Leapsa

To respond Dora :)
Three things I want to do till I die: go to Cluj, go to full moon party, have my own children
Three things I don't understand: myself, feelings, human nature
Three things I have now on my desk: some photos, some books, and my laptop

one year ago

Taiwan night
Originally uploaded by Michelle_Chen

Today I got a mail from AIESEC Cluj-Napoca.
The AIESECers are really nice to update ex-trainees and SNs with what they have done recently and what has happened around Romania.
It is so nice to see the smiling faces from the pictures, to know that my dear Romanian friends are happy as always.
Yet it is also so strange when I recall what had happened last year at the time of a year and to see that I'm not there with them anymore.
It was the period that I crazily fell in love with Romania and then decided to stay longer, and it was the most correct decision I had made.
The 2006 summer in Romania was really unforgettable for me.
I'm now also doing well but just want to say that I'm so happy to have been to Romania and spent such a wonderful time with such amazing people.
I'm so lucky that I'm always surrounded by great people.

my 25-year-old memory

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinshian0503/sets/72157600330992678/

不要愛我

不要愛我　我害怕失去你而心粹　害怕面對承諾的不悔　陪著我走入深淵
不要愛我　我害怕面對你的誘惑　害怕未來故事的背後　不可告人的折磨
愛就像一陣煙又一轉眼　來去你和我之間　是無所謂又最飄忽的感覺
我只要一個吻或一雙眼　就看透了你的一切　是最濃烈最輕浮的表面
我不再如此渴望　讓幸福圍繞身旁
把愛情的謊　當作是虛幻假象
埋藏我彼憊的心　埋藏我所有慾望
把愛情的謊　給通通都遺忘　遺忘給通通都遺忘
我只能說　愛的盡頭是虛空　讓我孤獨的走　連最後一秒也不停留
我不再如此渴望　讓幸福圍繞身旁　把愛情的謊　當作是虛幻假象
埋藏我疲憊的心　埋藏我所有慾望　把愛情的謊　給通通都遺忘　遺忘
遺忘我所有悲傷　永遠不會再悲傷　我不再悲傷　不再悲傷　悲傷

in ASUS

I started working in ASUS since the beginning of this month and how do I feel now?
Excellent I would say!
On my first day of being on board, my big boss encouraged every one of us not to work overtime and said that every day, we should preserve at least 20% of time for ourselves.
My mentor and other colleagues are great.
There's no office politics here and I strongly believe that we, as a team, can achieve our goal by working closely with each other.
I've been busy with the trainings and market surveys, but at the same time also really appreciate the opportunities that ASUS has offered to every employee.
Sometimes I also make mistakes, but they're precious experience for me to learn from these mistakes.
Anyway this is a short update to let everyone knows that I'm still alive and actually doing quite ok in ASUS :)

evaluation

Let me make an evaluation of the game that I played since coming home.
1.Friends & families: great, I spent time with them and I managed to meet most of the friends finally
2.TOEIC: great, I got a higher score (980) than I expected before.
3.Job: good, I got the offer from ASUS which is my first goal since I would like to do something global and that I love Taiwan, therefore want to promote the Taiwanese brand. But unlike what I planned before to work in the European Sales Department, I’ll work as a marketing PM in Multimedia Department instead. The reasons are that presently there are no job openings in the European Sales Department, I like the job description and culture of Multimedia Department after the interview with my boss, and that I think I still prefer marketing than sales. In this way I won't be able to visit Romania often, but I'll still keep my promise to go back during my vacation for my dear friends there!
4.Conclusion: I'm satisfied with what I have done so far and I'm looking forward to working at ASUS since next Mon.! I believe it'll be a good beginning of my 25-year-old life :)
5. New revolution: learn and absorb as much as I can at work but can also manage to strike the balance between career and my personal life~ 

mafia game in reality

The Mafia game is very popular in AIESEC Cluj and I played a lot with the friends there when I was in Romania.
It is a lot of fun and we can spend hours playing this mafia game until the next morning.
The main idea is that there are killers, a doctor, a police, and villagers in the game and no one knows what the roles other people are.
The killers must convince people that they are innocent while other people must try to catch the killers to save the village.
Recently as I watch a lot of news at home, I'm sorry to find out that everyone in reality is also playing this mafia game: some people are telling lies in order to protect themselves, and we, as innocent villagers, sometimes find it difficult to decide who to trust.
Unfortunately, the world seems to be filled with too many lies.
What can we trust?
The truth is out there?

