Taipei, Taiwan

Went to Taipei yesterday with to hunt down and acquire a sampler. I ended up with a digicam instead. Guanghua St. is loaded with these small shops hawking laptops, cameras and very very leetle mp3 players. The dozens of places we visited had about the same price for gear, but it was worth the exploration to find a place to shave a few hundred $NT off. A new camera was needed because my old one would start up about 40% of the time with a purple flickery screen. I had to give it a good thwack or 7 for the internal wiring to reconnect and be able to take pictures again. If that solution isn't proof that my 5 years of engineering education were worth the time and money, I don't know what is.

When clubbing in Taiwan as interns we go out baller style. Bottle service at our reserved corner table, a touch of Hugo Boss on my neck and Johnny Walker in my glass. Definitely a bit different then kicking it, sipping Lonestar at the Proletariat while one of my sound bwoys drops something fresh and abstract on the decks. The concepts are the same as getting paid large and spending it to look good in Manhattan or the financial district in San Francisco. The stereotypes of dudes looking for play, women dredging the creek bottom and people hustling to make connections and things happen are just as apt here.

I can get buy food, get around and have a good time in Taiwan without Mandarin or Taiwanese skills, but not being able to communicate is frustrating in surprising ways. It is the subtleties that get lost... Sometimes a quick turn of phrase or a dab of charm is needed, but I just don't have the delivery. I'd get one of those pocket digital translators, but I'd get robbed trying to bargain.

I was reading 'The World is Flat' on the way to Taipei. Outside my bus window pass forests, temples, semiconductor foundries and ugly uninspiring apartment blocks that could have been easily found in Newark or the outskirts of any other metropolis. A motivation for this trip is to gain perspective and some understanding of the forces shaping the beginning of the twenty first century. Before that was 'Kafka on the Shore' by Murakami. I eat up that magic realism stuff like a large helping of mango shaved ice milk. I hope that the things I see and the people I talk to make fertile my dreams and my imagination. The challenge for me is how to make this journey like the last few pages of a Garcia Marquez novel... How do I find a concise way to tie together these two personal motivations? And what do I do then?