Avontuur

As Ted and I were talking over dinner tonight, I realized we never wrote about the wedding we went to last week – or the one a couple of months ago, either. (We have a young company, so there are lots and lots of people getting married and having babies – often doing the latter about <9 months after the former.)

Taiwan brides have one major advantage over US brides: they get to wear *three* fancy dresses, and they don’t have to take out a mortgage to get them, either. Most dresses here are rented. For the earlier wedding we went tot he ceremony as well as the reception; mostly, only the family go to the ceremony, though there were a few other people from work there. That one was a Christian ceremony, not very much different than an American one except for being in Chinese. The bride wore a western-style wedding dress and the groom wore a tux, and added white gloves. The minister was great; she was somehow able to be entertaining even when we couldn’t understand a word. Unfortunately, an older man took over for a lot of it and he wasn’t quite as amusing. One big difference was at the beginning of the ceremony, when the minister asked everyone to clap for the bride’s family! And the groom’s family! And their friends from Tainan! And their friends from church! And the people from the groom’s company! And the people from the bride’s company! And so on! …. that part went on for a while.

After the ceremony, there were pictures of various groups, and again we went through all the permutations of groups having their photos taken with the bride and groom. There were even a few with us and other people from work.

For the second wedding, we just went to the reception. Both times, one of the groom’s friends from work ushered us to one of several tables with small ASML (our company) signs on them. At both weddings, the guests wore anything from suits and dresses to jeans. There was music (last week’s wedding was notable for having a Japanese singer’s cover of “Country Roads, Take Me Home” and Jambalaya”) and slideshows with photos of the bride and groom – the engagement photos Taiwan is famous for, but also childhood and family photos, and photos of the two together over their relationship. There was a table out front where we left the traditional red envelope with a money gift (you give $2000 or $3600 NT, because those are lucky numbers – Taiwan dollars are around $32NT to $1 US or $45 NT to 1 euro).

Once everyone was seated, the bride and groom made their first grand entrance, preceded by a flower girl and a couple of attendants. This time the bride was still wearing her white wedding dress. (I think that’s a relatively recent custom; white is the color of funerals and it used to be considered bad luck to wear it to a wedding.) They walked up front and were announced, and then there were some speeches. the first time Ted escaped, but the second time he had to make one, as the groom’s boss. (Fortunately this groom was considerate enough to warn him beforehand!) The second wedding had *lots* more speakers, including a mayor; it seemed the two families had some unspoken competition going for who brought more important speakers.

After the speeches the food began – traditional Taiwanese feasts, in which course after course is brought out and placed on a big revolving platform so each guest can help him or herself. This is great for us, because you get to taste everything without being stuck with a lot of something you dislike. There were lobster salads (at both weddings), jellyfish, two or three soups, shrimp, small make-it-yourself pork sandwiches, and any number of things I can’t name, finishing with fruit and dessert.

Sometime in the middle of it all, the lights are dimmed and the bride and groom make their second entrance. He’s still in the tux (and gloves) but now she’s in a beautiful sparkling gown. Both of the brides we saw wore champagne beige for their second gown, but I think that’s just coincidence (and also a flattering color for Taiwanese women). At the second wedding, just after that they told everyone to look under their chair to see who at each table got to come up and receive a small gift from the bride and groom. Ted won the gift for our table and received a small pot of local honey.

After dinner’s over there’s the third entrance, where the poor groom’s still in his one outfit, but the bride gets to wear a splendid red ballgown. (Red is a lucky color.) At the earlier wedding, they didn’t really do a big third entrance, just stood at the door to say goodbye to everyone That was a fairly short wedding, beginning at 6 and ending at 9 or 9:30. We left the second one at 9:30 (I wasn’t feeling well) and there were still a course or two to come, so I think that was a fancier wedding. (It’s surprisingly hard to tell, when you don’t know the local cues well – you just have to picture us sort of boonie-crashing through the culture, observing as much and asking as many questions as we can to figure the way.)

This Sunday we leave for South Africa, so it will be a weekend of running errands and then sitting on a plane for far too long (again). Then we have a week back before we both have business trips (and for me, house-hunting) in the Netherlands. So don’t expect any new entries here for a couple of weeks, but hopefully when we get back we’ll have some great photos to post.

