有的還特別指定要「軍、憲、警」人員。

I swear, if the Japanese decided that jumping off cliffs was a good idea everyone in Taiwan would be splattering himself all over the ground within six months. Come to think of it that might not even be so bad, compared to used-panty-addicts.

Large Men

We have a Japanese satellite TV system, mostly so grandmother can watch Japanese variety shows and song competitions. Kind of a shame to have a high-definition system hooked up to a regular tube TV via a composite cable, but even then the picture is a million time sharper and prettier than the crappy cable signal (even after a guy came out to boost the signal level so that CNN is at least watchable).

So the Nets were kicking the crap out of the Pistons. Although it was on ESPN so I could get the English commentary on the SAP channel, Bill Walton plus the ugly game made it less than compelling. Switched over to the Japanese channel and NHK had a year-end highlight show of the sumo season. Boy did that kick ass in HD. You can see all the sumo dudes' back hairs. Plus it's the only sport where I can watch with grandma and mom and they'll both know way more than I do about the sport. Heck, it's probably the only sport I can watch with them, period.

Happy Christmas

Went out to DanShui (淡水) with the girl who Aunt Dai seems to have chosen as my fixup special. Met her a couple of times that last time I was back, but never really got a chance to talk to her as we were usually out with a bunch of a-mah's. DanShui is at the end of the subway's red line, about a 45-minute ride out. It's the entrance to the river that leads into Taipei, and they'd fixed up the area so that there's a nice pier and a fisherman's wharf along the waterfront. There's even a spiff little bridge called Valentine Bridge (turns out it was dedicated on Valentine's Day) with plenty of couples holding hands strolling across. I don't think we were ready for anything that hot and heavy yet. The view of the expansive sea and the setting sun made for a nice alternative from crowded and claustrophic downtown Taipei. Although the crowd seemed more inclined to admire the backhoes digging out the harbor than look at the scenery. Went back near the train station and wandered past the shops stalls near the river and back through the night market in the streets. Picked up some street food along the way, which were foreign evidence to the American adage that everything tastes good if it's deep fried. The squid balls (round things made of squid puree, not squid testicles, if you were wondering) were especially tasty. Hopefully Taiwan has advanced enough to the point that it's not totally face-losing for the girl to be paying for the snacks, since I had nothing that even resembled small change.

The chat and the strolls were pleasant enough, but I was running out of good material and it's a long train ride back. Then we noticed them starting to fire up the big stage that was in the station plaza. Turned out that the DPP was doing their big Christmas event right there. Taiwan-style politicking is definitely something that I don't see at home, and I'm always up for a 熱鬧 show. What sealed it was the free swag, of course: Santa hats. Not just any old furry Santa hat, either, but hats with blinking LED stars (batteries included). Sure they went a little cheap on the blinkenlights, with only reds and no greens, but no need to quibble over free. An a-cappella group opened the show with Christmas carols. I think I was the only one who got anything out of it, though, as the mostly older folks in the crowd didn't seem to get much out of the English carols. There were speeches by some politicians to warm up the crowd a bit. I was impressed by the guy telling the story of The Gift of the Magi and A Christmas Carol in Taiwanese. Not so impressed by his carol singing. They were promising more prominent guests to come, and it turned out that Chen Shui Bien did make an appearance later, but we just had to leave when some dude came up and started cranking out the most god-awful wannabe rock-n-roll carols. I only stood for it as long as I did (despite her obvious discomfort) because I was totally impressed by the sound system they had. Plenty of bass impact, of course, but surprisingly clear, and there was even a dash of soundstage. Bought a DPP shirt as a Taiwan souvenir before we bailed. It was kinda expensive for a shirt in Taiwan, but it counts as a campaign contribution. At least it was a DPP shirt so I can wear it at home without being disowned.

It was past 9pm when we caught the train back toward Taipei, and there were still middle-school kids getting in and out in their school uniforms. Glad it's not me, is all I can say. Meant to go to The Coffee Bean, to show some initiative after being led around all day, but it looks like they've closed down since I've been in last. Had to resort to Starbucks, which is a perfectly pleasant place to hang out in, actually. The latte was acceptable, but the large cup had so much milk in it that it was hard to taste the coffee. I thought she lived along the blue line, but it turned out that she had to go back to Taipei Main Station to transfer back to the red line, plus she had class the next morning. So I convinced her that she didn't need to walk me all the way home, plus that she should wear her blinking Santa hat home on the subway.

The girl? She's nice. Really, super-duper extra extremely nice. Probably too nice. I'm capable of being nice and polite on a short-term basis, but I do need my ass kicked once in a while. It's only one day in a year and a half, though, so who knows.

