Our Taipei Life | Taiwaneers

Chock Full o’Links

Christianity, Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life, Taiwan, Travel & Exploring 1 Response »

Nov 122011

My buddy, Daniel, recently showed me this graphic from the Economist that compares US states and countries that are similar in terms of gross domestic product. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the two places I consider to be my homes are pretty much the same…well at least in terms of GDP. Taiwan and Michigan are definitely both industrious places. Michigan equals cars, Taiwan equals semiconductors; Michigan equals seed corn, Taiwan equals rice; Michigan equals Great Lakes, Taiwan equals Taroko Gorge and Taipei 101. I highly recommend both of them!

Speaking of Michigan and Taiwan, over the past week and a half Emily and I had been hosting one of the world’s most beautiful and kind women. Margot, mother to Emily, flew all the way over from Michigan to see our lives and spend time with us. We were so happy to have her here! During her visit we were able to show her our church, Fulong, Jiufen, Muzha tea houses, the National Palace Museum, Chiank Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, the Shilin Night Market, the 2/28 Peace Park, several of Emily’s tutoring sessions, Wulai Hot Springs, Taipei 101, why traveling around Taiwan by scooter is so rad, and a bunch of other stuff I’m forgetting. This past Thursday we delivered her to the airport and said goodbye. We miss her already. I’m putting the screws to Emily to get pictures up, but I need help from all of you so please let her know you want to see them and read her words about Margot’s visit!

Some friends of ours from church recently started a youth group here in Taipei called Uturn that meets once a month over in the Nangang area, on the east side, of Taipei. They asked me to speak at the October meeting and I was very honored to accept. I was a bit nervous preparing after realizing that this is my 10th year out of high school (I graduated in 2002). It has been a while since I have hung out with that age group very much. Trying to get into that mindset was something I really wanted to do as part of my preparation though. After all my nervousness was over and I actually got up and spoke I really enjoyed talking with them and sharing my love for Jesus and His Love for me. I videotaped my talk and as wildly amazing as this sounds I have already posted it on YouTube so feel free to check it out here: http://youtu.be/–lETwFtNXg

Speaking at Uturn reminded me how much I like presenting. It also challenged me personally to realize again how awesomely big God is, and yet He still wants intimate relationships with us. Thanks again for the invite Chris and Julia!

Everyone Loves Immigration Agencies

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life 7 Responses »

Oct 192011

Recently I’ve been working on figuring out my visa situation here in Taiwan. In past years I never really had issues as I was a student with a scholarship from Taiwan’s Ministry of Education and as such enjoyed the privileges of a resident visa. However, I graduated back in June and all that has changed.

During the summer while we were back in Michigan, Emily and I sent our US marriage certificate off to TECO Chicago (the name that Taiwan calls their Embassy in Chicago because they aren’t allowed to call it an Embassy) to have them authenticate it. We also secured a 60 day visitor visa from them for me. Since we arrived back in Taiwan on September 10th, I am currently about three weeks away from that 60 day mark where I have to exit Taiwan to avoid over-staying my visa. The plan, though, is to use my status as Emily’s husband (She is still technically an NTNU student and therefore has residency) to get my 60 day visitor visa extended for another 60 days and buy enough time for me to find a cram schoool job that can sponsor me for my own resident visa. Sound complicated? Sorry, I’m trying to explain it the best I can, but it is government weirdness.

Anyways, I went down to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) today and expected to be able to show them my authenticated marriage certificate and for them to pound a few stamps on some papers and smile and tell me I was all good to go for another 60 days. While the lady was extremely nice that is not what happened. Basically, I got to NIA, grabbed a number, filled out the application form, and read in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink while I waited for my number to be called. Then the lady who was lucky enough to call my number scanned my documents and explained that in order to extend my visitor visa for another 60 days, using my marriage certificate to Emily, I would need to get said marriage certificate translated into Mandarin Chinese and have it signed by a notary public. Oi vei. The nice lady also informed me that I can’t extend it until two weeks prior to the end of the 60 day period so I was a week too soon in visiting her.

So, after receiving instructions from NIA on where I can go to find quick and easy translation and notary services (for you other foreigners living in Taiwan: apparently a good place is in the upper floors of the building next to the Cosmos Hotel near the Taipei Main Station). I took off for work with no visa extension. I love bureaucracy, don’t you? To be fair, the nice lady at NIA also informed me that I can get a visa extension by producing a bank statement that verifies I have in my possession, somewhere in the world, at least $100,000 NT dollars. Isn’t it nice of them to provide us poor foreigners with these options?