I think it’s time for the big moving / comparisons post. This is still not definitive, though – I’m pretty sure there will be more stuff. These are in no particular order.

Things I am looking forward to in the Netherlands:

cleaner air: People keep telling me that Eindhoven has some of the worst air in Europe. But at least you can see through it, which is not always true in Taiwan.
colder air:I just don’t like hot weather much. It’s chilly now, but by Sunday, the high temperature here is predicted to match Eindhoven’s average high for July.
language: – This is a big one, with lots of facets: first of all, a lot more people speak English, and the ones who do speak it better than here. (Chinese and English are so thoroughly different that each is very hard for native speakers of the other – even people who are comparactively fluent here have heavy accents, and even with my small knowledge of Chinese I can often hear the difference between a native speaker and an English speaker who has learned Chinese.) Second, Dutch is much easier for me – I can pretty much handle menus, for instance, which means I can eat at any restaurant rather than just ones with pictures or English menus. Third, I’ll have Dutch lessons and the teachers and facilities were much better than the ones here.
walking around more at work: I don’t like sitting still all day, as I mostly do here. There, it’s a much larger campus and I’ll have meetings all over.
getting out on the water: rowing, not just erg. Yay!
better social life: because of the rowing club and the local Stitch’n'Bitch group.
bread that isn’t sweet: They don’t really “get” bread here. Dutch bread is great. Even better, restaurants often serve it with herb butter. Pastries are also excellent. (Another two-way street – people from here complain about the Dutch serving bread at every meal, and aren’t thrilled with the amount or quality of rice there.)
vacation time: Another big one. US: 2-3 weeks vacation plus about 8 national holidays and three days floating holiday. Taiwan, 112 hours (= 14 days) vacation time, 7 holidays, and 8 floating holidays. (This is my fourth year with this company – you get one extra day per year.) Netherlands: forty-one days vacation time – actually, 28 days (27 plus one for being over forty) and thirteen of what they call ADV days, which if I understand them right are compensation for working 40 instead of 32 hours per week.
drinkable tap water: something we didn’t have in Arizona either, so I really appreciated it. In AZ it was safe but tasted awful; in Taiwan it tastes OK but we were told it’s bad for you, though no one was clear on details.
more choices in the cafeteria: Here there are two plates, and can be some very weird combinations. I keep PB & J on hand. There it’s a much bigger site, so bigger cafeteria with a lot more choices.
cheap and good wine: Wine is expensive here, due to taxes.

Things I will miss from Taiwan:
customer service: Not a Dutch core competency, very much a Taiwanese one.
quick restaurant meals: partly related to the above (servers work hard not to catch your eye!) but more because lots of people eat out or do take out all the time here, while for the Dutch eating out is an occasion and they don’t want to be rushed. (It’s much faster in Amsterdam than in the south where I’ll be – maybe the tourist influence? But possibly also because there is a culture difference between the north and south Netherlands.)
Taipei taxis: cheap, safe (well, other than the crazy driving) and everywhere.
kindness: This is not at all meant as a slur on Dutch people, who were very nice to us. I’d be proud if a foreigner in the US was welcomed as we were. But the Taiwanese take kindness to a new level – it’s practically a national sport.
cheaper electronics: Electronics, food, and clothing are much more expensive in the Netherlands. Clothes don’t bother me because at least I can find more to fit. I can deal with paying more for food when someone else covers the housing. But electronics are very expensive!
Mexican food: Surprisingly there is some decent Mexican food in Taipei. Not in Eindhoven!
milky pearl tea: But I know it’s getting more popular in the US, so maybe the Netherlands has it as well. The good coffee there is famous and would more than make up for it, but I can’t drink real coffee, not more than a small cup very occasionally.
Costco, Carrefour, and A.Mart: I’ll miss being able to get American brands and US-style cuts of meat at Costco. Carrefour and A.Mart are hypermarkets only a short walk from our apartment.
shopping on Sundays: And until nine or ten at night. In Eindhoven, grocery stores are open until 8 or 9, but otherwise shops close at 6 except for one night a week, and they are closed on Sunday except for the first weekend of the month.
my American fridge, washer and dryer: The one is big and the other two get clothing clean and dry, quickly and without ruining it. None of those could be said of the appliances we had in the Netherlands.
our apartment guard: who translates Chinese for us (though the current one has more limited English) and can accept packages. In the Netherlands, getting a package meant waiting for the mail carrier to try delivering it twice (when we were at home) and then picking it up on Saturday at the post office.