The Jungle

"Welcome to the jungle
We got fun 'n' games"
— Guns 'N Roses

"The line of the buildings stood clear-cut and black against the sky; here and there out of the mass rose the great chimneys, with the river of smoke streaming away to the end of the world." — Upton Sinclair

Hopped on a flight for a lightning-trip to Hong Kong. Uncle wanted to show off the factories for a while so he wasn't going to miss the chance while everyone was here. A longer trip would've been nice, especially since we're losing one day to Shenzhen, but Sam and Dad are flying back to the U.S. the day after we get back. A van was waiting at the airport to take us directly into China. That made for an awful lot of border control forms to fill out. The recent SARS scare doubled the paperwork, too.

"Do you show any SARS symptoms?"

"Of course not. Who the hell would be stupid enough to say yes?"

All the flying and driving took their toll and I was feeling a bit queasy by the time we reached the border, so I was actually glad to get out of the car to go through Chinese customs. We were mixed in amongst the hordes of people heading both in and out, moving in convoys of tour busses. My jaw just about dropped to the floor when we got through customs and onto the main road into Shenzhen. Hong Kong's array of buildings are impressive feats of engineering, but they are strewn around the islands, squeezed into the limitations of the geography. Central Shenzhen is a concentrated effort to maximize the amount of housing given a (relatively) unlimited amount of land. A wall of huge apartment buildings sprung almost full-ground right out of the ground. The buildings stilled appeared relatively pristine, despite the horribly dirty air and the huge amount of dust in the air, making it all seem rather miraculous. The roads were wide to accommodate the traffic, but I'm sure even then the infrastructure is stretched to the breaking point. The scary thing is that these are relatively middle-class dwellings (the workers would just live in dorms at the factories), and in the end it's still just a drop in the bucket. Mom started coughing and sneezing at the border and didn't get better until we got into the clean rooms at the factory.

Turned out that the factory wasn't in Shenzhen proper, but in DongGuan (東關), another 45 minutes inland on the new turnpike, which was a bit further than we expected. The ride was smooth enough, just that breathing was a misery. We weren't the first factory in Dongguan 13 years ago, but now we're probably the largest and oldest one left, as low-tech manufacturers moved further inland in search of even cheaper labor and land. Meanwhile, a bustling town has sprung up, first with small shops, and now with gleaming mini-malls and high-rise apartments getting set to open. We've been happy to stay and expand, too, as building #5 is going up, and #1-4 are already going 24/7/361 (give or take Chinese New Year, Labor Day, and Independence Day).

The buildings weren't impressive-looking, mostly pastel green tiles. What's the deal with the tiles and Chinese buildings anyway, Sam and I wondered. We figured that it was just the cheapest and easiest way to pretty up these generic industrial prefabbed concrete buildings. The main building is nice on the inside, though, with plenty of marble, wood, and leather to show off for visiting folks. There's a low cubicle farm for the office girls, a taller cubicle farm for the (mostly Taiwanese) executives, and a big office for The Man, with a bedroom (complete with Taiwanese satellite TV) hidden in the back for long stays.

One of the managers (the grandson of grandmother's uncle on her father's side, Pitt educated, and talk about Pitt, Larry Fitzgerald got robbed on the Heisman) took us around and explained the manufacturing process.

1. Individual LED dice is separated from the wafer and placed onto a PC-board or lamp-holder.
2. A wire is micro-welded between the dice and the board, with an extra dab of silver solder for stability. You can now apply power to the chip and have it light up.
3. The board or lamp is encapsulated in epoxy, which protects the dice and acts as a lens.
4. The row of lamps or a boardful of SMD components are separated and each individually tested for brightness and wavelength purity, then binned appropriately.
5. The LEDs are mounted in their final housing and packaged for shipping.

Sounds simple enough, but there's plenty of precision machinery required to make it all happen 1e7 times a day without error. A surprising amount of the equipment (especially in QA) was custom-made, and he showed us the machine shop where high-tech CAM machinery were accompanied by grease monkeys hammering away on chunks of steel. There were lots of injection-molding equipment, too, for everything from the housing of alphanumeric LED displays, to the shipping containers for the displays themselves. The vertical integration and in-house tech helps improve the quality and really helps with turnaround time for new products. Really important in a field like LED where an exponential combination of color, brightness, and form factors are available. It was fun to see the improvement in the speed of production as we went from older to newer machines. Hey, we'll run 'em as long as they work. Also interesting to note that all the outside machinery manufacturers sent large wreaths and many people to grandfather's funeral.