one month

One Month already since I got home.
What have I done so far?
After relaxing a bit and spending time with my families during the Chinese New Year, I started to study for the TOEIC test which took place this morning.
Surprisingly that during the three weeks, I somehow could manage to concentrate myself on the preparation so much that I felt like again in the last year of senior high school when studying for the Joint College Entrance Examination.
I'll know my score on 4/6, and hope it'll be satisfactory.
Besides, I edited and opened my resume online then received quite some phone calls inviting for interviews.
I went to some of them and got a few offers, but I shall only start to do the job-hunting seriously from tomorrow.
I now feel both nervous and excited about my future job, since it'll greatly influence what learning experiences and life type I’ll have, what new people I'll meet, and how I'll look like in the future.
I'm still confused about the future and don't know if I can once again get used to the working-overtime culture in Taiwan.
But I'm not in a hurry, and I believe gradually I'll find out the answers.
Meanwhile I also met some friends and had a good time chatting with them.
I know there are still many people that I haven't met since my return.
I apologize for that and hope I'll manage to spare time to meet you all.
I also deeply realize that I already move on to the next stage of my life, when meeting with the friends of my age and we were mostly talking about career and marriage; when attending the LCP election of my LC and found out it had been five years since I was elected as the LCP.
Indeed I miss the past very much whenever I recall something, but also understand that I have to grow up and take the challenges in front of me.
Right now I'm no more afraid and ready to create my own story.
So, let the game begin!

Home

Very soon it's been more than a week since I arrived home.
It has been really great to travel around, meet new people, and visit old friends before going home.
It is also so good without saying to enjoy the warmth from the family and keep them company.
But there are also moments when things are so familiar and strange at the same time for me.
First it's now so hot for me in Taiwan after staying in Romania for a long time.
When I arrived in Bangkok it was crazy that I was still wearing the coat and boots with fur inside when it was 35 degree there.
But because I know it's always so hot in Bangkok, the hot weather didn't surprise me and also because of the hot I realized that I was really in Bangkok and I miss this city.
However, when I went back in Taiwan, it was not much cooler with the temperature of about 26~27 degree, and I felt it was warmer than the summer in Cluj sometimes.
These days it has been cooler with about 18~20 degree but it's still too hot for me as the winter.
Second it's just too crowded especially during the Chinese New Year there were people everywhere.
It took us five and half hours to drive back to Taichung because of the traffic jam. (usually it only takes about two hours)
Actually I just feel stressed since I came back home and I don't know if it's somehow related with all these tall buildings, heavy traffic, and dense population.
But it was interesting that there were also some changes in me that I didn't realize until some other people told me.
For example when I met with the international MCs in Bangkok, the three of them all think I have the Romanian accent when I speak English and they were surprised that I was in Romania for only nine months.
I believe there are more changes in me that people will discover and then tell me :)

Although it's been great to come home, at this moment I have to say that somehow I still feel like losing my way in a dense fog and have no idea where the exit is.
There have been too many feelings, emotions, and memories since the day I left Cluj.
At some moments I felt that I miss Cluj so much that I think I have to try my best to go back as often as possible.
There were also moments that I was no more so determined and thought that maybe it was better to just keep those beautiful memories in mind and then move on to start my new life here or in another corner of the world and don't look back so often.
I also realized that I actually missed Bangkok very much when I was finally there, and all the past memories just came back to me like tides.
Sometimes I think I'll get bored if I stay in the same city in Taipei for the rest of my life, but sometimes I feel I need to be surrounded by close friends and can't work alone in a strange country.
"Listen to your inner voice and follow your heart," people say, but what should I do when there are so many voices inside me that I can't find the way my heart really wants to go?
Anyway hopefully soon I'll overcome the reverse culture shock and think clear what I really want in my life for myself, and then just go for it without hesitancy and regret.

some useful links for travel planning

Hospitality Club
http://www.hospitalityclub.org/
Once you register and become a member, you can try to find someone to host you through this website. That was how I find someone to host me in Girona, Spain.

And another two cheap airline:
(the price of the two airlines might not as cheap as Ryanair or Easyjet, but if you consider the trasportation cost from the airport then maybe you can find something good.)

Transavia.com
http://www.transavia.com/
It's a Dutch airline so basically they have more routes from Netherlands.

