Michael

Back in the USSR…I mean USA

Employment, Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life 2 Responses »

May 052012

Well this has been officially the longest amount of time between blog posts since the beginning of Taiwaneers four and a half years ago. The reason is pretty much the fact that Emily and I no longer live in Taiwan.

In early April we packed up our house, said goodbye to our friends and moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan….yes there is such a place as Kalamazoo. During the process I kept on thinking it would be nice to post about the transition, etc. But, it never happened….until now.

Moving back has been strange. The culture shock comes and goes. It definitely isn’t all at once. I find myself noticing all the green of the trees and yards and open space and being a little amazed. I find myself being a little shocked at how easy it is to accomplish everyday tasks. Like for example when it only took me twenty minutes to compare the differences between the ten or so credit unions here in Kzoo and pick the place I wanted to open an account at. Life in general seems pretty easy.

I really enjoy my new job. I am working for Newmind Group, Inc., on the web at www.newmindgroup.com. We are a managed IT services company that specializes in helping businesses find secure, efficient, valuable, cloud-based IT solutions to help make them successful. I am finding it pretty rewarding and fun work. The office culture and actual work of Newmind makes it a pretty good fit for me.

I do really miss Taiwan. It is a pretty special place. Teaching English was a taxing job at times, but being the cool teacher dude to a whole bunch of kids had some pretty great moments. And this doesn’t even count the first four years in Taiwan as a student at MCU. Also, Em and I really miss our church family in Taiwan. And, our other close friends that we left there. And, the beaches and mountains of Taiwan. And, the hot springs. And, the morning and night markets of Taipei…. We still feel kind of like fish out of water here in Kzoo as far as putting a life together. But, I’m confident that will come.

We’re both really grateful for the support of our friends and family for our move. It has been wonderful.

I’m not sure if this is the last post I’ll make on Taiwaneers, but I am interested in speaking with anyone who is interested in buying the site from us. I’d be willing to consider selling the domain, the content, our YouTube channel, etc., in chunks or as a package deal. Anyone interested can email me taiwaneers.com [at) gmail.com. One of our YouTube videos is actually pretty popular (Youtube search “dmz” and we’re #4) and might represent value to someone.

Boredom Survived or Chinese New Year Break at Home

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life, Taiwan, Travel & Exploring No Responses »

Jan 292012

For a Taiwanese person Chinese New Year break (a week of vacation from work, school, etc.) is full of meals, mahjong, poker, sightseeing, etc., with extended family. But, for foreigners it’s basically a week to do whatever. Normally Emily and I are gone on a trip somewhere, but this year we are trying to save money so we just stayed here in Taipei. Well the short and skinny is that it rained basically all week…except for like a day and a half. I’ve played so much Grand Theft Auto Vice City during the past week that I am chomping at the bit to get back to work again tomorrow. Oi vei! It has been supremely boring and mind numbing to wake up late, drink coffee, eat food, play video games, read, watch a movie, surf around the web, eat more, play more video games, go to bed, and do it again over and over and over. I don’t understand why people who can afford to travel when they have vacation time don’t and instead hang out at home….maybe that’ll make more sense when I have kids.

Emily and I did do a few notable things. A Taiwanese friend, Jasmine, invited us to her extended family’s Chinese New Year Eve dinner in Keelung and that was a lot of fun. We had some great food, played mahjong and poker, and sang our hearts out on their karaoke machine! And they even gave us each a hong bao. We were so grateful for their hospitality and including us in what is normally a family-only affair.

Another fun thing we did during the week was visit a hot springs we’d never been to before. Emily was stir crazy even before the break began so by Tuesday she had cabin fever bad. Even though it was raining we saddled up our trusty steed, Bessy, and headed out with our friend Nan to find and enjoy Ba Yen hot springs up in Yangmingshan National Park. It took about an hour and a half of driving on our scooters up over the mountain to reach the trail head and then about a twenty minute hike back to the (technically illegal) natural hot springs, which weren’t too crowded and simply fantastic for their beauty, water temperature and general awesomeness. We spent a few hours soaking and enjoying ourselves and chatting with other bathers before getting suited back up for the ride home in the dark and rain…and thankfully hot showers upon arrival. Sitting in the hot springs made me realize that there really is something to all the people who install hot tubs in their backyards. Soaking in hot water outside when the weather is cold is fantastic. I definitely have a preference for the natural hot springs though! Too bad every place can’t be so volcanic huh?

Saturday it didn’t rain…yay!!!….so Emily and I went out to Xizhi City (world headquarters of Acer actually), east of Taipei, to do a little half day hike. We found the hike (number 6) in Taipei Day Trips Volume 1 by Richard Saunders. The hike started at Tian Hsiu temple and took us past Hsiu Feng waterfall before reaching the overlook on the top of “Big Sharp Mountain” (literal translation). The waterfall was pretty romantic and the view from the top of the mountain was beautiful. Great place for taking wide shots of Taipei! All in all the hike was only about 3km and pretty family friendly. Not super strenuous, but you still felt like you had gone on a hike, afterwards.