Anyways, in a few short weeks I hope to have glowing reports about how this all worked out and that I learned so much from the whole the thing. Oh, and it also reminds me how lucky I am having to deal with Taiwan’s immigration agency as opposed to what the USA makes foreigners put up with…ugh…the stories I’ve heard, but thankfully never had to go through myself.

In other news, I was able to get more video editing done. This time I worked with footage from me and Emily’s Winter of 2010 scooter trip around Taiwan. Hope you like it: http://youtu.be/o6qZ1vvGVuw

This Land is My Land

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life 1 Response »

Sep 162011

One of Merriam-Webster’s definitions of “home” is: “a familiar or usual setting : congenial environment; also :the focus of one’s domestic attention <home is where the heart is>.” Is Taiwan my home as in my only home? Is Taiwan my home as in my favorite home? I do not know the answers to those questions. However, I do know that Taiwan is my home.

Getting off the plane, going through customs, riding the bus to Taipei, getting a taxi to our apartment, unpacking, petting our cat Lottie, getting Tepanyaki for dinner in the Shida Night Market, walking our neighborhood, going to our church’s Sunday service; in almost every activity of the past 48 hours I have been reminded that I feel at home, I am at home, in Taiwan. This place is special to me in a deeper way than all but a few places in this world. As I’ve warned other expats, Taiwan is a dangerous place because the longer one stays the more one loves it here and the more chance there is that the hooks of Taiwan’s exceptional quality-of-life will forever embed themselves into one’s very soul and hold one forever. Will I be held forever? I do not know but if I were, it would not be a thing to mourn.

Today is Moon Festival. While for Taiwanese this is a day to barbeque with family, Emily and I have elected to use it to clean our apartment. However, it is currently past 10:30am and so far we have only eaten breakfast, read, facebooked, and coffee’d ourselves…and our really good friend Rachel just showed up. We is all in a tizzy now.

At the beginning of this summer, I wrote that our flight from Taiwan to the USA on China Southern Airlines was an “okay” experience. In fact my exact words were: “As far as airlines go China Southern was okay. The food was not spectacular, but edible. As far as entertainment goes they had personal tv screens, but only about 9 channels of content and it wasn’t on-demand. My earphones jack didn’t work so I couldn’t watch it anyways.” Well, on our return trip not only did my headphones jack not work but the tv screen had frayed wires or something and would cut in and out quite often. Also my seat and the seat in front of mine were mildly broken, giving them the ability to recline super far backwards. While some people dream of being allowed to sit in an airplane seat that goes super far back, I felt incredibly guilty for what the person behind me was experiencing and very perturbed that the person in front of me was so extremely up in my space. The flight attendants were kind and pleasant. When I asked them if they could find me another seat they said they’d check. Then they never came back and I went to the galley to ask about the situation and was informed (pleasantly) that the only seats that were available were the dreaded middle seats. I declined. Pleasantness is wonderful but seats, tvs, and headphone jacks that work are also important…at least from this blogger’s perspective.

The hardest part of the whole situation, for me, is that China Southern was so much cheaper than the competition. When we booked they were like $200 USD less than competitors for our flight. Times two (Emily and I) that is $400 that we saved.order viagra Are seats, tvs, and headphone jacks that work properly worth $400 USD? I’d normally say no way but when my flight is 15 and a half hours long my economic logic starts to shift. Maybe Emily and I should change our airline strategy to picking one airline to always fly with and try to build our loyalty points to realize savings instead of always picking the cheapest price. Any other travelers out there willing to encourage or discourage such a strategy?

In recent days, as those of you who read the comments section of this blog know, we have been approached not once, but twice, by people interested in paying us to include their content here on Taiwaneers. Emily and I are both very surprised because after four years and 169 posts, we consider our blog to be pretty small potatoes. Don’t get me wrong, we know we have a few readers…and we love you. We are just completely shocked that somebody (with money no less) thinks we have a big enough platform to warrant advertisements. We have inked no deals (unless you count the Google AdWords stuff that has been up for a while now), but we have asked the interested parties to give us more information on their desires. I definitely am in no hurry to turn this blog into a billboard. However, I feel obligated to at least entertain the possibility of Taiwaneers generating something in order to give some money back to our extremely generous web host. We love you Anchor Web.

If and when something does go down I promise you that it will be disclaimed. That is to say that to date, we have never taken money to write something and furthermore, if we were to do such a thing in the future it will be noted…thou shalt not be led astray by us dear ones…at least not without us giving you fair warning.

If anyone out there reading this is interested in incentivising us to put up content we can be reached here: taiwaneers.com {aTtTt ] gmail.com.