Vueling.com
http://www.vueling.com/EN/index.php?mode=
You can take a look at this one if you're going to Spain.

some other very useful links:
http://www.whichbudget.com/en/
you can choose the departure location and destination then this website will list all the flight companies with this route.

http://www.skyscanner.net/eur/?redirecturl=1
this one is even cooler because it also lists the prices of whole month

Love and loneliness in Taiwan

(A translation of an article stated in a Dutch newspaper (Trouw,
http://www.trouw.nl/deverdieping/letter-geest/article375747.ece/Liefde_en_eenzaamheid_in_Taiwan), translated to English by Mick Katerberg for the purpose of Taiwanese people who are interested on how westerners view Taiwan as a country and the culture of the people who live there. Mick is not a qualified translator and is not be held responsible for the content of the translated part, the newspaper that originally printed the article does not allow any reproduction in printed form on the internet or printed newspaper, it is however permitted to print this article and translate it for individual use and direct related people, for reprint on the internet or in any newspaper the writer (David Signer) has to give his consent, the address of the writer is known to the editor of the newspaper)

The original article is written by a Swiss anthropologist David Signer)


Twenty years ago Taiwan changed from a dictatorial country towards a democracy. This process speeded up to a fast modernization of the country. Nowadays we see the strong Confucian working-moral besides gay-clubs and piercing studios. Colorful Taoist temples along side big glass skyscrapers and supermarkets that are open 24 hours a day. The Swiss anthropologist describes a mixed up society where everybody works as hard as possible and where love and sex seem to be of no importance.
(By David Signer)

How is Taiwan? There is no country in the world where the people make so many working hours as in Taiwan – 2282 hours a year. Over 30% of the people work more then 62 hours a week. Taiwan is the second densest populated country in the world. Only in Bangladesh live more people per square kilometer. Although Taiwan is smaller then Switzerland it belongs to the 20 most successful industrial countries; Taiwan is market leader in notebooks and there is no country that has more mobile phones (1,14 per citizen of Taiwan). Furthermore there are only three countries that have less sex then the Taiwanese, and according to the French magazine “Elle”, Taiwanese women are the unhappiest women in the world. Taiwan has also the most near sighted people. So how does this all relate to each other?

Twenty years ago Taiwan changed from a dictatorial country to a democracy and speeded up the modernization in a fast pace. And now we see the strong Confucian working-moral besides gay-clubs and piercing studios. Colorful Taoist temples along side big glass skyscrapers and supermarkets that are open 24 hours a day. Since Tsjang Kai-sjek, the rival of Mao, fled to Taiwan in 1948, Taiwan was seen as a rebellious province. Taipei as capital, with all direct surrounded sub cities, has a population of around 8 million people and is in a sense a post modern version of Peking.

In many households the man and woman both have a job, they not only make long working hours, but also even in different cities. They only see each other in the weekends. The children are often raised by the grandparents who display a worldview that has almost nothing to do with current reality. For Taiwanese there is almost nothing more important then good education for their kids, therefore they are overloaded with courses and extra classes after regular school often till late in the evenings.

In Taipei I visit a surgeon at his home. His 6-year-old daughter is taught English at school, but she has extra classes English in the evenings besides painting, dance and piano lessons. With proudness she plays classic piano parts without music paper. In August the whole family goes to the USA to improve her English even more at a summer camp. I ask the father if he is not afraid that the pressure on the kids might be too high. From Japan more and more stories are heard of children who commit suicide because of the shame of failing an exam. “Yes, sometimes all the effort is for nothing,” says the surgeon. “Sometimes the musical wonder kids play virtuously when they are 14, but when they become 25 the difference fades between the kids who started only at the age of 10”. The father also mentions the competition between the parents that cannot be avoided. And on top of that there is the 1 child policy – in Mainland China obligatory, in Taiwan based upon choice and quite common. So of course there is more money and energy spent on the child to stimulate it even more.

The emphasis upon educating and performance of the kids is characteristic for all Confucian countries like China, Japan, Korea and Singapore. But in Taiwan the people want the world to show that they are the better China. From 1895 till 1945 Taiwan was occupied by Japan, after that period it belonged to China. After the Second World War when Mao's army defeated the nationalistic army of Tsjang Kai-sjek, they fled with 1,5 million citizens (mostly of them high developed and upper class), 500.000 soldiers, and the national treasure to Taiwan. Mao as well as Tsjang Kai-sjek saw themselves as the one and only representation of China. The official name of Taiwan is still “Republic of China”. The USA armed Taiwan as a buffer against communistic China and Tsjang Kai-sjek never gave up his goal to conquer China again up to his death in 1975. Taiwan nowadays has a population of 24 million people, China 1,3 billion. The island country is economically a world power but politically isolated. Taiwan does not even have the status of “observer” in the UN and is only recognized as a country by 27 other countries like Palau, Kiribati and Swaziland. This is because China refuses any political relations with countries that recognize Taiwan as an independent country, and who does, especially today, want China as an opponent?