Drove back to Hong Kong and got to our hotel at about 7pm. Was stuck at the border crossing for 45 minutes, and had nothing better to do than to marvel at all the late-model HK-registered Mercedes. With four numbers on the plate, there's a 65.6% chance that it will not contain an 8. Based on our observations, there's a significant correlation between Mercedes and 8's on the license plate. Tried to pick out a good place to eat in Tsim Sha Tsui amongst the bewildering array of places, and ended up at a Szechwan place. The water-cooked beef was actually swimming in oil flavored by chilies and peppercorns, but I knew that going in. It was tongue-numbing, due to the Szechwan peppercorns, and hot, of course, but not tongue-searing hot. Quite tasty, actually, and great with rice. Dad and I like it, anyway. As for mom and Sam, at least the crispy-skin fish was good, too.

Had a good night's sleep and went out in search of breakfast. There were more foofy boutiques than you can shake a stick at, but not a decent coffeeshop in sight at 9:30am. Finally found a bread shop in the bowels of one of the many underground shopping arcades and picked up some pastries to eat in Salisbury Garden. The red bean bun was tasty enough, but the coffee was pure crap. Sure it was only coffee from some random cheap pastry shop, but it could've been good. The machine ground whole beans and made the coffee automatically without any intervention from the (cute but mostly useless) sales girls. Stupid machines.

Did the tiniest bit of touring, as we walked down to the Star Ferry Terminal for a quick hop across Victoria Harbor. HK$2.2 each for Sam and I, mom and dad rode for free as seniors. No wonder the SE-Asian maids prefer this ride. And even with the hazy air you can't beat the view for the price, hence the many tourists on the boat. Admired the spiff skyscrapers in Central (amazing what nice designs big banking bucks can buy), then took the subway back across (HK$9 per for adults, half price for seniors).

Hit a Shanghai place for lunch. The big plate of perfectly cooked beef tendon sure hit the spot. Cheap, too. Got back to the hotel and waited for aunt to get in. She was coming to meet uncle and do some banking business (i.e. sign her name to lots of random paper). Oh, and to shop, of course. Mom and aunt picked up some ridiculously cheap fleece pullovers (now that the funeral is over they can get the red ones) on closeout, which was a nice deal. That was only a warmup, though, as Mom's favorite jewelry store is directly across the street from the hotel, and they couldn't resist dropping in.

The sales dude recognized mom even though she hadn't visited for a few years. I'm sure he remembered her expenditures, too, and he started to lay down the schmooze right away, while the attending ladies scurried about bringing tea (Brit tea on nice china) and water for everyone. Despite mom's protests that she wasn't looking to buy anything, the salesman still managed to reel her in with a diamond brooch of a flower bouquet, with a couple of 11mm light-pink pearls acting as the flower bulbs. Actually, I had my eyes on the piece when we first sat down. Yay me. It's nominally for grandma, but mom'll "share" it when grandmother isn't wearing it. It's not as if either of them wear fancy jewelry all that often anyway. It's kinda like my buying anime DVD sets that I never get around to watching, except with two orders of price difference. Personally, I would've bought the new PowerBook. It would match a nice black jacket just as well.

Moved on down to the Peninsula Hotel's shopping arcade. The Pen is old school, old money, and the shops show it. That's when Prada, Dior, and Ferragamo are the bourgeois brands along the streetfront, with more upscale stuff tucked away discreetly on the inside. Looked around, but we really didn't need formal clothes, and felt silly buying casual clothes at formal prices when we usually balk at paying full-fare at The Gap. Well, mom did get a handbag, but that's like a methadone shot. Besides, she didn't have a small, black, leather bag before. Tried to get a reservation at The Spring Moon upstairs, but they were booked solid long ago.

Sam and I hit HMV while mom and aunt went back to the hotel. Sam got bored quickly and went back, too, but I went through the store and tried every listening station that wasn't Britney+Kylie+Madonna. Picked up J-Pop, Mandarin-Pop, 80's Brit-Pop, and some kitschy Chinese instrumental thing that's "taking the Japanese music scene by storm." Take Five doesn't really sound good on native Chinese instruments, but the album was cheap, especially considering it's two discs, and the musicians are apparently all pretty girls in slinky dresses. Maybe I should've got the concert DVD instead. And then there was the album of French songs done in Bossa Nova style by a Japanese artist. Spent enough money to get a little dog toy. Could've registered to win an N-Gage, too, but I demurred.