A few other things I won’t miss from Taiwan::
guys making horking noises in the men’s room No, I have no idea why, but it’s all the time can hear them all too clearly from the women’s toilet and the pantry at work.
our doorbell: which is very loud and plays inane versions of American songs like Yankee Doodle and Merrily We Roll Along.
an uninsulated apartment: which means not only is it cold in winter, but we can hear next door’s annoying doorbell too – and their screaming kid, not to mention every time the people upstairs run the shower or flush.
having to be home for the cleaning people: I find it embarassing to have someone else cleaning my home while I sit on my butt (working on the computer, knitting or beading usually). The only reason we keep them is that we’d hate doing the cleaning ourselves even more. (They do really do a great job, except that they keep finding new and unusual places to put things every time.)

We were a bit tardy in planning this year (because our initial plans fell through) but it looks like we’ll be spending Chinese New Years in South Africa, shooting big game (with cameras only). We’ll be spending time in the Kruger national Park and the Madikwe Game Reserve; I’m not sure I would call this trip a ’safari’ since we’ll be sleeping in the same place for a few nights in a row in each place, but that’s the general idea.

There are only two problems with the trip: first, one of my bosses (from the Netherlands) will be on holiday in South Africa at the same tme, and I think might even be in Kruger NP at the same time! Oops. However, he’s a good guy and being Dutch, I think he will be able to leave work-talk behind if we do happen to run into him and his famliy.

And second, there’s the point Ted raised: what do we do next? An African safari was always one of those things we wanted to do, and so was the Ice Hotel we went to last year. And the visit to the Pyramids, and the one to Antarctica. We need to put more adventures on our “bucket” list! (That is, the list of things we want to do before we kick the bucket.)

After we get back, I’ll only have a bit over a month before starting work in the Netherlands. Planning that transition is tricky. What I’d like to do is to have a week off here before leaving for packing and a week off there after arriving. However, that’s not working out well; for one thing I may not have any vacation time left to take here, since they’ve prorated my available time. Second, I’m supposed to start there on April 1 – but April 2 is Good Friday, and we have April 5 off for Easter Monday. That means all the stores will be closed there, which is not helpful for settling in! This is tricky… I think what I’ll have to do is take a week off here and then only two days there.

I’m not sure whether to be thrilled or scared. Apparently by the end of two weeks without a big project to work on Ted turns into Martha Stewart. This afternoon after making up batches of fruit (to freeze and take into work next week) he set this down next to me:

A note on scale: those orange slices are not unusually small – the grapes are enormous, taking two bits to eat. The other fruits there are pomelo slices (sort of like grapefruit but bigger) and pineapple chunks.

We made brisket in the crockpot today, so now he’s in there taking the brisket juices and adding ground beef and beans to make chili for tomorrow. I’m not complaining about any of this, you understand!

Aside from the cooking (I made bowties and kasha to go with the brisket) we spent today just hanging out and drinking mimosas. Last night was a lot of fun, I don’t think e had quite as good a spot to watch the fireworks as in previous years, but we spent it with a whole group of people and had a blast – first a party at Steven and Josine’s (we work with Steven) and then we all headed out to the Grand Hotel to see the fireworks. Actually, though it wasn’t as close to Taipei 101, it does have the advantage of altitude – we could see out all over the city. After that we set off a few small fireworks of our own down in the river-side park, then Ted and I walked home (about 3km). There were more people still setting off fireworks (and not necessarily small ones!) to entertain us all the way home and every time a group of people passed us they’d all shout “Shin yen kwai le!” and “Happy New Year!” at us. Here’s the whole group:

and here are some of the fireworks on Taipi 101 – we brought the good telephoto lens, as you can probably tell:

We were just discussing some of he unusual names people here choose – there’s someone in one of our CHina offices whose chosen name is Modern.