Continuously Taiwan experiences the presence of China like a big brother you want to push off but always keeps the lead no matter the distance. Taiwan always stipulates that it respects human rights, nobody will die from starvation, there is freedom of thought and press, Taiwan is progressive, democratic, liberal, cosmopolitan, post-industrial and post modern; the better China. But is seems like the citizens of Taiwan situate themselves in a jumbo jet: if the pace slows down below a certain speed, then it will crash.

Sheena Chang is editor at the China Times. Her daughter of four is having extra courses in English. Sheena is keen on getting her daughter to a national University. These are better then the private universities and even cheaper. This leads to the fact that especially children born from highly educated and rich parents, who can afford the extra courses, can enter the 'better' Universities. The fee is low there and children of the lower class have to pay extra for the ‘lesser” Universities.

Sheena Chang comes with another Taiwan-record: nowhere in the world kids sleep less then in Taiwan. She calls people like her ‘pm-people’, coming from post meridian. ‘I am going to work at 2 pm (14:00) and return at 10 pm (22:00)’. Most people working in the IT business work at night, because their customers in Europe and the USA are then in their daytime. The children of these ‘pm-people’ stay up till midnight with them: they eat together, watch TV and play computer games. But the kids in contrary to their parents have to get up at 7 am to get to school.

She tells the story so business-like that I carefully ask if that does not hurt the health of the kids. ‘Maybe so’, she says, ‘but it makes them also stronger. This way it makes them stronger to cope with pressure later. The biggest concern is the grandmothers who spoil the kids. They only stuff them with food, but don’t teach them anything.’

One evening I meet a psychiatrist in a hot spring spa ( besides visiting karaoke bars one of the favorite free time fun activities for Taiwanese). At 10 pm he says he has to go home to help his daughter with her homework. ‘At this hour?’ I ask surprised. ‘Sure, tomorrow she will have chemistry exam, and I will take over the theory with her once more.’

A Swiss woman who lived in Taiwan for a long time says: ‘the only thing that counts for these people is food and making money. Love and sex are not important. If somebody says ‘I love you’, then it means nothing, but if he gives you a big piece of his meat then you know you are important for him.’

The Taiwanese eroticism is not easy to understand. The people are prude; besides the city center of Taipei you hardly see any couples hold their hand or exchange other tender behavior. But at the other hand if you look at the sales girls of betel nuts, they sit in their bikini in a glass box, which you can recognize easy by the green neon-star along side the road. You stop your car, she comes out, bends over in front of the window so you can have a good look at her décolleté, she walks wiggling her bum to the get the order and gives you the nuts with a tempting smile. The euphoric feeling and the sweating that comes after chewing the betel nuts, makes the happiness complete. These nuts cost two times as much when bought from these girls then normal, but especially the taxi and truck drivers don´t care to pay the difference. These sales girls are mostly found in the countryside; the mayor of liberal Taipei tries to ban them from the city center.

Also traditional healers sell their wonder medicines accompanied by sparsely clothed girls. But the most funny is the performance of these ‘sexy girls’ at weddings and even funerals. You can see a long row of cars and trucks; on one of them is the coffin with the deceased, on another there are the hired mourners, and on a third you see the dancing ‘sexy girls’. It seems that the audience, including children, experiences no conflict between the table-dance atmosphere and the mourning about the deceased. ‘The surviving dependents pay a lot of money for such performances in order to have a lot of people attend and honor the deceased’, so people tell me.

By the official prude it is hard for love couples, and even spouses, to find a private space. One of the favorite places to get some intimacy was the MTV, cabins where you can watch movies. But at a certain moment the police intervened, the cabins could not be closed anymore and a guard could at any moment intrude the cabin. So the love couples changed to the parks and the KTV's: buildings with lot of rooms where you can sing karaoke as a couple or as a group. But also here a waiter could enter any time. At least each room has a surprising big closable toilet. Nowadays the motels are doing good business, they are quite cheap, 20 euros for three hours. But there is one disadvantage, they are mostly situated outside the center, so you need a car.

It's easier to find a nice restaurant. In Taipei there are thousands of food facilities. Even on the top of the chimney of the garbage burning installation you can find a rotating restaurant, called ‘star tower’. Apparently there is a close relation between food and sex according to the Taiwanese. Continuously you hear what good the different dishes will do for, in general, men. Especially local dishes like: cow eyes, bee larvae, swallow nests (the spittle of birds), grasshoppers, dried elk penis, shark fin, sea cucumber, mushrooms, dried human afterbirth, unborn chicken from the egg (raw), ginseng, bear bone, duck tongue, sea horse, but above all snake. On the Huaxi night market a market salesman hangs a still living snake on a rope and cuts it open in full length, he catches the blood in a glass and offers the audience to have a taste. After that he also removes the gall bladder and squeezes it out in a glass. The gel slimy substance is said to work extensively on the libido, as the salesman demonstrates by moving up and down chopsticks between his legs.

