Vinegar's space

To my dear friend,

 

I am sorry to hear about Cleo's incident. All the best for your every arrangement and I will pray hard for you.

I am sorry to be so far away when you are feeling down and lonely. May be force be with you, be strong and tackle the problems with a calm mind. Please let me know if you need a pair of ears, I will give you a call.

I have two days replacement leaves from travelling outstation to Taiwan recently. So I took the opportunity to merge it with the national holiday, and make it a ultra-super-long weekend.

 

So I went to Fraser's Hill with bf on Saturday noon, and come back today (Monday) noon. I've been to Fraser's Hill about 20 years ago, it has changed quite a bit. The palace that my family visited last time didn't seem to be there anymore. I couldn't remember that palace and my previous visit until I saw a petite white rose plant. That was the same species my father bought from the palace gardener last time, trying to grow it at home, but failed.

 

There isn't much to do in Fraser's Hill, there are lots of jungle trekking trails there, and a water fall. But it is cosy, because it makes you feel like visiting a large botanic behind your house.

 

I saw a lot of the wild flower and herbs there, and they brought back a lot of memories, not only on the Fraser's Hill, but as general childhood memories. These sort of wild plants was very common during my childhood days, and it is hardly seen in the city anymore.

 

 

 

This pink flower is one of the many wild flowers that I saw in Fraser's Hill, it is called semalu in Malay, meaning a shy plant, or easily embarrassed plant. The leaves would close once touched. When I saw these wild flowers, it strikes me that my memories had been hidden, not in the prettiest garden plants, but in some the most humble wild flowers. Each of the wild flowers reminded me a lot of stories that I have long forgotten.

 

Where did you keep your memories?

This picture is drawn on the basis of this entry.

 

 

I am currently walking on a very thin line of grey area... failure to remain balance, I will drop into a dungeon of  fierce doggies, or fall into the torture room of spikey durians.....

Ok, before I begin, I admit that I am writing this entry when I am currently feeling extremely upset. And I must apology to my China friends for writing this entry. Please don't take it to heart. I am writing this only as a case basis.

 

Ok done with the clarification, I am going to blast now.

 

I wrote an email to our Guangzhou office, feeding back what I saw in Taiwan -- The Guangzhou outsourced fiber glass manufacturer was producing some pretty bad quality product to our Taiwan site, and our construction work was put on hold because the building materials did not pass the customer quality check.

 

There were several items, but their reply on one particular item really pissed me off.

 

Their fiber glass tee (or "T-shape") connector for pipes were exposing the fiber glass matting on the outer surface, which brought concern to the site workers in Taiwan. It causes skin irritations when handling the materials, due to the fiber glass penetrated into their skins. I myself got it too when doing the site walk.

 

My email to her this afternoon was very polite, and I phrased it like this:

The email was intended as a feedback to them. However, I think the project engineer who is handling this case, is really sucks with her English. Her reply was

 

Come on, I am talking about what is happening here, not what is possible of happening... shame on TsingHua University to have a student like her. Not to mention that her email was really defensive and her replies on other product items with my colleague was totally out of this world.

Well, in Cantonese, Siu Yarn (literally translated as small people) is refering to those people who bring miseries to you.

 

I have been meeting a lot of "small people" these days, and all of them are my colleagues. I am starting to understand what my boss meant by "One can't seem to trust anyone in this country."

 

Ladies are crazy over small things like car parks, and men are trying hard to have all the spot lights on onself.

 

Anyway, I am walking on a grey area... a very thin line of grey area.

One thing I noticed though... those "small people" are all having frequent and close communication with the others who had left the company. I guess that could explain something... perhaps.

This is me while working at the sites.

 

 

I didn't bring coverall, as it was not required. I was carrying a laptop, documents and files at the back, digital camera, wallet, keys, mobile phone in the trouser pockets, also hanging the passport on my neck, hiding it in the shirt. I was wearing two pieces working clothes, and it was pretty convenient, as most of the time, I need to pee with my laptop bag still on my back.

 

I would prefer to have two pieces coverall than those one piece type.

Most of the one piece coverall are very inconvenient for female, especially in the loo. The only way for female to pee with those one piece coverall is to remove the coverall all the way from top to bottom. It wouldn't be easy when you are in the contruction site, carrying a laptop, having limited space to move around in the toilet cubical.

