Daddy goes to Taiwan (January 2007)
In January, Daddy was sent to Taiwan on a recruitment drive for the Business School. (In common with most UK Universities, a huge percentage of our Master's students now come from China or Taiwan...)
It was a fun, but demanding, week: up for breakfast early, into a minibus, driven 2 hours or so to the next city, shower, get suited-and-booted, 5 hours of interviews with prospective students, back to the hotel to change to go back out again for dinner and networking (and - let's not be coy - a few beers), then into bed for 1am-ish to be up the next day to repeat all over again somewhere else... It felt a bit like what I imagine Elton John's life must be like - except on a budget.
So I didn't see as much of Taiwan as I'd have liked, but it is as you would imagine it: bustling commercialism in the cities and acres of industrial estates elsewhere, with not much countryside to speak of...
OK, I'm being unfair, as apparently the interior has a spectacular hill range, and there are some good beaches in the south - which we never got anywhere near. But, for example, the celebrated Peace Park in the capital, Taipei, is pretty enough (see picture),
but not life-affirmingly wonderful - like, say, Brockwell Park in south London.
Taiwan was interesting in a disorientating kind of way - being surrounded by a wholly impenetrable language that didn't even allow guesswork - yet also Westernised enough for things to be familiar and yet different (see my 'Pulp Fiction' moment below...)
The ginormous building in the pictures is the 101 tower, once the tallest building in the world (508 metres), and Taipei's compulsory tourist destination. As I approached it, I thought, "come on, it's not that big..." It didn't, for example, have the presence close up of the old World Trade Centers in New York City.
But, as hopefully you can see from the blue-ish picture taken from the observation tower at the top, even the skyscrapers with helipads on the top of them are a very long way down! 
And they light it up all all pretty come the evening, don't they?
Best thing about Taiwan? Undoubtedly the pedestrian crossings. The signal post not only has an animated green man who speeds up walking as your time to cross comes to an end, but also - in a moment of such simple and effective genius that I couldn't help but wonder why the Dutch hadn't thought of it already - the pedestrian crossings feature a digitised countdown of the number of seconds you have left to cross the road. Now, if you know you have 34 seconds to cross (especially if you are merely approaching a crossing), and hence need not worry whether the slavering maniacs coiled behind their wheels are going to be given the signal to mow you down at any moment, this seriously chills you out on them mean city streets. You don't even have to break your stride to be sure of getting across; you can practically saunter. It's genius. London should introduce this immediately.
The pictures of the 101 Tower are by me, and the rest are provided, generously, by Emma Mylett, International Officer at Bristol Uni who was out there recruiting as well... Thanks Emma.
It was a fun, but demanding, week: up for breakfast early, into a minibus, driven 2 hours or so to the next city, shower, get suited-and-booted, 5 hours of interviews with prospective students, back to the hotel to change to go back out again for dinner and networking (and - let's not be coy - a few beers), then into bed for 1am-ish to be up the next day to repeat all over again somewhere else... It felt a bit like what I imagine Elton John's life must be like - except on a budget.
So I didn't see as much of Taiwan as I'd have liked, but it is as you would imagine it: bustling commercialism in the cities and acres of industrial estates elsewhere, with not much countryside to speak of...
OK, I'm being unfair, as apparently the interior has a spectacular hill range, and there are some good beaches in the south - which we never got anywhere near. But, for example, the celebrated Peace Park in the capital, Taipei, is pretty enough (see picture),
but not life-affirmingly wonderful - like, say, Brockwell Park in south London.Taiwan was interesting in a disorientating kind of way - being surrounded by a wholly impenetrable language that didn't even allow guesswork - yet also Westernised enough for things to be familiar and yet different (see my 'Pulp Fiction' moment below...)
The ginormous building in the pictures is the 101 tower, once the tallest building in the world (508 metres), and Taipei's compulsory tourist destination. As I approached it, I thought, "come on, it's not that big..." It didn't, for example, have the presence close up of the old World Trade Centers in New York City.
But, as hopefully you can see from the blue-ish picture taken from the observation tower at the top, even the skyscrapers with helipads on the top of them are a very long way down! 
And they light it up all all pretty come the evening, don't they?Best thing about Taiwan? Undoubtedly the pedestrian crossings. The signal post not only has an animated green man who speeds up walking as your time to cross comes to an end, but also - in a moment of such simple and effective genius that I couldn't help but wonder why the Dutch hadn't thought of it already - the pedestrian crossings feature a digitised countdown of the number of seconds you have left to cross the road. Now, if you know you have 34 seconds to cross (especially if you are merely approaching a crossing), and hence need not worry whether the slavering maniacs coiled behind their wheels are going to be given the signal to mow you down at any moment, this seriously chills you out on them mean city streets. You don't even have to break your stride to be sure of getting across; you can practically saunter. It's genius. London should introduce this immediately.
But [going into 'Pulp Fiction' mode here - work with me, people] you know what the funny thing about Taiwan is? It's the little differences.
(Example?)
You know what they put on French fries instead of ketchup in Taiwan? Parmesan cheese...
(Goddamn!)
I seen 'em do it, man, they f*ck'n drown 'em in that sh*t!
We had some good nights out. Best of all, I found on a website about 'nights out in Taiwan' that in the fair city of Taichung there was a bar called Pogo Dub. Now, in my book that is close to unimproveable as names of bars go. I mean, pogoing and dub. Like you could do both at the same time... Brilliant. Well, we had to go. Our host, the excellent Tim of UKEAS, hadn't even heard of it, but eventually he tracked it down. I was expecting banging Lee Scratch Perry and Prince Far-I dubplates shaking the spirits bottles out of their holders, and people moshing somehow to the bass ! But it had changed its piggin' name to something rubbish, and we were the only people in it. So, this is us, in The-Bar-Formerly-Known-As-Pogo-Dub...
... and here's me looking suitably awe-struck and yet slightly disappointed at the same time! (Note: the Chinese inscriptions on the wall behind me may or may not read "Rewind selecta!", but the odds are against, sadly.)
The pictures of the 101 Tower are by me, and the rest are provided, generously, by Emma Mylett, International Officer at Bristol Uni who was out there recruiting as well... Thanks Emma.Labels: Daddy's work
posted by Graham at 2:52 PM
1 comments
Liam discovered the joys of hide-and-seek, though is still to grasp the complexities of the rules: always hiding under his duvet and shouting "I'm in the bedroom!" does detract from the tension somewhat.