The women however will not get happier by it. For instance take Chang Mei-Ling. She is in her mid thirties, studied French litterature and works for a French company. She is single. Everything that would be in man's favor is in her disadvantage, a good education, good job, high income, all in her disadvantage. And besides that she is taller then average. A man in Taiwan wants to be better educated then his wife, have a better income, and to be at least one head taller. She herself would like to have a husband like that. But there are not many that will meet these criteria, besides the fact that she has hardly time for a relation.

Chang Mei-Ling has been married before. She wanted children, he did not. He said that he wanted to earn a million first. They hardly saw each other. When she noticed he had a love affair with a colleague she divorced. ‘Everything you do here is for the purpose of making a career’ she says. ‘Most Taiwanese men are like that. Some try to change for their woman, but after a while they get fed up by her because they have the feeling that the woman has taken away something from them.’ Her parents were always out for business when she was a kid. Mostly the oldest daughter took the responsibility for the younger kids. ‘That is why we are so clever and independent’, says Chang Mei-Ling. ‘Because we grew up alone’.

When she goes out she only attends business dinners and karaoke nights with her customers. She does not care about shopping nor expensive brands of clothes; she spends her money on traveling – last year she went with her mother to a 5 star hotel on an island in the pacific ocean - and her collection of plushy pigs. She says ‘you think that our society is so colorful and free but it looks like that because we don’t have roots. Our parents were immigrants, they were lost when they came here and nowadays they don’t understand anything anymore. We are all orphans, and our children will be like that as well.’ She also says ‘Many people don't work till 10 pm because they have to, but because of inner emptiness. They dream to have earned to retire at the age of 50, and when they reached it they die of boredom.’

Compared to the hypermodern state of Taiwan, Europe looks ancient. Half of Taipei has a wireless Internet zone; even in the MRT you can check your email. The mayor of Taipei wants to make Taipei the first wireless city in the world. Many people have a GPS system on their mobile; they might feel lost but they can at least localise themselves geographically. In many taxis you will find screens in the headrest of the front chairs, so you can follow the news during your trip. This efficiency you experience everywhere. A Taiwanese lady told me that she was once at a German wedding. She experienced it as awful, it took ages. Even a wedding is supposed to happen fast.

There are restaurants where every table has a screen where you can watch hundreds of programs while eating, and in a lot of hotels there are rooms where the room and bathroom are split by a glass wall. Not to watch your spouse taking a shower but the other way around, so you can even watch television from the bath.

Another technical wonder is the 508-meter high skyscraper “Taipei 101”; it has the fastest elevator in the world; at 60 kilometers an hour you are taken up to the 80th floor in a few seconds. But you hardly notice it; the cabins are under regulated pressure.

The ‘Taipei 101’ is constructed according the Feng-Shui principles; that is the traditional knowledge of architecture that adjusts to the invisible flows and ghosts at a certain place. According to this knowledge it is forbidden to have the entrance exactly facing the exit; otherwise you take the risk that the visitor of the building will enter it and immediately will exit it. According to the Feng-Shui principles it is bad for the inhabitants of a building if a street directly points at your apartment block. To deflect these bad influences an 8-cornered mirror will avoid the bad influence. It will reflect back the negative.

‘Taipei 101’ is build up from 8 segments, and each of the consists of 8 floors; 8 is the lucky Chinese number. Four is the unlucky number that is why there is no 4th floor. The 101 looks like a piece of segmented bamboo. Bamboo – flexible and easy to bend, but still strong – is an old symbol for resistance and fortune. ‘Taipei 101’ is build with a 660 tons steel sphere as a damper within, so that in the case of an earthquake the building will not break but swing only, like a bamboo stick in the wind.

Another surprise you can see in this hyper capitalistic society – more and more I hear ‘Only the one who is to lazy or has to many children is poor’ – is the burning of money. However it is not real money, but ‘money papers’ that are specially made for ritual offerings, produced and sold for that purpose. The owners burn it in metal cans in front of their stores and pray for good business. For environmental reasons nowadays there is also “money” available that does not smoke that much, but it is somewhat more expensive.