 

Also, those one piece coverall doesn't fit well. The top half of those coverall is usually too long (cause male usually have some tummy with them), and the bottom half is usually too tight (female usually have larger bum than the male). Female are generally smaller size compare to male, and I think there is a need to redesign the coverall, or perhaps come up with something that fits the female workers.

 

And most important of all, female coverall must not have small pockets.

 

Anyway, just my opinion, that's all. 

---

 

Well, I have been mumbling about the Taiwan trip over the past few days, so here are some of the photos.

 

This is a photo outside the hotel window. I think it was taken in the morning around 5-6am.

 

These are the photos from a couple of sites that allowed photo taking.

This is quite a scene, there were lots of motorcycles parking outside the working area. Their construction sites are really systematic and surprisingly clean.

 

This was taken from another site, when I was standing on top of the structure doing some inspection work. It was pretty windy that day, and the structure that I stood on was rather flimsy. 

 

Took a couple of photos from their rail station too...

This was taken on the last day of travel, in GaoXiong High Speed Rail station. 

 

This was taken while waiting for the high speed train at Tainan. Should be our first day of travel.

 

Some sceneries while travelling on the train.

 

 

These were taken in a convenient stall (7-11) in a hospital. We went to the hospital to inspect their structures there.

I guess if the hospital here has the same amount of delicious food selling at the convenient stall, the patients would probably recover much faster.

 

Starbucks at 7-11. Not bad. 

 

Hot buns! >_< 

 

Remember the night market? Well, here are some of the stalls. This first one is selling some soup dish. God knows what's the English name, I bet there may not even be an English name, cause the Western eating styles are just plain boring. Anyway, the Taiwanese called this soup: Lu Wei.

 

 

This one is the stall that sell pepper bun. It is pretty famous, we queued for 30 mins to get it. The taste was alright, I like it because it is pretty big to be called a bun, and it is stuffed with pork. ^_^ I have also taken a few pictures on how they make it. They were really quick and skillful in making the bun.

 

 

 

 

And then it was this night view, we went onto the wheel of Taiwan on the very last night of stay. And it was taken from our cell, it was about 7pm, before going for dinner.

And this is one of the dishes we had on the last dinner... the duck kiss, which is basically the duck tongue. It is supposedly the famous dish of Taiwan, as many super stars come to Taiwan to "kiss the duck", but I didn't feel like a superstar when eating it. It tasted rather like the rubber tube.

 

And when I arrived back home... I was greeted with 4 hours of traffic jam!!!!!!!!! Just because some stupid police took one lane and stood there pretending to have a road block, but was in fact chit chatting there. This picture was taken before entering the toll house, the jam continued until 3-4 km after the toll.

 

 

 

Perhaps I was pretty worn out from this trip, when I was asked about my feelings about Taiwan, I didn't feel much.

I was commented a few times for entering a field that may be a disadvantage for female. But I guess the main thing that make people have less confidence in me, isn't because of my gender, but my inexperience in the field.

I am happy to see the gender equality given by the people there, even in the construction site. I was not prohibited to climb up or down just because of my gender. However I was told not to climb in one occasion as there weren't enough space to stand on the platform.

Taiwanese seems to be very environmentally cautious and not affraid to express their political views. 

I was also commented twice that me and my colleague looked like father and daughter.... -____-|||

 

I hope my future visit to Taiwan (if there will be a chance again), I will be able to do some shopping and loitering. I would like to visit their national museum.

Well, I haven't been able to update my blog since the third day in Taiwan, reason being that I have been coming back to hotel pretty late at night and have really early start the next day.

 

The third day was to visit some smaller sites with products from mainland China, the quality was so horrible that we were all totally amazed by their "creativity". None of the materials that delivered to site were manufactured up to standard.

 

The 4th and 5th day was to visit some site that require reconstruction, two of them are petrol chemical company, and one steel manufacturer. So we went down to GaoXiong (高雄) today, which is our last day. I really loved their old structures, some of it were even older than me, and is still standing strong. Especially the wood structure that were constructed few decades ago was so different than what we have today. The wood were much longer, less joints.