A Taiwanese tells me that he knows someone here whose chosen name is “Well”. Unfortunately his family name is Hung. (My colleague swears this is a true story and that the name was chosen entirely unwittingly.)

And here I thought “Elrond” was funny…

Winter has come to Taipei, courtesy of a weekend in which temperatures didn’t get much over 10C. Sunday I had a nice long lazy day during which I never changed out of my cozy flannel nightgown – but by dinnertime I was wearing fleece tights under the gown and a light fleece pullover on top of it.

Yesterday the office was not as cold as I feared it would be; I definitely needed to wear my fingerless gloves all day but have not had to wear the the midweight fleece jacket I brought. On the other hand, I did wear a ribbed turtleneck, cardigan (mostly-silk knitted), warm wool trousers, and ankle boots. Also the scarf I just knitted, but that’s more about style than warmth.

It’s supposed to warm up this week (in fact, it already has) but it won’t get over 23C, so I’m not sure if it will make a difference. Today the office is actually colder than it was yeserday; I had my heater on this morning. I like it like this, as long as it doesn’t get so cold that I freeze even with my woolies on.

The company gave out its annual Christmas gifts yesterday (because Dutch companies all do that). So far over the previous three Christmases I’ve worked here, the gifts were two bottles of wine (one red, one white), a company-themed Monopoly game, and a box of chocolate ckaes and cookies. The wines were our favorites; they were quite good wines, and it was definitely one time we were glad to have two of us working here. (The Monopoly year, not so much – who needs two of those?) Since a lot of people in Taiwan don’t drink, or don’t drink much, I don’t know how popular this year’s gift is here, but I love it: a bottle of Moet and Chandon Brut Imperial champagne.

(Outside the US, the attitudes seem to be something like, “You don’t want it? Give it to someone else then.” I don’t know if our US offices have a nonalcoholic gift option.)

Ted’s off this week (and I’m not) so he is in charge of planning and shopping for our holiday dinner. I don’t quite know what we’re having, except that he did manage to find a turkey. I’ve been hearing rumors of homemade chocolate candy, though

This time things were actually swaying – the bookcase was noticeably moving, as were the hanging pictures and the tree we just put up today. (Oops. Bad timing.) It was big enough that I opened a patio door, just in case – they advise you to open a window during big quakes, because you’re not supposed to take the elevator or apartment stairs if you have to evacuate, since both are essentially concrete tubes and can be damaged in quakes. (We figure we’re actually better-prepared for this than most, since we have our climbing ropes and harnesses!)

The USGS website just put details up – preliminary magnitude 6.5, right off the opposite coast of the island. This was definitely the biggest quake we’re experienced in Taiwan!

We always fill up at the same place, because it’s on the way to work. Gas stations here are all full service, since labor is cheap. Some marketing genius hired a horde of teenagers to work there, and somehow taught them to make it fun: when you pull in, a couple of them stand in front and beckon you on until you’re just at the right spot, then hold up a hand and shout “HA!” in unison to stop you. Someone comes around with a pitcher, offering a cup of tea. They smile a lot, and seem to be having fun with each other. The sign for the bathroom shows a man and a woman, each with knees locked together in the universal sign for “Gotta go!”. When you pull away, whoever is nearby bows.

And today they were all wearing red jackets and Santa hats.

I don’t have any candles for my menorah (yet – Mom has sent some). But I do have a big old bag of votive candles from HEMA (kind of like the Dutch target) gathering dust in a cupboard.

Happy Chanukah!

Whew. The turkey’s cooling so it can be sliced, the potatoes are boiling, the sparrow-graass is all ready to be popped into the microwave, the cheese is grated and the orange zested for the potatoes and asparagus respectively, and I’m into that period of the calm before the guests arrive.

I did all the cooking, but Ted did some cleanup and making things pretty, and will be chief dishwasher after dinner. (I miss having a dishwasher! I’d trade in the dish dryer anyway.)

Guess I could go open some wine and test how soft the potatoes are….

No matter what, I’m fairly sure this will be beter than last night’s turkey dinner. Restaurant Thanksgivings never seem to get it right.