In the middle of the IT city of Taipei you can find an overload of Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist temples that serve as oracle places. For example there is the City of God temple; in large numbers, young women with Gucci or Louis Vuitton handbags put flowers and fiancée cookies on the altars on Saturday morning before shopping. Here the god of marriage is residing, and the young women use oracle sticks to ask questions about their upcoming spouse.

One night I visit a temple. In front of it there is a movable shrine on wheels. ‘God can be placed in there and moved around, for example on someone's birthday’, people tell me. ‘Now God is in China, but tomorrow he will be back and there will be a procession.’ The procession is a big spectacle with lots of firecrackers, red bangle torches, riding light organs, fireworks, drums and screeching loudspeakers. The ‘God’ is a colorful painted wooden figure in a chair with long bars that is carried around the neighborhood rocking up and down on the shoulders of the bearers. And all this in an atmosphere of bright neon light. The stars in the procession are Hsie and Fan who are normally the guards of the temple annex statues. Hsie has a black face, Fan has a down hanging tongue as long as the man who wears the costume, and he looks through a hole in his shirt. Everything from the torso up the performer wears on his head. The appearance can be explained by a legend. Hsie and Fan once wanted to meet on a bridge, Hsie was somewhat early and was watching the water below the bridge and fell over in the water when he lost his balance. When Fan arrived he found his friend dead and Fan strangled himself with his bare hands. That is why his tongue is so far out of his mouth, while Hsie became black in the water. In Taipei people say that the spirits of the two roam the Manka region with heavy chains and eat the tramps and thieves. And yes in the Manka neighborhood there is less crime then in the other regions of the city.

Taipei has different monuments for their country heroes like Tsjang Kai-sjek and Sun Yat-sen. One of these places is a huge memorial hall with a more then living height statue, guards in official uniform and a lot of free space around the immortals mark the distance between them and every day life. It’s amazing how the people of the city interact with these places. If you go there at 5 in the morning, when the city is still silent, you will be surprised by a grotesque carnival. From many loudspeakers you will hear all kinds of music at the same time, marching music, hip-hop, Chinese classics, country, tango and new-age noise. Hundreds of people are gathered. Some performing taichi, others do sword fighting, some dance in the morning mist. A man and a woman of age throw over a pink frisbee. There are people in kimono, in cheerleader look, a rapper with oversized trousers and a shirt with hood. Many people there are of age and ask, “how old do you think I am?”. Mostly they are twice as old as they look. You can also see younger people dancing Salsa. All this happens at the foot of the ‘Taipei 101’. Businessmen in suit and tie hurry through the kungfu fighters and shadow boxers. Nothing of this is organized, a lot of people come regularly, but the groups change constantly. At 7 o'clock the guards appear in parade marching steps. They raise the national flag and the national hymn starts. In a split second everybody stops with what he is doing and takes the formal pose when the national hymn is heard. It takes a few minutes and then everything goes on as nothing happened: Chinese ballet, aerobic, rock-n-roll and chi-gong. And meanwhile in the park Sun Yat-sen, ‘the father of the nation’, one time in bronze another pose in stone, looking straight forward to all the fuzz.

Peng Wu Chih is one of the most famous taichi- and kungfu masters in the country. He was the last apprentice of the famous martial arts master Liu Yun-Qiao (who was the head of security organization under Tsjang Kai-sjek). He took care of Yun-Qiao in his last months of his life, when he was so weak that he only could lecture using his chopsticks.

One of the specialities of Peng Wu Chih is ‘rapid taichi’. He claims that taichi originally was not, as nowadays, done in a turtle slow movement but fast. In between the main course and desert at a restaurant he gives a small demonstration. It only takes a few seconds. Dr. Peng loves speed in general. Before we step into his car he says, “buckle up, because I drive like James Bond”, and he does not exaggerate. He talks about ‘chi’, the life power and says: “meditation is not to withdraw from the world environment, but being present in it. Get to your opponent in half a second where others need two seconds. Never lose your midst, not even when you are busy.’ One time he holds my wrist, not firm, but I feel an immense power. He could kill me in a split second.

One of his apprentices says: ‘during the first lesson he said to me: I will kill you, and he did. During the teachings I died inside; he destroyed my value scale. The most important in martial arts is awareness, and therefore you have to get rid of your past.’

Peng Wu Chih ends the meeting with a short anecdote: “two people die and god asks them what they wish in a next life. The first says, “I want to get lots of money”, the other one says “I want to give lots of money”, the first is reborn as a beggar, the second as an millionaire.”