Waited for uncle to get out from Shenzhen, and everyone was more than ready to eat by the time he arrived. He led us down the street and then ducked into a side alley and up a few flights of stairs to a surprisingly large restaurant that was absolutely jam-packed with locals. This would normally be a good sign, except we had just about the worst service that I've ever experienced at a restaurant. I don't mind taking some time to finish my meal, and the food itself was plenty good enough, but the pacing was just absolutely awful and the waitstaff was totally unresponsive. The roast pig and duck came right away since cold-cuts are easy, and then it was an agonizing wait for the hot dishes. Even then there were noticeable failings, like half the veggie platter was cold because one station was too far ahead of the other. The noodles came last, after everyone was already full, and let's not even get started on the saga of the soup, except that I guess I should be glad as an environmental supporter that they didn't put nearly as much shark fin into the soup as we expected. Sure was glad Sam was there so I had somebody to talk to. Glad to have him and uncle's single-malt, anyway.

Next morning was a little better, as I finally had a measure of success in my search for a decent cup of (non-Starbucks) coffee in Asia. There was a little hole-in-the-wall coffee place around the block that actually had an honest-to-goodness espresso machine instead of those awful one-button automatic things. It wasn't great or anything, but it was perfectly drinkable in the morning and not that expensive. Just had enough time to wash down the taro bun before catching the taxi out to the bank, where we all crammed into the claustrophobic conference room with the bank folks and Jessica the CPA. Signed what they put in front of me, as our account manager pushed investment funds complicated enough to even make my eyes glaze over.

How about a fund that invests soley in HSBC?

• On the starting date:
  

  Buy HSBC stock and notes with principal
  Initial Price = Price of HSBC stock at starting date
  

• One year after the starting date:
  

  If (HSBC stock price > the initial price) {
    Return(principal + 7% profit);
    Close Fund;
  }
  Else {Wait for a year}
  

• If the fund is still open, then at the end of two years:
  

  If (HSBC's stock price > initial price) {
    Return(principal + 14% return)
    Close Fund;
  }
  Else {Wait for a year}
  

• If the fund is still open, then at the end of three years:
  

  If (HSBC > Initial Price) {
    Return( principal + 21% profit );
  }
  Else If (HSBC < Inital Price and HSBC > 95% of Initial Price) {
    Return ( principal + 3% of principal );
    Apologize to customer for being a lousy investment;
  }
  Else If (HSBC < 95% of Initial Price) {
    Return ( the shares of HSBC that the principal bought initially + 3% of principal );
    Commit seppuku for sucking ass;
  }
  Close the Fund;
  

• That's it, thanks for playing!

Some crazy Excel jockey spent a lot of time cooking that one up. Heck, it's not too different from laying a proposition bet at Vegas. Looking at HSBC's stock chart, it looks like the fund is selling a mostly risk-free (only horrible result is if HSBC is below 95% of initial price after three years) return, but if HSBC rises more than 7% per annum, the bank gets the profit above 7% instead of us. Seems like a fair enough bet, at least it seemed that way when we looked at the tiny stock graph in the brochure and the 500-day moving average. Heck, anything is better than money market returns right now.

So that was that. Mom went off in search of dried seafoods that only Chinese people would eat, and we went back to the hotel to catch up on sleep and watch some Premier League football commentated in Cantonese. The flight back was uneventful, except we had some time to marvel at the hugeness that is HKG. A planeful of people just seem lost inside the huge halls.

Posted by mikewang on 05:14 PM

Chop Chop

Now that the funeral is over, we're now into meet-and-greet mode. I can shave and cut my hair, now, too. Aunt Dai's restaurant folded. Taiwan isn't really ready for real French food and Taiwan-ified French food isn't very good, frankly. So she's gone back to being a landlord, and rented the place out to a slick new hair salon. Being the way she is, she's still pushing the services to friends and family, even if she's no longer directly involved in the operation. Not real big on fancy salons, but there's something to be said for having a pretty girl give you a long scalp message as she shampoos your hair. Carson's the hairburner in charge, although I thought it was "Cousins" at first, but as long as everyone was sticking with the Chin-glish pronounciation there was no confusion. Didn't want anything too fancy and he was obliging. A shorter (but not buzzed), cleaner look, but with some care and fancy scissorwork (it's all about shears in the hip holster) to shape and texturize. I'm usually wary about having the hair too short as the stiff strands tend to pop up all over the place, but the new cut really bounced right back into place after a quick rinse. Felt kinda bad for him being browbeaten into cutting the hair for free, so I left a tip (which was about what I would've paid for a cheap haircut at home anyway), and bought some ($) styling cream. I've been meaning to get some nicer products anyway, and Kyan is very anti-gel.

Rest of the family met me at the salon and we walked down the road to the restaurant to meet one of dad's old army friends (and his wife) for lunch. The haircut ran a little long, so they'd already ordered a long list of dishes, and he kept trying to make us order more food. Would've been a perfectly pleasant (if a little heavy) lunch otherwise. Mom finally deflected the pestering by ordering half-portion's worth of dessert. Unfortunately, she ordered the one thing that had to be slow-cooked for 40 minutes. Oops. They had plenty to talk about anyway, so it wasn't totally awful.