 

I met a few funny things today, while we were in GaoXiong waiting for taxi to pick us up from the site to the rail station, we went into a shop to get some drinks. The owner's daughter was washing her dog. After being washed clean, the dog picked a sheet of plastic bag from the plastic bag hanger, placed it on the floor and sat on it. It doesn't want to get dirty by directly contacting the floor. Man, this dog sure loves cleanliness.

 

We also met a Western guy buying takeaways with very good Mandarin, I didn't know he was non-Chinese until I looked up after finishing my lunch.

 

I also tried some local delicacies over the last couple of days, mainly because we were on the road, and just stopped by any stalls that is convinient to park the car. I tried the GongWan (贡丸), XinZu rice noodles (quite different from what we get from the supermarket, as the process of making the noodles making the noodles less brittle). And tonight, on the last day, we were treated for dinner in the bar, and I tried the dish called "Duck Kiss" -- basically it is just a dish that made of duck tongue. Very strange. I also tried a kind of mini fish, that has the stomach all filled with fish eggs. Tried the Taiwan beer, nice.

 

What else did I eat over the past couple of days... let me see.... a dish that is made of pig blood, Shabu Shabu, their pearl drinks (50岚珍珠奶茶) etc... I really love their 7-11 stores, it is all over the streets at almost every corner, and sells all kinds of things, especially food and drinks.

 

Anyway, I need to get some sleep soon, need to wake up at 4am to catch the flight. I have been waking up at around 4, 5 am over the past couple of days and come back nearly mid night.

 

Today is the second day in Taiwan, but I felt as if it is already a Wednesday.

We went to Sinchu (Spelling, 新竹) and Taichung (spelling, 台中).

As the third appointment was cancelled so we have quite a bit of time in the evening, and we went to the night market.

Tried some of the local food -- Pepper bun, marinated radish bun, pork rib soup and luo (螺) (not sure what's the English name, it is a kind of tiny water creature, have shell like the snail. One is supposed to suck it out from the shell when it is cooked. It is served as a leisure munch than a dish itself.)

 

The customer were fine, as I didn't deal with them much. But I learned a lot from the old project coordinator, but I guess my learning capability is not strong enough to catch up so fast. Also, nearly had a cold this morning, whole body was feeling weak as I climbed up the stairs on the construction site. Fortunately I managed to catch a few cat naps while one of the distributor representative was driving us to TaiChung, and I already felt much better when we arrived at the second site.

 

Lack of sleep and temperature difference made body weak. Drink lots of water like a whale, sweat like a dog, eat like a cow and sleep like a pig will cure any disease... oh, I left out one important ingredient -- be happy like the monkeys.

 

p/s: bought two bottles of olympic limited edition coke for two of my colleague, from 7-11. Forgot to buy anything from the night market for my friends... and didn't find any fridge magnet for my bf. sorry... I was too distracted by the food and the pretty gals in Taiwan.... m(_ _)m

Just about to call it a day on my first day in Taiwan, it started at 5am and haven't ended until now.... which is 12.13am. Went to Tainan today to visit two sites. Learned a lot, and I guess I need a lot more courages to go through my hurdles -- lack of confidence.

 

Had a long phone call with my boss just now to confirm my opinions on the engineering issues we met today, just finished sending the email to the people involved regarding this.

 

Taiwan food is great, though I don't really get to eat the local delicacies. Their 7-11 is so happening, you can buy anything you want there, even hot steamy bao!

 

Taiwan high speed rail is very clean, and the people here are quite good in keeping the public area clean.

 

The working sites have a lot of female workers, surprisingly.

 

One Taiwanese middle age lady was mumbling with me with her daughter's wedding prep and dinner, her mother's illness etc. I guess she was just lonely. Cause she didn't even realised that my accent wasn't from local. Either that, or perhaps I acted well, I would think of the former though.

 

Alright, there may be tonnes of spelling mistakes and disconnected sentences... I am sorry, just want to let you guys know that I am doing fine. Have to go to bed soon, I am all exhausted after climbing up and down with an oh-so-heavy laptop bag. Have an early start tomorrow, have to visit 3 sites with nastier customers tomorrow. Wish me luck. T_T