On the 1st of May I am in search of demonstrating people, but in vain. Taiwan does not know of demonstrations of workers. Taiwan is the dream of every neo liberal: up to a short time ago there was nothing like income insurance (for that matter, officially there were no people out of a job), no sickness insurance, no pension insurance, no social service. Everything is insured from private arrangements or by family. Some workers even give holidays to their company as a gift. Furthermore it seems that there are no building regulations; Taipei is the dream of every architect but also a nightmare, everything is possible (highlight: a building formed like a woman’s handbag).

During the visit of the Chinese president Hu Jintao to the USA Falun Gong people in Taipei organised a demonstration. This spiritual movement is forbidden in China. Lately a doctor witnessed that he had been in a Chinese concentration camp. He says that tenth of thousands of Falun Gung people have to do hard labor. He also records that these people are operated on and taken away organs, while they are alive, and sold for transplantation purposes. Anti-Chinese propaganda or not, such news remind the Taiwanese over and over again that their welfare is highly vulnerable; like a small garden on an overhanging rock. Up to 10 years ago Taiwan still had higher expenses on their military defense system then China, while nowadays China is spending triple the budget of Taiwan. 600 rockets are pointed towards Taiwan, and every year another 75 are added. A politician who mentions the taboo word “formal independence” in Taipei - and in some place in Peking someone might push the red button.

Even lately China paid the small island nation of Nauru in the Pacific Ocean the amount of 150 million dollar to change their diplomatic affairs from Taipei to Peking. Taiwan can hardly cope with this process. Taiwan can only try, behind the political scene, to keep them indispensable in economical way. But that takes a lot of energy and is a lonely task.

On the last day we drive to a “children’s recreational center”. It looks like an Asian Walt Disney park. A luxurious place, however there were no children, not one. ‘Nowadays they prefer to play at home on their computer’, a supervisor tells us; another supervisor says “most kids have courses at night”; and the guard at the entrance says: ’The parents don’t have time to come over here with kids.’ On the way back I see a scenery while driving: an empty playground where a man in suit is making a phone call while the rain starts dripping.

My adventure in Romania

2005.10
Matched with Qual Design and started the preparation of this traineeship

2005.11
Supposed to leave for Romania in the end of this month but it didn’t happen because of the visa problem

2005.12
Dreamed to have the Christmas and New Year in Europe but it still didn’t happen

2006.01
Still waiting for the visa, frustrated

2006.02
The application of visa was somehow rejected
Decided to apply again after struggling because I’m stubborn

2006.03
Mom and Dad asked me to set a deadline for the visa and not to wait endlessly

2006.04
God finally hear my prayer and I got the visa!
But had to solve another problem: no flight seat available

2006.05
Eventually got the flight seat and arrived in Romania!!!
Dey, Duba, Malin, Paul, Jillian, and Oliver welcomed me at the train station and celebrated my birthday
Moved in my first home in Zorilor
Visited Sinaia, Bucegi Mountain, Brasov, and Bran
First @ conference in Romania: TRIX
Everyone and everything is so new, different, and interesting
Deeply fell in love with Romania!


2006.06
Jillian left
Moved to my second home in Cluj
First Taiwan Night
Made a big decision to extend the traineeship to one year!

2006.07
Oliver left, CEEDs of Tomek and Peter came
Visited Zalou and Baia-Mare
Visited Targu-Mures and Sighisoara with @ Cluj
Second @ conference in Romania: LPM
Got the residence permit

2006.08
Varvara came, Tomek and Peter left
Visited Buzias, Timisraoa, Costinesi, Neptun, and Bucharest

2006.09
Varvara left
Celebrated Ilinca and Duba’s birthday in Cugir
Visited Oradea
Third @ conference in Romania: Rock Me
Selected as the trainee council in the national support team exchange of @ Romania

2006.10
Visited Cheile Turzii
Newies recruited
My blog was born

2006.11
Lulu came
Fourth @ conference in Romania: LTS
Joined the OC team of NPS as the OC marketing
Homesick stroke

2006.12
Visited Ana-Maria’s hometown Gherla for the Christmas and the mountain near Huedin for New Year with @ Cluj
Visited Timisoara again
Last @ conference in Romania: NPS
Second Taiwan Night
Fell in love with Romania again but at the same time still decided to go home for the Chinese New Year with families

2007.01
Visited Sibiu and Bucharest
The end of the adventure with a lot of tear and unforgettable memories…

Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.

long island iced tea

Long island iced tea is my favorite cocktail, because it tastes like harmless, but it's actually strong.
Tonight I finally had my first long island iced tea in Romania, since somehow I always ordered beer instead in the past.
Maybe I should have ordered whatever I want according to my own preference.