Mom and dad took the taxi home while Sam and I walked back along ZhongXiao East Rd. (中孝東路). Tower Records was next door to the restaurant, and they were blowing out the inventory in a door-closing sale. Too bad all the good stuff were already cleaned out. Sam wanted to look into jeans, but fashionable stores really aren't the place to look for deals (yes, Polo Ralph Lauren jeans cost just as much, if not more, in Taiwan than in the States). Also stopped in at a bookstore. Browsed through the magazine racks. Funny how the Leading Fashion section were filled with Japanese and English mags. Talk about imports, there's the Louis Vuitton magazine in Japanese, and there was even a Beckett's Baseball Monthly, although I don't know how you would find baseball cards in Taiwan. Sam got some classic Chinese stories for kids with ZhuYing on the side. He was inspired by how many characters he actually recognized in the Buddhist sutras. Let's see if he actually grinds through the books when not being forced to speed-read by chanting monks. He picked up some Sanrio (but not Hello Kitty!) stationary for Michelle, too.

Got home and went out with Uncle #3 to the local hyper-mart to look for some jeans. Apparently they take the overstock from Taiwan factories left over from their OEM clients, rebadge them and sell them cheap. Mom got me a nice pair of khakis that way last time. But no go with the jeans, as either the size or the style (or both) were all wrong. That wasn't going to stop mom, though, not when she's in a store that's a three-story monstrosity filled with every (cheap) necessity of life. Some girl ran away from home and managed to live in the place for a month without anyone noticing. Mom decided to go with the snack-food plan and filled up the cart with cookies and things. We passed on the wall of dried fish snacks, though. I hit the CD section, which was small, but I was looking for pop stuff anyway. They had cheap anime soundtracks, too, $3 compared to $10 in the U.S. They're even legal, when you buy them in Taiwan.

Uncle #3 is the only one who can still handle the gladiatorial bloodsport that is Taipei driving, which is totally cool, although I've already gotten kinda used to being chauffered around in BMWs and Mercedes instead of being crammed three-wide in the back of a Civic. Got home just in time for dinner, as Uncle #5 is leaving that night back to the States (he's already been here for three weeks and he figured he should at least show up for the company Christmas party), although Aunt and Abby are staying another week or so. Would've liked to get everyone together to see Return Of The King, and Abby was dead-set on going anyway, but we have to go out to eat with people for lunch and dinner, and Uncle and Aunt declined for Alan as he had three papers he had to finish, since he left school before finals were over. It was a thought, anyway.

Meta Meta

There are so damn many Christmas shopping guides around that we now have a guide to the guides. Maybe I'm just slightly bitter because I'm pretty much gadgeted out for a while. I could double the speed of my PC (my upgrade flag) for about $250, but it's not pressing. I can double the performance of the Powerbook for about $2500. The only reason I'd even consider it is because dad wants to have a nicer wireless laptop downstairs than Sam's old and crippled PB1400.

Argh, Apple releases a new OS update that I can't download because I'm stuck on dial-up here in Taiwan. I'm getting shivery withdrawl symptoms already.

Today Is The Big Day

Was roused out of bed at 3 am to catch a charter bus with the rest of the family. Got to the mortuary and had a mercifully short ceremony to seal the casket. Then it was a little while before the rest of the ZhuDong people came by to take the bus with us back to Taipei for the memorial service.

Yesterday was the final day of the pre-funeral ceremonies. It was only half a day, but after all the days before, the extra time on my feet was just torture. Thankfully they gave us a copy of the sutras to follow along. Even if I didn't follow all the chants and characters, at least it was something to occupy my mind. The day before we had no such luxury, and all I could do was to fidget and wish for the monks to turn the pages faster. They moved grandfather into the coffin at the end, and that was when mom cried.

Today must've been a fortuitous day for funerals, as the Memorial Halls No. 2 were filled with half a dozen services running simultaneously. Grandmother came by briefly to see the hall and the coffin, but she was distraught and Mr. Lee took her home quickly after.