Once Emily and I get back to Michigan we’ll have to invest in traveler’s guides like Lonely Planet and all that. We want to discover Michigan like we’ve discovered Taiwan.

Jobs for Expats in Taiwan

Employment, Michael's Posts, Taiwanese Culture 1 Response »

Jan 192012

One thing that I think many expats come to accept is that we are in some ways, to some people in our adoptive countries, kind of like exhibits at a zoo. We are the cute monkeys that perform oh so human-like actions, but at the same time observers can pick out how we are different and how adorable those differences make us….or something like that. Expats who don’t accept this, to some extent at least, in my opinion, are the angry ones that are always complaining and wishing that everything was just like at home and whom the rest of the us are tempted to shake and ask in a loud voice “so why don’t you just move back to your own country then?” There is a lot to be said for being a cute, adorable monkey. If your ego can accept it the pay is great! The opportunities are also numerous!

In the last four and a half years in Taiwan I’ve done a number of different jobs that have been making me reflect on the whole expats are zoo exhibits principle. For example, last week a friend and I put on an English seminar for Nike’s Taiwan employees. We spent three hours teaching English to thirty adults using basketball as the theme. It was great! I’m too embarrassed to even say how much it paid, and we felt like rock stars at the end. If I wasn’t a foreigner who also looked like a foreigner who also was a native speaker of the world’s language who is also okay with being seen as a cute, adorable monkey, to an extent, this would not have been possible. I guess what I’m trying to say is that as a foreigner strange opportunities come along way more often than one would expect.

Here’s another example. I’ve been asked more than once if I want to do modelling. Now, my mother and father are extremely good looking people, but I am no model and I’ve always turned these offers down. The mere fact that I’ve been asked is weird enough. Other people say yes. One of my former classmates (a dude from Brazil) was regularly in commercials here as was one of Emily’s classmates (a girl from New York). When I went to buy a rain poncho I saw another of my classmates (a dude from the USA) pictured on the packaging looking oh so happy in his awesome rain poncho. The closest I ever came to modelling was during my first year here in Taiwan. Through a friend I got hooked up with an advertising agency that had landed an account with Dewars to increase brand awareness in Taiwan. The campaign was simple. Get a foreigner to dress up like a Scotsman (including a kilt that was so short I had to pin up my boxers) and take the “Scotsman” into groceries stores all over Taiwan to pose for pictures and hand out free samples of “Dee Wars” mixed with green tea. That’s right folks. I dressed up as a Scotsman and made a fool of myself for two days at six different grocery stores, incorrectly pronouncing Dewars and offering people pretty good whisky ruined by green tea (actually it doesn’t taste too bad) while offering to pose for pictures with their kids who would take one look at the man with a beard in a skirt and start to cry….all for money. Thankfully there is no photographic evidence still in existence….that I know of.

Then there are the entertainment jobs. One of my good friends (a guy from Zimbabwe) is a pretty decent hip hop singer and he landed a gig as a regular DJ at one of Taipei’s more prestigious clubs. Anytime I wanted to get in he always had my back. I don’t even remember how many people I know that are “promoters.” Basically, they hand out free entry and free drink tickets to tons of foreigners for different clubs, etc., so that the club will get a reputation as being a cool spot because it is frequented by lots of cute, adorable monkeys.

Besides modelling and entertainment the biggest employment sector for us monkeys is teaching English. Granted, we are teaching and all that. However, the monkey element enters in here too. Most of the jobs are with after school buxibans (think after school group tutoring centers). Buxibans convince parents to pay them tuition by showing them all the wonderful cute, adorable monkeys that their children will spend time with and learn how to speak the world’s language from. If the kids don’t learn English the parents will stop paying. But, if the kids don’t have fun the parents will also stop paying. The supply and demand principle enters in and what you get is that a lot of “teaching time” is games and just making sure the kids have fun, while in an English speaking environment of course. This isn’t true for every buxiban, but definitely the norm. It’s not uncommon for teachers to be told to play more games.

And the pay is ridiculous. Starting pay teaching English is, on average, about 600 NT an hour. That is about $20 USD. Not bad right? How hard is it to be an English teacher you ask? The requirement set forth by Taiwan’s gov’t is to hold a bachelor’s degree, any bachelor’s degree. And, even with the high pay and low requirement there are still tons of jobs to be had, which means that if you are half way decent with kids and are able to show up on time consistently you are labeled an awesome teacher. Pretty good deal right?

To make a just comparison I should also note that minimum wage in Taiwan is only 100 NT an hour. So that means that starting wage for teaching English is six times greater than min wage. To put that in perspective Michigan’s minimum wage is $7.40 USD. Six times that is $44.40 which comes to over $92,000 USD a year! If kids straight out of college made that kind of salary consistently in Michigan we would be shocked right? Crunching these numbers gets me every time.

So there you have it folks. Come to Taiwan and make a lot of money as cute, adorable monkeys.

PS- I hope none of what I’ve said comes off as offensive. Every culture is different and values different things. I’m not making judgments here, just sharing experiences.