Cluj-Napoca

This is the lovely city where I spent my nine-month traineeship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKZ0eFdbCmY

money

I'm never a person with strong desire of fame and power, since I believe that there're far too many things which are more important and it's not fair to measure someone's value simply according to how much money he/she earns or what position he/she has.
But now for the first time I think it'll be great being able to make a lot of money because in this way I'll have the freedom to visit my friends around the world and come back to my dear Cluj much more often.
However, as I see what usually happens in reality is either you have time but with no money to spend, or with money but have no time to spend it.
Hopefully I'll be able to find a balance point in between in the future and at the same time don't get lost in the material world.

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Itinerary

1/28 Sun. 8:30 Cluj -> 1/28 15:00~17:00 Budapest
1/31 Wed. 12:55 Budapest-Ferihegy 1 -> 1/31 15:20 Paris-Orly Sud
2/3 Sat. 10:55 Paris-CDG -> 2/3 12:50 Barcelona
2/7 Wed. 7:30 Girona Barcelona -> 2/7 9:35 Eindhoven
2/10 Sat. 18:30 Amsterdam -> 2/10 20:45 Barcelona
2/11 Sun. 13:20 Barcelona -> 2/11 15:20 Paris-CDG
2/12 Mon. 13:30 Paris -> 2/13 6:30 Bangkok
2/15 Thu. 7:25 Bangkok -> 2/15 11:25 Taipei

first Christmas and New Year in Europe

This is my first Christmas and New Year ever in Europe.
I remember last year, originally I thought that I would have these two events in Romania, but unfortunately I didn't get the visa before that.
It was still great, since I spent the Christmas Eve with my best friend and the New Year's Eve with the AIESEC alumni of my generation.
And this year it was even more special because I was finally in Romania!
Since the beginning of Dec. the city started to look different, and you could smell, feel, and breathe the Christmas atmosphere with Christmas trees and songs everywhere.

Then I spent my Christmas in Gherla, a small town near Cluj, with one of my best friends in Romania, Ana-Maria.
I had a very good time in her hometown with her families and friends, and I also saw some traditions which were very interesting for me, like the kids singing carol, or dressed up like a goat, and some bear men parading with drums…

But the best part was still the warmth of her parents, who also prepared a Christmas gift for me, and gave me lots of home-made food to bring back to Cluj.
It was so touching when Ana-Maria told me that her mother felt very sad because she might not have the chance to meet me again and then Ana-Maria told her mother that she would make a lot of money in the future so that they could come to Taiwan to visit me.
I like her mother very much, and amazingly although she doesn't speak English, we can somehow communicate with the combination of French, Romanian, and body languages.
I look forward to seeing them again, in Taiwan and in Romania.

As for the New Year's Eve, I spent it with my dear Cluj @ers in a cabin in the mountain.
We played, partied, celebrated, and drank alcohol, with lots of fun and laughter.
It was hard for me to admit the fact that it might be the last time for me to spend time with these people like this, and sometimes my tear just went out.
But I did have a very good time with them, and I'm already very lucky.
Look back to year 2006, I believe it's the best time of my life.
At the beginning of the year I was quite frustrated because of the visa problem, but I never thought of giving up since I had spent so much time and money on it.
And thanks to my strong determination, I finally got the visa as a result and could have my life-changing experience in Cluj.
To live alone in such a different culture, I changed a lot during this year.
Besides the best thing is that because of this traineeship, I find another possible future career for myself, and I'd like to give it a try to see if it's really suitable.
Another important new-year revolution will be to find a Mr. Right and then try my best to love and maintain a long-term relationship since I'm no longer that young :p
Anyway, happy new year and wish myself good luck!

test: What Gender Is Your Brain?

Your Brain is 73% Female, 27% Male

Your brain leans female You think with your heart, not your head Sweet and considerate, you are a giver But you're tough enough not to let anyone take advantage of you!

What Gender Is Your Brain?

nice sentences

01. I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.

02. No man or woman is worth your tears, and the one who is, won't make you cry.

03. Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

04. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart

05. The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can't have them.

06. Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.

07. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.

08. Don't waste your time on a man/woman, who isn't willing to waste their time on you.

09. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.

10. Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.

11. There's always going to be people that hurt you, so what you have to do is keep on trusting and just be more careful about who you trust next time around.

12. Make yourself a better person and know who you are before you try and know someone else and expect them to know you.

13. Don't try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.

14. Remember: Whatever happens, happens for a reason.

15. True friends: How many people actually have 8 true friends Hardly anyone I know! But some of us have all right friends and good friends!!!

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.