The ceremony itself was more of the same, except now there was an M.C. running the show in front of a hallful of people. The monks wore their nice robes. A little old-fashioned social order was in order, as the worship order went: sons, wife of sons, sons of sons, daughter of sons, daughter, husband of daughter, and then sons of daughter (that would be us). Good thing we don't have a sister, otherwise she would've been waaaay at the end. That was only the start anyway, as we had to stand up front as various people came up to pay their respects. It was a lesson on doing business in Asia, as most of the folks were customers, clients, or benefactors of uncles' companies. Grandfather's actual friends were all lumped into one group near the end, actually. Although to be fair there aren't that many of them left at this point in time. Brocade Communications was the one U.S. company I recognized. One group missed their turn. I wonder if there will be repercussions. Not surprised by various technological and optoelectronics companies present, but I sure was surprised by the amount of banks and brokerages that sent people. Like half the groups that came up were financial. At least one of them wasn't there purely for form's sake, as the bank mom used to work for sent some people and they were the only ones who went by the women's side to shake her hand instead of coming to the men's side to greet the uncles.

After the ceremony was over, it was back to the bus for the ride up to the grave site. The Japanese restaurant that uncle partially owns made some kick-ass bentos for us to eat on the bus. The site is another hour north of Taipei, up some windy roads to a spot overlooking the sea. They weren't finished with all the fancy construction yet, but just statistically the plot cost almost as much as the apartment (albeit 20 years ago) and it's almost as big, too. Most of the time was taken up by the platoon of burly men hauling the heavy coffin up the hill and into position. There was a final bit of chanting, and then it was done. Another long busride home, we fed the monks, who did a final bit of chanting and incense-lighting to set up the altar at home before leaving. We took some family pictures, as long as everyone was there with nice clothes on.

Everyone went out to the Japanese retaurant for dinner. Got to experience some of the good-old daredevil Taipei taxi-driving as not everyone fit in the cars. It's like sitting in an F-Zero cockpit. Sat in the new upstairs section that wasn't there when I was back last. It has big rooms with regular seating instead of tatami seating, and a nice little koi pond in the middle. A surprisingly tasteful music mix, too, with some Beatles and Simon&Garfunkel. The food was great as always. Some really simple, minimal dishes, and some boldly flavored ones, too. The sashimi were the basics, not the super-fancy toro, etc., but they were still fat slices of tasty super-fresh fish. Got a first taste of single-malt whiskey, too. Strong stuff, and tasty in small sips. The flavor evaporates straight off the tongue with the alcohol. Even Alan got a (tiny, tiny) taste, as it was his birthday, albeit the 16th instead of the 21st. Didn't really drink enough to get totally smashed, but Sam and my faces were pretty red by the end. Good way finally sleep off the jet-lag, anyway.

Respects

Landed at 10:15, got in at around 11, and went to bed at 12 after getting the Airport Base Station up and running. Good old Apple plug-and-play. Had to get up at 6am. That's fine, none of us could sleep anyway with the jet lag, even if the time difference was nominally in our favor. Had to get up early to drive to the mortuary in ZhuDong (竹東), the old family village. It was an hour on the new #3 Freeway, in our convoy of German cars. Passed by many neon-lit betel-nut booths (complete with betel-nut-beauties inside, Sam thought they were prostitutes from his experiences in the Amsterdam red-light district), and ugly semi-rural concrete construction along the way. Lit some incense and viewed the body. I suppose I can say the standard refrains like how peaceful he looked, as if he were sleeping, etc., etc. In truth, he looked quite dead. It happens to everybody.

That was only the start of the ceremonies. Everyone put on black robes and the monks came in to start the chanting. There were much bowing, some kneeling, and more incense than you can shake a stick at. Couldn't follow the sing-song and the chanting, it being in Taiwanese and all, but I do listen to Gregorian chant, and this was pretty much the Buddhist equivalent except they had an electric organ and a percussion section. I could put myself in the right frame of mind and appreciate the cultural significance, even if I'm only barely connected to the traditions involved.

There were three altars. One was for remembrance, with a picture of the deceased and wreaths from all and sundry. One was the spiritual altar, with brocaded tapestries of Buddha and holy spirits. The holy spirits have halos around them, not unlike the medieval saints. Sam thought maybe the Buddhist influenced the Christians, I figure that it was an affectation brought over by the Christian missionaries. And then there was the materialist altar, with all the paper goods and possessions ready to be blessed and sent off to the afterlife via fire. I didn't know if grandfather liked karaoke, but he's getting a KTV machine in the great beyond.

The prayers went in one-hour shifts. Various distant relatives came by to pay their respects for various lengths of time. Broke for lunch after the monks blessed the catered (vegetarian) meal, making sure to leave a bowl of rice for the deceased. The various faux-meat soy products were surprisingly tasty, though mostly because of lots of oil and a good pinch of MSG. It was time to get hard-core after lunch. We hired five monks to recite ten volumes' worth of sutras. We were doing three volumes today. Couldn't do anything other than sit there stupidly for the first volume. They finally gave us a copy of the sutras to follow along for the second volume, which wasn't much help either, since they were going so damn fast, in Taiwanese, using obscure characters I don't recognize, in a religion that I've never gotten into. Still, I got into the rhythm of the chanting, and even the Taiwanese pronunciation kinda made sense after a while. Sam caught some page turns, too, when I was totally lost.

We were pretty much with it through the third volume, even though the monks cranking it up a notch to TurboChantExtreme++. It was Buddhism by osmosis, as I had to get into a Zen state to keep up, which made the flood of characters in the archaic phrasing almost make sense. Fun to see the parallels between the Buddhist teachings and the Christian scriptures. Praise to the great and powerful god, with the promises of redemption for doing good, and punishment for doing bad. Of course, that's a superficial description of every damn religion, so nothing deep there. Volume 3 was kinda fun, though, as it was outlining the gruesome punishments in store for you in Hell for committing various crimes. For example, if you provide poisons for abortion, you are doomed to end up in Hell as a lump of meat, with no arms, legs, eyes, nose, or ears. Birds will come and peck at your flesh and cause excruciating, unrelenting pain forever and ever. And you thought the Christian Coalition was hard-core.

All the time on my feet and the bowing were exhausting, and everyone was glad for the ceremony to finish. They are doing five more volumes tomorrow, but thankfully there will be another batch of cousins here to pick up the slack then. Two more volumes on the day after that, plus more ceremonies that we'll all have to show up for. In the good old days, when the entire extended family was in the same village instead of spread out all over the planet, we'd be doing this for three days and three nights, so we're getting off easy.

3am PST, god knows when local time

Just breezed by Tokyo on the way to Taipei. Three and a half more hours of flight time. Even with the precious few extra inches of space in Deluxe Class, I still can't find a sleeping position that doesn't put some strange and uncomfortable stress on my body. So I'm giving up on sleep and hoping that my iPod's battery holds up. We're in the last row of the section, which is good in that we can lean back without guilt, but it seems like we're near an AC outlet, so there's some extra noise that's still quite audible even with the Etys in. My ear canals feel swollen and irritated since I don't usually keep the Etys stuck in for so long, but the noise is just intolerable otherwise.

Hey cool, I can totally see the lights of Japan out the window. Even 39K feet up, you can see the dense blanket of light clearly delineating the small islands below. It's been an otherwise unexciting flight so far, which is good when you're 9500m up in the air over deep ocean, I guess. The food was surprisingly good (hooray for ice cream sandwiches), the coffee and wine were expectedly wretched. Thank god for the in-flight map, the best invention ever for the obsessive-compulsive traveller. It's more entertaining than the movies, anyway. It'll be good to get in tired, since it'll be 10:30pm local time when we land.

Warming Up

Flew home to get a good night's sleep before the trans-Pacific marathon out of SFO tomorrow. The shuttle driver was coming from North County and got caught in the rush-hour mess at the 8-805 merge. Then he couldn't find my building in the complex so I had to lug my stuff across the street to meet him at the leasing office. Of course, the shuttle's late when I have the maxi-size roller carry-on, but way early when I had nothing but the computer. Thought about the two-dollar tip plan, but I had exactly three singles in my wallet, and this trip is all about the good karma.

Turned out I got an A boarding pass anyway, since the flight was only half full. The flight was a little bumpy, so I entertained myself with Spirit, Southwest's magazine. I've flown Southwest often enough to have seen plenty of issues, and they're always pleasantly innocuous and competently vacuous. Then I saw this hard-hitting headline:

Diabetes: Diffusing An Epidemic

Complete with an accompanying picture of a basket of fries with dangerous-looking wires and a ticking timer sticking out of it. It's one thing to miss a mistake in the middle of an article, another thing entirely when the biggest headline in the magazine makes you look like an illiterate editor. Somebody is going to lose their job over this one. That's too bad, since the magazine had a nice Q&A with Annie Duke (the world's coolest soccer mom), too.

Second-Grade Analysis

Joan Ryan rocks, and Abercrombie&Fitch sucks, and I'm not just talking about their November same-store-sales either. The Gap stores might be a little too ubiquitous and the designs a little too sterile, but at least there was an SEAsian-looking guy working the jeans and a nice older lady herding the long checkout line when I wandered in on Sunday. The prices aren't horrible if one sticks to the sale items. Picked up a white oxford shirt and a ribbed T. Might've got some more stuff, too, except it's just too damn hard to find things that fit right. The oxford shirt wasn't too bad, as I could tjuzs (could we include that in the Scrabble dictionary please?) the sleeves a bit to make it work, and I found the one XS-sized T in the stack. However, the sleeves were way too long on other Small shirts. 30-leg jeans worked for me in the past, but now they extend like 6 inches beyond the bottom of my feet. I know that's the fashion now, but it does make them a little hard to wear around the house. Maybe I should do some clothes shopping when I'm in Taiwan.

The original reason I went to the mall in the first place was to play some Magic. Somebody was hosting a Type 1 tournament, except nobody showed up! I guess all the Magic players were at Don's tournament for the day. I was hoping to finally get a chance to play with the power, too. The same folks were also hosting a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament, and I sat around and watched them play long enough to pick up the game (not that there's much to it). You can do some pretty sick stuff when there's no land and no casting cost restrictions. The tiny-print on the cards (even when it's only one line!) drove me nuts, though, since that makes it tough to read over people's shoulder.

It Was An Idea

Thought about a trip to Italy sometime, but not if the dollar is stuck at record lows against the Euro. This in the face of rocketing U.S. growth in factory output, productivity, and hiring in the service sector, thanks to a strong start in holiday shopping. The stock market is rising with the good news, so why does the greenback continue to suck wind?

The brutal U.S. government and trade deficits (even if some folks aren't worried) will eventually force interest rates to rise. That would be okay, if the government debt were being spent to create economically beneficial infrastructure, and the trade deficit went toward pro-growth, profit-making vehicles. Instead, the government money is being pissed down the black holes of Iraq and Medicare, and the trade deficit is being spent on consumer goods that do nothing but depreciate. The nominal justification for a weak dollar, that it would help exports, doesn't fly with China, since the Chinese Yuan is pegged to the US Dollar, a policy that's not likely to change. This forces China to eat Treasury Bonds to counteract the trade imbalance. I'm sure they're doing their share of risk-hedging in the meantime, which would only drive interest rates up (i.e. drive bond prices down). That's all well and good when it's (nuclear-armed) governments dealing, but currency traders aren't known for niceties when they smell blood.

At least the job market is picking up a little bit, or so the numbers say. They hired 137,000 more people in October, 57,000 people in November, and unemployment rate is down to 5.9%. Um, seasonal adjuments anyone? The extra Christmas greeters at every store and mini-mall in the land easily accounts for those jobs, not to mention the scabs they had to hire to run SoCal grocery stores. If the moron who tried to check me out at Best Buy on Black Friday were any indication (although it's not really their fault that the WinNT-based POS terminal crashed), most of these folks will be dumped out on their asses as soon as the XMas rush is over.

Baaaaaaaaa

Combine clean American design, Japanese brand worship, and human herd instinct, and you get The Longest Line, a mini-movie commemorating the opening of Apple's flagship Ginza store. I'm sure they sold a buttload of iPods that day, among other things. Looks like Apple is pushing iPods in Taiwan, too. That should go well, since Taiwan tends to slavishly follow Japanese trends.

Everything You Need To Know

From the moronicity of another idiotic Ask Slashdot question comes a nugget of useful information. A fine overview of light-emitting diode technology and applications, courtesy of Maxim Integrated Products. The chart at the bottom is great for the people who think LCD, LED, and OLED are somehow the same thing (they're not).

Those Crazy Kids

Only at Stereophile would the iPod be considered the "Budget" Product of the Year. That's a pretty big concession as it is. The original review contained plenty of snide asides about fashionistas and beautiful people toting iPods in the streets of New York. And for that Stereophile touch of overkill:

For the purposes of the following comparisons, I ran the line-out from the docking cradle (thus bypassing the iPod's volume control) to a Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista 300 integrated amplifier, which drove a pair of Amphion Xenon floorstanding loudspeakers. I used Shunyata Research Lyra speaker cables and a Kimber Kable stereo mini-to-RCA interconnect.

I love the iPod as much as anybody, but I don't think I'll be using one as the primary source to drive a $6K amp and $3.6K speakers. Although I did use it to drive the HT system at home during Thanksgiving, since I couldn't tote CDs with me. 192Kbps AAC didn't sound as good as Redbook, but that could just be the placebo effect talking. A little dynamics was missing, which is more likely due to deficiencies in the iPod's headphone output than anything else.

The iPod sure makes me a lot less tolerant of muzak. I've got my own muzak now, damn it.

Ad Copy Of The Day

As seen on a billboard at the 80-101 merge on the way back from the airport:

Chevy Malibu: More fun to drive than a Camry

Sure, the Camry is a popular car and a great daily driver, but it's not at the top of the fun-to-drive scale. I've driven the Malibu as a rental a few times, and fun to drive it was not. So the Malibu is being compared to the not-so-fun Camry to make its suckitude less apparent? Now the iPod billboards? Kick ass.